( 9* ) 



It is not fo eafy to give a reafon why, except the 

 hair of their head which is univerfally jet black, 

 and their eye-lafhes and eye -brows, which fame of 

 them even pluck out, they have not a Angle hair 

 on their whole body. Almoft all the Americans 

 are in the fame fituation. What is (till more fur- 

 prizing is, that their children are born with a long 

 thin hair all over their bodies, but which difap- 

 pears in eight days. We fee alfo fome draggling 

 hairs on the chins of old men, as it happens 

 amongft us to women of a certain age. Some at- 

 tribute this Angularity to the conftant cuftom the 

 Americans of both fexes have of fmoaking : what 

 others alledge feems to me more natural, which 

 is, that this proceeds from the quality of their 

 blood, which being purer by reafon of the Am- 

 plicity of their food, produces fewer of thofe fu- 

 perfluities which our thicker blood occafions in fo 

 great an abundance or that having fewer falts it 

 is lefs proper for this fort of productions. There 

 is at lead no room to doubt that it is owing to this 

 fimplicity of their diet, that the Indians are fo 

 nimble of foot. I have feen an iflander from the 

 neighbourhood of Japan, who having never tafted 

 bread, a flu red me, that he could with eafe have 

 travelled on foot thirty leagues a day for a con- 

 tinuance but that after beginning to make ufe 

 of it, he could no longer perform it with the 

 fame eafe. 



What is certain is, that our Indians hold it as a 

 Angular beauty to have no hair except on their 

 heads only •, and that if any happens fometimes to 

 grow on their chin they pluck it out immediately : 

 that the Europeans when they flrft faw them, 

 appeared hideous to them on account of their long 

 4 beards 



