EXTERTAWING VARIETIES. 695 



Before we reached the top of the next ridge the heat of the day 

 obliged us to halt in the shade of a rock-tomb ; hut curiosity soon got 

 the better of my fatigue, and after a short rest we continued our 

 march toward a river-valley, where we expected to meet the first living 

 Monakees. 



Curious Matrimonial Anomaly. TIassanyeh Arab wives enjoy at times 



u a freedom from tlie ties and responsibilities of the marriage state unknown, 

 I believe, to any other race in the world." When the parents of the man and 

 woman meet to settle the price of the woman, the price depends on " how 

 many days in the week the marriage tie is to be strictly observed." The 

 woman's mother first of all proposes that, taking " everything into consideration, 

 with a due regard to the feelings of the family, she could not think of binding 

 her daughter to a due observance of that chastity which matrimony is expected 

 to command for more than two days in the week." After a great deal of ap- 

 parently angry discussion, and the promise on the part of the relatives of the 

 man to pay more, it is arranged that " the marriage shall hold good, as is cus- 

 tomary among the first families of the tribe, for four days in the week viz., 

 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday ; and, in compliance with old- 

 established custom, the marriage rites during the three remaining days shall not 

 be insisted on, during which days the bride shall be perfectly free to act as she 

 may think proper, either by adhering to her husband and home, or by enjoying 

 her freedom and independence from all observation of matrimonial obligation." 

 Spencer's " Descriptive Sociology." 



A Healthy Climate. Papua is the paradise of birds, Natal of large 



quadrupeds, Surinam of snakes, Java of butterflies, but Borneo of crocodiles. 

 On a river-island, hardly a mile in length, Professor Keppel counted not less 

 than 740 of these eupeptic pets. But the climate in which, as reported several 

 years ago, things have got most mixed, is New Holland, where it is summer when 

 it is winter in Europe, and vice versa ; where the barometer rises before bad 

 weather, and falls before good ; where the north is the hot wind and the south 

 the cold ; where the humblest house is fitted up with cedar and mahogany, and 

 myrtle is burned for fuel; where the swans are black, and the eagles white; 

 where the kangaroo, an animal between a squirrel and a deer, has five claws on 

 its fore-paws, and three talons on its hind-legs, and yet hops on its tail ; where 

 the mole lays eggs and has a duck's bill ; where there is a bird with a broom in 

 its mouth instead- of a tongue ; where there is a fish one half belonging to the 

 genus Rata and the other half to that of Squalus ; where the pears are made of 

 wood with the stalk at the broader end ; and where the cherry grows with the 

 cherry-stone outside. 



apply to every kind of soil or rock. They have an endless list of " signs " " indica- 

 tions," as our gold-hunters would call them. Every tribe has its professional sheriat- 

 nebbed ; and where a committee of these experts fail to find water there is a strong pre- 

 sumption that Allah must have withdrawn his hand, as from the deserts of Western Ila- 

 dramaut, where on an area of nine thousand square miles an artesian explorer might bore 

 through to the antipodes without attaining his object. 



