EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 
347 
Kxcljion, 
The exclfion of females is a peculiarity with which the 
Northern nations are lefs familiar : yet it would appear, that 
this ufage is more evidently founded on phyfical caufes, and is 
more clearly a matter of convenience, than the circumcifion of 
males, as it feems not to have been ordained by the precept of 
any infpired legiflator. A pra(!^ice fo widely difFufed, it may be 
faid, was hardly invented but to remedy fome inconvenience 
commenfurate in its extent. But, if fo, how happens it that one 
race of idolatrous negroes, near Fur, has a habit of extracting 
two or more of the front teeth of children before puberty ? 
That it is cuftomary with another race, in the fame quarter, to 
file the teeth to a point * ? that other nations cut open a fe- 
cond mouth ? and innumerable other fmgularities which prevail 
among favages, and are as little to be reduced to any principle 
of convenience or utility. 
This excifion is termed in Arabic Chafadh and the 
perfon who performs it **iiU.. It confifts in cutting off the 
clitoris a little before the period of puberty, or at about the age 
of eight or nine years f. 
Strabo 
* This is obfervable in many of the flaves. They feem to efteem it a beauty. 
In filing the teeth, they alfo force the gums from them, to make them appear 
longer : the teeth in this cafe fulFer difcoloration, but do not appear to undergo 
a confequent decay. 
f Qui Africje aut Ari2e plagis peragratis, primi hunc exfecandi morem Occi- 
dentalibus narravere au6lores, ab ore incolarum re accepta, et novitate ejus per- 
Y Y 2 culfi. 
