common euphemism employed when speaking of two tribades who live together is that they ‘live apart.’  So much for the literary evidence as to the prevalence of what, mirable dictu, Dr. Buchanan’s gaoler was ignorant of.

“Now for facts.  In the gaol of R. the superintendent discovered a number of phalli in the females’ inclosure; they were made of clay and sun-dried and bore marks of use.  In the gaol of S. was a woman who (as is usual with tribades in India) wore male attire, and was well known for her sexual proclivities.  An examination revealed the following:  Face much lined, mammae of masculine type, but nipples elongated and readily erectile; gluteal and iliac regions quite of masculine type, as also the thighs; clitoris, with enlarged glands, readily erectile; nymphae thickened and enlarged; vulvar orifice patent, for she had in early youth been a prostitute; the voice was almost contralto.  Her partner was of low type, but eminently feminine in configuration and manner.  In this case I heard that ‘the man’ went to a local ascetic and begged his intercession with the deity, so that she might impregnate her partner. (’The Hindoo medical works mention the possibility of a woman uniting with another woman in sexual embraces and begetting a boneless fetus.’ Short History of Aryan Medical Science, p. 44.)

“In the town of D. there ‘lived apart’ two women, one a Brahmin, the other a grazier; their modus operandi was tribadism, as an eyewitness informed me.  In S. I was called in to treat the widow of a wealthy Mohammedan; I had occasion to examine the pudenda, and found what Martineau would have called the indelible stigmata of early masturbation and later sapphism.  She admitted the impeachment and confessed that she was on the best of terms with her three remarkably well-formed and good-looking handmaidens.  This lady said that she began masturbation at an early age, ’just like all other women,’ and that sapphism came after the age of puberty.  Another Mohammedan woman whom I knew, and who had a very large clitoris, told me that she had been initiated into Lesbian love at 12 by a neighbor and had intermittently practised it ever since.  I might also instance two sisters of the gardener caste, both widows, who ‘lived apart’ and indulged in simultaneous sapphism.

“That sometimes the actors in tribadism are most vigorous is shown by the fact that, in the central gaol of ——­, swelling of the vulva was admitted to have been caused by the embraces of two female convicts.  The subordinate who told me this mentioned it quite incidentally while relating his experiences as hospital assistant at this gaol.  When I questioned him he stated that the woman, whom he was called to treat, told him that she could never ‘satisfy herself’ with men, but only with women.  He added that tribadism was ‘quite common in the gaol.’”

The foregoing sketch may serve to show that homosexual practices certainly, and probably definite sexual inversion, are very widespread among women in very many and various parts of the world, though it is likely that, as among men, there are variations—­geographical, racial, national, or social—­in the frequency or intensity of its obvious manifestations.  Thus, in the eighteenth century, Casanova remarked that the women of Provence are specially inclined to Lesbianism.