158 
ANTALOW 
quired 5 if there should be another Ras, whether they would be com- 
pelled to pay tribute ? to which I was answered, no ! they will plead 
not having paid it to the former. 
Great men take as many wives as they please ; but it is diffi- 
cult to get rid of (hem, owing to their connections, who always re- 
sent any affront offered to the women. Shum Woldo, in particular, 
had forty wives, and left behind him upwards of one hundred 
children. Having divorced one of his wives, her father made strong 
remonstrances on the subject, and repeating this too often, the 
haughty Shum's temper was at last so much enraged, that he made 
an attempt in his anger to kill the old man, by firing a matchlock 
at him. Marriages are very easily made up ; the parties go to any 
friend's house, and there enter into an engagement with each other, 
without the presence of a priest being necessary. 
^' So far from enjoying a free intercourse with the males, as is 
asserted by Mr. Bruce, it is certain that the married women are 
watched with some caution by their husbands, and even occasionally 
secluded from male society, as in the case of Ozoro Mantwaub. 
So alive is the Ras to the feelings of jealousy, that he has never 
acknowledged his only son, a child about three years old, in con- 
sequence of a suspicion of its mother's fidelity. Mr. Bruce has been 
equally incorrect in stating that bastards, or the offspring of a con- 
nection between the master and a domestic servant, can inherit the 
father's property. They are, in fact, considered as little better than 
menials, except that they are not obliged to work. They are savage 
in their treatment of children, yet respectful towards women, whom 
nevertheless they, in our opinion, treat with little regard to decency 
in their conversation ; but the gross and disgusting scenes which 
