CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 18] 
Before marriage, the fathers or brothers of a girl prosti- 
tute her to every man that will pay two fathoms of cloth ; 
nor does this derogate in any way from her character, or 
prevent her being afterwards married. The wives are how- 
ever never trafficked in this manner except to white men of 
consideration. 
The boys are taken from the mothers as soon as they can 
walk, and the father sits the whole day with them on a mat. 
The girls are entirely neglected by the father. 
Whenever any thing brings a number of people together, 
the men immediately light a fire and squat themselves round 
it in the smoke; the men and boys together, the women re- 
maining behind separate. 
The ficus religiosa is planted in all the market places, and 
is considered here, as it isin the East, a sacred tree; for our 
people having piled their muskets against one, and some of 
the points of the bayonets sticking into the bark, a great 
clamour was raised until they were removed. 
The hoe is their only instrument of husbandry, and is 
made out of a piece of flat bar iron beat out and stuck into 
a handle from one to two feet in length, as in the following 
figures 
