1769 MEDICINE 169 
herbaceous plants as yield mild juices devoid of all acridity, 
similar to the English chickweed, groundsel, etc. ; with these 
they make fomentations, which they frequently apply to the 
wound, taking care to cleanse it as often as possible; the 
patient all the time observing great abstinence. By this 
method, if they have told me truly, their wounds are cured 
in a very short time. As for their medicines we learned but 
little concerning them; they told us, and indeed freely, that 
such and such plants were good for such and such distempers, 
but it required a much better knowledge of the language 
than we were able to obtain during our short stay to under- 
stand the method of application. 
Their manner of disposing of their dead as well as the 
ceremonies relating to their mourning are so remarkable 
that they deserve a very particular description. As soon as 
any one is dead the house is immediately filled with his 
relations, who bewail their loss with loud lamentations, 
especially those who are the farthest removed in blood from, 
or who profess the least grief for, the deceased. The 
nearer relations and those who are really affected spend 
their time in more silent sorrow, while the rest join in 
a chorus of grief at certain intervals, between which they 
laugh, talk, and gossip as if totally unconcerned. This lasts 
till daylight of the next day, when the body, being shrouded 
in cloth, is laid upon a kind of bier on which it can con- 
veniently be carried on men’s shoulders. The priest’s office 
now begins; he prays over the body, repeating his sentences, 
and orders it to be carried down to the sea-side. Here his 
prayers are renewed; the corpse is brought down near the 
water's edge, and he sprinkles water towards but not upon 
it; it is then removed forty or fifty yards from the sea, and 
soon after brought back. This ceremony is repeated several 
times. In the meantime a house has been built and a small 
space of ground round it railed in; in the centre of this house 
are posts, upon which the bier, as soon as the ceremonies are 
finished, is set. On these the corpse is to remain and 
putrefy in state, to the no small disgust of every one whose 
business requires him to pass near it. 
