and the Mpongwe. 77 
maritime tribes of Africa. He must indeed be 
a Solomon of a son who, sur les bonds du Gabon , 
can guess at his own sire; a question so imper¬ 
tinent is never put by the ex-officio father. The 
son succeeds by inheritance to his fathers relict, 
who, being generally in years, is condemned to be 
useful when she has ceased to be an ornament, 
and, if there are several, they are equally divided 
amongst the heirs. 
Trading tribes rarely affect the pundonor which 
characterizes the pastoral and the predatory; these 
people traffic in all things, even in the chastity 
of their women. What with pre-nuptial excesses, 
with early unions, often infructuous, with a virtual 
system of community, and with universal drunk¬ 
enness, it is not to be wondered at if the mari¬ 
time tribes of Africa degenerate and die out. 
Such apparently is the modus operandi by which 
Nature rids herself of the effete races which have 
served to clear the ground and to pave the way 
for higher successors. Wealth and luxury, so ge¬ 
nerally inveighed against by poets and divines, 
injure humanity only when they injuriously affect 
reproduction ; and poverty is praised only because 
it breeds more men. The true tests of the physical 
prosperity of a race, and of its position in the world, 
are bodily strength and the excess of births over 
deaths. 
Separation after marriage can hardly be digni- 
