A BOUTEA WIFE. 
239 
fidelity to their husbands, being seldom known to 
violate the marriage contract ; and when this does 
happen, it is almost invariably followed with fatal 
punishment : though in some districts of these moun- 
tains the greatest licentiousness prevails among the 
common people. 
A story is related of a Boutea woman of great 
personal beauty, who having attracted the notice of 
a man much her superior in station, the latter 
made to her proposals of dishonourable love. She 
rejected his offers with .indignation, but, knowing the 
jealous temper of her husband, thought it prudent to 
conceal the fact from him, fearing that once to rouse 
his suspicions would be to provoke certain misery for 
the rest of her days. The disappointed lover, burning 
with rage at her indifference towards him and her de- 
termined resistance of his proposals, took care to excite 
the husband’s jealousy by spreading a report that he 
had seduced his wife from her conjugal fidelity. The 
demon of suspicion was immediately quickened in the 
bosom of the irascible Boutea, and seeking his wife, he 
vehemently upbraided her with her imagined infamy. 
She protested in vain against his unjust credulity ; but 
finding that her solemn declarations of innocence only 
tended to increase his austerity, she told him that if 
he would accompany her to a certain spot, she would 
convince him his suspicions were unfounded. He 
consented, and the wife walked silently before him 
until they reached the brow of a precipice. 
“Here,” she said, “I first met the man with 
whom you accuse me of having had criminal inter- 
course. Here I treated his offers of base attachment 
