420 Report on the Island of Chedooba. [No. 114. 



former, as his features proclaim him a Tartar, and are but rarely found 

 modified with the more regular ones of the people on whose border he 

 has so long inhabited. 



The only custom among them, (other than the idolatrous ones of their 

 worship of Gaudma) which appear at all repugnant to our own feelings, 

 is that of a plurality of wives, which is permitted; but is a permission 

 seldom taken an advantage of, especially in Chedooba. 



The most notorious case met with, was in that of the Soogree of Meng- 

 bieng ; a fine intelligent man of 45 with 3 wives, and a family of 18 child- 

 ren, from 24 years old to 6 months, all living in the most perfect harmony 

 and peace under the same roof. Although in every respect bona fide 

 wives, yet the two younger observed a dutiful attention and submission 

 to the first and eldest, who was considered as the governess of the 

 household, the others in regard to her, conducting themselves more as 

 daughters. It was a curious and not uninteresting family scene, and I 

 spent near two hours with them, enquiring, without the slightest offence 

 to husband, wives, or children, into the peculiarities, and relative duties, 

 and stations of a style of family partnership I had never before witnessed 

 so extensively, and was answered with the greatest frankness and 

 good nature, our remarks often causing a general laugh. The elder wife 

 had supplied her share of the family circle, not so the two younger, and 

 at least in this case, polygamy does not threaten a cause of depopulation 

 to Chedooba. 



Marriage is merely a civil contract unmixed with any religious cere- 

 mony or sanction, and is the result of mutual preference, as well as of the 

 interposition of friends and parents. Those of the would be bridegroom 

 proceed with fruits, flowers, wearing apparel, and ornaments to the 

 parents of the bride, and seek her formally in marriage. If granted, the 

 presents are left for the bride, to whose house the bridegroom proceeds in 

 the evening, and where he resides and serves his father-in-law, not as a 

 servant, but as a partner or a son for an indefinite period. 



As with mutual consent the ceremony is performed, so with the same 

 is it annulled," and though this privilege is not unfrequently acted on in 

 the more populous towns of Ramree, and the Main, yet it is merely so in 

 Chedooba, and three cases came under observation, where, although sepa- 

 ration took place on the side of one of the parties, the other denied all 

 acquiescence in the transaction, and with the community in general 

 esteemed it a desertion. One was on an interesting case, arising from the 

 conversion of the husband to Christianity ; to all attempts at recon- 

 ciliation on the part of himself and others, an obstinate denial was 



