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inordinate and almost irresistible desire of swal- 

 lowing earth ; not an alkaline or calcareous earth, 

 to neutralize (as it is vulgarly said) acid juices, 

 but a fat clay, unctuous, and exhaling a strong 

 smell. It is often found necessary to tie the 

 children's hands, or to confine them, to prevent 

 their eating earth, when the rain ceases to fall. 

 At the village of Banco, on the bank of the river 

 Magdalena, I saw the Indian women who make 

 pottery continually swallowing great pieces of 

 clay. These women were not in a state of preg- 

 nancy; and they affirmed, that " earth is an 

 aliment, which they do not find hurtful." In 

 other American tribes people soon fall sick, and 

 waste away, when they yield too much to this 

 mania of eating earth. We found at the mission 

 of San Borja an Indian child of the Guahiba 

 nation, who was as thin as a skeleton. The 

 mother informed us by an interpreter, that the 

 little girl was reduced to this lamentable state of 

 atrophy in consequence of a disordered appetite, 

 having refused during four months to take almost 

 any other food than clay. Yet San Borja is only 

 twenty-five leagues distant from the mission of 

 Uruana, inhabited by that tribe of the Otomacs, 

 who, from the effect no doubt of a habit pro. 

 gressively acquired, swallow the poya without 

 experiencing any pernicious effects. Father 

 Gumilla asserts, that the Otomacs purge them- 

 selves with oil, or rather with the melted fat of 



