Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/383

Rh beasts, in the town of Tatasi, belonging to the department of Chichas. On the first access of this frenzy, there are not sufficient powers to restrain the unfortunate victim, who, forgetful of all shame and human necessity, forsakes his bed, flees from the habitations of men, runs impetuously over the mountains in the environs, and, rushing from precipice to precipice, at length hurls himself from the summit of the steep rock. It usually happens that, in falling from a considerable height, he is bruised to death; but if, by a rare casualty, he survives, in proportion as he recovers his bodily health, the mental powers return to their just equilibrium, and there is no longer any vestige of this terrible malady. We shall not undertake to decide whether the effluvia from the mines of that territory, which are very prone to commotions, are in any manner the cause of this phenomenon; or whether, which is more probable, it is owing to the natural temperament of the inhabitants of the country: it is certain that it occurs with much frequency.

This passage has so great an analogy to the one we find in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and in all the other mythological authors, relative to the leap from the rock of Leucate, that the one seems to have served as the archetype of the other. Who can say whether the whole of this fable, in its origin, had any other foundation beside that of the concurrence of several facts similar to those which are witnessed in Chichas? We,