CANNIBALISM. 481 



Cervantes truly remarks, that the pitcher is carried to the well so 

 many times, and then gets broken. Such was the untimely fate of 

 our poor little Reynard. One day, whilst the hounds were hard on 

 the scent, somehow or other the man allowed them to approach too 

 near, and before he could secure his charge they came up, and hav- 

 ing torn the fox in pieces, they ate every morsel of it; their rage 

 not allowing them to distinguish the pet from an ordinary fox. Here 

 artificial excitement, and not natural feeling, induced them to destroy 

 and consume the very animal of which they had been so fond when 

 it was in the kennel with them. 



Hence, I infer, by the common law of nature, that foxes will never 

 eat foxes, nor dogs prey upon dogs, unless artificial excitement or 

 famine intervene, to render nugatory, amongst brute animals, the 

 universal mandate, which is equally imposed upon man himself, who 

 is a rational being. 



Thus, in the true meaning of the word, man will never be a can- 

 nibal; that is, man will never feed on man r in the ordinary way of 

 food. Something must, indeed, occur of most extraordinary import, 

 to abrogate the supreme injunction placed upon the sons of Adam by 

 order of their Maker. I am well aware that shocking accounts are 

 on record of man devouring the flesh of man. But these accounts 

 require looking into. The fact of man eating up his fellow-creature 

 demands an investigation of the utmost care and discrimination. 

 There is no doubt in my own mind, but that accidental occurrences, 

 and not a natural appetite, may be the cause of an inhuman repast 

 upon human flesh. Wars amongst savages, whose feelings have not 

 been tempered by the soothing influence of civilisation, are some- 

 times the cause of an odious meal, which could never be obtained at 

 the shambles. Indeed, by accounts which I have perused from time 

 to time, I should unhesitatingly believe that war is the chief, perhaps 

 the only cause amongst savages, of man regaling himself upon the 

 flesh of man; always excepting, that dreadful moment in human 

 existence, when unendurable pangs of hunger have forced, even 

 civilised man, to preserve his own life on food from the body of his 

 fellow-creature. 



Before I left the cultivated plantations of Guiana, to wander 

 through its wild interior, I had been forewarned by many respectable 



2 H 



