POLYGAMY IN AFRICA. 
466 
since it was the fashion to wear them. Polygamy is com- 
mon all down the Zambesi ; a man is respected for the 
number of wives he has. The reason for this is, probably, 
that as the husband has the produce of each of the wives’ 
gardens, lie is wealthy in proportion to the number of wives 
he has. The husband gives to his wife’s father a number 
of cows, proportionate to his wealth, not as purchase money 
for his wife, but in order to obtain possession of her chil- 
dren, since, without this, they would belong to her father. 
Should she die, the husband gives an ox, to compensate her 
father for her entire loss. The wives of the rich have 
servants to do their work for them, and, consequently, have 
a great deal of leisure, which they spend partly in sipping 
beer and smoking “bang,” or Indian hemp, known as 
matokwane, in secret, since the husbands, though addicted 
themselves to smoking, generally forbid their spouses from 
so doing. The effect of smoking bang is peculiar; it seems 
to produce a mild species of frenzy, in which they utter 
unmeaning words. Its physical effects are very bad ; it 
gives rise to an eruption on the skin, and carried to excess 
produces idiocy. The party was overrun with visitors, who 
were interested in seeing the white men eat. They use a 
spoon to put their food in their left hand, with which they 
carry it to their mouths. Eating butter unmelted disgusted 
them ; they never eat it except when melted into oil- 
Otherwise it la raw, to them, and the only use they make 
of it in this state is rubbing it on their bodies, to make 
their skins glossy and smooth. They asked freely for gi*’ ts 
of such things as they fancied, but were in no way offended 
at being refused. 
The King receives his tribute from everything produced, 
and a part of all the game killed. Both tusks of the e' LV 
phants killed belong to him. He is expected, however, 10 
be generous, and give away a goodly share of his p cl( l 
sites of this kind. Justice is, on the whole, pretty wc ^ 
dispensed among them. The natives who had aecompa n|C 
Dr, Livingstone had ler.rted from the Scghsii mat jU 
