Gimoro had been very unfortunate in losing his children when young, and
I understood that the mortality was very great among all infants from
two years old to five.
I attribute this to the absurd custom of public night nurseries.
According to the population of the village, there are certain houses
built upon pedestals or stone supports about three feet from the ground.
In the clay wall of the circular building is a round hole about a foot
in diameter; this is the only aperture.
At sunset, when the children have been fed, they are put to bed in the
simplest manner, by being thrust headforemost through the hole in the
wall, assisted, if refractory, by a smack behind, until the night
nursery shall have received the limited number. The aperture is then
stopped up with a bundle of grass if the nights are cool.
The children lie together on the clay floor like a litter of young
puppies, and breathe the foulest air until morning, at which time they
are released from the suffocating oven, to be suddenly exposed to the
chilly daybreak. Their naked little bodies shiver round a fire until the
sun warms them, but the seeds of diarrhoea and dysentery have already
been sown.
