additional wife was a good thing, he appealed, in perplexity, to the elder wife herself (as if, poor soul, she had had any voice in the matter!) and was more than ever taken aback by the coldness with which that lady heard his condolences. "Let her come!" said the original mistress of the hearth, waving off sympathy with a contemptuous air; "let her come—she'll do to make the damper!" Whether in this particular instance the baking of dampers by the second wife helped to extinguish family feuds I never heard, but judging from what we saw of other cases I should imagine that the contrary was to be expected.
In the presence of white people one native wife will sometimes content herself with making faces and shaking her fist at the other behind her back, but these demonstrations are mere amenities when compared to a real and serious quarrel, fought out with the long wands which the women habitually carry, (as the men their spears,) and which, in action, they handle like the English quarterstaff. In one such duel, which was described to me by an eye-witness, one of the women dropped dead upon the spot.
Khourabene's wives, however, being hardened women of the world, and too wise to quarrel, found a common bond of union in making him a regular slave to them both. They played upon his love of flattery, (which he possessed to as great an extent as if he had been highly civilized,) and by dint of calling him "fine gentleman fellow," and praising his kindness, persuaded him to fetch and carry for them like a dog. Though we always paid him in money they grudged his doing a day's work for us, and
