adduced to Ihew that the aflertion is without any foundation
in truth. Numbers of BcJsjefmans’ women are now in the
colony who were taken from their mothers when infants, and
brought up by the farmers, who, from the day o f their captivity,
have never had any intercourfe whatfoever with their
countrymen, nor know, except from report, to what tribe or
nation they belong ; yet all thefe have the fame conformation
of the parts naturally, and without any forced'means. The
ftory of their perpending pieces of ftone in order to draw down
the interior labia, is ftill popular in Bruyntjes Hoogte, where
the author above alluded to received it. It was here that he
fpent the greateft part of his time with his Narina; for at that
time a tribe o f Ghonaquas lay on a plain bordering on the
Great-Fiih river. The vifit of this gentleman is ftill very well
remembered there, though: he takes care to fupprefs any mention
of the country being inhabited by colonifts, which, he
fuppofed, would have diminiflied the intereft he intended to
excite. It may be obferved that the people o f Bruyntjes
Hoogte know as little of the Bosjefmans as thefe do o f the
Englilh, the communication being pretty much the fame.
The fame author fays it was from a Hottentot woman he made
his drawing. I f the print given in his book has been copied
from that drawing, it Ihould feem to have been a ftudy rather
from his own imagination than from nature.
The elongated nymphs are found in all Hottentot women,
only they are fliorter in thofe o f the colony, feldom exceeding
three inches, and in many fubjeCts appearing only as a projecting
orifice or elliptical tube o f an inch, or lefs, in length.
In
In the bajliidrd. it,ceafes;to- appear; a proof that a connection
with different nations counteracts tiie predifpofition to fuch a
conformation.
It is not, however, to the fouthern angle pf Africa alone that
th,e fame predifpofition for the elongation of the nymphs is
Confined, The phyfical caufes that tend to the production of
fo extraordinary an effeCt operated in parts of Egypt, fituated
under the fame and oppofite parallels of latitude as the Hottentot,
country. It was here, however, confidered as a difeafe, an
appearance fo deformed and difgnfting, that thofe who were
troubled with it were glad to undergo the violent pain of the
aCtual cautery in order to get. rid of it.
The great,curvature of the fpine inwards, and extended
ppfteriors, are charaderiftic of the whole Hottentot race ; but
in fome of the fmall Bosjefmans they are carried to a mod
extravagant degree. If the letter S be confidered as one ex-
preflion of the line of beauty to which degrees of approximation
are admiflible, thefe women are entitled to the firft rank
in point of form. A fedion of the body, from the breaft to
the knee, forms really the ihape of the above letter. The pro-
jedion of the pofterior part of the body, in one fubjed, mea-
fured five inches and a half from a line touching the fpine.
This protuberance confifted of fat, and, when the woman
walked, had the moft ridiculous appearance imaginable, every
ftep being accompanied with a quivering and tremulous motion
as if two mafles of jelly were attached behind.
o o When