Chap. IX. MATRIMONIAL SQUABBLES. 171 



that it prevented the illness with which Mayolo had 

 been afflicted from cominc: ae:ain. The female doctor, 

 I need scarcely add, had come from a distance ; for it 

 is always so in primitive Africa — the further off a 

 doctor or witchfinder lives, the greater his reputation. 



The wives of West African chiefs are almost as 

 independent as their lords and masters. They have 

 their own plantations, and have their own little 

 property. Wiien quarrels arise between them and 

 their husbands, I don't think the latter always get 

 the best of it, for wife-flogging is but very seldom 

 resorted to by the men here. The following is a 

 sample of the matrimonial disputes which I witnessed 

 during my stay at Mayolo : — ■ 



Mayolo was greatly enraged one day because his 

 head wife — a young Avoman about twenty years of 

 age, and remarkable for her light-coloured skin and 

 hazel eyes — had mislaid or wasted his tobacco, a very 

 precious drug here. He threatened to take away 

 the pipe or condoquai, which is common property 

 to man and wife, and so prevent her smoking any 

 more. Instead of being frightened, the young wife 

 retorted that the plantain-stem of the pipe was her 

 own property, and that she would take it away, and 

 what was he to do then ? — for he had not plantain- 

 trees of his own, they were all hers. The dispute 

 soon waxed fierce, and she then threatened to set fire 

 to his house. At this the old man laughed heartily, 

 and dared her to do it. It was the most serious 

 squabble I had witnessed ; if Mayolo had been well 

 in health at the time, and more seriously angry, the 

 worst that would ha^^e happened would have been 



