In surveying the social aspects of the barbarian world, we discover many striking phenomena. The relations of the sexes, among uneducated races, appear modified by every circumstance of their position; but everywhere the natural ascendancy of the strong over the weak is displayed. A few savage communities allow women a position nearly level with that of the men; but wherever this is the case, a degree of civilization has been attained.

If we divide mankind into two classes—the civilized and the savage—forming an ideal of both extremes, we shall not find one tribe or community to occupy either pole of our supposed sphere. No one requires to be told that every part of the human race is still below the perfect development of its good attributes; but the observation is equally true, though less generally accepted, that every family of creatures showing our nature has advanced beyond the utterly savage state. When we find men wandering not only unclothed, but unhoused, over the earth, and following only their animal propensities, we may regard them as wholly untaught. At present no such tribe is known. Every human being that has come under our notice has progressed beyond the simple gratification of his appetites. The love of ornament and the practice of exchange have raised him one step in the scale.

The Africans, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the ruder tribes of the Pacific Isles, the Dyaks of Borneo, and the natives of Sumatra and Celebes, with the Indians of North and South America, may be included under the appellation barbarous. They vary, however, in the characteristics of their barbarism, as the nations of Europe vary in the characteristics of their civilization. They are even divided into classes. (1) The hunters, with little property in the soil, precarious means of existence, and migratory habits; the fishers, who are only the hunters of the sea; (2) the pastoral tribes, with property in herds and flocks, nomade, and therefore little property in the soil; (3) the agricultural tribes, permanently or temporarily fixed to localities, whose means of life are less precarious, and whose habits are more regular than those of the two former. The third is the most educated, the second the most innocent, the first the most simple state. It is among the shepherds that women enjoy most consideration, and that morality is highest. The hunters are more savage, and the tillers of the earth more sensual.

In judging the condition of the female sex, it is always necessary to hold in view the general state of manners. When we inquire how husbands behave to their wives, and how parents treat their daughters, we must ask also how they live themselves. Where the male sex is degraded the female will be so. On the other hand, the refinement of any people may be estimated by the condition of its women. The islanders of Celebes are among the most elevated of barbarian races, and the sexes are nearly on an equality. The hordes of Western Africa are the most gross and ferocious of savages, and their women are treated as reptiles. The Indians of North America offer, apparently, an exception to this rule, for their lofty, proud, and polished warriors behave contemptuously to the squaws in their wigwam, who crouch to the earth while their lords stand haughtily before the most powerful conquerors. But the Choctaws and the Cherokees are in reality as far removed from true civilization as the dwellers in New Zealand. The amenities and not the arts of life civilize men. Wherever in the Indian village the gentler influences of humanity prevail, the feebler sex is treated with respect and affection.

The points of contrast between barbarian and civilized races display themselves strongly in relation to the condition of the female sex. Throughout the savage portions of Africa one system of manners prevails. The men occupy the lowest stage of the social scale. They are neither hunters, fishers, shepherds, nor tillers of the soil; but mix up several occupations, though none of an elevating character. Some raise a few materials of food; others collect ivory in the woods; others live on the profits of the slave-trade; but the greater number subsist on the refuse of what they gain in the service of their petty kings. They have been sophisticated from the simplicity of savages without acquiring one grace from civilization. Subject to the gross caprice of princes more miserable than themselves, they have remained beyond the reach of every humanizing influence, and, as a natural consequence, their women are debased. Polygamy produces its worst results. The wife is an object of barter; a slave, whose labour assists to support her owner. In some parts diligence is more valued than chastity. In others the husband makes a profit from his wife’s prostitution. The slave trade has assisted largely towards this melancholy state of manners. The finer sentiments of humanity are altogether lost, and the contempt for life, as well as for all that is amiable or pure, has reduced men far below the level of the brute creation. We speak literally in saying that a nobler, happier spectacle is presented among the antelope and elephant herds than among the swarms of men and women corrupting in Africa. In the few parts where the male sex has risen from this debasement, the female has been equally improved. The barbarous Edeeyahs offer an example.

The savages of Australia differ in many respects from those of Western Africa. They are even less educated, but they are also less ferocious; their women are their abject servitors, but there is more humanity in their treatment. They have scarcely approached so near to the forms of regular society, as to systematize the intercourse of the sexes. Nevertheless, among some tribes we not only find the institution of marriage respected, but wives guarded with Turkish jealousy. Among a people which does not dwell in regular habitations, or even lodge in roomy tents, it is scarcely possible to imagine the sanctity of a man’s harem; but it is true, notwithstanding, that a similar seclusion is enforced. The Australian woman, in the desert and under the open sky, is hedged round by her husband’s jealousy as securely as the ancient German was in her unwalled shelter of thatch.

It is seldom, however, that among barbarous races we find the sentiment of chastity in its abstract sense. Women are generally treated as though their inclinations were licentious, and in this consists one great line of distinction between civilization and barbarism. With the one, moral influence—with the other, material force, is employed as the guardian of female honour. The result is important to be noticed. Women are depraved by the rude and gross means devised to keep them virtuous. Where the moral sentiment is feebly developed, guilt is created by the efforts made to prevent it. The wife perpetually watched, as though her heart were full of adultery, becomes an adulteress. The young girl continually guarded, with the avowed object of compelling her to be chaste, loses insensibly any natural feeling she may have possessed, and covets the opportunity to sin.

In the South Sea Islands this truth is illustrated; in New Zealand it is still more strongly proved. It is taken for granted that a woman will prostitute herself if she can. The state of morality is consequently so low that it is difficult for parents to preserve a daughter’s virtue until she is given in marriage. To prevent her holding vicious intercourse she is forbidden to hold any intercourse with the opposite sex.

Another characteristic of civilized races is the separation of the vicious from the moral classes; they systematize the offences against society. Every class of vile persons becomes, as it were, an isolated community; the prostitute is segregated from the rest of her sex. In some barbarian states, as in Dahomey, the same division is effected; but the kings of that country have sought to mimic the forms of educated communities. The professional is distinguished from the habitual prostitute only by her open assumption of the title; but the immorality of the female sex in Dahomey is far from being represented by the order of confessed harlots.

The inhabitants of some islands, and the shores of bays and roadsteads, have discovered that in prostituting their women to the crews of trading ships they have a readier means of subsistence than was offered by their former industry. This has produced a frightful system of vicious commerce, which still prevails to a great extent in the Pacific, as well as in New Zealand and the ports of Africa. It is for Europeans to repair the evil created by the incontinence of their predecessors. Many captains of vessels have already effected much good by forbidding women to come on board.

In proportion as nations approach the higher stages of civilization does the respect for human life increase. Infanticide is practised with the least remorse by the most savage tribes. Among those communities with whom the means of existence are precarious this crime is most common. Wherever barbarians have been induced to labour, and secured in the enjoyment of their earnings, the natural feelings of the breast have revived; and mothers who have slain six infants cherish the seventh as a sacred possession. Missionary enterprise has produced much good in this respect; while the beneficent rule of our Indian government has bestowed incalculable blessings on the people of the East, among whom the system of infanticide is daily becoming rarer, and the condition of women more elevated.

