THE CUSTOM IB AFRICA. 497 



when the rain ceases to fall. At the viJage of Banco, on 

 the bank of the river Magdalena, I saw the Indian women 

 who make pottery continually swallowing great pieces of 

 clay. These women were not in a state of pregnancy; and 

 they affirmed, that earth is an aliment which they ao not 

 find hurtful. In other American tribes, people soon fall 

 sick, and waste away, when they yield too much to this 

 mania of eating earth. We found at the mission of San 

 Borja an Indian child of the Guahiba nation, who was as 

 thin as a skeleton. The mother informed us that the little 

 girl was reduced to this lamentable state of atrophy in conse- 

 quence of a disordered appetite, she having refused during four 

 months to take almost any other food than clay. Yet San 

 Borja is only twenty-five leagues distant from the mission of 

 Uruana, inhabited by that tribe of the Ottomacs, who, from 

 the effect no doubt of a habit progressively acquired, swallow 

 the poya without experiencing any pernicious effects. Father 

 Gumilla asserts, that the Ottomacs take as an aperient, oil, 

 or rather the melted fat of the crocodile, when they feel any 

 gastric obstructions; but the missionary whom we found 

 among them was little disposed to confirm this assertion. 

 It may be asked, why the mania of eating earth is much 

 more rare in the frigid and temperate than in the torrid 

 zones ; and why in Europe it is found only among women 

 in a state of pregnancy, and sickly children. This difference 

 between hot and temperate climates arises perhaps only 

 from the inert state of the functions of the stomach, caused 

 by strong cutaneous perspiration. It has been supposed 

 to be observed, that the inordinate taste for eating earth 

 augments among the African slaves, and becomes more 

 pernicious, when they are restricted to a regimen purely 

 vegetable and deprived of spirituous liquors. 



The negroes on the coast of Guinea delight in eating a 

 yellowish earth, which they call caouac. The slaves who are 

 taken to America endeavour to indulge in this habit ; but it 

 proves detrimental to their health. They say, that the 

 earth of the West Indies is not so easy of digestion as that 

 of their country." Thibaut de Chanvalon, in his Voyage to 

 Martinico, expresses himself very judiciously on this patho- 

 logical phenomenon. "Another cause," he says, "of this 

 pain in the stomach is, that several of the negroes, who come 



vor,. ii 2 K 



