156 LESSONS FEOM NATURE. [CHAP. VI. 



are not in the habit of washing themselves or their vessels 

 for ordinary purposes, and the dogs and the cockroaches 

 divide between them the duty of cleaning out the milk- 

 baskets.&quot; Therefore here one of two things must be con 

 ceded. We have either a case of degradation and degenera 

 tion from earlier cleanliness, or else there must have been 

 an original spiritual meaning in certain primitive washings 

 pointing to a higher religious condition than that at pre 

 sent existing amongst those who practise the ceremonies in 

 question. Again, the legend of the World Tortoise* may be 

 but a degradation, and have meant, as Mr. Tylor suggests, 

 to express the hemispherical heavens overarching the flat 

 expanded plain of earth. 



Sir John Lubbock presents to us data which, in fact, alto 

 speak of degradation in a more northern part of Africa, 

 namely, amongst the Christians of Abyssinia. He quotes t 

 Bruce as saying that there is &quot; no such thing as marriage in 

 Abyssinia, unless that which is contracted by mutual consent, 

 without other form, subsisting only till dissolved by dissent 

 of one or other, and to be renewed or repeated as often as it 

 is agreeable to both parties, who, when they please, live toge 

 ther again as man and wife, after having been divorced, had 

 children by others, or whether they have been married, or had 

 children with others or not. I remember to have once been 

 at Koscam in presence of the Iteghe (the queen), when, in 

 the circle, there was a woman of great quality, and seven men 

 who had all been her husbands, none of whom was the happy 

 spouse at that time.&quot; I Sir John significantly couples with 

 this quotation another to the effect that, for all this, &quot; there 

 is no country in the world where there are so many churches.&quot; 

 Now when Christianity was first accepted by these Christians 

 their practice must have been very different ; and, therefore? 

 we have here an unquestionable case of Christian degeneracy 

 parallel with but carried further than the analogous religious 



* Researches into the Early History of Mankind, p. 333. 



t The Origin of Civilisation, p. 57. 



I Brucc s Travels, vol. iv. p. 487. Ibid. vol. v. p. 1. 



