!205 TRAVELS IX UPl'ER 



face, and ibey arc like them retired and cloistetca 

 up in iheir houses. I have sometimes been con- 

 ducted, in my quality of physician, by a priest of 

 their nation, or by an European monk, to the midst 

 of an assembly ot' these women. They only spoke 

 through a ma^I;, and I never knew whether my 

 patient was old or young. To feel the pulse, t 

 was presented with a hand and a wrist well wrap- 

 ped up, and the place was only left bare where I 

 was to apply ray fingers to tr.e artery. Was it ex- 

 pedient to let blood ? Oh ! this was altogether an- 

 other ceremony. They insisted that I should only 

 see the bending of the arm ; and I was obliged to 

 wait iVetting myself, till they had uncovered the 

 fore part of it. If any of these women was disor- 

 dered in the eyes, or had any other local complaint, 

 it was expected that I should cure them without 

 examining the eyes, or the seat of the disease ; and 

 I always left these haunts of insipidity, my mind 

 filled with indignation at priests, who, far from 

 seeking touiifold the germs of reason, extinguished 

 its feeblest light, provided you were religious ac- 

 cording to their mode, that is to say, guided by su- 

 perstition, and, above all, by a thorough devoted- 

 iiess to their will, which, audacious profaners, 

 they had the effrontery to declare as the will of the 

 Deiiy. 



The 



