^oo SUMATRA, 
moral offence; bccaufc they do not perceive that any ill rcfults from it. 
Adultery, in the men, is punllhed with death ; but the women are only 
diigraced by having their heads fhaved, and are fold for ilavcs ; which 
in fadt they were before. The diftrlbution of juflice in this cafe, is, i 
think, perfedtly lingular. It muft proceed from their looking upon 
women as mere pafSve fubjedts. Can you put butter near to a firej 
fay the Hindoo fages; and fuppofe that it will not melt?" The men 
alone they regard as poCTefling the facuUlco of free agents, who may con- 
troul their aOions, or give way to their pafiions, as they are well or ill- 
inclined. Lives, however, are in all cafes redeemable; if the convidt, 
or his relations, have property fufficient; the quantum being in fome 
, meafure at the difcretion of the injured party. 
E«traOTdinary ^^^"^^ extraordinary, though perhaps not the moft fingular 
lemamoa^a*' cuftom, remains yet to be defcribed. Many old writers had furnifhed 
the world ivith accounts of anthropcfhagi^ or man-eaters, and their re- 
lations, true or falfe, were, in thofe days, when people were add idled to 
the marvellous, univerfally credited. In the fucceeding age, when a 
more /cOptSool tkjiA i«c*vic»ntsin0 fpirit prevail fovcral of thcfe aflerted 
fa& were found, upon fubfequent examination, to be falfe; and men, 
from a biafs inherent in our nature, ran into the oppofue extreme. It 
then became eftabliflied as a philofophical truth, capable almoft of de- 
raonflraDon, that no fuch race of people ever did, or could exift* But 
the varieties, inconfiftencies^ and contradict ions of human manners, arc 
fo numerous and glaring, that it is fcarce poffible to fix any general 
principle that w^ll apply to all the incongruous races of mankind ; or 
even to conceive an irregularity which fome or other of them have noc 
given into. The voyages of our late famous circumnavigators, the au, 
thenticity of whofe alfcrtions is unimpeachable, have already proved to 
the world, that human flelh is eaten by the favages of N^w Zealand: 
and I can, with equal confidence, though not with equal weight of au- 
Ett humim ihority, aflure the public, that it is alfo, at this day, eaten on the illand 
of Sumatra^ by the Baita people i and by them only. Whether or not 
the horrible cuflom prevailed more estenfively^ in ancient times, I can- 
not 
