civilized life, and a colonist for whom they sometimes worked was anxious to give them a cottage and a piece of ground for corn, in the hope of inducing the pair to remain with him as his permanent servants. But there were wheels within wheels in their destiny which forbade them to hope for a settled life. Not only might their door, if ever they possessed a house, be darkened by the middle-aged spouse, but the half-caste himself was beset with worse difficulties on his own account. His mother had long ago betrothed him to another native girl, and the fear of being knocked on the head by his nearest relations for contumaciously ignoring the agreement condemned him and the girl of his own selection to an existence as unquiet as that of the Wandering Jew. So complicated are domestic affairs in a society where polygamy is lawful, and where the marriages are arranged solely by the parents.
I have already alluded once or twice to little Binnahan, and I will now relate how it was that she came to live under our roof. Some few months after the disappointment of our plans with respect to Mingee, my husband left home to attend one of the Perth clerical meetings, which were always in January, and Khourabene, according to custom, was deputed to mount guard over our house in its master's absence.
By way of making an imposing demonstration after dark, our sentry paraded in front of the house with a spear; and once when I returned from an evening walk with Rosa, I found that he had possessed himself of the broomstick which we used as a kitchen poker, and was shouldering it in the doorway in a manner that might
