IN WESTEEN AFRICA. 
• 65 
little conscience in the matter. Sometimes they 
manage to prove an accusation against them, 
which they make an excuse for selling them into 
slavery, or to dispose of them in other ways. 
Marriage contracts are often made for girls 
when they are not more than five or six years old. 
In this case the hetrothment money, or most of it, 
is not paid until near the time of marriage, — that is 
when the girl is thirteen or fourteen years old. It . 
is considered a reproach for girls to pass twelve 
years of age without having an offer for marriage. 
Indeed they are frequently married at that age. 
While I was at Good Hope Station a man came 
there making inquiry for his wife. Seeing the 
girls in the room he went to one about six years 
of age, laid his hand upon her head, and said to 
me, This one my wife ; my father done buy her 
for me long time ago.” He was soon made ac- 
quainted with the fact that he could not have 
her then nor at any subsequent period, with the 
consent of the missionaries. 
The children taken at that station were given to 
the missionaries to be kept until they should 
arrive at their majority, with the condition that 
they should then be their own masters, — neither 
the parents nor the missionaries having further 
control over them. 
Parents are willing to give up their children 
