40 . TRAVELS IN 
have had the courage to remain in them two 
minutes : cuflom, however, renders all this 
fupportabie to thefe favages. Indeed they 
do not continue in them during the day ; but 
on the approach of night each returns to his 
habitarion, fpreads out his irjat, covers it 
with a fiieep's ITcin, .and lleeps as foundly 
upon it as if he lay on the fofteft down. 
When the nights are too cold, they ufe for a 
covering a fkin like that upon which I lay ; 
the Gonaquas always procure them by bar^- 
ter. In the morning thefe beds are rolled 
up, and placed in a corner of the hut ; and^ 
if the weather is fine, they expofe them to 
the air and the fun. They then beat them, 
one after another, to fliake off, not bugs as 
in Europe, but infedls, and another kind of 
vermin no lefs troublefome, to which the 
exceffive heat of the climate renders thefe fa- 
vages very futjed, and which they are not . 
able to get rid of notwithftanding all their 
care and attention. When they have no 
prefiing bufmefs to employ them, they make . 
flrld: fearch for thefe vermin, which they 
deftroy with their teeth : this appears to 
them the eafieft and readieft method. 
^Qjnc author, I Icnow not who, has 
' thought 
