Now the Swazi, from the highest to the lowest, sells his women. Women are the "pound sterling" among all the savage tribes, and the unit of value is five cows for an average maid who is young, sound in limb and wind, and trained to the primitive duties of her race. These consist chiefly in ability to do a decent day's work in the fields, the making of tswala, and the cleaning of a hut or kraal. Of course the care of children is considered important. A Swazi's wealth is measured by the number of wives he has. The number of his cows and other livestock is secondary. For instance, Umzulek is regarded as a millionaire because he has sixty wives and more than two hundred and forty children. The average Swazi induna has five or more wives, and some have many more. The price of a woman depends greatly on her birth and beauty. All the Swazi women have fine bodies, and many are very handsome, according to the native standard. Princesses sell for as much as fifty cows apiece, and a wife is always proud if she brings more than the market price. In fact, her importance as a wife is usually based on her purchase price. When the time arrived for Sebuza to choose some wives, there were quite a number awaiting his inspection. The morning that he looked them over they were assembled in the "Sacred Bathing Pool," a sort of market-place. Their owners, mostly parents, stood beside the crown prince and extolled the virtues of their offspring. The maidens were lined up along the banks of the pool and the prince examined them most minutely. It was almost pathetic to see how these dusky belles bore up under his inspection. Each looked appealingly at Sebuza, much after the fashion of a dog that hopes to be petted, and almost quivered with the hope that she would be selected. The thought came to me that the rejected ones must face a hard life when they were brought back to their home kraals. Sebuza chose five of the girls, and they were straightway sent to his kraal. The rejected ones were immediately clothed and their owners took them away. Later in the day Lochien told me that all the girls selected by Sebuza were exceptionally high caste and that between forty and fifty cows had been paid for each. My companions were sadly disappointed over Sebuza's wholesale marriage. They had expected a wild ceremony and much savage celebration, but I explained to them that the Swazis did not go in for that sort of thing. There are no marriage ceremonies whatever--the man pays for his wife and she belongs to him from that hour until he dies. He may accumulate other wives, and this custom is so old that all the wives live together in peace, such a thing as jealousy of the white kind being unknown. From what I have seen of the toilsome lives of these wives, it would seem to me that their contentment is based on the old saw which sagely observes that "misery loves company." Another advantage of plural wives is that each additional wife lessens the labors of the others.