Page:Account of a most surprising savage girl.pdf/20

20 painted her black, with a view to make her pass for a negro.

She says further of the country from whence she was carried away, that the people there had no clothing but skins, and made no use of fire at all, so that when she came to France, she could not bear the fire, and hardly even the close air of a room, or the breaths of persons who were near her. There were, she says, another sort of men in this country, who were bigger and stronger than her people, and all covered with hair; and these people were at war with her people and used to eat them when they could catch them.

In the hot country to which she was first carried, she says, she was re-embarked, and performed a very long voyage; during which, the master, to whom she had been sold, wanted to make her work particularly at a sort of needlework; he beat her, but her mistress, who, she thinks, spoke French, was very kind to her. That the ship having been wrecked, the crew took to the boat; but she, and a negro girl that was on board, were left to shift for themselves. The negro girl, she says, could not swim so well as she, but she kept herself above water, by taking hold of le Blanc’s foot, and in this way they