276 
EXPOSING OF CIIILDDREN. 
means df them that they cure rheumatisms, catarrhs, and such cuta- 
neous disorders as are produced by want of perspiration. By the 
resource they get rid of that uncomfortable feeling so common 
to all nations who do not pay attention to the cleanliness of their 
bodies. 
Mr. Tournefort, indeed, who had used steam-baths at Constan- 
tinople, where there is less refinement in them than at Cairo, is of 
opinion that they injure the breast : but, according to Mr. Savary, 
this is an error which further experience would have corrected. Tliere 
are no people who make more frequent use of them than the Egyp- 
tians, and there is no country where there are fewer asthmatic peo- 
ple : the asthma is hardly known there. The women are fond of 
these baths, frequent them once a week, and take with them slaves 
pi'Operly qualified to assist them. More luxurious than the men, 
after undergoing the usual preparations, they wash their bodies, and, 
above all, their heads, with rose-water. It is there that female head- 
dressers form their long black hair into tresses, which they mix with 
precious essences, instead of powder and pomatum. It is there that 
they blacken the edge of their eye-lids, and lengthen their eye-brows 
with cohel, a preparation of tar burnt with gall-nuts ; it is there they 
stain the finger and toe nails with henne, a shrub common in Europe, 
and which gives them a golden colour. The linen and clothing they 
make use of, are passed through the sweet steam of the wood of 
aloes ; and when the work of the toilet is at an end, they remain in 
the outer apartment, and pass the day in entertainments. Their 
women entertain them with voluptuous songs and dances, or tell them 
tales of love. 
Exposing or Children. 
This w'as a barbarous custom practised by most ancient nations, 
excepting die Thebans, who had an express law, whereby it was 
made capital to expose children, and ordained that such as were 
not in condition to educate them should bring them to the magis- 
trates, to be brought up at the public expense. Among the other 
Greeks, when a child was born, it was laid on the ground ; and if 
the father designed to educate his child, he immediately took it up ; 
but if he forbore to do this, ’the child was carried away and exposed. 
The Lacedemonians indeed had a different custom ; for with them 
all new-born children were brought before some of the gravest men 
in their own tribes, by whom the infants were carefully viewed ; and 
if they w^ere found lusty and well-favoured, they gave orders for their 
education, and allotted a certain proportion of land for their main- 
tenance ; but if weakly or deformed, they ordered them to be cast 
into a deep cavern near mount Taygenus, thinking it neither for the 
good of the children themselves, nor for the public interest, that 
.such should be brought up. Many exposed their children only 
because they were not in a condition to educate them, having no 
intention that they should perish. It was the unhappy fate of 
daughters especially to be thus treated, as requiring more to educate 
and settle them the w^orld than sons. 