The same may be remarked of that unnatural practice upon which, as indeed on all kindred subjects, writers are reluctant to touch—that, we mean, of destroying the unborn fruits of union. The savage regards it as an act rather meritorious for its ingenuity than abominable for its unnatural character. The cause that encourages infanticide encourages this, which, indeed, is the less horrible crime. The woman is less reluctant to extinguish the vitality of a being which has become to her dear only in anticipation, than to quench a life which has once been embodied before her eyes, and warmed in her bosom. The operation, so dangerous to females in civilized communities, is, like childbirth, far easier among savages. The native of the Bornean woods, without any of the delicacy engendered by luxury, may one moment be without a pang giving birth to an infant, and the next be washing it in a neighbouring brook. The Malayan lady, bred in a city in indolence and comfort, suffers agony under which she sometimes perishes before her offspring has breathed. So it is with the practice of destroying the unborn child. Civilization lessens in all creatures their means of independent life, and their powers of endurance; but it also enables them to discover or compound the elements by which these artificial ills may be remedied.

In proportion as the intercourse of the sexes is loose is the difficulty of learning the actual extent of immoral practices. The prostitute class, as we proceed from the pure savage to the highest point of civilization, becomes more and more distinct—being more conspicuous because more isolated. This is accompanied by another process, which is a superior standard by which to measure the social elevation of a people. Women respect themselves in proportion as men respect them. Where locks and bolts, scourges and cudgels, are the guardians of female chastity, it is only preserved when there is no opportunity to lose it. When the protecting influence springs from within, the woman moves a virtuous being, defended even from a licentious glance by the impenetrable cloud which her native modesty and virtue diffuse around her.

Of Prostitution among African Nations.

In the wide field of inquiry presented by the barbarian races of our own time, Africa occupies a prominent place. Some of the most wild and savage tribes of the human family are to be found on that immense peninsula. Many degrees in the inferior scale of civilization are represented, from the uncouth Hottentots of the south to the wandering Arabs of the desert, in whose blameless lives we have a picture of original simplicity—not far removed from the real refinement, though very far from the vices, of the most polished among the communities of Europe. The inquiry we have made into the condition of women and the state of manners in Africa, has confirmed us in our opinion, which is supported also by many circumstances observed among other races of men. The medium of refinement is accompanied by the least immorality. As in our own, among other civilized states, the ratio of profligacy is greatest at the opposite poles of society—the wealthiest and the most indigent—so in Africa it is among the basest savages and among the most highly polished communities that immorality prevails to the greatest extent. The brutal hordes on the western coast, with the populations of the half-civilized cities of the north, abound in vices, while the barbarian though innocent communities, with the wandering dwellers in the desert, are characterised by manners far more pure.

In ranging over Africa in search of facts to complete the present inquiry, we meet with numerous tribes belonging to seven separate races of mankind: the Hottentot, the Kaffir, the Negro, the Moor, the Abyssinian, the Arab, and the Copts or descendants of the true Egyptian stock. Among each of these we perceive some varieties of manners; but everywhere in Africa one circumstance is prominent—the degraded condition of the female sex. The women of Cairo and Algiers are in comparison treated with little more refinement than those of some purely savage states; but we shall not include such communities among the barbarian races, reserving Egypt and some of the other countries characterised by a mongrel civilization for separate notices. We may, as far as our present inquiry goes, present the subject clearly and without confusion by making a geographical arrangement, and, commencing from the south, pass over the continent, until we encounter a form of civilization in the valley of the Lower Nile.

The condition of women generally in heathen countries is degraded. As we proceed through Africa this truth will be strongly illustrated. Commencing with the Hottentots of the south, we find them a dissolute profligate race, who have been so from the earliest period. It was remarked in 1655 by Van Riebeck, when the chiefs, departing on a distant expedition, were urged to leave their women behind, they replied “that their wives must be with them everywhere so as to be kept from the other men.” It was remarked also in 1840 by Colonel Napier, who describes them as proverbially unchaste. Polygamy, at the early period referred to, was prevalent. Men bought their wives—sometimes from their wealthier, sometimes from their poorer, neighbours; but all alliances between persons of near kindred were held in utter abhorrence. Indecency and lewdness are their characteristics, for though now accustomed to clothing, it is no uncommon thing for them, when drunk at their festivals, to strip naked and perform lascivious dances, to music of the rudest harmony. Many among them appear to prostitute themselves readily to strangers, some from inclination, others for money, many for a gift of finery; but in what numbers this disreputable class exists we have no means of knowing[42]. A superior order, however, is scattered among these degraded creatures, and many lively, intelligent, and well-conducted women have attracted the notice of travellers.

The pastoral Kaffirs are perhaps a more moral though a more ferocious people than the Hottentots. They are, indeed, superior in mental and physical characteristics, being more addicted to arms, and less to debauch. They also, however, practise polygamy, and buy their wives for so many head of cattle. Among them, as well as among the Bechuanas, the girls undergo a probation before marriage, during which they live apart, and hold no intercourse with their tribe except through an old woman. Sichele, king of the Bechuanas, had numerous wives, of whom one was a favourite; but he granted each a separate hut, so that his palace was a kind of village surrounded by a fence. They punish theft in a woman by twisting dry grass round her fingers and burning them to the bone. Wandering from place to place in tent-shaped temporary huts, they carry their women with them, and condemn them to domestic labour. Even the chief’s wives assist in grinding the corn, and tending their husband’s nomade household. Divorce is easy, on very slight grounds. We occasionally hear of women committing what is termed fornication, but no professed class of prostitutes has been described. As among all nations practising polygamy, marriage is not held as a sacred tie; but adultery on the wife’s part is severely punished as an infraction of the social law. The bonds of natural affection appear extremely weak among the Kaffir tribes. Men are inspired by an inclination, not an attachment, to their wives, and mothers possess less affection for their children than is observed even in the Australian savage. The weak and sickly are sometimes abandoned, to save the expense or trouble of their support. Mrs. Ward knew of a woman who, having a little daughter in a decline, buried it alive, to be rid of the burden. The little creature, imperfectly interred, burst from its grave and ran home. Again it was forced into the hole, again it escaped, and a third time it was removed to the earth; once more, however, it struggled till free, and, flying to its mother’s hut, was at last received, and ultimately recovered. Such instances of inhumanity are not rare among the Kaffir tribes, whose passion for blood and war seems to have blunted some of their natural sentiments. Husbands, when their wives are sick, frequently drag them into a neighbouring thicket, where they are left to die, and women continually do the same with their poor offspring. It is important, however, to mention, that in the instances of Kaffirs converted to Christianity their manners undergo a most favourable modification. One of them was known to Mrs. Ward who had refused to take a second wife, in deference to the moral law laid down by the interpreters of his adopted religion; and, where the conversion is sincere, they always manifest an inclination to practise the manners of the white men[43].

In the rude maritime region extending from the countries on the border of the Cape territory as far as the Senegal, a set of characteristic features is universally marked on the people, varied though their nationality be. Differences, of course, prevail among the numerous tribes in the several states; but the impress of African civilization is there all but uniform.

