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CHAP, n.] WEST INDIES. 43 



Perhaps a more intimate knowledge (not now to be 

 obtained) woukT have softened many of the shades 

 which thus darken the character of these islanders, 

 and have discovered some latent properties in their 

 principles and conduct, tending to lessen, though not 

 wholly to remove, the disgust we naturally feel in 

 beholding human nature so debased and degraded; 

 but of many particulars wherein curiosity would de- 

 sire to be gratified, we have no account. We know 

 but little, for instance, concerning their domestic 

 economy, their arts, manufactures, and agriculture; 

 their sense of filial and paternal obligations ; their re- 

 ligious rites and funeral ceremonies. Such further 

 information however, in these and other respects, as 

 authorities the least disputable afford, I have abridged 

 in the following detached observations. 



Besides the ornaments which we have noticed to 

 have been worn by both sexes, the women on arriving 

 at the age of puberty, were distinguished also by a 

 sort of buskin or half boot, made of cotton, which 



fore they had any intercourse with the Christians they had no established 

 punishment for adultery, because (says he) " the crime itself was un- 

 known." He adds, that when this with other European vices, was in- 

 troduced among them, tfoe injured husband became his own avenger. 

 Labafs reasoning on this head is too curious to be omitted : fe II n*y a 

 " que les femmes qui soient obligees a Tobeissance, et dont les homines 

 <e scient absolument les maitres. Us portent cette superiorite jusqn' 1 a 

 t( Texces, et les tuent pourdes sujets treslegcrs. Un soupcon d'inrldelite, 

 11 bien ou mal fonde, suffit, sans autre formalite, pour les mettre en droit 

 *' de leur casser la tete. Cela est unpeu sauvage a la <verite ; mats cc"sf 

 t( unfrein bien propre four retenir les femmes dans leur devoir ." Tom iv. 

 p. 327. 



