g50 TRAVELS IN 
ther with them their prejudices, and all tlie 
bias of pride. 
Ye worthy and provident mothers, who 
may chance to read this work, you will 
never be induced to beheve that the chafte 
children, whom you educate with the hopes 
of feeing them attain to your virtues, would 
be as fafe from corruption and the perni- 
cious efFefts of bad example amidft the fa- 
vages of Africa, as In the bofom of thofe 
profound and lilent retreats where wifdomj 
as we are told, watches over innocence, and 
removes from It whatever might tend to cor- 
rupt it, or give offence to its fight : accufe 
not Nature^ and do not boaft too much of 
your precepts and grand inftltutions; you 
owe them entirely to a contempt of her 
laws. 
To the honour of thefe people I muft here 
afferti and I ought to take every opportunity 
of doing fo, that all my ftratagems, and all 
my entreaties to obtain what I defired would 
have proved frultlefs, had it not been for 
the affiftance of one of my people, and af- 
furances, twenty times repeated, to perfuade 
this woman that I was a curious ftranger, of 
a race very diftind, and who lived very re- 
mote 
