fire was esteemed a dangerous enemy, known only by its dreadful
devastations; and that many lives must have been lost, and many
dangerous burns and wounds must have afflicted those who first dared to
subject it to the uses of life. It is said that the tall monkies of
Borneo and Sumatra lie down with pleasure round any accidental fire in
their woods; and are arrived to that degree of reason, that knowledge of
causation, that they thrust into the remaining fire the half-burnt ends
of the branches to prevent its going out. One of the nobles of the
cultivated people of Otaheita, when Captain Cook treated them with tea,
catched the boiling water in his hand from the cock of the tea-urn, and
bellowed with pain, not conceiving that water could become hot, like red
fire.

Tools of steel constitute another important discovery in consequence of
fire; and contributed perhaps principally to give the European nations
so great superiority over the American world. By these two agents, fire
and tools of steel, mankind became able to cope with the vegetable
kingdom, and conquer provinces of forests, which in uncultivated
countries almost exclude the growth of other vegetables, and of those
animals which are necessary to our existence. Add to this, that the
quantity of our food is also increased by the use of fire, for some
vegetables become salutary food by means of the heat used in cookery,
which are naturally either noxious or difficult of digestion; as
potatoes, kidney-beans, onions, cabbages. The cassava when made into
bread, is perhaps rendered mild by the heat it undergoes, more than by
expressing its superfluous juice. The roots of white bryony and of arum,
I am informed lose much of their acrimony by boiling.]

[_Young Medusa frowned_. l. 218. The Egyptian Medusa is represented on
antient gems with wings on her head, snaky hair, and a beautiful