310 
Dr Davy on the Temperat ure of Man 
the lake of Bintenne, where they subsisted on game which they 
killed 111 the chase, on lizards, fish, some roots and wild fruits, 
and a little grain of their own growing. They were profoundly 
ignorant, could not count above five, were hardly acquainted 
with the rudiments of any art, and, though they feared demons 
as they did wild beasts, they had no knowledge whatever of a 
Supreme beneficent Being, and not the slightest notion of any 
state of existence after the present. Yet, strange to say, these 
men (though they hardly deserve the name of men), considered 
themselves civilized, in comparison with wilder tribes of Vaidas, 
who never leave their native forests, and who attack with their 
sylvan weapons, the bow and arrow, every intruder into their 
haunts, and whom I have heard Kandians of a bordering pro- 
vince describe as living almost entirely on raw animal food, as 
going quite naked, as having no superstition, and in fact as be- 
ing in a state very little removed from that of brutes. 
On the 17th of December 1818, when the air was 74°, I tried 
the temperature of five African negroes, servants of the Military 
Hospital at Kandy : 
No. 
Age. 
Temp, under Tongue. 
Temp in. 
1 . 
23 
98°.5 
98° 
2. 
35 
98.5 
98 
3. 
25 
99 
98 
4. 
34 
99.5 
98 
5. 
28 
99.5 
98 
The ages of these men I conjectured from their looks. Most 
of them were from Goa. They were of African parents, had 
not degenerated, and, like African negroes in general, they were 
stout and muscular. Nos. 4. and 5. I should remark, whose 
temperatures exceeded the rest, were in a state of gentle perspi- 
ration, produced by slight exercise. 
On the 18th of March 1818, at noon, air 81°, at Kandy, I 
tried the temperature of four Malays : 
No. 
Age 
Temp, under Tongue. 
Temp, in Axilla. 
1 . 
17 
98°.5 
98°.5 
. 2. 
35 
99.5 
97-5 
3. 
22 
99 
98 
4. 
18 
98.5 
97.5 
These men were free Malays, in good circumstances. Three 
were natives of Colombo, and one of Cochin. They were ac- 
tive, stout, well-made, and very muscular men, all of Javanese 
