instance, have not only the mortification of being obliged to eat by
themselves, and in a different part of the house from the men, but,
by a strange kind of policy, are excluded from a share of most of
the better sorts of food. They dare not taste turtle, nor fish of the
tunny kind, which is much esteemed; nor some particular sorts of the
best plantains; and it is very seldom that even those of the first
rank are suffered to eat pork. The children of each sex also eat
apart; and the women generally serve up their own victuals; for they
would certainly starve before any grown man would do them such an
office. In this, as well as in some other customs relative to their
eating, there is a mysterious conduct which we could never thoroughly
comprehend. When we enquired into the reasons of it, we could get no
other answer, but that it is right and necessary that it should be so.

In other customs respecting the females, there seems to be no such
obscurity; especially as to their connexions with the men. If a young
man and woman, from mutual choice, cohabit, the man gives the father
of the girl such things as are necessary in common life; as hogs,
cloth, or canoes, in proportion to the time they are together; and, if
he thinks that he has not been sufficiently paid for his daughter, he
makes no scruple of forcing her to leave her friend, and to cohabit
with another person who may be more liberal. The man, on his part, is
always at liberty to make a new choice; but, should his consort become
pregnant, he may kill the child; and, after that, either continue his
connexion with the mother, or leave her. But if he should adopt the
child, and suffer it to live, the parties are then considered as
in the married state, and they commonly live together ever after.
However, it is thought no crime in the man to join a more youthful
partner to his first wife, and to live with both. The custom of
changing their connexions is, however, much more general than this
last; and it is a thing so common, that they speak of it with great
indifference. The _Erreoes_ are only those of the better sort, who,
from their fickleness, and their possessing the means of purchasing
a succession of fresh connexions, are constantly roaming about; and,
from having no particular attachment, seldom adopt the more settled
method mentioned above. And so agreeable is this licentious plan of
life to their disposition, that the most beautiful of both sexes thus
commonl