258 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



time to terminate those steril encounters, and 

 made me sensible how well advised I had been in 

 not having crossed the canal. 



These same women frequently visit each other. 

 Decency and reserve do not always defray the ex- 

 pense of their conversations. The absolute want 

 of education and of principle; the idleness and 

 abundance in which they softly pass their days ; 

 the constraint in which they are unremittingly 

 kept, by men extremely unacquainted with deli- 

 cacy either of sentiment or in conduct ; the assu- 

 rance which they have that the inclinations of 

 these men are directed towards other objects ; the 

 vivacity of their affections ; the climate, which 

 communicates its fires to hearts so fruitlessly dis- 

 posed to tenderness; nature, whose powerful 

 voice, too frequently misunderstood by those 

 whom she calls to partake of her laws as well as 

 of her pleasures, rouses their sensations ; every 

 thing contributes to direct their vivid imagina- 

 tion, their desires, their discourse, toward an ob- 

 ject which they are not at liberty to attain. They 

 amuse themselves in their little parties with com* 

 pletely changing clothes, and in mutually assum- 

 ing each other's dress. This species of metamor- 

 phosis only serves as a prelude and a pretext to 

 sports less innocent, and of which Sappho passes 

 for having taught and practised the details. In- 

 telligent 



