144 VIEWS OF NATUEE. 



as follows : The Indians undoubtedly consume large quantities 

 of clay without injuring their health ; they regard this earth 

 as a nutritious article of food, that is to say, they feel that 

 it will satisfy their hunger for a long time. This property 

 they ascribe exclusively to the clay, and not to the other 

 articles of food which they contrive to procure from time to 

 time in addition to it. If an Otomac be asked what are 

 his winter provisions the term winter in the torrid parts of 

 South America implying the rainy season he will point to 

 the heaps of clay in his hut. These simple facts do not, 

 however, by any means decide the questions : whether clay 

 can actually be a nutritious substance ; whether earths can be 

 assimilated in the human body ; whether they only serve as 

 ballast ; or merely distend the walls of the stomach, and thus 

 appease the cravings of hunger? These are questions which 

 I cannot venture to decide.'' 1 It is singular, that Father 

 Gumilla, who is generally so credulous and uncritical, should 

 have denied the fact of earth being eaten by and for itself, f 

 He maintains that the clay-balls are largely mixed with maize- 

 flour, and crocodile's fat. But the missionary Fray Ilamon 

 Bueno, and our friend and fellow-traveller, the lay-brother 

 Fray Juan Gonzales, who perished at sea off the coast of 

 Africa (at the time we lost a portion of our collections), both 

 assured us, that the Otomacs never mix their clay cakes with 

 crocodile's fat, and we heard nothing in Uruana of the admix- 

 ture of flour. 



The earth which we brought with us, and which \vas chemi- 

 cally investigated by M. Vauquelin, is quite pure and unmixed. 

 May not Gumilla, by confounding heterogeneous facts, have 

 intended to allude to a preparation of bread from the long 

 pod of a species of Inga ? as this fruit is certainly buried in 

 the earth, in order to hasten its decomposition. It appears to 

 me especially remarkable, that the Otomacs should not lose 

 their health by eating so much earth. Has this tribe been 

 habituated for generations to this stimulus? 



In all tropical countries men exhibit a wonderful and almost 

 irresistible desire to devour earth, not the so-called alka- 

 line or calcareous earth, for the purpose of neutralizing 

 acidity, but unctuous, strong-smelling clay. It is often found 



* Relat. hist., t. ii. pp. 618-620. 



t Historia del Rio Orinoco, nueva impr., 1791, t. i. p. 179. 



