120 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
law which punished the violation of women by qastration, 
and this tended much to increase the number of these 
degraded beings. The only exception to this custom was 
among the Jews, where the castration of men and animals 
was forbidden by the laws of Moses. 
There were in ancient times three species of eunuchs: 
first, the evov^og, properly speaking, was deprived of the 
whole of the organs of generation ; secondly, the 2,7ra£u>v 5 was 
deprived only of the testicles; thirdly, the OXifding, the one 
that had nothing cut off, but by compression the organs were 
rendered unfit for the secretion of the seminal fluid. The 
operation was performed by the tonsores or barbers, and also 
by the mangonoes (eunuch-dealers), and sometimes by the 
medical men; and being done often without the slightest pre¬ 
caution, many fell a sacrifice to it, particularly when the 
whole of the organs were extirpated.- The operation was 
performed at any time of life, but more frequently during 
childhood. Aristotle describes the effects of the operation, 
and distinguishes the difference produced on the young and 
adults; which proves that at tbat time castration was per¬ 
formed on children and men without distinction. Most of 
the children were operated upon while at the breast of the 
mother. At a period nearer to our time w r e still find the 
operation in practice in divers parts of the old continent. 
Thus Tavernier informs us that the king of Boutan, in the 
Himalaya, sells yearly 20,000 eunuchs in the neighbouring 
markets. According to the brothers Abbadie, who travelled 
in Abyssinia from 1838 to 1845, in the wars of those coun¬ 
tries all the prisoners are thus mutilated. But it is in those 
countries subjected to Islamism that the practice mostly pre¬ 
vails. There, as every one knows, the eunuchs are found 
in great numbers. They are principally employed to guard 
the harems, and the traffic is continued in our time the same 
as formerly. They come from Upper Egypt and Nubia; 
but what is not generally known is, that the Coptic Christian 
monks prepare the victims of this shameful commerce, and 
thus supply the Mussulman world with eunuchs. They buy 
for this purpose young negroes from six to nine years old, 
which are brought by the caravans of Sennaar or Darfour. 
They operate on them in the most barbarous manner, by 
amputating at one cut the whole of the organs of generation; 
after which they bury them up to their bellies in sand for 
twenty-four hours, when they are taken out and dressed with 
an ointment composed of loam and oil. One fourth of them 
die from the operation, which tends to fill the immense 
cemeterv annexed to the convent of these barbarous and 
V 
