ained of
torturing the sufferers, of increasing or lengthening out the pangs of
death; the whole fury is directed against the corpse, warm indeed with
the remains of life, but past the sensation of pain. A difference of
opinion has existed with respect to the practice of eating the bodies of
their enemies actually slain in war; but subsequent inquiry has satisfied
me of its being done, especially in the case of distinguished persons, or
those who have been accessories to the quarrel. It should be observed
that their campaigns (which may be aptly compared to the predatory
excursions of our Borderers) often terminate with the loss of not more
than half a dozen men on both sides. The skulls of the victims are hung
up as trophies in the open buildings in front of their houses, and are
occasionally ransomed by their surviving relations for a sum of money.

DOUBTS OBVIATED.

I have found that some persons (and among them my friend, the late Mr.
Alexander Dalrymple) have entertained doubts of the reality of the fact
that human flesh is anywhere eaten by mankind as a national practice, and
considered the proofs hitherto adduced as insufficient to establish a
point of so much moment in the history of the species. It is objected to
me that I never was an eyewitness of a Batta feast of this nature, and
that my authority for it is considerably weakened by coming through a
second, or perhaps a third hand. I am sensible of the weight of this
reasoning, and am not anxious to force any man's belief, much less to
deceive him by pretences to the highest degree of certainty, when my
relation can only lay claim to the next degree; but I must at the same
time observe that, according to my apprehension, the refusing assent to
fair, circumstantial evidence, because it clashes with a systematic
opinion, is equally injurious to the cause of truth with asserting that
as positive which is only doubtful. My conviction of the truth of what I
have not personally seen (and we must all be convinced of facts to which
neither ourselves nor those with whom we are immediately connected could
ever have been witnesses) has arisen from the following circumstances,
some of less, and some of greater authority. It is in the first place a
matter of general and uncontroverted notoriety throughout the island, and
I have conversed with many natives of the Batta country (some of them in
my own service), who acknowledged the practice, and became ashamed of it
after