REVERENCE TO PARENTS. 
345 
most conspicuous part. When the supper-feast is over, the 
blushing bride is conducted to the nuptial-chamber; and there 
the impatient lover first beholds his love ! The marriage, without 
further ceremony, is consummated ; and, not long after, the 
bridegroom returns to his party ; and an ancient matron, in 
waiting, leads the lady back to the room which contains her 
female friends. A prescribed time is allowed for both sets of 
relations to congratulate the young people on their union, after 
which the happy pair retire to the bridal- chamber for the night; 
leaving their separate companies to keep up the revelry, which 
generally lasts for three days. It then all ceases ; until the 
hero of the scene, tires of his mate ; and, going through a 
similar ceremony, pleases to add, from time to time, as many wives 
to his first, as the law allows, or he can afford to maintain. 
From the nature of the attachment, which in general subsists 
between parents united by such capricious impulses, we might 
be led to suppose that little paternal interest can exist in their 
breasts for the offspring of such heartless bonds. But the case 
is not so. In no country have I seen greater tenderness shown 
to young children ; nor more regard paid by fathers to the wel¬ 
fare of sons approaching to manhood. And the filial reverence 
which sons, of all ages, here pay to their parents, might be a 
useful lesson to countries of much more civilised pretensions. 
A spirit of slavery, and the principle of subordination, are dif¬ 
ferent things, though they are often confounded; and this sin¬ 
gular deference to parental authority, and to the experience of 
age, leads me to form a better expectation of what the nation 
may yet become, than if I found the reverse its characteristic. 
Besides, education is far from being neglected by any class of the 
people. I have already mentioned the style of tuition, in which 
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