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which some parts of the body of a prisoner are 

 devoured. Sometimes a defenceless family is 

 surprised in the night ; or an enemy, who is met 

 with by chance in the woods, is killed by a poi- 

 soned arrow. The body is cut to pieces, and 

 carried as a trophy to the hut. It is civiliza- 

 tion only, that has made man feel the unity of 

 the human race ; which has revealed to him, as 

 we may say, the ties of consanguinity, by which 

 he is linked to beings, to whose language and 

 manners he is a stranger. Savages know only 

 their own family ; and a tribe appears to them 

 but a more numerous assemblage of relations. 

 When those who inhabit the missions see Indians 

 of the forest, who are unknown to them, arrive, 

 they make use of an expression, which has struck 

 us by it's simple candor : " they are no doubt 

 my relations, I understand them when they 

 speak to me." But these very savages detest all, 

 who are not of their family, or their tribe ; and 

 hunt the Indians of a neighbouring tribe, who 

 live at war with their own, as we hunt game. 

 They know the duties of family and of relation- 

 ship, but not those of humanity, which require 

 the feeling of a common tie with beings framed 

 like ourselves. No emotion of pity prompts 

 them to spare the wives or children of a hostile 

 race ; and the latter are devoured in preference, 

 at the repasts given at the conclusion of a bat- 

 tle, or of a warlike incursion. 



