17^9. ROUND THE* WORLD. "207 



they were to cohabit only with one man, the poor in- 

 fant is smothered the moment it is born, that it may 

 be no incumbrance to the father, nor interrupt tlie 

 mother in the pleasures of her diaboHcal prostitution. 

 It sometimes indeed happens, that the passion which 

 prompts a woman to enter into this society is sur- 

 mounted when she becomes a mother, by that instinc- 

 tive affection which nature has given to all creatures 

 for the preservation of their offspring ; but even in 

 this case she is not permitted to spare the life of her 

 infant, except she can find a man who will patronise 

 it as his child : if this can be done, the murder is 

 prevented ; but both the man and woman, being 

 deemed by this act to have appropriated each other, 

 are ejected from the community, and forfeit all claim 

 to the privileges and pleasures of the Arreoy for the 

 future ; the woman from that time being distinguished 

 by the term MOiammxcnow, " bearer of children," 

 which is here a term of reproach ; though none 

 can be more honourable in the estimation of wisdom 

 and humanity, of right reason, and every passion 

 that distinguishes the man from the brute. 



It is not fit that a practice so horrid and so strange 

 should be imputed to human beings upon slight evi- 

 dence, but I have such as abundantly justifies me in 

 the account I have given. The people themselves 

 are so far from concealing their connection with such 

 a society as a disgrace, that they boast of it as a pri- 

 vilege ; and both myself and Mr. Banks, when par- 

 ticular persons have been pointed out to us as mem- 

 bers of the Arreoy, have questioned them about it, 

 and received the account that has been here given 

 from their own lips. They have a-cknowledged that 

 they had long been of this accursed society, that 

 they belonged to it at that time, and that several of 

 their children had been put to death. 



But I must not conclude my account of the do- 

 mestic life of these people without mentioning their 

 personal cleanliness. If that which lessens the good 



