109 



comparison of those of the Upper Oroonoko. 

 The Indians well know, that the monkeys of some 

 valleys can easily be tamed, while others of the 

 same species, caught elsewhere, will rather die 

 of hunger, than submit to slavery*. 



The common people in America have framed 

 systems respecting the salubrity of climates and 

 pathological phenomena, no less than the learned 

 of Europe; and their systems, as with us, are 

 diametrically opposite to each other, according 

 to the provinces into which the new continent is 

 divided. At the Rio Magdalena the frequency 

 of moschettoes is regarded as troublesome, but 

 salutary. These animals, say the inhabitants, 

 give us slight bleedings, and preserve us, in a 

 country excessively hot, from the tabar ditto, 

 scarlet fever, and other inflammatory diseases. 

 At the Oroonoko, the banks of which are very 

 dangerous to health, the sick accuse the mos- 

 chettoes of all the evils they experience. " These 



* I might have added the example of the scorpion of Cu- 

 mana, which it is very difficult to distinguish from that of the 

 island of Trinidad, Jamaica, Carthagena, and Guayaquil ; 

 yet the former is not more to be feared than the scorpio euro- 

 pceus (of the south of France), while the latter produces con- 

 sequences far more alarming than the scorpio occitanus (of 

 Spain and Barbary). At Carthagena and Guayaquil, the 

 sting of the scorpion (atacran) instantly causes the loss of 

 speech. Sometimes a singular torpor of the tongue is ob- 

 served for fifteen or sixteen hours. The patient, when stung 

 in the legs, stammers as if he had been struck with apoplexy. 



