ANIMALS. 187 



and becomes the tyrant over the weaker : while the inhabitant of Ne 

 groland is indolently taking his pleasure in the fields, his wife is obliged 

 to till the grounds that serve for their mutual support. It is thus in all 

 barbarous countries, where the men throw all the laborious duties of 

 life upon the women ; and, regardless of beauty, put the softer sex to 

 those employments that must effectually destroy it. 



But in countries that are half barbarous, particularly wherever Ma 

 hometanism prevails, the men run into the very opposite extreme 

 Equally brutal with the former, they exert their tyranny over the 

 weaker sex, and consider that half of the human creation as merely 

 made to be subservient to the depraved desires of the other. The 

 chief, and indeed the only aim of an Asiatic, is to be possessed of many 

 women ; and to be able to furnish a seraglio is the only tendency of 

 his ambition. As the savage was totally regardless of beauty, he, on 

 the contrary, prizes it too highly ; he excludes the person who is pos- 

 sessed of such personal attractions from any share in the duties or em- 

 ployments of life ; and, as if willing to engross all beauty to himself, 

 increases the number of his captives in proportion to the progress of 

 his fortune. In this manner he vainly expects to augment his satisfac- 

 tions, by seeking from many that happiness which he ought to look 

 for in the society of one alone. He lives a gloomy tyrant, amidst 

 wretches of his own making ; he feels none of those endearments 

 which spring from affection, none of those delicacies which arise from 

 knowledge. His mistresses, being shut o-it from the world, and total- 

 ly ignorant of all that passes there, have no arts to entertain his mind, 

 or calm his anxieties ; the day passes with them in sullen silence, or 

 languid repose ; appetite can furnish but few opportunities of varying 

 the scene : and all that falls beyond it must be irksome expectation. 



From this avarice of women, if I may be allowed to express it so, 

 has proceeded that jealousy and suspicion which ever attends the mi- 

 ser : hence those low and barbarous methods of keeping the women 

 of those countries guarded, and of making and procuring eunuchs to 

 attend them. These unhappy creatures are of two kinds, the white 

 and the black. The white are generally made in the country where 

 they reside, being but partly deprived of the marks of virility ; the 

 black are generally brought from the interior parts of Africa, and are 

 made entirely bare. These are chiefly chosen for their deformity ; 

 the thicker the lips, the flatter the nose, and the more black the teeth, 

 the more valuable the eunuch ; so that the vile jealousy of mankind 

 here inverts the order of nature, and the poor wretch finds himseli 

 valued in proportion to his deficiencies. In Italy, where this barba- 

 rous custom is still retained, and eunuchs are made in order to improve 

 the voice, the laws are severely aimed against such practice ; so that 

 being entirely prohibited, none but the poorest and most abandoned 

 of the people still secretly practise it upon their children. Of those 

 served in this manner, not one in ten is found to become a singer ; 

 but such is the luxurious folly of the times, that the success of one 

 amply compensates for the failure of the rest. It is very difficult to 

 account for the alterations which castration makes in the voice, and 

 thfi other narts of the body. The eunuch is shaped differently from 

 otheis. His legs are of an equal thickness above ar<i below ; his 



