The School Orator, or Exercises in Elocution - Tapa blanda

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 Excerpt: ... dition displays." In personal appearance, they are rather above the middle size, of a frank and open countenance, a florid complexion, and yellow flaxen hair. The women are more disposed to corpulency than the men. In the description of their houses, few traces of comfort are to be found. The diet of the Icelanders, consisting almost solely of animal food, and of fish, either fresh or dried, and the want of cleanliness in their personal and domestic habits, which is an evil incident to their situation, produce cutaneous diseases under their worst forms. It does not seem, however, that these maladies are particularly hostile to life, or that the Icelanders, though stated to be generally of a weakly habit of body, fall short of the usual period of human existence. In addition to the diet just mentioned, the inhabitants have in their short summerplenty of milk and butter; but nine-tenths of them know not the luxury of bread or vegetables. Their butter, which "drops from every plant," after the whey has been pressed out, will keep, it is said, for twenty years. LEDYARD. Ledyard, the celebrated though unfortunate traveller, was a native of North America. From his early youth, he displayed a strong propensity to visit unknown and savage countries; and to gratify this propensity, he lived for several years among the American Indians. Under the influence of this motive, he afterwards sailed round the world with Captain Cook, in the humble station of a Corporal of Marines. On his return from this long voyage, with curiosity unsated, he determined to traverse the vast continent of America, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean; but being disappointed in his design, he proceeded to Kamtschatka by land; in which arduous undertaking he encountered dangers and difficul...