Abdallatif* mentions a great famine in Egypt in the year 1200, due to failure of the inundation of the Nile.  Resort was had to cannibalism to escape death.  At first the civil authorities burned alive those who were detected, being moved by astonishment and horror.  Later, those sentiments were not aroused.  "Men were seen to make ordinary meals of human flesh, to use it as a dainty, and to lay up provision of it... The usage, having been introduced, spread to all the provinces.  Then it ceased to cause surprise... People talked of it as an ordinary and indifferent thing.  This indifference was due to habit and familiarity."  This case shows that the horror of cannibalism is due to tradition in the more.  *Relation de ľ Egypte, 360. (Folkways, Sumner, 1907)