SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OP MAN. 131 



raw flesh, and drinking the blood of the rein-deer. 

 Such is the diet, Dr. Aikin informs us, necessary 

 for health in these northern regions. The Green- 

 lander dines with a good appetite on raw whale, or 

 on the half frozen and half putrid flesh of seals, 

 which have been buried beneath the grass in sum- 

 mer, or the snow in winter. These people drink 

 the blood of the same animal ; and another of their 

 dainties, is a dried herring soused in whale-oil. 



In the torrid zone, it is difficult to support the 

 flocks and herds necessary for the subsistence of the 

 inhabitants in animal food ; periodic rains and inun- 

 dations, and the long continued influence of a burn- 

 ing sun, prevent the requisite supply of pasture ; 

 but the support of the natives is well provided for 

 by the munificence of nature in another way. By 

 her magnificent presents of the cocoa-nut, the plan- 

 tain, the Sago tree, and the Banana ; by the yam, 

 cassava, and other roots ; by a variety of refresh- 

 ing fruits ; and, more particularly, by the very abun- 

 dant production of nutritious grains. Here is an 

 abundant supply of the most suitable nourishment, 

 and accordingly we find vegetable diet the most 

 prevalent and the most wholesome, in the torrid 

 regions. The general and necessary adoption of a 

 vegetable diet within the tropics, from the greater 

 abundance and exuberance of the vegetable crea- 

 tion, and the comparative scarcity of those grega- 

 rious animals on which man chiefly subsists in the 

 temperate regions of the earth, appears to be a 

 provision of nature necessary to the existence of 



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