649 



a little box filled with lime, as we do snuff-boxes, 

 and as in Asia people carry a betel box. This 

 American custom excited the curiosity of the 

 first Spanish navigators*. Lime blackens the 

 teeth ; and in the Indian Archipelago, as among 

 several American hordes, to blacken the teeth is 

 to beautify them. In the cold regions of the 

 kingdom of Quito, the natives of Tigua eat ha- 

 bitually from choice, and without being incom- 

 moded by it, a very fine clay, mixed with quart- 

 zose sand. This clay, suspended in water, 

 renders it milky. We find in their huts large 

 vessels filled with this water, which serves as a 

 beverage, and which the Indians call agua or 

 leche de llanka^f. 



When we reflect on the whole of these facts, 

 we perceive, that this disorderly appetite for 

 clayey, magnesian, and calcareous earth, is most 

 common among the people of the torrid zone ; 

 that it is not always a cause of disease ; and that 

 some tribes eat earth from choice, while others 

 (the Otomacs in America, and the inhabitants 

 of New Caledonia, in the Pacific Ocean,) eat it 

 from want, and to appease hunger. A great 

 number of physiological phenomena prove, 

 that a temporary cessation of hunger may be 

 produced, without the substances that are sub- 



* Grynai Orb, Nov., p. 223. 

 f Milk of clay. Llanka is a word of the general language 

 of the Incas, signifying fine clay. 



