266 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



gain information of the ftate of the Spaniards whom he 

 had left in that ifland. Ferdinand Columbus, a learned 

 and diligent writer of the life of Chriftopher Columbus 

 his father, who happened alfo to be in Spain at that time, 

 makes a minute detail of the voyages and actions of his 

 glorious parent, fpeaks of the Indians whom he had feen, 

 and relates nothing more of them than P. Martyr. The 

 account given by Dappers, therefore, is falfe, or at lean: 

 we will fay, that madmen learned the Spaniffi language, 

 that the Catholic kings chofe madmen to be with them, 

 to amufe them with their horrible howls ; and laftly, 

 that Columbus, the prudent Columbus, made ufe of one 

 of thefe madmen, to gain information of all that had 

 happened to the Spaniards in Hifpaniola while he had 

 been abfent. 



The anecdote of milk in the breafts of the Americans 

 is one of the mod curious which we read in the Philofo- 

 phical Refearches, and mod worthy to excite our fmiles, 

 and the mirth of all the Americans : but it is neceflary 

 to confefs, that Mr. de Paw has (hewn more moderation 

 than many others whom he has quoted. The celebrated 

 naturalift Johnfton, affirms, in his ThawnaUographia^ on 

 the faith of we know not what travellers, that in the 

 new world almoft all the men abound with milk in their 

 breads. In all Brafil, fays the author of the Hiilorical 

 Refearches, the men alone fuckle children, for the wo- 

 men have hardly any milk. We do not know whether 

 raoft to admire the effrontery and impudence of thofe tra- 

 vellers 



" academiciens Francois," he fays, " enleverent au de la de Torneo deux Lap- 

 " pons, qui, obfedes et martyrises par ces philofophes, moururent de defefpoir 

 « en route." Neither the country which the Laplanders left, nor the voyage 

 which they had to make, can be compared with the country and the voyage of 

 thofe Americans ; nor can we imagine the Spanifh failors, of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, fo humane as the French academicians of the eighteenth. 



