DIRT-EATEES. 125 



hair thick and long, hanging over their shoulders, but cut 

 square olT just above the eyebrows, giving them a very- 

 grotesque appearance. They were unpainted, and without 

 clothing or ornaments of any kind ; excepting some of the 

 women, who had their lower lips jjunctured, and sticks two 

 inches long inserted. Upon inquiry for the gohierno of 

 the settlement, who was a Spaniard, we were directed to 

 one of the conti'acted habitations, where we found that 

 dignitary seated iipon the ground, outside of his apology 

 for a dwelling. Ilis wife was squatted inside, a sufficient 

 reason why he must remain excluded. Two or three royal 

 offspring lay rolling naked in the sand. Where the camp 

 were to get their next meal was difficult to tell, as they 

 possessed not a morsel of food among them. Perhaps they 

 v/ere intending to make a very satisfactory one of the clay 

 of the river banks ; for these Ottomacs were the veritable 

 dirt-eating Indians mentioned by Humboldt. There is 

 always a great scarcity of food in the wet season, and 

 during that period these Indians eat incredible quanti- 

 ties of clay, taking at the same time only an extremely 

 small amount of other aliment. Humboldt has spoken at 

 some length of this strange habit of dirt-eating, so com- 

 mon among many of the natives of tropical regions. He 

 failed to find, upon analysis, any nutritious elements in the 

 clay, and refers its tendency to appease the sensation of 

 himger to the secretion of the gastric fluids of the stomach, 

 excited to powerful action by the presence of the earthy 

 substance. The same authority also refers the remarkable 

 preservation of health and strength during protracted 

 periods, when earth constitutes the princii^al aliment taken 

 by the Indians, to habit, prolonged through successive 

 generations. " Man can accustom himself to an extraor- 

 dinary abstinence, and find it but little painful, if he em- 

 ploy tonic or stimulating substances (various drugs, small 

 quantities of opium, betel, tobacco, or leaves of coca) ; or 



