They can start on a run and keep it up all day. But they will stop two
or three times a day and take a hot bath. Here is the secret――that is,
the principal secret. I have had one of these little, but powerful
chaps pull me in a ’rickshaw up hills and around mountain roads at
a dog trot which tired me to watch him; so fearful was I at first
that he would break down. But about every two hours he would stop
at a bathhouse along the roadside and literally wash off the sweat
containing the cast-off poisons from his body. Then fresh as when he
started in the morning, he would go on again.
He wore only a loin cloth, hence his body was free from any covering
which would keep the pores from working and performing their duty――the
second secret of his endurance.
Now, if this man had been dressed in underwear and over this skin
covering wore a pair of trousers and a jacket, he would have become
tired, had a heavy feeling throughout his limbs, and if forced onward,
succumbed to headache――that is he would have shown all the symptoms of
self-poisoning. Especially so would this have happened had the baths
been denied him.
Similar habits and customs were the reason for the Indian being able to
run long distances and keep the pace up day after day.
But you ask; how about the Northmen; the Icelanders, those hardy and
enduring men of Lapland? Surely they have to wear heavy clothing and
have no hot baths along the roadside. Partly true; but their endurance
is of a different nature; it is that of being able to put out great
muscular power, to withstand severe cold and long fasting. This latter
ability is simply because when they _do_ eat it is a gorging of
fatty food; food which gives out heat. The Eskimo remains quiet and
semi-asleep many months in the year. When he makes a kill for food he
and his family――even the babies――eat like wolves. They stuff themselves
like the animals, then go to sleep in the winter and live off the fat
on their body. Then their form of endurance is one of race――a trait
which has been passed down to them for generation after generation. But
I am doubtful if their contact with civilization does not injure this
trait, and then will come their extinction.
But contrary to the general impression those hardy Northmen living
in Norway, Lapland and Iceland take excellent care of their skin. In
traveling in Iceland after a hard day’s work over ice fields and lava
deserts, the natives would bring us to camp where there were either
hot springs or little huts built of lava blocks which were primitive
Turkish baths. In these huts were round stones; upon these they would
build a hot fire and after it had burnt to ashes these were brushed off
and water poured upon the stones. This produced a hot steam in which
the natives would remain until the sweat poured down in streams. Then
after rubbing each other they would put on their heavy homespun clothes
and emerge fit for another day’s hard work. It is the same in Norway
and Lapland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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