Those between the tropics, especially, are absorbed in licentiousness. Morality is a strange idea to them. Polygamy is universally practised, and in most places without limitation; while nowhere is a man restrained by the social law from intercourse with any number of females he chooses. The result is that women are, for the most part, looked upon as a marketable commodity; that the pure and exalted sentiment of love is utterly unknown; and that even the commonest feelings of humanity appear absent from among them. Husbands, for instance, on the Gold Coast, are known to prostitute their wives to others for a sum of money. This is an open transaction. In other places, however, where the adulterer pays a fine to the husband he has injured, we find men allowing their wives an opportunity to be unfaithful, in order to obtain the price of the crime. Throughout, indeed, the gloomy and savage states, sheltered by the woods bordering the Niger, and over the whole western coast, mankind appears in its uncouthest form. Human nature, degraded by perpetual war against itself, rots at the feet of a gross superstition. As we have said, the result is developed in various modifications of barbarian manners.

When Laird, in 1832, visited the Niger, he found the condition of the female sex upon its borders most humiliating. In the dominions of King Boy polygamy was unlimited, and the wives reduced to slavery in their own homes. The people dwelling on the banks of the Lower Niger may be described, in fact, as among the most idle, ignorant, and profligate in Africa. The prince himself set the example to his subjects. He possessed 140 wives and concubines, of whom one was no more than thirteen years of age, whom he had purchased for a few muskets and a piece of cloth. Half a dozen enjoyed the distinction of favourites; one of them was more than 25 stones in weight. The mother of this pluralist was maintained in her son’s palace, where she amused the court by dances of the most revolting and obscene description. No care was, in any respect, taken to preserve a sense of virtue in the king’s harem; but adultery was, nevertheless, punished with death. This appears the case in most countries where shame holds no check on immorality; it may, indeed, be taken in some measure as an index to the state of manners where crimes against chastity are visited with public infamy alone, or with legal penalties. In the dominions of Boy, one wife, at least, was expected to attend her husband, even when dead. The chosen victim was bound and thrown into the river; a mode of death preferable to that practised at Calabar, on the coast, where the miserable woman is buried alive. In the kingdom of Fundals, when a chief died leaving fifteen women in his harem, the king selected one to be hung over the tomb, and transferred the rest to his own palace; nevertheless, a few of these enjoyed an independent existence. One lively intelligent woman possessed an estate of land and 200 slaves, whom she employed in trade. Industry flourished, there being small competition, as a more idle demoralized people than the dwellers on the Niger as far as Ebo cannot be imagined.

Above that place, where the land is less marshy and more favourable to cultivation, the natives are more intelligent, more addicted to agriculture, more manly in their habits, and in proportion more kind and respectful to their women. Polygamy, it is true, prevails, as it does all over Western Africa, but the sex is somewhat raised above a mere instrument of sensual gratification. In other directions the old features are resumed. The Bambarras, a Pagan people, marry as many wives as they can support; and the Mandingoes, who are only allowed four, treat them as slaves, though they love their children.

The native of Western Africa, in most cases, looks upon his wife, in one respect as a source of pleasure, in another as a source of gain, reckoning her as property to the amount she can earn by labour. In the institution of marriage, therefore, it may easily be conceived that no sacred tie is acknowledged. It is merely a civil contract, to be dissolved at will. The man sends a present to the woman’s father; if a virgin, she exchanges her leathern girdle for a cloth wrapped about the loins, and a little merry-making consummates the transaction. This account applies especially to the Tilatates. In Yarriba and Bughor, when a woman finds herself enceinte, she is obliged to inform her husband, or suffer a public whipping when the discovery is made. This custom refers, there is no doubt, to a feature in the morals of the people. Mothers, also, are forced to suckle their children until three years old, and punished if, during that period, they cohabit with a man.

Strange inconsistencies occasionally display themselves in the manners of these unintellectual barbarians. They have introduced a feature of Asiatic luxury, by having eunuchs to guard their seraglios, while instances occur in which the uncouth savage professes a sentiment of attachment. The King of Attah told Lander that he loved him as he loved the wife who shared his bed. Yet he was a polygamist, and a sensualist. In Abookir the prince was continually multiplying the inmates of his harem, and having many daughters, had numbers of wives younger than they. Girls of eleven years old are there considered marriageable.

Regarded as a mere social contract, temporary or otherwise, marriage, in this region, is held among the most ordinary occurrences of life. A man arriving at the age of 20 takes one wife, and then another, increasing the number from four to 100, as his circumstances allow. Many women, even under this system, cannot procure husbands. This, however, we must not ascribe so much to a vast preponderance of the female sex over the male, as to the fact that thousands of men take no permanent partners at all. It may, perhaps, be safe to assert that, of the single men, none remain without intercourse with women, and of the unmarried women, that not one preserves her chastity. The idea of that virtue appears foreign to those races. Adultery, indeed, is held a crime, but not so much against morals as against the husband. A wife suspected of it is compelled to drink a decoction called Sassy water, which poisons her, unless she bribes the priest to render it harmless by dilution, in which case she is pronounced innocent. The widow, even, who has been known to live on bad terms with her husband is forced, among the tribes on the banks of the Lower Niger, to undergo this ordeal. An illicit connection with the king’s wife, however, is punished with death to both parties, while among the chiefs the fine of a slave is exacted. Every woman, except the consort of royalty, has thus her market value, which is greatly increased if her friends fatten her up to a colossal size. Men frequently buy slender girls at a cheap rate, and feed them to a proper obesity before taking them as companions. Marriage, or concubinage, may be entered on at the age of thirteen, and so universal is the system in this part of Africa, that the sex seems absolutely wedded to its degradation.

Among the people of Ibu a singular custom exists. When twins are born they are immediately exposed to wild beasts. The mother, compelled to go through a long course of purification and penance, is thenceforward an outlaw, disgraced among the women, who hold up two fingers as she passes, to remind her of the misfortune:—she is at once divorced from her husband.

Though thus reduced to slavery by the other sex, women, among these tribes, enjoy a certain degree of freedom, which is a mitigation of their miserable state. Married without their own consent, they are sold to a husband for from 26s. and upwards, and thenceforward become his servants. Yet the favourite wives of the rich, exempt from toil, are allowed to amuse themselves in various ways, and even to walk about unveiled, under the guard of an eunuch. Men never eat with their wives, and often treat them brutally, bewailing the loss of a slave far more than the death of a wife, unless she happens to please the caprice of the hour. It is among the poorest that most freedom is allowed, and among those tribes who have intercourse with Europeans that most ferocity prevails. Some dig the soil, some attend to the household, some support their husbands by the profits of a petty retail trade, while others, kept for his gratification, are allowed to idle. These favoured ones are often slaves. A handsome young one often sells for from 60,000 to 120,000 cowries (from 3l. 15s. to 7l. 10s.[44]), while the price of a common wife is only 20,000 cowries (25s.). Frequently, the man’s inclination changes its direction, and he sells one girl to purchase another. With many of the kings and chiefs a continual trade in women is common. King Bell, of the Cameroons, for instance, had more than 100 wives, and his wealth was increased by their numbers. In his dominions the young maidens had considerable liberty, sporting in the fields, and enjoying, for a few years, comparative independence of the men[45].

