rivals appeared the next morning he gave to each the materials for a garment and told them to sew them together, promising his daughter to the one who should get done first. The daughter he ordered to thread the needles for both the

men.

"Now the girl knew very well which of the two young men she would rather have for a husband; to him, therefore, she always handed needles with short threads, while the other was always supplied with long threads. Noon came and neither of them had finished his garment. After awhile, however, the one who always got the short threads finished his task.

"The father was then summoned and the young man showed him the garment; whereupon the father said: You are a quick worker and will therefore surely be able to support your wife. Take my daughter as your wife and always do your work rapidly, then you will always have food for yourself and your wife.'

"Thus did the young man win his beloved by means of her cunning. Joyfully he led her home as his wife."

BALING OUT THE BROOK

This tale reveals the existence of individual preference, but does not hint at any other ingredient of love, while the father's promise of the girl to the fastest worker shows a total indifference to what that preference might be. In the following tale (also from Koelle) the girl again is not consulted.

“A certain man had a most beautiful daughter who was beset by many suitors. But as soon as they were told that the sole condition on which they could obtain her was to bale out a brook with a ground-nut shell (which is about half the size of a walnut shell), they always walked away in disappointment. However, at last one took heart of grace, and began the task. He obtained the beauty; for the father said, Kam ago tsuru baditsia tsido-he who undertakes whatever he says, will do it.'"

PROVERBS ABOUT WOMEN

The last two tales I have cited were gathered among the Bornu people in the Soudan. In Burton's Wit and Wisdom from West Africa we find a few proverbs about women that

are current in the same region. "If a woman speaks two words, take one and leave the other." "Whatever be thy intimacy, never give thy heart to a woman." "If thou givest thy heart to a woman, she will kill thee." "If a man tells his secrets to his wife, she will bring him into the way of Satan." "A woman never brings a man into the right way." "Men who listen to what women say, are counted as women." It is significant that in the four hundred and fifty-five pages of Burton's book, which includes over four hundred proverbs and tales, there are only half a dozen brief references to women, and those are sneers.

AFRICAN AMAZONS

As I have had occasion to remark before, African women lack the finer feminine qualities, both bodily and mental, wherefore even if an African man were able to feel sentimental love he could not find an object to bestow it on. An incident related by Du Chaillu (Ashango Land, 187) illustrates the martial side of African femininity. A married man named Mayolo had called another man's wife toward him.

is own wife, hearing of this, got jealous, told him the other must be his sweetheart, and rushed out to seek her rival. A battle ensued:

"Women's fights in this country always begin by their 'rowing off their dengui-that is, stripping themselves enrely naked. The challenger having thus denuded herself, her enemy showed pluck and answered the challenge by promptly doing the same; so that the two elegant figures immediately went at it literally tooth and nail, for they fought like cats, and between the rounds reviled each other in language the most filthy that could possibly be uttered. Mayolo being asleep in his house, and no one seeming ready to interfere, I went myself and separated the two furies."

In Dahomey, as everybody knows, the bellicose possibilities. of the African woman have been utilized in forming bands of Amazons which are described as "the flower of the army." They are made up of female captives and other women, wear special uniforms, and in battle are credited with even greater

ferocity than the men. These women are Amazons not of their own accord but by order of the king. But in other parts of Africa there is reason to believe that bands of selfconstituted female warriors have existed at various times. Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the time of Julius Cæsar, says that on the western coast of Libya (Africa) there used to live a people governed by women, who carried on wars and the government, the men being obliged to do domestic work and take care of the children. In our time Livingstone found in the villages of the Bechuanas and Banyas that men were often badly treated by the women, and the eminent German anthropologist Bastian says (S. S., 178) that in "the Soudan the power of the women banded together for mutual protection is so great that men are often put under ban and obliged to emigrate." Mungo Park described the curious bugaboo (mumbo-jumbo) by means of which the Mandingo negroes used to keep their rebellious women in subjection. According to Bastian, associations for keeping women in subjection are common among men along the whole African West Coast. The women, too, have their associations, and at their meetings compare notes on the meanness and cruelty of their husbands. Now it is easy to conceive that among tribes where many of the men have been killed off in wars the women, being in a great majority, may, for a time at least, turn the tables on the men, assume their weapons and make them realize how it feels to be the "inferior sex." For this reason Bastian sees no occasion to share the modern disposition to regard all the Amazon legends as myths.

