In any dispute brought before me, formally or informally, I find that, though it appears to be between men only, and to deal with men’s concerns exclusively, a woman turns up sooner or later, and often that complainant’s whole case has been put into his mouth by his wife or some female relative. It is safe to say that if the men only went to law on their own account, and were left to settle things their own way, the hard lot of the magistrate would be much lightened. While blaming the women, it is only fair to say that the men shew themselves born lawyers in their statements of a case. The complainant’s account of a transaction makes things look black for the defendant, and certainly justifies his being sent for, even if a hundred miles away, but on his arrival one frequently finds that, though containing no direct lies, the complainant’s story will bear a different interpretation. As for divorce, and the consequent laxity of the marriage tie, all natives feel the difference between a regular marriage and an irregular alliance, and, if an individual did not, the wife’s father and brothers would soon point it out. Indeed, a wife can keep her husband in due subjection by appeals to her relatives. One morning, after we had been out at sea since sunrise, when I gave the signal for breakfast, one of my sailors remarked, “That is good news; we _are_ hungry this morning.” “Why more than usual?” “We were out with you yesterday till seven o’clock so when we got home there was no supper.” “But you are married men; did not your wives have anything ready for you?” “Oh no, they had eaten their own suppers and gone to sleep. Women do as they like with us. You see, in a town we could go out and buy something ready cooked, but that is not possible here.” The idea that wifely duty involved getting up and providing something, rather than that a husband who had been kept at sea overtime should go hungry to bed, seemed to them a sweet, but unattainable ideal. I deprecate wife-beating, but I asked “Did you not feel inclined to strike them?” but that course would have meant settling with the father and brothers-in-law, the explanation that the husbands had come in hungry from the sea and had found no supper provided being, to their ideas, adequately met by the retort, “You must let them do as they like, that is the custom of our tribe and you must do as others do.” _Plate XXII_ [Illustration: Fig. 48. Spinning goats’ hair. Note nose ring and bead ornaments (N.B. The word WAR on the tent door merely means that the sack originally contained War Office stores)] Marriage is by purchase, and though the bride has no choice, brothers and sons-in-law are carefully chosen. I once ventured on the impertinent question, “Now that your sister’s marriage with so-and-so is not to take place who will she marry?” “It is so hard to find a husband who will treat her well.”