One cure for rheumatism was to roll in the black, odourless mud at the edge of a lagoon, and then bask in the blazing sun until the mud became quite caked upon the person.
The question may be asked whether I ever tried to tell my cannibals about the outside world.

My answer is, that I only told them just so much as I thought their childish imaginations would grasp.

Had I told them more, I would simply have puzzled them, and what they do not understand they are apt to suspect.
Thus, when I showed them pictures of horse-races and sheep farms in the copy of the Sydney _Town and Country Journal_ which I had picked up, I was obliged to tell them that horses were used only in warfare, whilst sheep were used only as food.

Had I spoken about horses as beasts of burden, and told them what was done with the wool of the sheep, they would have been quite unable to grasp my meaning, and so I should have done myself more harm than good.

They had ideas of their own about astronomy; the fundamental "fact" being that the earth was perfectly flat, the sky being propped up by poles placed at the edges, and kept upright by the spirits of the departed--who, so the medicine-man said, were constantly being sent offerings of food and drink.