Hanging on the wall in my dining-room was a looking-glass 15 inches wide by 18 inches high; it was probably the largest looking-glass in that part of Africa, and it was one of the “sights” of the district. Frequently while sitting in my study I would hear the shuffling of many feet and much giggling. On going into the dining-room I would see perhaps eight or ten women all laughing and nudging one another, and there in the centre right before the glass would be a well-decorated woman wriggling about in her vain attempt to see both sides of herself at once. It was a new wife whom the older wives had brought to view herself in the white man’s looking-glass. In the “trade looking-glass” she could only see small sections of herself, but in this large one she had an expansive view of the whole “landscape,” and her remarks of wonder and surprise were causing the onlookers to giggle and to excite her to greater efforts to procure broader views of herself. They exhibited no jealousy, but regarded her as an acquisition—the new wife being one more to help keep the husband. During this period the man buys all the food, but when the “honeymoon” is over the girl takes up her farm-work and settles down to ordinary life. From that time she brings home each afternoon some of her farm produce to prepare for her own and her husband’s evening meal. The husband, however, must find her the fish for such meals as he partakes with her, and should he have a quantity of meat he must be willing to share it with his wives. For the poor slave woman there are no preliminary gifts, no “bespoke” money, no wedding feast and dance, and no “honeymoon.” The sum agreed upon is paid, and the slave woman is taken to her new owner’s house, or given as a farm help to his favourite wife. The children of such a marriage are called _mbotela_ = semi-slave, indicating that one of the parents is a slave. If a man cannot afford to pay the marriage money for a free wife, or even to buy a slave, he can hire a slave as his wife, and any children born to them belong to the owner of the slave woman and not to the father and mother. Or a man will sometimes borrow a wife of another man for three or six months, and will pay a fixed sum according to the length of time he has her; but any children born of such an arrangement belong to the real husband of the woman. A man can marry as many women as he can find the marriage money for, but to each he must give a house, and all his free wives have equal rights. His slave wives are simply slaves, and he can sell or kill them just as he pleases. Polygamy is very general, and monogamy is the result of poverty. Free men, as a rule, do not marry slaves; but the slave woman is given in marriage to the slave man, and she thus helps to make him contented with his lot in the town and tribe; she keeps him in food and increases the wealth of her master by bearing children, who are slaves and the property of her owner.