( 3»* ) 



killed after boiling them. They likewife fay {im- 

 ply, that they are going to eat fuch a nation, which 

 fignifies that they are going to make war againft 

 them in the moft deftruitive and outrageous man- 

 ner, and indeed they feldom do other wife. When 

 they intend to engage an ally in the quarrel, they 

 fend him a porcelain or wampum, which is a large 

 fliell, in order to invite him to drink the blood, or 

 as the terms made ufe of fignify, the broth of the 

 flefli of their enemies. After all, this practice may 

 have beer, very ancient, without our being able to 

 infer from thence, that thefe people have always 

 been Anthropophagi, or Man-eaters. It was, per- 

 haps, at firft, only an allegorical manner of fpeak- 

 ing, with examples of which the fcripture often 

 furnifhes us. David, in all appearance, had not to 

 do with enemies who were accuftomed to eat hu- 

 man Mem, when he fays : Dum appropriant fuper 

 me nocentes nt edunt carries meas. Pfalms xxvi. 2. 

 Afterwards fome nations becoming favage and bar- 

 barous, may have fubftituted the reality in the room 

 of the figure. 



I took notice that the porcelain in thefe countries 

 are fhells \ thefe are found on the coafts of New- 

 England and Virginia ; they are channelled, drawn 

 out lengthwife, a little pointed, without ears and 

 pretty thick. The fpn contained in thefe fhells 

 are not good to eat ; but the infide is of fo beauti- 

 ful a varnifh with fuch lively colours, that it is irri- 

 poffible to imitate it by art. When the Indians 

 went altogether naked, they made the fame ufe of 

 them which our , firft parents did of the leaves of 

 the fig-tree, when they difcovered their nakednefs 

 and were afhamed at it. They likewife hung them 

 at their necks, as being the moft precious things 

 they had, and to this day their greateft riches and 



fineft 