In the kingdom of Dahomey, on the Guinea Coast, we find some of the most remarkable institutions with respect to women which exist in the world. It has been the centre of the slave trade. Few of the comparatively fair aboriginal race exist, but in their place has been gathered a mixed population, incontestably one of the most profligate in Africa. Entering its seaport town the traveller is at once struck by the remarkable immodesty of the female population. Throughout the country the same characteristic is observable, though in a modified degree. Sir John Malcolm observed of the subjects of the Imaum of Muscat—manners they have none, and their habits are disgusting. The same description has been judiciously applied to the people of Dahomey. They are profligates, from the highest to the lowest—a bloody-minded savage race, delighting in human suffering, and finding their national pleasure in customs the most revolting and cruel that ever obtained in the world.

The king practises all these, and is superior in brutality and filthiness to any of his subjects. This has been a characteristic of the throne in Dahomey. He has thousands of wives, while his chiefs have hundreds, and the common people tens. The royal favourites are considered too sacred to be looked upon by vulgar eyes. Whenever they proceed along the public road, a bell is rung to warn all passengers of their approach, and every one must then turn aside or hide his face. If one of them commits adultery, she is, with her paramour, put to death. The harem is sacred against strangers, but the privileged nobility attend the royal feasts, where the king’s wives sit, attired in showy costumes of the reign of Charles II., drinking rum and leading the debauch. Those of an inferior class, or the concubines, are employed in trade, the profits of which accrue to their master. Every unmarried woman in Dahomey is virtually the property of the sovereign, who makes his choice among them. No one dares to dispute his will, or to claim a maiden towards whom he has signified his inclination.

When the king desires to confer honour on any favourite, he chooses a wife for him, and presents her publicly. In this case she performs the ceremony of handing to her husband a cup of rum, which is a sign of union. Otherwise no rite or ceremony whatever is essential. However, the man must finally take his wife or concubine, in the usual business manner, for if he seduces a maiden he must marry her, or pay to her parent or master 160,000 cowries (equal to 7l. 10s. of our money). Failing in this, he may be sold as a slave. This punishment also is inflicted on those who commit adultery with a common person’s wife. The rich often buy a number of concubines, live with them for a short time, and then sell them at a profit. It is in Dahomey, too, that the practice prevails of throwing a wife in the way of committing adultery for the sake of the penalty which her husband may exact from the criminal. It is commonly known that the king of Dahomey supports an army of several thousand Amazonian soldiers. These women dress in male attire, and are not allowed to marry, or supposed to hold intercourse with the other sex. They declare themselves, indeed, to have changed their nature. “We are men,” they say, “and no women.” In all things—courage and ferocity among the rest—they seek to preserve the character. They dwell in barracks, under the care of eunuchs; they practise wild war-dances, and, officered by their own sex, scorn the allurements of any weaker passion; they are, therefore, for the most part chaste. Vanity and superstition combine to guard their virtue. They boast of never encountering a man except in the field of battle. Thus their pride is enlisted in the service of their chastity. A charm is placed under the threshold of their common dwelling, as it is under that of the palace harem, which is supposed to strike with disease the bowels of any guilty woman who may cross it. So strong is this belief, that many incontinent Amazons have voluntarily revealed their crime, though well aware that the punishment of death will be, without mercy, dealt upon them as well as their lovers[46].

Most men have a favourite wife, and her privilege is valuable so long as her husband lives; but on his decease it entails a terrible obligation. The dying chief invites one or more of his principal wives to die with him, and these, with a number of slaves, varying according to his rank, are sacrificed at his tomb.

In consequence of the immense number of wives and concubines kept by the king and his wealthier subjects, numbers of the common people are forced to be content with the company of prostitutes, who are licensed in Dahomey, and subject to a particular tax. There is a band of them, according to Dalzel, who appears worthy of belief, in every village, though confined to a certain quarter, and they prostitute themselves to any who desire it, at a moderate fixed price. The profits thus obtained are often insufficient for their support, and they eke out their gains by breeding fowls, and other industrial occupations. Women also hire themselves out to carry heavy burdens, and they no doubt belong to the prostitute class. Norris saw 250 of these unfortunate women collected in a troop on a public occasion. The object of this institution, according to the king, was to save the respectable people from seduction. There were many men who could not get wives, and, unless prostitutes existed, they would seduce the wives or daughters of others. At Whyddah, on the coast, Mr. John Duncan was assailed by numbers of women who offered to “become his wives,” or, in other words, to prostitute themselves to him, for a drop of rum. Many of the poorer class strolled about naked, ready to accept any one for a miserable gratuity. In that city it was the custom when a man committed adultery, to press him into the king’s army. Formerly he was sacrificed, but the practice was abolished—prisoners of war furnishing “the annual customs” with victims. Whatever the punishment was, however, it was ineffectual to suppress the crime, as depravity was the general characteristic of the people. At Zapoorah, beyond Dahomey, a chief offered one of his wives for sale, and parents asked a price for their children; while at Gaffa, still further, the men are more jealous, and the women more modest. Adultery with the king’s wife was punished by impalement on a red-hot stake.

The dirty, lazy, and dull people of the Fantee coast, near Dahomey, wear the same moral aspect as the subjects of that kingdom. Women support the men. Parents would sell their children, husbands their wives, and women themselves, for a trifling sum. One woman was so desirous of changing her companion, that she took possession of a recent traveller’s bed, and could only be expelled by force. Marriage is a mere purchase—of from six to twenty wives and concubines. The rich support their harems at a great cost. The common price is sixteen dollars. Maidens are seldom bought when beyond fifteen or sixteen years of age, so that many men have wives younger than their daughters. The individual committing adultery is forced to buy his paramour at her original price. Contrary to the custom of Ibu and Bony, the mother of twins is, among the Fantees, held in great respect.

Along the coast of Benin manners, in most respects similar to these, prevail—public dancers acting as prostitutes in most of the native towns, and offering themselves for a wretched price. Every woman holds it an honour to be the king’s companion even for one night[47].

In Ashantee, where polygamy, as elsewhere in Africa, prevails, adultery is common, especially among the king’s wives, who, when discovered, are hewn to pieces. The manners of the people are profligate beyond anything of which in England we can realize an idea. In the country of the Kroomen, eastward on the Guinea Coast, where nearly all the labour devolves on women, men become independent by the possession of from twenty to forty wives. One practice prevailing there is characterized by an unusual depravity. The son, inheriting his father’s property, inherits also his wives, his own mother then becoming his slave. In the interior, on the banks of the Asinnee, we find a people among whom the men are industrious, and the women treated with respect. The consequence is a far higher standard of morality[48].

It is remarkable to find among the Edeeyahs of Fernando Po a strong contrast to these general characteristics of manners and morality in Western Africa. Generous, hospitable, humane, practising no murder, possessing no slaves, with only innocent rites, they treat their women with comparative consideration, and assign them far less than the usual amount of hard labour. To cook food, bear palm oil to market, and press the nuts, are their principal occupations. Polygamy is allowed, and when a man undertakes a journey, he is accompanied by one or more of his wives, who are much attached to their husbands and children.

