scheme of scratching a hole in the ship with their nails, by which they might make their escape into the water. The crew, however, luckily discovered their operations, in time enough to prevent the effect of them, and thereby escaped an unavoidable shipwreck. This attempt made them chain the two little savages in such a way as to put it out of their power to resume their work.
From this we may believe, that these children required to be very sharply looked after; and their aversion to being touched, must have increased the difficulty of keeping them. According to Le Blanc's account, it was very troublesome to their governors to approach them; for, whether their abhorrence of being touched was natural to them, or proceeded from the remembrance of their being carried off, or the dread of ill usage, they became furious on perceiving any person come near them; and it was necessary for such person carefully to guard himself against their arms and nails; or, failing these, against their fists, which were weilded with a strength of arm greatly superior to that of our children of the same age.
Upon their arrival in Champagne, their arms were, by Madamoiselle Le Blanc's account, a short stick, of a thickness proportioned to theirstrength,
