170 FRENCH EXPEDITION AGAINST THE POULAS. 
case of divorce, the woman receives back her dowry, which 
at her death belongs to her children, who, if she be divorced, 
remain with the father. A man who has several wives 
encourages jealousy among them, that they may purchase his 
caresses by presents. Sometimes the lovers remain single for 
three years, and are constantly making presents to each other : 
they are sometimes susceptible of so strong an attachment, as 
to renounce every other connection until they are united. 
The man who has no slaves to pay the dowry of his wife, 
labours for his father-in-law ; it was thus that Jacob passed 
fourteen years in the service of Laban. 
I cannot help reciting a fact, which has given the Poulas 
of Foutatoro great celebrity in our establishments on the 
Senegal. Since the beginning of the present century, M. 
Ribet, at the head of twenty-five European soldiers, and 
four hundred Senegal Negroes, had by way of reprisal 
plundered all the Poula villages bordering upon the river. 
On arriving at Gaet, one of their large towns, not a Negro 
appeared to oppose them ; the inhabitants were all concealed 
behind their palisades, and thus intrenched, fired upon the 
enemy. In the mean time two field pieces, by which M. 
Ribet was accompanied, made incredible havoc among the 
Poulas, but at the moment when he thought victory certain, 
a bull leaped over the palisades and furiously rushed upon his 
men. A divinity descending from heaven could not have 
produced a more extraordinary effect. The Negroes of the 