The first wife taken by a man must be betrothed to him at least two years before marriage. During that period the lover must perform all the duties which otherwise would have been performed by her. He must go, indeed, through a probation resembling the servitude of Jacob for Rachel. Meanwhile the maiden is kept in a hut, concealed from the sight of the people. These courtships often begin while the girl is no more than thirteen or fourteen, and her lover only a youth; but if he seduces her before the two years are elapsed, he is severely punished. That time having expired the young wife is still kept in the hut, where she receives her husband’s visits until it is evident she is about to become a mother—or if not, for eighteen months. When she first appears publicly as a married woman, all the virgins of her tribe salute her and dance about her. These customs indicate far more purity and elevation of manners among the Edeeyahs than among any other people in Western Africa. They are only observed, however, with regard to the first wife, all the others being virtually no more than concubines governed by her. Some chiefs have upwards of a hundred, and the king more than twice that number.

Adultery is severely punished, but, nevertheless, not very rare. For the first offence both parties lose one hand. For the second the man, with his relatives, is heavily fined, and otherwise chastised, while the woman, losing the other hand, is driven as an outlaw into the woods. This exile is more terrible to the Edeeyahs than the mutilation[49].

In examining the condition of Africa, in the light we have chosen, it would entail a tiresome repetition to pass in review all the various groups of states sunk in barbarism. The natives are generally barbarian. Elevated slightly above the hunting or pure savage state, they have subdued some animals to their use, and practise some ingenious arts; but their manners are baser than those of any race below them in point of art and luxury. We have seen that in the West, with a few rare exceptions, profligacy is the universal feature of society. In the East it is almost equally so. Our knowledge of that coast, it is true, is less full than of the West; but travellers afford sufficient information to justify an opinion on the general state of manners. In Zulu, as an example of the rest, the king has a seraglio of fifteen hundred women, who are slaves to his caprice. His mother was in that condition when Isaacs visited the country. She endured corporal chastisement from her son. A number of women and boys, belonging to the royal harem, and suspected of illicit intercourse, were massacred by the prince’s orders. Adultery, indeed, was a thing of continual occurrence in the palace. Marriage is held among the people not as a sacred tie but as a state of friendship. All the people, however, are polygamists, and the laws of morality refer only to wives. With others the intercourse of the sexes is unrestrained. Men do not cohabit with their wives on the first night after their wedding. This ceremony among the rich is accompanied by a grand feast, though, as in other parts of Africa, the wife is bought—at the most for ten cows. A man cannot sell but may dismiss his wife, over whom also he has the power of life and death. Adultery is always capitally punished, that is, when discovered; for with eighty or ninety women in his possession, it is not always possible for the husband to watch their conduct—especially as they labour for his support. Girls are not allowed to marry or become concubines until the age of fourteen, until which period they go without clothing. The degrees of consanguinity, within which marriage is strictly prohibited, are very wide—an union being permitted only between the most distant relations.

It is necessary to observe that in the Zulu kingdom profligacy is more general among the men than among the women, for wives hold the marriage tie in great estimation. It is the unlimited power of the male sex over the other which forces it to become the prey of sensuality. Throughout the Eastern region, indeed, women are the mere instruments of pleasure, being bought and sold like cattle—forced to toil and live in drudgery for the benefit of their masters and husbands[50].

Among the nomade and stationary tribes of the Sahara, who are not aboriginal to that region, we have a different system of manners. In the Arabian communities you may find women ready to perform indecent actions, and even to prostitute themselves for money; but these are of the low classes. Cases of adultery are rare.

The Mohammedans believe that a man cannot have too many wives, or, at least, too many concubines. They declare it assists their devotion; but the feeling is one merely sensual. Pure sentiment is a thing in which they can scarcely believe. Rich men who are accustomed to travel in pursuit of trade, have one family at Ghadames, another, perhaps, at Ghat, and another at Soudan, and live with each of them by turns. These women stand in great fear of their husbands. The rich are veiled, and live in retirement; the poor do not; but all will unveil their faces to a stranger, if it can be done with safety. The white, or respectable women of Ghadames, never descend into the streets, or even into the gardens of their houses. The flat roof of their dwelling is their perpetual promenade, and a suite of two or three rooms their abode. It is said that in these retreats many of the women privately rule their husbands, though no men will confess the fact. Among the Marabouts it is held disgraceful to be unmarried, but shameful also to be under the wife’s control.

The negresses and half-castes who may be seen in the streets of the cities of the Sahara, are generally slaves. The women of the Touarik tribes, however, are by no means so. They belong to a fierce and warlike tribe, half vagrant, half stationary, and are bound by few restrictions. Their morals are described as superior to those of the lower class of women in Europe; though exceptions, of course, are found. One Touarik woman offered to prostitute herself to Richardson for a sum of money; or, as it was expressed, to become his wife.

Polygamy, though universally allowed in the Sahara, is not carried to an extent at all equal to that prevailing in the savage regions on the east and west. Three wives usually occupy the harem of a rich man. Marriage is, as usual with people of that religion, a civil contract with a shade of sanctity upon it, but celebrated with great feasts and rejoicings. The bridegroom is expected to live in retirement during two or three weeks. He occasionally walks about the town at evening alone, dressed in gay clothes of blue and scarlet, and bearing a fine long stave of brass or polished iron. He never speaks or is spoken to, and vanishes on meeting any one.

The manners of the communities in the Sahara are imperfectly known; but from the accounts we have received they appear to be of a far more elevated order than those of any other part of Africa. It is true that customs prevail which shock our ideas of decency. A chief, for instance, offered Richardson his two daughters as wives. It is also true that many women exist who follow the profession of prostitutes, though we have no distinct account of them. But immorality is usually among them a secret crime. Their general customs with regard to sexual intercourse are at least as pure as those of Europe. Among the wandering tribes of the desert the hardship of their lives, continual occupation, varied scenes of excitement, and contempt for sensual enjoyments, contribute to preserve chastity among their virtues; while the Marabouts of the cities are of a generally moral character. Intoxication never happens among the women. Still, the condition of the sex is degraded; for they are, with exceptions, regarded only as the materials of a man’s household, and ministers to the sensual enjoyments of his life[51]. The Mohammedans of Central Africa, bigoted as to dogmas, are nevertheless more liberal to women, who enjoy more consideration among them than in the more important strongholds of that religion[52].

The wandering Arabs of Algeria hold marriage as a business transaction, though the estimation of the sex is not low. The lover brings to the woman’s home ten head of cattle, with other presents, which usually form her dowry. The father asks, “How much does she whom you are going to have for wife cost you?” He replies, “A prudent and industrious woman can never be too dear.” She is dressed, placed on a horse, and borne to her new home amid rejoicing. She then drinks the cup of welcome, and thrusting a stick into the ground, declares, “As this stick will remain here until some one forces it away, so will I.” She then performs some little office to show she is ready for the duty of a wife, and the ceremony is ended[53].

