In Africa, marriage being largely of a commercial and temporary character, Cupid does not rule the destiny of men and women to the same extent as in this country; and even when under his spell, the natives conduct their love affairs in a much less demonstrative manner than Europeans. It will, however, be seen that some of the methods adopted by dusky swains to secure the nymphs of their choice are extraordinary, if not romantic. [Illustration: A DUSKY BELLE ADMIRING HERSELF IN HER MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSION, A HAND-MIRROR. _From a Photo, by Rev. H. Cole._] Amongst some tribes, when a man professes his love for a woman and asks her in marriage, she invariably refuses him at first, lest it should appear that she had been thinking of him and was eager to become his wife! By so doing she maintains the modesty of her sex, as well as tests the love and abases the pride of her lover. This policy is also intended to be of use to the woman in her married life--as, should there be quarrelling, and the husband threaten to send her away, she can remind him of how he made repeated professions of his love and urgently pressed his suit before she consented to become his wife. The charge which is sometimes brought against white men of "marrying for money" cannot be used against their sex in Africa, for there it is the other way about, husbands having to purchase their wives. When a man has a wife bestowed upon him as an act of charity, he feels that she is not properly his own, and she, if she will, can treat him with contempt. This custom of wife-purchase, although it is to be decried as tending to lower marriage to the level of a commercial contract, is an incentive to young men to work. Lazy youths cannot compete with energetic ones in the matrimonial market, as they are despised by the young women and rejected by their parents as being unworthy of their daughters. The number of polygamists would also be greater were it not that each man has to buy his wife. In order to procure the wherewithal he must necessarily exert himself, and as "the cost spoils the taste," many prefer to remain monogamists. [Illustration: THE LUCKLESS CHIEF WHO NARROWLY ESCAPED POISONING AT THE HANDS OF A JEALOUS WIFE. _From a Photo. by Rev. T. B. R. Westgate._]