A HARD-WORKING DIET. 383 



population dwelling entirely on boats or rafts on the 

 rivers and canals, find their chief sustenance in fish or 

 water-fowl. The tribes of Beloochistan feed almost 

 entirely upon fish, and fish boiled or dried is even 

 given to the cattle during times of scarcity. The 

 Tartar tribes of Siberia and Central Asia, the 

 Esquimaux, Coreans, Greenlanders, the coast tribes 

 of North America, and the Indian races of both North 

 and South America, as well as some of the Aboriginal 

 tribes of Australia and New Zealand, live almost 

 entirely upon fish diet. In some cases it is consumed 

 in a raw state, as in Hawaii, where a meal is thus 

 described by M. Ruschenberger : " The earth floor 

 was covered with mats, and groups of men squatted 

 in a circle, with gourd plates before them. They ate 

 of the raw fish, occasionally sopping the torn animal 

 in salt water, as a sauce, then sucking it." The diet 

 of the inhabitants of New Guinea is described by 

 Admiral Moresby as consisting of " Roots, fruits of 

 trees, vegetables, &c., but chiefly fish caught in holes 

 in the bed of the river." Again, " fish of all sorts 

 is everywhere so plentiful along the shore that they 

 may be caught with the greatest ease in uncommon 

 abundance." 



That fish diet is conducive to the health and Fish diet 



- . conducive to 



stamina of the people is shown by the opinion of the health, 

 people expressed by a traveller who says, " They (the 

 Papuans) have a large stature beyond European, and 

 larger than that of a people of more miscellaneous 

 diet." This latter statement is quite in agreement 

 with the opinion of fish diet expressed by Dr. Davey, 

 who directed much attention to the subject, and thus 

 sums up his results : " In no class than that of fishers 



