They will not kill an animal for food, or for any other
purpose, not even a fly or a flea, or anything in fact that has life;
for they say they have all souls, and it would be a sin to kill them.
They eat no vegetables in a green state, only such as are dry, for they
believe that even green leaves have life. And they sleep on the bare
ground, naked, without anything to cover them, or to soften the
mountain rocks which form their bed. They fast every day, and drink
nothing but water. Yet, in spite of the rigour of their discipline,
they attain to extreme old age; not one of the wise men, so Sylvia
informed me, being less than one hundred years old, while some were
accredited with upwards of two centuries of life. By reason of their
abstinence, they are supposed to be gifted with mysterious occult
powers, notably second sight, by which they are able to locate
strangers at a great distance from their own country, and to foretell
their advent. Not long since they had foretold the coming to the island
of a Spanish fleet, when the whole Amazon population had taken refuge
in subterranean caves until the Spaniards had left, which they did
under the belief that the island was deserted.
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