150 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. i. 



tion of slaves, and a great increase of misery, 

 but little or no real increase of population.* 



The customs of some nations, and the preju- 

 dices of all, operate in some degree like a bounty 

 of this kind. The Shangalla negroes, according 

 to Bruce, hemmed in on every side by active and 

 powerful enemies, and leading a life of severe 

 labour and constant apprehension, feel but little 

 desire for women. It is the wife, and not the 

 man, that is the cause of their polygamy. Though 

 they live in separate tribes or nations, yet these 

 nations are again subdivided into families. In 

 fighting, each family attacks and defends by itself, 

 and theirs is the spoil and plunder who take it. 

 The mothers therefore, sensible of the disadvan- 

 tages of a small family, seek to multiply it by all 

 the means in their power; and it is by their im- 

 portunity, that the husband suffers himself to be 

 overcome.^ The motives to polygamy among the 

 Galla are described to be the same, and in both 

 nations the first wife courts the alliance of a se- 

 cond for her husband ; and the principal argument 



* The two great requisites just mentioned for a real increase of 

 population, namely, security of property, and its natural conco- 

 mitant, industry, cannot be expected to exist among the negro 

 nations, while the traffic in slaves on the coast gives such constant 

 encouragement to the plundering excursions which Park describes. 

 Were this traffic at an end, we might rationally hope that, before 

 the lapse of any long period, future travellers would be able to 

 give us a more favourable picture of the state of society among 

 the African nations, than that drawn by Park. 



+ Brace's Travels to discover the Source of the Nile, vol. ii. p. 

 556. 4to. 



