54 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



triumphantly vindicated their unparalleled patience 

 and energy, — these were accompanied by their 

 wives, the mothers and grandmothers of the 

 daughters of the West. Stop and think what 

 these women, some of them delicately nurtured, 

 suffered and endured. Think not only of the 

 physical ills, but of the mental worries and anxie- 

 ties : the sense of isolation, the impending sword 

 of death and disease, the possibility of what is 

 worse than death, — torture and dishonour. 



Is it then to be wondered at that when a brighter 

 day dawned for these men they realised what was 

 owing to their wives ? And have they not be- 

 queathed the sense of this obligation to their sons ? 

 Can you not hear them saying, "Nothing that 

 this world can give is too good for the women of 

 the West"? 



And accordingly she has been exalted, and the 

 hands that placed the idol on high are loath to pull 

 it down. Indeed, so beloved are their women by 

 the men of the West that some of them (a few), 

 who are truly no more than graven images, have 

 been given articulate speech. I know one man, a 

 charming fellow, witty and humorous and the 

 husband of a stupid wife. Again and again he has 

 told me what his wife has said upon subjects whose 

 very names, I am convinced, are Greek to her. I 

 have never failed on such occasions to express my 

 sense of his wife's wit, and upon my soul I am 

 beginning to believe that my Pygmalion really 

 gives his Galatea credit for the good things which 

 he puts into her mouth. Such a husband brings 

 no business cares to his shrine. Often the divinity 



