PRICE OF A WIFE.— PERSONAL BEAUTY. 
565 
the parents ; whose consent or refusal is of more importance to the 
match, than the approbation or disapprobation of the daughter. Ten 
oxen is accounted a high price for a wife : but judging from the 
poverty of the greater number of Bachapins, the average value may 
be rated as below five ; and as there are few of the lower class who 
possess more than the cloak which covers them, their wife would be 
too dear, if she cost only a goat. According to the information I 
obtained, there were scarcely a dozen men among the whole tribe, 
who were not married : nor can this appear an extraordinary circum- 
stance, but to those who have been born in a civilized country, where 
the artificial state of society renders that union an affair of the head 
rather than of the heart, and where calculating prudence often steps 
forward to forbid it altogether. Here the poorer class do not stop to 
consider whether their wages will enable them to support a wife and 
family; nor does any of the richer wait till he have accumulated 
more property and increased the number of his herd to that of his 
neighbour's. On this point the savage stands superior, and here he 
seems, according to the law of Nature, wiser than the polished 
inhabitant of a more civilized land. 
If the marriages of this tribe be attended with any special cere- 
mony, this is altogether unknown to me : I never could learn that 
any particular form took place, as necessary to confirm the matri- 
monial contract, and render it legal ; nor do I believe that any 
further arrangements are required, than those which have just been 
stated. 
Those women who are of pure Bachapin descent, have very little 
personal beauty ; and all that can in general be said, is, that in their 
youth their features are not unpleasing. Those of Kora descent 
might, perhaps, sometimes be thought tolerably pretty at that age ; 
and in more advanced years they often preserve a better appearance 
than the others ; as may be observed in the eighth plate. The 
number of Bachapins who have taken wives from among the Koras, 
is not small. This seems to be a prevailing custom, with that class 
who can afford to purchase them ; while at the same time the Kora 
