AFRICA. 
As a practice of this kind muft eontmually 
foil the feet, they remedy the inconvenience by 
a daily habit of cleanlinefs. Every evening, 
before they go to bed, the Hottentot or negro 
woman vvho performs the drudgery of the 
houfe, brings a tub of water into the middle 
of the room, and waihes the feet, firft of the 
father and mother, then of the children and the 
reft of the family, and, laftly, of the ftrangera, 
As the tub ferves in turn for the w^hole com- 
pany, without the water being once changed, 
it may eafily be imagined that I, who was to 
come laft, difeovered no great eagernefs to leap 
in. To excufe myfelf, 1 pretended that it was 
cuftomary with me never to take off my boots, 
till 1 was upon the point of getting into' bed ; 
and the excufe was admitted. 
Thefe civilities however, didated by the 
pureft intentions, and which originate in the 
ufages of the remoteft antiquity, have in thera 
a romantic and facred charafier that at firft 
fight ftrikes the imagination. Haw ungrateful 
fliould I have been if I had fecn only the dif- 
agreeable fide of the queftion, and had felt my 
iieart uninterefied— I, who place in the rank 
iof firft necefiaries that virtue, fo little known 
: ia 
