41G 
INTELLIGENCE OT CERTAIN TRIBES. 
times of great scarcity ? In Egypt, in tlie thirteenth cen* 
tury, the habit of eating human flesh pervaded all classes 
of society; extraordinary snares were spread tor physicians 
in particular. They were called to attend persons who 
pretended to he sick, but who were only hungry; and it 
was not in order to be consulted, but devoured. An his- 
torian of great veracity, Abd-allatif, has related how a 
practice, which at first inspired dread and horror, soon occa- 
sioned not even the slightest surprise.” * 
Although the Indians of the Cassiquiare readily return 
to their barbarous habits, they evince, whilst in the missions, 
intelligence, some love of labour, and, in particular, a great 
facility in learning the Spanish language. The villages 
being, for the most part, inhabited by three or four tribes, 
who do not understand each other, a foreign idiom, which 
is at the same time that of the civil power, the language ot 
the missionary, affords the advantage of more general means 
of communication. I heard a Poinave Indian conversing 
in Spanish with a GHiahibo, though both had come from 
their -forests within three months. They uttered a phrase 
every quarter of an hour, prepared with difficulty, and i« 
which the gerund of the verb, no doubt according to the 
grammatical turn of their own languages, was constantly 
* « When the poor bega.i to eat human flesh, the horror and astonish- 
ment caused hy repasts so dreadful were such that these crimes furnis ie 
the never-ceasing subject of every conversation, lint at length the pe°P 
became so accustomed to it, and conceived sucli a taste for this detesta i 
food, that people of wealth and respectability were found to use it as the 
ordinary food, to eat it by wav of a treat, and even to lay in a stock of 1 ^ 
This flesh was prepared in different ways, and the practice being o" , 
introduced, spread into the provinces, so that instances of it were fou' 
in every part of Egypt. It then no longer caused any surprise; t j 
horror it hail at first inspired vanished ; and it was mentioned aS ' 
indifferent and ordinary thing. This mania of devouring one ano . 
became so common among the poor, that the greater part perished in 
manuer. These wretches employed all sorts of artifices, to seize men • 
surprise, or decoy them into their houses under false pretences. ‘ 
happened to three physicians among those who visited me ; and a boo 
seller who sold me books, an old and very corpulent man, fell into 1 
snares, and escaped with great difficulty. All the facts which we rei 
as eye-witnesses fell under our observation accidentally, for we gener 
avoided witnessing spectacles which inspired us with so much horror. 
Account <f Egypt by Abd-allatif, physician of Bagdad, translate- a 
French by Pc Sacy, p. 360—374. 
