58 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

depend at all on this part of the female form, but include all in her facilitates occuUcb. After the first child-ljearing, the abdomen, before so delicately arched, is disfigured bj knobs and wrinkles, to an extent that as far as my brother's medical experience went, he had never known common among white women ; and this appearance among the women of these races, plainly declared, that they marry and bear children ere their bodies are fully matured. Nothing arrives at such sound maturity in these warm climes, where all develops itself so infinitely quicker than in cooler lands, and this rapid development, especially during child-bearing,— an epoch of evolution, which even with our matured women forces the body into all fulness of bloom,~works doubly injuriously on these half-matured girl-mothers. Nature and bodily power have both been overtasked ; then comes the long suckling, the exclusive conversion of the small supply of nourishment to the use of the child, at the expense of the mother's body, which afterwards cannot recover its exhausted powers, or gather sufficient strength to return to its former state. The extension of the skin and enlargement of the vessels are too sudden and rapid for the diminished powers of contraction to bring them back to a normal state ; and herein lies, aided by the ever bad food, tlie continued consumption of vital power, which evidently, in every warm climate, produces that rapid advent of old age and ugliness among the women, as is only too plainly the case, even among the boasted beauties of Greece and Circassia.

As an exception, and perhaps from a feeling of good neighbourhood, the Sheik Defalla sent us to-day some sweet milk, but it had already been drawn some two hours, was firm, and in this state tasted well here, though it had neither the slight sourness, refreshing flavour, nor slight coating of cream, like our fresh milk, but a much sweeter taste. So rapidly and inexplicably does each change of health and body go on here, that at noon to-day both myself and brother were well again, and eat with excellent appetites ; but after a short siesta which we took (when our meal was over), I awoke with strong fever, without being able in the most distant way to account for it. The great difference of temperature between day and night has, however, brought catarrhs and coughs on one-half the inmates of our camp, although it has hardly gone