2 9 2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



The Abyfilnians neither eat nor drink with ftranger^ 

 though they have no reafon for this ; and it is now a mere- 

 prejudice, becaule the old occafion for this regulation is loft. 

 They break, or purify, however, every vellel a ftranger of 

 any kind fhall have ate or drank in. The cuftom then is 

 copied from the Egyptians, and they have preierved it, tho' 

 the Egyptian reafon does no longer hold. 



Some hiftorians fay, the Egyptian women anciently env 

 joyed a full liberty of intercourfe with the males, which 

 was not the cafe in the generality of caftern nations ; and 

 we mult, therefore, think it was derived from Abyllinia;. for 

 there the women live, as it were, in common, and their en- 

 joyments and gratification have no other bounds but their 

 own will. They, however, pretend to have a principle, that, 

 if they marry, they mould be wives of one hufband; and yet 

 this principle does not bind, but, like moft of the other du- 

 ties, ferves to reafon upon, and to laugh at, in converfation, 

 Herodotus tells it was the fame with the Egyptians*. 



The Egyptians made no account of the mother what her 

 ft ate was ; if the father was free, the child followed the con* 

 dition of the father. This is ftricHy fo in Abyllinia. The 

 king's child by a negro-Have, bought with money, or taken 

 in war, is as near in fucceeding to the crown, as any one 

 of twenty children that he has older than that one, and 

 born of the nobleft women of the country. 



The 



* Herodot. p. 121. fe<5t. 92 



