Die] 
obfervation left us without the leaft room for doubt, and the 
fingular appearance and deportment of the ladies fully evinced 
the truth of our friend’s relation. In walking through the town 
it is eafy to perceive, from the whimfical manners of the female 
paffengers, that the women, according to the vulgar phrafe, wear 
the breeches. ‘They frequently ftopped us in the ftreets, examined 
our drefs, interrogated us with a bold and manly air*, laughed at 
our foreign garb and appearance, and fhewed fo little attention to 
that decent modefty, which is, or ought to be, the true charac- 
teriftick of the fex, that there is every reafon to fuppofe they 
would, in fpite of their haughtinefs, be the kindeft ladies upon 
earth, if they were not ftrictly watched by the Turks, who are 
here very numerous, and would be ready to punifh any tranfgreffion 
of their ungallant laws with arbitrary fines. But nature and 
native manners will often bafle the efforts even of tyranny. In 
all their cuftoms'thefe manly ladies feem to have changed fexes 
with the men.—The woman rides afiride—the man fits fideways 
upon the horfe—Nay I have been affured that the hufband’s 
diftinguifhing appellation is his wife’s family name—The women 
have town and country houfes, in the management of which the: 
hufband never dares interfere.—Their gardens, their fervants, are 
all their own; and the hufband, from every circumftance of his 
behaviour, appears to be no other than his wife’s firft domeftick, 
perpetually bound to her fervice, and flave to her caprice. Hence 
it is that, a tradition obtains in the country, that this ifland was 
[B] ; - formerly 
* In the nineteenth Epiftle of the firft book, Horace applies an epithet to Sappho 
which might with great aptnefs be given to her prefent countrywomen ; 
«© Temperat Archilochi Mufam pede mafcula Sappho.” 
