TRAVELS IN 
idea of it; but it has its fource, however 
iiicredible it may feem, in the tendereft 
love. It is a dread of not being able to 
nourifh two children, or of feeing them 
both perifl), that has induced fome mothers 
to facrifice one of them. Befides, the Go- 
naquas are exempt from this reproach ; and 
I obferved that they v^^ere not pleafed with 
my queftlon. But by what right dare we 
make it criminal in thefe favages to ufe 
this precaution, for which I have given at 
leafl a plaufible motive, whilfl in the heart 
of the moft enlightened nations, notwith- 
ftanding the number of hofpitals opened by 
benevolence, we every day fee mothers un- 
natural enough to expofe with their own 
hands, and to abandon in the ftreets, the 
innocent fruits of their womb ? 
It would therefore be an unjuft calumny 
againft thefe people, to give as a conftant 
pradice a few barbarous adions which they 
condemn, and which they belie fo well by 
their condud. In more than one horde I 
have met mothers who fuckled twins, and 
who did not feem to be in the leaft em- 
barraffed with them. 
Travellers, however, have not hefitated 
to 
