50 M'Keevor's Voyage to Hudson's 



labour ;* so that were the father to see them to such great dis- 

 advantage, he might, probably, take a dislike to them, which 

 never afterwards could be removed. It is said, that when de- 

 livered of twins, they sacrifice that which appears to them the 

 weaker of the two ; this monstrous practice exists among many 

 wandering nations, where the men never take any burdens 

 that might encumber them in the chace. They generally 

 suckle their children for two years ; some, however, continue 

 it for three, four, and even five years. 



The absolute want of all kind of domestic cattle, and conse- 

 quently the total want of all milk-diet, is the principal reason 

 why the American women keep their infants so long a time at 

 the breast. It is probably owing to this long-continued nurs- 

 ing that the mammae are in them so relaxed and pendulous.f 

 They are, however, by no means so long as some writers 

 would lead us to suppose ; indeed, I suspect there is much 

 exaggeration, if not absolute falsehood, in some of these narra- 

 tions. Thus, in Hakluyt's Collection, vol. ii. p. 26, it is 

 asserted, that divers women have such exceeding long breasts 

 that some of them will lay the same upon the ground, and lie 

 down by them. Bruce asserts, that in some of the Shangallas 

 they hang down to the knes. Mentzelius tells us, that purses 

 are made in great numbers from the breasts of Hottentot fe- 

 males, and sold at the Cape of Good Hope. But what will 

 appear still more extraordinary is, that the females of this 

 country (Ireland) have been accused of this extreme pendu- 

 lous state of the mammae. I hope my fair country-women 

 will excuse me for making the following extract: Lithgow, 

 in his " Raire Adventures and Painefulle Pergrinations," p. 

 433, says, " I saw, in Ireland's northe parts, women travayl- 

 ing the way, or toyling at home, carry their infants about their 

 ueckes, and laying the dugges over their shoulders ; would 

 give sucke to the babes behinde their backs, without taking 

 them in their armes. Such kind of breasts, me thinketh, were 

 very fit to be made money-bags for East or West-Indian mer- 

 chants, being more than half a yard long, and as well wrought 

 as any tanner, in the like charge, could ever mollifie such 

 leather." 



- 



* We are not, however, to suppose that this process is so readily accom- 

 plished in all cases. Mr. Fidler informed me, that they are somtimes a day 

 and a night in labour. In this case they frequently pass a stick horizontally 

 along the abdomen, for the purpose of exciting uterine contraction. If tra- 

 velling, they place the child on their backs and resume their journey. 



t Sec Article Man, Recs Cyclopaedia. 



