Oviedo pretends to have observed that Lice, at the elevation of the tropics, abandon the Spanish sailors that are going to the Indies, and attack them again at the same point on their return. The same is reported in Purchas’s Pilgrims.[1064] One of the supplementary writers to Cuvier’s History of Insects says: “This is an observation that has need of being corroborated by more certain testimonies than we are yet in possession of. But, if true, there would be nothing in the fact very surprising. A degree of considerable heat, and a more abundant perspiration, might prove unfavorable to the propagation of the _Pediculi corporis_. As their skin is more tender, the influence of the air might prove detrimental to them in those burning climates.”[1065] We read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, that “if Lice doe much annoy the natives of Cambaia and Malabar, they call to them certain Religious and holy men, after their account: and these Observants y will take upon them all those Lice which the other can find, and put them on their head, there to nourish them. But yet for all this lousie scruple, they stick not to coozenage by falese weights, measures, and coyne, nor at usury and lies.”[1066] In a side-note to this curious passage, we find: “The like lousie trick is reported in the Legend of S. _Francis_, and in the life of Ignatius, of one of the Jesuitical pillars, by Moffæus.” Steedman says of the Caffres, that “except an occasional plunge in a river, they never wash themselves, and consequently their bodies are covered with vermin. On a fine day their karosses are spread out in the sun, and as their tormentors creep forth they are doomed to destruction. It often happens that one Caffir performs for another the kind office of collecting these insects, in which case he preserves the entomological specimens, carefully delivering them to the person to whom they originally appertained, supposing, according to their theory, that as they derived their support from the blood of the man from whom they were taken, should they be killed by another, the blood of his neighbor would be in his possession, thus placing in his hands the power of some superhuman influence.”[1067] Kolben says the Hottentots eat the largest of the Lice with which they swarm; and that if asked how they can devour such detestable vermin, they plead the law of retaliation, and urge that it is no shame to eat those who would eat them--“They suck our blood, and we devour ’em in revenge.”[1068] We are assured in Purchas’s Pilgrims, that Lice and “long wormes” were sold for food in Mexico.[1069] From this ancient collection of Travels, we learn that when the Indians of the Province of Cuena are infected with Lice, “they dresse and cleanse one another; and they that exercise this, are for the most part women, who eate all that they take, and have herein (eating?) such dexterity by reason of their exercise, that our own men cannot lightly attaine thereunto.”[1070]