THE CUSTOM IN AFRICA. 
497 
when the rain ceases to fall. At the yiJage of Banco, on 
the bank of the river Magdalena, I saw the Indian women 
who make pottery continually swallowing great pieces of 
clay. These women were not in a state of pregnancy; and 
they affirmed, that earth is an aliment which they do not 
find hurtful. In other American tribes, people soon fall 
sick, and waste away, when they yield too much to this 
mania of eating earth. We found at the mission of San 
Boija an Indian child of the Guahiba nation, who was as 
thin as a skeleton. The mother informed us that the little 
girl was reduced to this lamentable state of atrophy in conse- 
quence of a disordered appetite, she having refused during four 
months to take almost any other food than clay. Yet San 
Boija is only twenty-five leagues distant from the mission of 
TJruana, inhabited by that tribe of the Ottomacs, who, from 
the effect no doubt of a habit progressively acquired, swallow 
the poy a without experiencing any pernicious effects. Father 
Gumilla asserts, that the Ottomacs take as an aperient, oil, 
or rather the melted fat of the crocodile, when they feel any 
gastric obstructions; but the missionary whom we found 
among them was little disposed to confirm this assertion. 
It may be asked, why the mania of eating earth is much 
more rare in the frigid and temperate than in the torrid 
zones ; and why in Europe it is found only among women 
in a state of pregnancy, and sickly children. This difference 
between hot and temperate climates arises perhaps only 
from the inert state of the functions of the stomach, caused 
by strong cutaneous perspiration. It has been supposed 
to be observed, that the inordinate taste for eating earth 
augments among the African slaves, and becomes more 
pernicious, when they are restricted to a regimen purely 
vegetable and deprived of spirituous liquors. 
The negroes on the coast of Guinea delight in eating a 
yellowish earth, which they call caouac. The slaves who are 
taken to America endeavour to indulge in this habit ; but it 
proves detrimental to their health. They say, that the 
earth of the W est Indies is not so easy of digestion as that 
of their country.” Thibaut de Chanvalon, in his Voyage to 
Martini co, expresses himself very judiciously on this patho- 
logical phenomenon. “Another cause,” he says, “of this 
pain in the stomach is, that several of the negroes, who come 
VOL. II 2 K 