Transferring our observations to Abyssinia, we find in its several divisions different characteristics of manners. In Tajura, on the Red Sea, profligacy is a conspicuous feature of society. Men live with their wives for a short period, and then sell them, maintaining thus a succession of favourites in their harems. Parents, also, are known not only to sell their daughters as wives, but to hire them out as prostitutes. One chief offered a traveller his daughter either as a temporary or a permanent companion; he showed another whom he would have sold for 100 dollars. One woman presented herself, stating, as a recommendation, that she had already lived with five men. These are nothing but prostitutes, whatever the delicacy of travellers induces them to term them. Unfortunately the inquiries made into this system are very slight, affording us no statistics or results of any kind. We are thus left to judge of morality in Tajura by the fact that syphilis afflicts nearly the whole population, man and woman, sultan and beggar, priests and their wives included.

In the Christian kingdom of Shoa, the Christian king has one wife, and 500 concubines; seven in the palace, thirteen at different places in the outskirts, and the rest in various parts of his dominions. He makes a present to the parents of any women he may desire, and is usually well paid in return for the honour. The governors of cities and provinces follow this example, keeping establishments of concubines at different places. Scores of the royal slaves are cast aside, and their place supplied by others.

In Shoa there are two kinds of marriage; one a mere agreement to cohabitation, another a holy ceremony; the former is almost universally practised. The men and women declare before witnesses that they intend to live happily together. The connection thus easily contracted is easily broken; mutual consent only is necessary to a divorce. In Shoa a wife is valued according to the amount of her property. The heiress to a house, a field and a bedstead, is sure to have a husband. When they quarrel and part, a division of goods takes place. Holy ceremonies are very rare, and not much relished. A wedded couple, in one sense of the term, is a phenomenon. Instances of incontinence are frequent; while the caprice of the men leads them often to increase the number of their concubines. These are procured as well from the Christians as from the Mohammedans and Pagans; but the poor girls professing these religions are forced to a blind profession of Christianity. Favourite slaves and concubines hold the same position with married women; while illegitimate and legitimate children are treated by the law with no distinction. Three hundred of the king’s concubines are slaves, taken in war or purchased from dealers. They are guarded by fifty eunuchs, and live in seclusion; though this by no means prevents the court from overflowing with licentiousness. Numerous adulteries take place, and this example is followed by the people; among whom a chaste married couple is not common.

Women in Abyssinia, which is an agricultural country, mix freely with the men, and dance in their company; though a few jealous husbands or cautious parents seclude them. Morality is at an extremely low ebb. At the Christmas saturnalia, gross and disgusting scenes occur, as well as at other feasts. What else can be expected in a country where 12,000 priests live devoted, in theory at least, to celibacy; and where, at the annual baptisms, these priests, with men, women, and children strip naked, and rush in promiscuous crowds into a stream, where they are baptised according to the Christian religion! The sacerdotal class of Shoa is notoriously drunken and profligate. Another cause of corruption is the caprice which induces men to abandon their concubines after short cohabitation with them. These women, discarded and neglected, devote themselves to an infamous profession, and thus immorality is perpetuated through every grade of their society: in a word, the morals of Shoa are of the lowest description. In the Mohammedan states in its neighbourhood the condition of the sex is no better. If there is less general prostitution, it is because every woman is the slave of some man’s lust, and is imprisoned under his eye. He is jealous only of her person; scarcely attributing to her a single quality which is not perceptible to his senses[54].

In the southern provinces of Kordofan, under the government of Egypt, south of the Nubian Mountains, immense labour is imposed on the unmarried girls; yet the sentiment of love is not altogether unknown to them, and men fight duels with whips of hippopotamus hide on account of a disputed mistress. The wife is nevertheless a virtual slave, and still more degraded should she prove barren; the husband, in that case, solaces himself with a concubine, who, if she bears a child, is elevated to the rank of wife. It is common among the rich for a man to make his wife a separate allowance after the birth of her second child, when she goes to live in a separate hut. All their bloom is gone by the time they are twenty-four years old, and thenceforward they enjoy no estimation from the men. Yet, improvident in their hearts, the young girls of Kordofan are merry; and, whether at work or idle, spend the day in songs and laughter; while in the evening they assemble and dance to the music of the Tarabuka drum. Their demeanour, in general, is modest, and their lives are chaste. Married women, on the contrary, especially those who are neglected by their husbands, occupy themselves in gossip, and find solace in criminal intrigues. In some parts of the country, indeed, men consider it an honour for their wives to have intercourse with others; and the women are often forwarded in their advances. Female slaves often have liberty when they bear children to their proprietors.

Women eat when the men have done, and pretty dancers attend at the feasts to amuse their employers. These girls, like the Ghawazee of Lower Egypt, are usually prostitutes, and very skilful in the arts of seduction. Numbers of this class fled from Egypt into Kordofan, on one occasion, when Mohammed Ali, in one of his affected fits of morality, endeavoured to suppress their calling altogether.

Marriage, it may be scarcely necessary to say, is concluded without the woman’s consent. The man bargains for her, pays her price, takes her home, strips off her virginal girdle, which is the only garment of unmarried girls, and covers her with a cloth about her loins; a feast and a dance occasionally celebrate the event. When a wife is ill-treated beyond endurance, she demands a divorce; and, taking her female offspring, with her dowry, returns home. Trifles often produce these separations. That her husband has not allowed her sufficient pomatum to anoint her person with, is not unfrequently the ground of complaint. Few men in Kordofan have more than two wives; but most have concubines besides, whom the more opulent protect by a guard of eunuchs.

These remarks apply to the agricultural or fixed population. The Baghaira, or wandering pastoral tribes of Kordofan, are a modest, moral race—naked, but not on that account indecent[55].

A chief of the Berbers offered a late traveller the choice of his two daughters for a bedfellow. They were already both married. Women there, however, as well as in Dongola, are, many of them, ready to prostitute themselves for a present. A virgin, whether as wife or concubine, may be purchased for a horse. “Why do you not marry?” said a traveller to a young Berber. He pointed to a colt and answered “When that is a horse I shall marry.”[56]

The condition of women and state of manners on the upper borders of the Nile, we find described in Ferdinand Werne’s account of his recent voyage to discover the sources of the White Stream. The system in Khartum may be indicated by one sentence in the traveller’s own language. He speaks of desiring that the pay might be advanced to prevent starvation from visiting the soldiers’ families, “which, from the low price of female slaves, were numerous.” It may, without resort to hyperbole, be said, that the female monkeys peopling the neighbouring woods occupy a far nobler and more natural position. Among the barbarians on the banks of the river further up, the state of manners is in a great degree more pure. The Keks, for example, are described as leading a blameless life. The travellers saw no marriageable maidens or children, married women alone appearing. The most singular social economy prevails among them. The women live, during a considerable part of the year, in villages apart from the men, who possess only temporary huts. Their wives have regular substantial habitations, which are common to both sexes during the rainy season. A man dare not approach the “harem village,” except at the proper period, though some of the women occasionally creep into their husbands’ village. Polygamy is allowed, but only practised by the chiefs, since all the wives are bought, which renders the indulgence costly.

