any binding ties. Descent is traced only through the line of the
mother, and while individuals are as proud of a long and superior female
ancestry as we are of our families in Europe, they never pay attention
to, or even acknowledge, any man as their father, even when their male
parentage is perfectly well known. There is but one titular male parent
of each tribe, or, as they call it, "Household," and he is its elected
and immediate ruler, with the title of "Father." For instance, the man
Billali was the father of this "household," which consisted of about
seven thousand individuals all told, and no other man was ever called
by that name. When a woman took a fancy to a man she signified her
preference by advancing and embracing him publicly, in the same way that
this handsome and exceedingly prompt young lady, who was called Ustane,
had embraced Leo. If he kissed her back it was a token that he accepted
her, and the arrangement continued until one of them wearied of it. I
am bound, however, to say that the change of husbands was not nearly so
frequently as might have been expected. Nor did quarrels arise out
of it, at least among the men, who, when their wives deserted them
in favour of a rival, accepted the whole thing much as we accept the
income-tax or our marriage laws, as something not to be disputed, and as
tending to the good of the community, however disagreeable they may in
particular instances prove to the individual.

It is very curious to observe how the customs of mankind on this matter
vary in different countries, making morality an affair of latitude, and
what is right and proper in one place wrong and improper in another. It
must, however, be understood that, since all civilised nations appear to
accept it as an axiom that ceremony is the touchstone of morality, there
is, even according to our canons, nothing immoral about this Amahagger
custom, seeing that the interchange of the embrace answers to our
ceremony of marriage, which, as we know, justifies most things.