themselves occasionally in fishing, in collecting swallows’
nests and the Biches de mer among the neighbouring islands,
as luxuries for the use of their own great men, but more
particularly as articles of export for the China market; in
felling timber ; building and repairing ships and boats, and a
few other occupations which, however, they take care shall
not engross their whole time, but contrive to leave a considerable
portion of it unemployed, or employed only in the
pursuit of some favourite amusement; for they are not by
any means of an idle disposition. But the activity and the
industry of the women are so unabating, their pursuits so
varied, and the fatigue they undergo so harassing; that the
Cochinchinese apply to them the same proverbial expression
which we confer on a cat, observing that a woman, having
nine lives, bears a great deal of killing. I t is evident indeed
from the whole tenor of their conduct, that the men, even in
the common ranks of life, consider the other sex as destined
for their u se; and those in a higher station, as subservient to
their pleasures. The number of wives or of concubines,
which a man may find it expedient to take, is not limited
by any law or ru le; but here, as in China, the first in
point of date claims precedence and takes the lead in all
domestic concerns. The terms on which the parties are
united are not more easy than those by which they may be
separated. To break a sixpence between two parting lovers
is considered, among the peasantry of some of the counties
in England, as an avowal and pledge of unalterable fidelity-.
In Cochinchina, the breaking of one of their copper coins or
a pair of chop-sticks between man and wife, before proper
witnesses, is considered as a dissolution of their former compact,
and the act of separation.
In China the men have sedulously and successfully inculcated
the doctrine, that a well-bred woman should never be
seen abroad ; that she should confine herself constantly to her
own apartments ; that in the presence of even her nearest
male relations she should not expose her neck and her hands,
to prevent which her gown is buttoned up close to the chin,
and its sleeves hang down below the .knee : and so craftily
have they contrived their precepts to operate, that the silly
women have actually been prevailed on to consider a physical
defect which confines them to the house as a fashionable
accomplishment. Here, in this respect, there is a total difference
with regard to the sex. So far from the Cochinchinese
women being deprived of the free usé of their limbs
or their liberty, they have the enjoyment of both to the fullest
extent. It certainly was not in Cochinchina w'here Eudoxus,
in his travels, is said to have observed the feet of the women
to be so small, that they might with propriety be distinguished
by the name; of the “ Ostrich-footed ;” foeminis plantas adeo
parvas ut Struthopodes appellentur ; as, by their bustling
about with naked feet, they become unusually large and
spreading ; but the name might aptly enough be applied
to the feet of the Chinese ladies, whose undefined and lumpish
form is not unlike the foot of the ostrich.
Extremes often approximate. The same cause which in
China has operated this total seclusion of the sex from SOJl
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