that afterward one of the maidens became big with child. In the
course of time, she gave birth, and the child was like a
soft-shell turtle."

In Bali, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels),
homosexuality is almost as common among women as among men, though it is
more secretly exercised; the methods of gratification adopted are either
digital or lingual, or else by bringing the parts together (tribadism).

Baumann, who noted inversion among the male negro population of Zanzibar,
finds that it is also not rare among women. Although Oriental manners
render it impossible for such women to wear men's clothes openly, they do
so in private, and are recognized by other women by their man-like
bearing, as also by the fact that women's garments do not suit them. They
show a preference for masculine occupations, and seek sexual satisfaction
among women who have the same inclinations, or else among normal women,
who are won over by presents or other means. In addition to tribadism or
cunnilinctus, they sometimes use an ebony or ivory phallus, with a kind of
glans at one end, or sometimes at both ends; in the latter case it can be
used by two women at once, and sometimes it has a hole bored through it by
which warm water can be injected; it is regarded as an Arab invention, and
is sometimes used by normal women shut up in harems, and practically
deprived of sexual satisfaction.[151]

Among the Arab women, according to Kocher, homosexual practices are rare,
though very common among Arab men. In Egypt, however, according to Godard,
Kocher, and others, it is almost fashionable, and every woman in the harem
has a "friend." In Turkey homosexuality is sometimes said to be rare among
women. But it would appear to be found in the harems and women's baths of
Turkey, as well as of Islam generally. Brantome in the sixteenth century
referred to the Lesbianism of Turkish women at the baths, and Leo
Africanus in the same century mentioned the tribadism of Moorish women and
the formal organization of tribadic prostitution in Fez. There was an
Osmanli Sapphic poetess, Mihiri, whose grave is at Amasia, and Vambery and
Achestorides agree as to the prevalence of feminine homosexuality in
Turkey.[152] Among the negroes and mulattoes of French creole countries,
according to Corre, homosexuality is very common. "I know a lady of great
beauty," he remarks, "a stranger in Guadalupe and the mother of a family,
who is obliged to stay