Page:Surprising savage girl (1).pdf/21

21 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, he 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 both got on shore. They then traversed a great track of country, commonly travelling all night, and sleeping in the day time on the tops of trees. They subsisted upon the roots which she dug out of the ground with her fingers, and particularly her thumb, which by this, and by the use she made of it in climbing, and leaping from one tree to another, was much larger than the thumbs of other people. They also catched as much game as they could, which they eat raw with the warm blood