POLYGAMY 197 



ing with lier fellow -slaves. What can be the results 

 of heredity in such a case ? What intellectual ad- 

 vancement is possible among a people each successive 

 generation of whom is dragged down to the level of 

 barbarism by maternal influence ? 



There is no better illustration of the sterilising 

 effects of polygamy upon the human mind than the 

 condition of the literature of polygamous races. 

 Where the passion of love in the European sense of 

 the word is unknown, poetry and fiction may be said 

 to be in their infancy. This is eminently so in Turkey 

 and Persia; and in these countries, moreover, the 

 stage — another important vehicle of sentiment — has 

 hardly risen above the level of our Punch and Judy 

 show. Turkish and Persian plays consist for the 

 most part of illustrations of certain stereotyped reli- 

 gious subjects or exhibitions of the merest buffoonery, 

 sometimes of a disgusting character. Under the 

 influence of French and Italian models, a more vital 

 species of performance has recently been springing 

 up, but the motives of this nascent Mahomedan 

 drama, judging by some samples recently published 

 by a French writer, M. Alphonse Cilli^re, are still in 

 the embryo state. The most interesting of M. Cil- 

 lifere's translations is a study of harem jealousy — a 



