MARRIAGES. 



427 



friends, forwarded by the future father-in-law. 

 The feast concludes the betrothal ; x either of the 

 twain most concerned is still at liberty to jilt ; 

 but in such a case, as usual throughout the 

 Moslem East, enmity between the families inevit- 

 ably results. 



The wedding festivities outlast the month : 

 there are great ' affinities of gossips;' tympanum et 

 tripudium ; hard eating and harder wetting of 

 the driest clay with the longest draughts of 

 Tembo K'hali (sour toddy), of Pombe beer (the 

 Kafir Chuala), and of the maddening Zerambo. 

 Processions of free women and slave girls, pre- 

 ceded by chattels performing on various utensils 

 of music, perambulate the streets, singing and 

 dancing in every court. At length the Kazi, 

 or any other man of letters, recites the Eatiheh, 

 and the two become one, either at the bridegroom's 

 or at the bride's house. The women are present 

 when the happy man enters the nuptial chamber, 

 and they always require to be ejected by main 

 force. Unlike the Arabs, they retain the Jewish 

 practice of inspection : if the process be satis- 

 factory, the bridegroom presents $10 to $50 

 to his new connections, while the exemplary 



1 M. Guillain (Part II. 108) calls the preliminary ceremony 

 1 Outoumba,' and I cannot help thinking that he was grossly 

 ' sold' by some exceedingly impudent interpreter. 



