Ch. iv. among tlie American Indians. 43 



o 



The customs above enumerated, which appear 

 to have been generated principally by the experi- 

 ence of the difficulties attending the rearing of a 

 family, combined with the number of children 

 that must necessarily perish under the hardships 

 of savage life, in spite of the best efforts of their 

 parents to save them,* must, without doubt, most 

 powerfully repress the rising generation. 



When the young savage has passed safely 

 through the perils of his childhood, other dangers 

 scarcely less formidable await him on his ap- 

 proach to manhood. The diseases to which man 

 is subject in the savage state, though fewer in 

 number, are more violent and fatal than those 

 which prevail in civilized society. As savages 

 are wonderfully improvident, and their means of 

 subsistence always precarious, they often pass 

 from the extreme of want to exuberant plenty, 

 according to the vicissitudes of fortune in the 

 chase, or to the variety in the produce of the 

 seasons.^ Their inconsiderate gluttony in the 

 one case, and their severe abstinence in the other, 

 are equally prejudicial to the human constitution ; 

 and their vigour is accordingly at some seasons 

 impaired by want, and at others by a superfluity 

 of gross aliment, and the disorders arising from 

 indigestions.^ These, which may be considered 

 as the unavoidable consequences of their mode of 



* Creuxius says, that scarcely one in thirty reaches manhood 

 (Hist. Canad. p. 57) ; but this must be a very great exaggeration, 

 f Robertson, b. iv. p. 85. 

 t Charlevoix, torn. iii. p. 302, 303. 



