358 VARIETIES OF FIGURE 



carried on tlie back, is by throwing the breast over the 

 shoulder *.'' 



Ulloa t observed Negresses in South America carrying 

 their children on their backs, and passing the breasts to them 

 for suckling under the arm or over the shoulder. 



This fact is reported by numerous and respectable travel- 

 lers ; and has been confirmed to me so positively, both in 

 the Negro and Hottentot races, by eye-witnesses, that I 

 am surprised to find it contradicted by Dr. Winterbottom ; 

 who says, '' I never saw an instance where women could 

 suckle their children upon their backs, by throwing their 

 breasts over their shoulders ; and it may be affirmed that 

 such a circumstance would occasion as much astonishment 

 on the western coast of Africa as it would in Europe |." 



This assertion is rather more general than could be war- 

 ranted by the author's experience, which seems to have been 

 principally confined to the Nova-Scotia Negroes, settled in 

 Freetown, Sierra Leone. We can only infer from it;, there- 

 fore, that the fulness and elongation of the breasts are not 

 universal in the African race. 



Some of the accounts, indeed, bear an evident air of ex- 

 aggeration: Bruce's expressions are rather strong: but 

 what are we to think of the assertion that tobacco-pouches, 

 manufactured from the breasts of the Hottentot females, are 

 sold in great numbers at the Cape of Good Hope § ? 



On the other hand, similar conformations have been oc- 

 casionally noticed in some European countries. " I saw, " 

 says LiTHGOW, " in Ireland's north parts, women travayling 

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

 neckes, and laying the dugges over their shoulders, would 

 give sucke to the babes behind their backes, without taking 

 them in their armes : such kind of breasts, me thinketh, 

 were very fit to be made money-bags for East or West-In- 

 dian merchants, being more than halfe a yard long, and as 



* Travels in the Interior of S outturn Africa^ v. i. p. S90. 



+ Travels in South America, v. i. p. 32. 



+ Account of the Native Africans^ v. ii. p. 264. 



^ ^lEvirzKhh Beschreibung des Forgebirges der guten Hoffnung ^ t. ii.p.564. 



