LETTER XVIII. 



THE AKTHROFOPHAGI. 



You would be very vain, my dear friend, if you could, witli- 

 out sinning outrageously against truth, entitle one of your 

 letters thus: "The Anthropophagi!" It exalts a traveller 

 much in his own esteem and in the admiration of his con- 

 temporaries, to have seen the spit prepared, upon which it 

 was intended he should be roasted ! 



Our vestments, under the pretence of honest modesty, only 

 conceal iU-made legs, meagre thighs, and other defects. 

 Women, in particular, make a singular abuse of clothing; far 

 from employing it to conceal their shapes, they employ it to 

 exhibit ostentatiously much more of those shapes than they 

 really possess. Thanks to the falsehoods of our clothes, we 

 scarcely know where to stop; and we have become lovers of 

 clothes, to be enchanted by wool, and passionately enamoured 

 of silk. But ii is an advantageous attestation to be able to 



