THE WAS A W A HILL 



419 



him into trouble, but he fights only by being 

 brought to bay. Sensual and degraded, his self - 

 indulgence is that of the brutes. He drinks, and 

 always drinks to excess. He would stake and 

 lose his mother at play. Chastity is unknown in 

 this land of hot temperaments — the man places 

 paradise in the pleasures of the sixth sense, and 

 the woman yields herself to the first advances. 

 Upon the coast, when an adulterer is openly de- 

 tected, he is fined according to the c injured 

 husband's ' rank ; mostly, however, such pecca- 

 dillos are little noticed. "Unnatural crimes are 

 held conducive to health. * * * 



The manners of ' the perverse race of Kush ' 

 are rough and free, especially compared with those 

 of India, yet dashed with a queer African cere- 

 moniousness. Then conversation turns wholly 

 upon the subjects of women and money. With 

 these optimists all that is is good, or, at least, it 

 is not worth the trouble of a change for the 

 better. They 'make a stand upon the ancient 

 way/ and they hold that old custom, because it is 

 old, must be fit for all time. This savage con- 

 servatism, combined with their traditional and 

 now instinctive dread of the white face, and 

 perhaps with a not unreasonable fear of present 

 and future loss, has made them close the interior 



