356 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
power, they are spared, or at all events not com- 
pelled to feel the horrors which usually attend it. 
But the crying sin of Mohamedanism and the 
main spring of its pernicious tendency, is the tole- 
ration of polygamy. I confine my observations to 
its effects in Western Africa, although if this were 
the proper time and occasion, I should not dread 
being able to demonstrate that wherever tolerat- 
ed, its tendency must be evil in the worst degree. 
Polygamy is the fruitful source of jealousy and 
distrust, it contracts the parental and filial affec- 
tions, it weakens and disjoints the ties of kin- 
dred, and but for the unlimited influence of the 
Maraboos and the fear of hell, if they do not 
profit of the license of their great Apostle, must 
totally unhinge the frame of all society. The 
father has many wives, the wives have many 
children, favoritism in its most odious form sets 
in, jealousy is soon aroused, and revenge un- 
sheathes the sword which deals forth destruction. 
But it is not to the domestic circle, it is not to 
the family arrangements, it is not to the fearful 
mischiefs it leads to upon social intercourse that 
I look alone j but to its division of the soil and to 
its mutilation of the different states, than which 
nothing can prove more destructive to any 
country. The jealousies of the mothers, while 
exciting to domestic hatred, lead to external civil 
war, and states rise and set with a sort of harle- 
