CIRCUMCISION. 
351 
except by restitution ; but that is with her impossible, since 
she possesses nothing, and her parents, if they should be 
able, would not restore what they have received. 
With respect to physical suffering the fortitude dis- 
played by the women is remarkable. While pregnant they 
continue to perform the severest labours until the very last 
moment of their time. They give birth to children without 
uttering a complaint, and one would almost believe that they 
are delivered without pain, for on the following day they 
resume their usual occupations. I observed that the child 
is born white, with only a shade of yellow, and that it grows 
gradually darker until the tenth day, when it is quite black. 
The new-born infant is bathed in a calabash of tepid water, 
and not in the river as several travellers have asserted. Adults 
seldom bathe in cold water ; still less do children. The 
mothers watch over their infants with great tenderness, 
seldom trusting them to the care of others. They always 
suckle them themselves, and they carry them every where 
on their backs, fastened up in their pagne, as is the 
custom in almost all the negro countries. In all the parts 
of Africa which I have visited, boys and girls go about naked 
until the age of puberty. 
The male Mandingoes are circumcised between the age 
of fifteen and twenty. The excision which females should 
undergo when they are marriageable is often delayed until 
they are promised in marriage. I even saw a married 
woman, who, after having a child, submitted to this opera- 
tion. It is always performed by women, and on several 
patients at once, who are thereby rendered for some time 
unable to work. In this state they are taken care of by 
their mothers, who bathe the wound several times a day with 
an indigenous caustic, with the use of which they are ac- 
quainted. Their female neighbours go in quest of the wood 
and water of which they stand in need. 
The day of circumcision is always a rejoicing day. 