Among some of the tribes on the banks of the White Nile women will sell their children if they can do so with profit. Everywhere in that region the maidens mingle naked with the men, but appear by no means immodest. When married they wear an apron. All exhibit a sense of shame at exhibiting themselves unclothed before strangers. Beyond the Mountains of the Moon, however, Werne found people, among whom the unmarried men and women were separated. They were completely naked, but chaste and decent nevertheless. A heavy price was always asked for a girl, which prevented common polygamy, though their social code permitted it[57].

It must be evident that, in an inquiry like the present, a view of the manners and morals of Africa with regard to the female sex must be incomplete. In the first place, our information is very limited; in the second, we are confined for space—for otherwise these sketches could be extended to an indefinite extent. We have, however, taken observations in Southern, in Western, in Eastern, in Northern, and Central Africa. Kingdoms and communities, indeed, there are which we have not included in our description. Of these some wear features so similar to others we have noticed, that to particularise them is unnecessary in a general view. Of others, such as Egypt, Nubia, Barca, Tripoli, Algiers, and Morocco, we shall treat in a future division of the subject, because they are not included, by the character of their civilization, among the communities of which we have hitherto spoken. The reader will, we trust, have been enabled to form a fair idea of the average of morals among the savages and semi-savages of Africa. With modern barbarians, as with ancient states, tabular statistics are impossible: but from a description in general terms, we cannot always refuse to ground a confident opinion.

Women in Australia.

In Australia we have a family of the human race still more uneducated, though not more barbarous, than that which inhabits the woods of the African continent. There is among them less approach to the arts of civilization, less ingenuity, less intelligence, but there is more simplicity. Their customs are not so brutal as those prevailing on the banks of the Joliba or the Senegal. Nevertheless they are true savages, and the condition of their women is consistent with all the other features of their irreclaimed state. Of the Australians, however, as of all races imperfectly known, there obtains in this country a vulgar idea drawn from the old accounts, which are little better than caricatures. They have been represented as a hideous race, scarcely elevated above the brute, blood-thirsty, destitute of human feeling, without any redeeming characteristics, and, moreover, incapable of civilization. Such a description is calculated only to mislead. The aborigines of Australia are certainly a low, barbarous, and even a brutal race, but the true picture of their manners, which form the expression of their character, is not without encouraging traits.

Considering the great extent of New Holland, it is surprising to find such an uniformity of character and customs, as we actually discover among its nations. The language, varied by dialects, the habits, social laws, and ideas of the people, are extremely similar, whether we visit them in that province called the Happy or in the districts around Port Essington. Consequently, though it occupy a large space on the map, this region will not require any very extended notice. An idea of the condition and morality of its women may be afforded by one general view, with reference to the various local peculiarities noticed by travellers.

The native inhabitants of Australia are generally nomadic. They dwell in temporary villages scattered over vast surfaces of country, and move from place to place, as the supply of provisions, spontaneously provided by the earth, is more or less abundant. Separated as they are into small isolated communities—rarely numbering more than eighty members—they resort to the borders of lakes and streams, which dry up at certain seasons, and force them to seek elsewhere a home. A rude copy of the patriarchal form of government prevails among them—old men being the rulers of the tribe.

The condition of women among these primitive savages is extremely low. They are servants of the stronger sex. In some of their dialects wife and slave are synonymous. All the labour devolves on her, and, as no form of agriculture is practised, this consists principally in the search for the means of life. She collects the daily food, she prepares the camp or the hut at night, she piles fire-wood, draws water, weaves baskets, carries all burdens, and bears the children on her back, and the return for all this willing devotion is frequently the grossest ill-usage.

There is no form of marriage ceremony observed. A man gets a wife in various ways. Sometimes she is betrothed to him while an infant—even before her birth, and sometimes she devolves to him with other property. The eldest surviving brother, or next male relative, inherits the women of a whole family. Thus many households are supplied. Others steal their wives from hostile tribes, and frequent wars arise from such proceedings. Polygamy is universally allowed, but not by any means generally practised; for there are few parts of Australia where the female sex is not outnumbered by the male. Plurality of wives consequently implies wealth and distinction—each additional one being regarded as a new slave, an increase of property. Nor are the women jealous of polygamy. When a man has many wives, they subdivide the labour, which otherwise would devolve on one, thus lightening each others’ burdens, and procuring companionship. There can indeed be little jealous feeling where affection on the part of the husband to the wife is almost a thing unknown.

The Australian wife when past the prime of life is usually a wretched object. She is often deformed and crippled by excessive toil—her body bent, her legs crooked, her ankles swollen, her face wearing an aspect of sullen apathy, produced by long hardship. When young, however, they are frequently lively and happy, not being cursed with keen feelings, and caring for little beyond the present hour. Should a young woman, nevertheless, be distinguished by peculiar beauty, she leads, while her attractions last, a miserable course of existence. Betrothed at an early age, she is perpetually watched by the future husband, and upon the least suspicion of infidelity is subjected to the most brutal treatment. To thrust a spear through her thigh or the calf of her leg is the common mode of punishment. She may, in spite of all precautions, be snatched away: whether consenting or not, she must endure the same penalty. If she be chaste, the man who has attempted to seduce her may strike her with a club, stun her, and bear her to a wood, where she is violated by force. Still she is punished, and it is, says Sir George Grey, no common sight to see a woman of superior elegance or beauty who has not some scars disfiguring various parts of her person. This period, however, is soon over, for the bloom of an Australian woman is very short-lived. When the seducer is found, he is punished in a similar manner, and if he have committed adultery with a married woman, suffers death.

The jealousy of the married men is excessive, and would be ridiculous were it not that their vigilance is absolutely called for. A careless husband would speedily suffer for his neglect. Accordingly we find the Australian savages practising in their woods or open plains restrictions not dissimilar to those adopted in the seraglios of the East. When an encampment is formed for the night every man overlooks his wives while they build one or more temporary huts, over which he then places himself as a guard. The young children and the unmarried girls occupy this portion of the village. Boys above ten years of age and all single men are forced to sleep in a separate encampment, constructed for them by their mothers, and are not allowed to visit the bivouacs of the married men. Under no circumstances is a strange native allowed to approach one of the family huts. Each of these little dwellings is placed far from the rest, so that when their inmates desire to hold converse they sing to each other from a distance. When the young men collect to dance, the maidens and wives are allowed to be spectators, but only on a few occasions to join. They have dances of their own, at which the youth of the other sex are not permitted to be present.

In spite of this excessive jealousy the idea of a husband’s affection for his wife appears strange to them. Men return from journeys without exchanging a greeting with the mothers of their children, but those children they salute with many endearing terms, falling on their necks and shedding tears with every demonstration of love. A man has been known, when his wife was grievously sick, to leave her to die in the wilderness, rather than be troubled with her on his journey.

