Charles Marie de La Condamine

“ She retained this inclination for catching fish in the water two years after her capture. One day happening to be brought to the castle of Songi, she no sooner perceived a door open which led to a large pond, than she immediately ran and threw herself into it, drest as she was, swam round all the sides of it, and landing on a small island, went in search of frogs, which she eat at leisure. ”

“ She had, however, so much strength left, with the weapon in her hand, to return the blow on the forehead of her antagonist, with such a force as to knock her to the ground screaming frightfully. The chaplet was the reward of her victory, of which she made herself a bracelet. Touched, in the mean time, with compassion for her companion, whose wound bled very much, she ran in search of frogs, and finding one, stripped off its skin with her nails, and covered the wound. After this they seperated, she that was wounded taking the road towards the river, and the victorious le Blanc towards Songi. ”

“ When any company visited M. d'Epinoy at Songi, he used to send for the girl, who soon became more tame, and began to discover much good humour, and a softness and humanity of disposition, which the savage life she had been obliged to follow for self-preservation, had not been able to efface. ”

“ The largest rivers did not stop their journey by day or by night, for they always crossed them without any dread. Sometimes they entered for the sake of drinking, which they performed by dipping in their chin up to the mouth, and sucking the water like horses. But they most frequently entered the rivers to catch the fish they saw at the bottom, which they brought on shore, to open, skin and eat them. ”

“ A man who had heard of her abhorrence of being touched, resolved nevertheless to embrace her, in spite of the danger that he ran, in going too near her, she had in her hand, at the time, a piece of raw beef, which she was devouring with great satisfaction. ”

“ They subsisted upon the roots which she dug out of the ground with her fingers, and particularly her thumbs, which by that, and by the use she made of it in climbing, and leaping from one tree to another, was much larger than the thumbs of other people. They also catched as much game as they could, which they ate raw with the warm blood in it, in the same manner as a hawk, or wild beast does; and she remembers particularly, that they killed a fox, of which they only sucked the blood, finding the flesh very disagreeable. ”

“ She has been supposed to be of the Esquimaux nation; but there is sufficient proof to refute this notion, for she is cast a fair complexion, a smooth skin, and features as soft as those of an European; Whereas the people of the Esquimaux nation are by the accounts of all travellers, the ugliest of men, of the harshest and most disagreeable features, and all covered with hair. She is certainly not mistaken in the situation of the country which she gives, for it is certainly a very cold country ”

“ From this we may judge of the strength of those thumbs of hers, which were able in this manner to sustain the whole weight of her body in springing. She was committed to the care of the shepherd, who dwelt near the castle, and recommended by M. d'Epinoy to his utmost care, who promised to reward him handsomely for his pains. We may well conceive that it would require a considerable deal of time, and some hard usage to wean her from her former habits, and to temper her fierce and savage disposition ”

“ For what purpose, (answered she, with a firmness and confidence that surprised me,) hath God brought me from among wild beasts, and made me a Christian? Not surely afterwards to abandon and suffer me to perish for hunger; that is impossible; I know no other father but him, his providence will therefore support me. ”

“ There were, she says, another sort of men in this country, who were bigger and stronger than her people, and all covered with hair; and those people were at war with her people, and used to eat them when they could catch them. ”

“ She has no remembrance of her parents, or any other person, and scarcely the country itself except that they had no houses, but holes in the ground: that she frequently mounted trees to avoid wild beasts; and that her countries was covered with snow; that when they were carried away by the ship on account of some attempts they made to escape, the two little savages were confined in the hold of the ship ”