116 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I 



d 

 Is 



lander consumes on the average, besides eggs, mussels, an 

 vegetables, annually about 645 pounds of fish and 784 pound 

 of meat and lard. Strong young men consume daily, during 

 several months, from 10 to 12 pounds of meat, and a consider- 

 able quantity of biscuits. 1 An Arowake, on the other hand, 

 lives in the field for three weeks, or even a month, on 1 pounds 

 of Kassava bread. 2 Lichtenstein speaks of the enormous 

 voracity and power of abstinence of the Bushmen. One of 

 them is said to have lived for a fortnight on water and salt. 3 

 Like the Kaffirs, they are said to grow fat again in a few days. 

 When a famine threatens, it is usual among the Kaffirs not to 

 eat every day. 4 Richardson 5 relates extraordinary cases of the 

 capacity of the Tibbos to sustain hunger for a great length of 

 time, and then to satisfy their appetite with food scarcely fit to 

 eat. Here may also be mentioned the large consumption of a 

 fatty clay by the Otomaks on the Orinoco. 6 Among other 

 peoples the consumption of large quantities of putrid fish seems 

 to be attended with no injury. Among the Takhalis, or 

 Carriers, in North- West America, such substances form favourite 

 dishes, which are kept until they acquire the desired degree of 

 putridity. The Koujages, of Kadjak, cook their berries with 

 bear excrements, and relish this as a condiment, even when 

 they have a sufficiency of other food. They bury boiled 

 pieces of whale in the earth until it becomes putrid, when it is 

 considered a dainty dish. 7 Such a corruption of taste would 

 lead us to suppose a continuous derangement of the digestive 

 faculty, yet we do not hear that the health of these peoples 

 suffers from it. 



With regard to muscular power, Peron was the first who 

 performed experiments with the dynamometer and in wrestling. 

 It resulted therefrom that the natives of Van Diemen's Land were 

 inferior in this respect to the Australians, and these again to 



1 Etzel, " Greenland," p. 374, Stuttg., 1860. 



2 Hilhouse, " Journal E. G. S.," ii, p. 232. 

 Thompson, " Trav. in S. Afr.," i, p. 99, 2nd edit., 1827. 

 Delegorgue, i, p. 134. 



" Narr. of a mission to central Afr.," ii, p. 45, 1853. 



Heusinger, " Geophagy." 



Holmberg, " Ethnogr. skizzen fiber die Volker des. Buss." p. 89, 1855. 



