STAY AT SAY 311 a white man like ourselves, and of all our guests he was perhaps the only disinterested one, if we say nothing about the sugar.

Amongst the Koyraberos, it is the children, boys or girls, who are the most attractive. The little negroes are innocent enough up to twelve or thirteen years old, and are often very bright and intelligent. But when they reach the age at which they are considered men and women, the indulgence of their passions brutalizes the males, whilst the females are worn out by the number of children they all have. The fatalism of the Mahommedans gives them also something of the wan expression of oxen who expect they know not what. I believe the negro race might be very greatly improved by the careful selection of children before they are subjected to evil influences.

A careful education of such selected boys and girls would, in the course of a few generations, result in the growing up of useful citizens and intelligent workers for the common good.

It may be that the decline in the intelligence of negroes is partly the result of the way the children are carried about in infancy by their mothers. They ride pig-a-back all day long, kept in place by a cotton band fastened above the breasts of the mother, who takes no notice of them even when they cry. The women do everything, wash, beat the linen, cook and pound the grain, with their children tied to them in this fashion. The head of the poor little one comes out above the bandage, and is shaken and flung backwards and forwards at every blow of the pestle. It really is very likely that this perpetual motion injures the brain of the growing child, and accounts for the degeneration of the race.

However that may be, the constant pressure on the breasts of the mother leads to their rapid disfigurement ;