DANCES — IMMODESTY OF THE WOMEN — EDUCATION. 57 
his drum, than every one is animated, and tries to follow 
the movements of the instrument by a thousand contortions 
made in cadence. The dancers keep time by clapping- their 
hands. The spectators, to encourage them, throw their gar- 
ments at their feet, as the most signal token of admiration. 
Lasciviousness presides over these sports. The ball commences 
with the night ; the moon furnishes light, and day-break puts 
an end to it, and invites the musicians and dancers to repose. 
Can we give the name of marriage to a union that is almost 
fortuitous, where a man forsakes one day the wife whom he 
has taken on the preceding ? Modesty is not a conspicuous 
virtue among the women of this country ; all their actions 
announce that they have not the slightest sense of it ; they 
even bathe in public without any covering ; while the men 
perform their ablutions in private. 
The education of the children cannot fail to be extremely 
vicious, when they have such baneful examples always before 
them. There is more decency, however, among the boys than 
the girls ; a difference which proceeds from a very natural cause ; 
the former are under the superintendence of their fathers, or 
shut up in the schools of the Marabouts, while the others are 
abandoned to the care of their mothers, by whose principles and 
conduct they are consequently influenced. 
In the kingdom of Cayor, as well as in almost the whole of 
Nigritia, uncles shew the same affection for their nephews as for 
I 
