416 INTELLIGENCE OF CERTAIN TEIBES. 





times of great scarcity ? In Egypt, in the thirteenth cen 

 tury, the habit of eating human flesh pervaded all classes 

 of society ; extraordinary snares were spread for physicians 

 in particular. They were called to attend persons who 

 pretended to be sick, but who were only hungry ; and it 

 was not in order to be consulted, but devoured. An his- 

 torian of great veracity, Abd-allatif, has related how a 

 practice, which at first inspired dread and horror, soon occa- 

 sioned not even the slightest surprise."* 



Although the Indians of the Cassiquiare readily return 

 to their barbarous habits, they evince, whilst in the missions, 

 intelligence, some love of labour, and, in particular, a great 

 facility in learning the Spanish language. The villages 

 being, for the most part, inhabited by three or four tribes, 

 who do not understand each other, a foreign idiom, which 

 is at the same time that of the civil power, the language of 

 the missionary, affords the advantage of more general means 

 of communication. I heard a Poinave Indian conversing 

 in Spanish with a G-uahibo, though both had come from 

 their forests within three months. They uttered a phrase 

 every quarter of an hour, prepared with difficulty, and in 

 which the gerund of the verb, no doubt according to the 

 grammatical turn of tbeir own languages, was constantly 



* " When the poor begaa to eat human flesh, the horror and astonish- 

 ment caused by repasts so dreadful were such that these crimes furnished 

 the never-ceasing subject of every conversation. But at length the people 

 became so accustomed to it, and conceived such a taste for this detestable 

 food, that people of wealth and respectability were found to use it as their 

 ordinary food, to eat it by way of a treat, and even to lay in a stock of it. 

 This flesh was prepared in different ways, and the practice being once 

 introduced, spread into the provinces, so that instances of it were found 

 in every part of Egypt. It then no longer caused any surprise ; the 

 horror it had at first inspired vanished ; and it was mentioned as an 

 indifferent and ordinary thing. This mania of devouring one another 

 became so common among the poor, that the greater part perished in thi* 

 manner. These wretches employed all sorts of artifices, to seize men nj 

 surprise, or decoy them into their houses under false pretences. This 

 happened to three physicians among those who visited me ; and a book- 

 seller who sold me books, an old and very corpulent man, fell into their 

 snares, and escaped with great difficulty. All the facts which we relate 

 as eye-witnesses fell under our observation accidentally, for we generally 

 avoided witnessing spectacles which inspired us with so much horror." 

 Account of Egypt by Abd-allatif, physician of Bagdad* translated into 

 French by De Sacy, p. 360374. 



