3:56 TRAVELS IN 
afFedlon tliey bear their children, feed thelf 
eldeft ill a particular manner, as being of right 
the firft objeft of paternal care. For this pur- 
pofe, they put him in a coop, as it were : that 
is, they fhut him up in a trench made under 
their hut, where, being deprived of motion, 
be lofes little by perfpiration, while they feed 
and cram him in a manner with milk and 
greafe. By degrees the child fattens, and gets 
as round as a barrel ; and when he is come to 
fuch a (late as not to be able to walk, but to 
bend under his own weight, the parents ex* 
hibit him to the admiration of the horde; who, 
from that period, conceive more or lefs eftcenl 
and eonfideration for the family, accordingly 
as the monfter has acquired more or lefs ro- 
tundity. 
Such was the account given me by Klaas 
Bafter ; and though it appeared to me alto- 
gether improbable, yet the narrator related fo 
many particulars, of which he pretended to 
have been an eye-wit nefs ; he had fo little 
intereft in impofing upon me ; and the human 
mind, in uncultivated and ignorant nations, 
appears fomctimes capable of fuch fenfelefs 
cuHoms and prejudices, that, notwithftanding 
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