52 MAMMALIA—MAN. 
other hardships of life. Their ceremonies, or rather their grimaces, in 
eating, are numerous and uncouth. They are laborious, are very skilful 
artificers, and, in a word, have nearly the same disposition, the same man- 
ners, and the same customs as the Chinese. 
One custom which they have in common, and which is not a little fantas- 
tic, is, so to contract the feet of the women, that they are hardly able to 
support themselves. Some travellers mention, that in China, when a girl 
has passed her third year, they break the foot in such a manner, that the 
toes are made to come under the sole; that they apply to it a strong water, 
which burns away the flesh; and, that they wrap it up in a number of 
bandages, till it has assumed a certain fold. They add, that the women 
feel the pain of this operation all their lives; that they walk with great 
difficulty ; and that their gait is to the last degree ungraceful. Other travel- 
lers do not say that they break the foot in their infancy, but that they only 
compress it with so much violence as to prevent its growth; but they unani- 
mously allow, that every woman of condition, and even every handsome 
woman, must have a foot small enough to enter, with ease, the slipper of a 
child of six years old. 
The Mocuts, (Hindoos,) and the other inhabitants of the peninsula of 
India, are not unlike the Europeans, in shape and in features; but they 
differ more or less from them in color. The Moguls are of an olive com- 
plexion ; and yet, in the Indian language, the word Mogul signifies White. 
The women are extremely delicate, and they bathe themselves very often : 
they are of an olive color, as well as the men; and, contrary to what is seen 
among the women of Europe, their legs and thighs are long, and their body 
is short. 
The inhabitants of Persia, of Turkey, of Arabia, of Egypt, and of the 
whole of Barbary, may be considered as one and the same people, who, in 
the time of Mahomet, and of his successors, invaded immense territories, 
extended their dominions, and became exceedingly intermixed with the 
original natives of all those countries. The Persians, the Turks, and the 
Moors, are to a certain degree civilized; but the Arazrans have, for tke 
most part, remained in a state of independence, which implies a contempt 
of laws. a 
The Ecyprran women are very brown; their eyes are’ lively; their stature 
is rather low; their mode of dress is by no means agreeable; and their con- 
versation is extremely tiresome. But though the women of Egypt are com- 
monly rather short, yet the men are of a good height. Both,. generally 
speaking, are of an olive color; and the more we remove from Cairo, the 
more we find the people tawny, till we come to the confines of Nubia, where 
they are as black as the Nubians themselves. 
“The women of Circassia,” says Struys, ‘are exceedingly fair and beau- 
tiful. Their complexion is incomparably fine; their forehead is large and 
smooth ; and, without the aid of art, their eyebrows are so delicate, that 
