Page:An account of a savage girl.djvu/62

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34
The History of

ed; they served them likewise as their watchtowers, from whence they could observe at a distance whether any of their enemies were near, when they wanted to come down; and it was here they waited, as it were in ambush, for the passing of any game, upon which they either leaped all of a sudden, or went in pursuit of them. Providence, which bestows on every creature the instincts and faculties necessary for the preservation of its kind, had endued these with a power of motion in the eyes quite inconceiveable; their movement was so extemely quick, and their sight so sharp, that they might be said to see in the same instant on every side of them, without hardly moving their heads. The little of this faculty that Le Blanc still retains, is astonishing, when she chuses to show it; for at other times her eyes are like ours, which she reckons a lucky circumstance, it having cost a great deal of pains to deprive them of their quick motion, and in which they had almost despaired of succeeding.

The trees were likewise their beds, or rather their cradles; for, according to her description, they slept soundly in them, either sitting, or probably riding on some branch, suffering themselves to be rocked by the winds, and exposed to every inclemency of the weather, without any other precaution than the securing themselveswith