Certain phases of polygamy one cannot discuss frankly. Children are not weaned until the age of two or three years. During this period of lactation the husband and wife observe absolute continence in regard to each other. But he has other wives and this continence imposes no restraint upon him. And to the woman it is a source of so much unhappiness and jealousy that she frequently refuses to bear children, and resorts to abortion. This practice of abortion, and its relation to polygamy, is curiously overlooked by those who advocate polygamy for Africa. It is doubtless more common in some tribes than in others. But while polygamy is obnoxious to the woman’s instinct, it is impressed upon her that the instinct is selfish and ought to be suppressed, and that it is right to be willing to share her husband with other wives. It is just at this point that the teaching of Christianity makes so strong an appeal to the African woman; and her response is whole-hearted. It truly “finds” her. I know women in Gaboon who have suffered inexpressible humiliation and grief when their husbands took other wives, and who immediately separated from them and lived their remaining years in widowhood. The Orungu tribe, immediately south of Gaboon, from whom I often obtained workmen, have a peculiarly large body of stories and legends, which form a kind of commentary on all their customs. The following is an example: Once upon a time there was a very great king, Ra-Nyambia, who had many sons and daughters, and whose servant was Wind. Now, one of this king’s daughters, Ogula, had an _ngalo_. The ngalo is a very powerful fetish. Some favoured persons are born with it. It is never acquired by others. Ogula, when she became a “whole” woman, declared that she was not willing to have a husband who would have other wives, but must have one who would be all her own. She waited a long time, but found no man who was fit to be her husband. Then she consulted her ngalo, who told her what to do. One day shortly after this, when her father’s people were going hunting, she said to them: “Find for me a wild goat, and do not kill it, but bring it to me alive.” So the hunters brought her a wild goat; and when Ogula saw it she said: “It is well.” She then requested one of the hunters to kill the wild goat and skin it most carefully. She also requested another hunter to fill her canoe with water. The skin she burned in the fire till all that was left was ashes, and the ashes she carefully wrapped in plantain leaves and put away in a safe place. Then she commanded that the entire body of the wild goat should be placed in the canoe, which was full of water. There she left it for three days. On the third day, standing beside the canoe, she addressed her ngalo and said: “Oh, ngalo mine, turn this goat into a handsome and stylish man.” Immediately there leaped out of the canoe a very handsome and stylish man.