Page 472

Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places

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Cape of Good Hope (continued) In regard to the Sinus Pudoris, that grand Quaere of Natural historians, Many whoom I askd both Dutch and Malays declard positively that it did not at all exist, and several of these Assurd me that they had during intrigues with Hottentot women had an opportunity of knowing which they had made use of. One however declard that something he had met with but what it was he could not tell; and above all a physician of the place declard that he had curd many Hundred Hottentot women of venereal Complaints, and that he never saw one without what he describd to be fleshy or rather skinny appendages proceeding from the upper part of the Labia, in appearance somewhat like Cows teats but flat which hung pendulous; these were very various in lengh, in some scarce half an inch, in others three or four; that those, which were the only particularities he knew of in those women, he apprehended to be what a[u]thours have calld sinus pudoris, tho some have describd it as a large skin equal to a garment for all purposes of Voyaging Accounts © Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 571, February 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-472.html