CHAP. XX.] DIRT-EATERS. 17 



be called &quot; reed-cutting,&quot; for they set the Hibernians to cut down 

 a dense crop of tall reeds (Sesbania vesicaria), which covers the 

 canal and the swamps round the city, growing to the height of 

 fifteen feet, and, like the city functionaries, renewed every year. 

 Some members of the medical college, constituting a board of 

 health, have just come out with a pamphlet, declaring, that by 

 giving to the sun s rays, in summer, free access to the mud in 

 the bogs, and thus promoting the decay of vegetable matter, the 

 cutting down of these reeds has caused malaria. 



In the course of all my travels, I had never seen one opossum 

 in the woods, nor a single racoon, their habits being nocturnal, 

 yet we saw an abundant supply of both of them for sale in the 

 market here. The negroes relish them much, though their flesh 

 is said to be too coarse and greasy for the palate of a white 

 man. The number of pine-apples and bananas in the market, 

 reminded us of the proximity of the West Indies. We ob 

 served several negroes there, whose health had been impaired 

 by dirt-eating, or the practice of devouring aluminous earth a 

 diseased appetite, which, as I afterward found, prevails in sev 

 eral parts of Alabama, where they eat clay. I heard various 

 speculations on the origin of this singular propensity, called 

 &quot; geophagy&quot; in some medical books. One author ascribes it to 

 the feeding of slaves too exclusively on Indian corn, which is too 

 nourishing, and has not a sufficiency in it of inorganic matter, 

 so that when they give it to cattle, they find it best to grind up 

 the cob and part of the stalk with the grain. But this notion 

 seems untenable, for a white person was pointed out to me, who 

 was quite as sickly, and had a green complexion, derived from 

 this same habit ; and I was told of a young lady in good circum 

 stances, who had never been stinted of her food, yet who could 

 not be broken of eating clay. 



Jan. 13. From Savannah we went by railway to Macon in 

 Georgia, a distance of 191 miles, my wife going direct in a 1 

 train which carried her in about twelve hours to her destination, 

 accompanied by one of the directors of the railway company, I 

 who politely offered to escort her. The same gentleman sup- \ 

 plied me with a hand-car and three negroes, so that I was able ! 

 to perform the journey at my leisure, stopping at all the recent 



