'A voyage from England to India, in the year 1754, and an historical narrative of the operations of the squadron and army in India, under the command of Vice-Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive, in the years 1755, 1756, 1757 ... Also a journey from Persia to England by an unusual route. With an appendix, containing an account of the diseases prevalent in Admiral Watson's squadron, etc.' [‎62] (91/562)

r 6z ]
5 755. The woods in tins ifhnd abound with various forts of venomous infects-,
fuch as fnakes, of an enormous fize and length ; I had a view of one that
meafured 15 feet in length, and 30 inches in circumference; fcorpions, centi
pedes, fpiders, tarantulas, &c. I faw a fpider here as large as a toad, with
brown hair upon it the legs were of the thicknefs of a large tobacco-pipe,
and more than four inches long. A fcorpion alfo, which was taken out of a
piece of wood, was brought on board the 9th of May, which meafured 8
inches from head to tail, exclufive ot the claws : the fhell was as hard as
that of a crab. 1 killed a centipede here which was more than 7 inches
long.
The natives of this ifiand are the ftouteft Indians I ever faw. Mr. Knox
in his hiftory reports many ftrange things of their religion and cuftoms,
none of which I had an opportunity of feeing. He fays, that " they have
various ways of treating their dead. Some burn them, (which is not
uncommon in India,) while others throw their limbs up into the forks of
large trees." This may be true, becaufe when our wood-cutters were
once hewing down a (tick of timber, there fell from it, the fcull, and many
bones of an human body ; and I alfo faw here a human body hanging
on a tree.
Other hiftorians relate, that the natives of Ceylon feed on human
ficfh ; nay that they eat the bodies of their deceafed parents, imagining
that no other fepulchre is fo fit for them as their own bowels, fince
hereby they think they are changed into their own fubftance, and live
again in themfelves. This fhocking cuftom is reported of the ancient
Scythians, and poftibly it might have been ufed by the old inhabitants of
Ceylon, but it is now in both countries entirely abolifhed ; and yet even at this
time, theie iflanders are faid to make cups of their parents fculls *, with
a view that amidft their mirth and jollity they may be fure to preferve a
relpeclful remembrance ot them.—W hat a difference has cuftom wrought
between
Sir William Temple, in the 2d part of his Mifcellanea, obferves, that it was a fixed and
general opinion among the weftern Scythians, that all thofe who gave themfelves up to war-
f actions and enterprifes, to the conquefts of their neighbours, and flaughter of enemies,
an ie in battle, or of violent deaths upon bold adventures and refolutions, went im-
rnt late y to tae vail hall or palace of their god of war, who eternally kept open
Oj' e *. or a11 luch guefts, where they were entertained at infinite tables, in perpetual feafts
an mirt , carou ing every man in bowls made of the fculls of their enemies they had
lain, accor mg to the numbers of which, every one in thefe manfions of pleafure was the
moft honoured and the bell entertained.
J 0 W rr ^ m P r ^ nte ^ i^^e minds of thefe fierce mortals, and what efFeft it had upon
fifVli S ^ an .P a ^° ns ' concerning life and death, is moft lively reprefented in the twenty-
kino--; / j 2 - 3 S ^ t ^ at ^ on g or epicedium oiRednor Ladbrogy one of their famous
mortallv rtnno- K COn r PO e ln f ^ u !!* c ^ an g ua g e about eight hundred years ago, after he was
is recited h u ^ r P e . nt '. a n4 ore t ^ e veno m feized upon his vitals. The whole fonnet
that fuch L Literatura Runica. But that which is extraordinary in it is.
imaeined amonl a 7 P T L dyin S was nev er exprefled in any other writing, nor
lagmed among any other people. The two ftanza's are thus tranflatcd into Latin by Olaus.
STANZA