Yet the influence of women is not by any means small. In some of the tribes they obtain a position of moderate equality with the husband, are well-fed, clothed, and treated as rational beings. Everywhere the men, young and old, strive to deserve their praise; and exhibitions of vanity take place, perfectly ludicrous to those European travellers who forget that the silly dandyism of the Australian savage, with his paint and opossum skin, is only peculiar in its form of expression. Women are often present on the field of battle, to inspire their husbands by exhortations, to rouse them by clamours of revenge or appeals to their valour; and among the chief punishments of cowardice is their contempt. The man failing in any great duty of a warrior is so disgraced. Thus, if he neglect to avenge the death of his nearest relation, his wives may quit him; the unmarried girls shun him with scorn, and he is driven by their reproaches to perform his bloody and dangerous task.

Where polygamy exists it is seldom the woman’s consent is required before her union with a suitor. In Australia it is never required or expected. The transaction is entirely between her father and the man who desires her for a wife, or, rather, for a concubine. She is ordered, perhaps, to take up her household bag, and go to a certain man’s hut, and this may be the first notice she has of the marriage. There she is in the position of a slave to her master. If she be obedient, toil without torture is her mitigated lot; but if she rebel, the club is employed to enforce submission. She is her husband’s absolute property. He may give her away, exchange her, or lend her as he pleases. Indeed, old men will sometimes offer their wives to friends, or as a mark of respect to strangers; and the offer is not uncommonly accepted.

Though we have mentioned three ways of obtaining a wife, the system of betrothal is the most general. Almost every female child is so disposed of a few days after its birth. From that moment the parents have no control whatever over her future settlement; she is in fact a bought slave. Should her betrothed die she becomes the property of his heir. Whatever her age she may be taken into the hut; cohabitation often commencing while the girl is not twelve years old, and her husband only a boy. Three days after her first husband’s death the widow goes to the hut of the second.

Some restrictions, however, are imposed on the intercourse of the sexes. Thus all children take the family name of their mother, and a man may not marry a woman of his own family name. Relations nearer than cousins are not allowed to marry, and an alliance even within this degree is very rare. The Australians have, indeed, a horror of all connections with the least stigma of incest upon them, and adjudge the punishment of death to such an offence. Their laws, which are matters not of enactment but of custom, are extremely severe upon this and all other points connected with their women.

Chastity, nevertheless, is neither highly appreciated nor often practised. It is far from being prized by the women as a jewel of value; on the contrary, they plot for opportunities to yield it illicitly, and can scarcely be said to know the idea. Profligacy is all but universal among them; it is a characteristic even of the children. When some schools were formed at Perth, for the education of the natives, it was found absolutely necessary to separate children of tender years, in order to prevent scenes of vile debauch from being enacted. It should be said, however, that though indiscriminate prostitution among the women, and depraved sensuality among the men, exist in the most savage communities, disease and vice are far less characteristic of them than of those tribes which have come in contact with Europeans. In all the colonial towns there is a class of native women following the calling of prostitutes, and there the venereal disease and syphilis are most deadly and widely prevalent. The former appears to have been brought from Europe, and makes terrible havoc among them. The latter, ascribed by their traditions to the East, has been found among tribes which had apparently never held intercourse with the whites; in such cases, however, it is in a milder form.

Several causes contribute to the corruption of manners among these savage tribes. One of the principal is, the monopoly of women claimed by the old men. The patriarchs of the tribe, contrive to secure all the young girls, leaving to their more youthful brethren only common prostitutes, prisoners of war, and such women as they can ravish from a neighbouring community, or seduce from their husbands’ dwellings. They also abandon to them their own wives when 30 or 40 years old, obtaining in exchange the little girls belonging to the young man’s family. The youthful warrior, therefore, with a number of sisters, can usually succeed in obtaining a few wives by barter. That their personal attractions are faded is not of any high importance; since they are needed chiefly to render him independent of labour. His sensual appetites he is content to gratify, until he becomes a patriarch, by illicit intrigues with other women of the tribe. Of these there are generally some ready to sell or give away their favours. The wives, especially of the very old chiefs, look anxiously forward to the death of their husbands, when they hope, in the usual course of inheritance, to be transferred to the hut of a younger man; for, among nations in this debased state, it is not the woman that is prized, but a woman. Personal attachment is rare. The husband whose wife has been ravished away by a warrior from a neighbouring tribe may be pacified by being presented with another companion. Even in Australia Felix, which is peopled by the most intelligent, industrious, and manly of the Australian race, the young man disappointed of a wife in his own tribe sets off to another, waylays some woman, asks her to elope with him, and, on her refusal, stuns her with his club, and drags her away in triumph. Marriage, indeed, appears too dignified a term to apply to this system of concubinage and servitude which in Australia goes under that name. Travellers have found in the far interior happy families of man and wife, roaming together, with common interests, and united by affection; but such instances are rare.

A large proportion of the young men in Australia can by no means obtain wives. This arises from the numerical disparity between the sexes, which is almost universal in that region, and is chiefly attributable to the practice of infanticide. Child-killing is indeed among the social institutions of that poor and barbarous race. Women have been known to kill and eat their offspring, and men to swing them by the legs and dash out their brains against a tree. The custom is becoming rare among those tribes in constant intercourse with Europeans, but that intercourse itself has caused much of the evil. Half-castes, or the offspring of native women by European fathers, are almost invariably sacrificed. They are held in dread by the people, who fear the growth of a mixed race which may one day conquer or destroy them. Females, also, are killed in great numbers. This class of infanticide is regulated by various circumstances in different communities. Among some tribes all the girls are destroyed until a boy is born; in others, the firstborn is exposed; in others, all above a certain number perish; but everywhere the custom prevails. One of two twins—a rare birth—is almost always killed. It may be ascribed to the miserably poor condition of the people, and the degraded state of the female sex; for in a region where the aborigines have not yet learned to till the soil, and where the means of life are scanty, there will always be an inducement to check the growth of numbers by infanticide; and where women have to perform all the labour, and follow their husbands in long marches or campaigns, ministering to every want they may experience, the trouble of nursing an infant is often saved at the cost of the infant’s life. Neglect also effects the same purpose.

The population, under these circumstances, has always been thin, and is apparently decreasing. Among 421 persons belonging to various tribes in Australia Felix, Eyre remarked that there were in the course of two years and a half only ten children reared. In other places one child to every six women was not an unusual average. This, however, is not all to be ascribed to infanticide. Many of the females abandon themselves so recklessly to vice that they lose all their natural powers, and become incapable of bearing offspring. Eyre found in other parts of Australia that the average of births was four to every woman. In New South Wales the proportion of women to men appears to be as two to three; while in the interior, Sturt calculated that female children outnumbered the male, while with adults the reverse was true. This indicates an awful spread of the practice of infanticide, which we cannot refuse to believe when we remember the facts which travellers of undeniable integrity have made known to us.

To suppose from this that in Australia the natural sentiments of humanity are unknown, would be extremely rash. On the contrary, we find very much that is beautiful in the character of its wild people, and are led to believe that civilization may go far towards elevating them from all their barbarous customs. Women are known to bear about their necks, as relics sacred to affection, the bones of their children, whom they have mourned for years with a pure and deep sorrow. Men have loved and respected their wives; maidens have prized and guarded their virtue; but it is too true that these are exceptions, and that the character and the condition of the female sex in Australia is that of debasement and immorality.