WHERE WOMAN COMMANDS

If we now return from the West Coast to Eastern Africa we find on the northern confines of Abyssinia a strange case of the subjection of men, which Munzinger has described in his Ostafrikanische Studien (275-338). The Beni Amer are a tribe of Mohammedan shepherds among whom "the sexes seem to have exchanged rôles, the women being more masculine in their work." Property is legally held in common,

wherefore the men rarely dare to do anything without consulting their wives. In return for this submission they are treated with the utmost contempt:

"For every angry word that the husband utters he is compelled to pay a fine, and perhaps spend a whole rainy night outdoors till he has promised to give his weaker half a camel and a cow. Thus the wife acquires a property of her own, which the husband never is allowed to touch; many women have in this way ruined their husbands and then left them. The women have much esprit de corps; if one of them has ground for complaint, all the others come to her aid.

Of course the man is always found in the wrong; the whole village is in a turmoil. This esprit de corps demands that every woman, whether she loves her husband or not, must conceal her love and treat him contemptuously. It is considered disgraceful for her to show her love to her husband. This contempt for men goes so far that if a wife laments the death of her husband who has died without issue, her companions taunt her. . One often hears women abuse their husbands or other men in the most obscene language, even on the street, and the men do not dare to make the least retort." "The wife can at any time return to her mother's house, and remain there months, sending word to her husband that he may come to her if he cares for her."

NO CHANCE FOR ROMANTIC LOVE

The causes of this singular effeminacy of the men and masculinity of the women are not indicated by Munzinger; but so much is clear that, although the tables are turned, Cupid is again left in the cold. Nor is there any romance in the courtship which leads to such hen-pecked conjugal

life:

"The children are often married very early, and engaged earlier still. The bridegroom goes with his companions to fetch his bride; but after having talked with her parents he returns without having seen her. The bride thereafter remains another whole year with her parents. After its expiration the bridegroom sends women and a camel to bring her to his home; she is taken away with her tent, but the bridal escort is often fooled by the substitution in the bride's place of another girl, who allows herself to be taken along, carefully

veiled, and after the village has been left behind betrays herself and runs away."

These Beni Amer are of course far superior in culture to the Bushmen, Hottentots, Kaffirs, and West Coast peoples we have been considering so far, having long been in contact with Oriental influences. It is therefore as strange as it is instructive to note that as soon as a race becomes civilized enough to feel a kind of love exalted above mere sensuality, special pains are taken to interpose fresh obstacles, as in the above case, where it is good form to suppress all affection, and where a young man may not see his bride even after engagement. This last custom seems to be of common occurrence in this part of Africa. Munzinger (387) says of the Kunama: "As among the border peoples engagements are often made at a very early age, after which time bride and bridegroom avoid each other;" and again (147) concerning the region of Massua, on the Red Sea :

"From the day of the engagement the young man is obliged to carefully avoid the bride and her mother. The desire to see her after the engagement is considered very improper, and often leads to a breaking-up of the affair. If the youth meets the girl accidentally, she veils her face and her friends surround her to cover her from the bridegroom's sight."

PASTORAL LOVE

These attachments are so shallow that if the fortune-teller who is always consulted gives an unfavorable forecast, the engagement is forthwith broken off. It is instructive to note further that the rigid separation of a man from his betrothed serves merely to stifle legitimate love; its object cannot be to prevent improper intimacies, for before engagement the girls enjoy perfect liberty to do what they please, and after engagement they may converse with anyone except the lover. As Parkyns (II., 41) tells us, he is never allowed to see his intended wife even for a moment, unless he can bribe some female friend to arrange it so he can get a peep at her by concealing himself; but if the girl discovers him she covers