MATRIMONY — ABUSE OF WOMEN. 61 
often saw the cruel welts of the flogging 
process on the backs of women, and one 
woman came to Good Hope to seek protec- 
tion from her cruel husband. She had been 
tied to the ground, in which position hei 
tongue was drawn out of her mouth and 
burned with a red hot iron! 
Though women are called wives, they are 
in reality slaves, having no rights and only 
such privileges as hard-hearted, superstitious, 
ignorant heathen husbands are disposed to 
give them. And it matters not how cruelly 
they may be treated, it is seldom that their 
wrongs are redressed, because there is no 
appeal from the decisions of their husbands 3 
except in rare and extraordinary cases when 
headmen are induced to put bounds to the 
wrongs imposed upon them by their tyran- 
nical masters. 
As a general thing the wife must raise the 
husband's rice, prepare his food, row his 
canoe along the river, do all his drudgery, 
and take such flogging in the bargain as he 
is disposed to give her. 
A man wishing a wife goes to the parents 
of the one selected, and makes them a present 
