In disposition the Msawahili is at once cowardly and destructive: his quarrelsome temper leads him into trouble, but he fights only by being brought to bay. Sensual and degraded, his self-indulgence is that of the brutes. He drinks, and always drinks to excess. He would stake and lose his mother at play. Chastity is unknown in this land of hot temperaments—the man places paradise in the pleasures of the sixth sense, and the woman yields herself to the first advances. Upon the coast, when an adulterer is openly detected, he is fined according to the ‘injured husband’s’ rank; mostly, however, such peccadillos are little noticed. Unnatural crimes are held conducive to health. * * * The manners of ‘the perverse race of Kush’ are rough and free, especially compared with those of India, yet dashed with a queer African ceremoniousness. Their conversation turns wholly upon the subjects of women and money. With these optimists all that is is good, or, at least, it is not worth the trouble of a change for the better. They ‘make a stand upon the ancient way,’ and they hold that old custom, because it is old, must be fit for all time. This savage conservatism, combined with their traditional and now instinctive dread of the white face, and perhaps with a not unreasonable fear of present and future loss, has made them close the interior to Europeans. They have no especial dislike to, at the same time no fondness for, foreigners, who in mind as well as body are separated from them longo intervallo. The characteristic good points of the coast race are careless merriment, an abundance of animal spirits; strong attachments and devoted family affection. There is amongst men an artificial fraternity which reminds us of the ‘fostering’ of Ireland and the ‘Lambmas brother and sister’ of the local Kermess, St Olla’s Fair: a similar brotherhood is found at Madagascar. Amongst the negro races generally each sucks or exchanges blood from an arm vein, and the two then swear relationship. The operation is called Ku chanjana and the oath Sare or Sogu,—the Arabs, by whose law it is forbidden, name it Mushátibeh. Girls, even though their parents be living, adopt a Kungwí or stead-mother, who may or who may not be of the family: the latter attends her ‘Mwari’ (adopted child) when the first ablution for puberty is performed, and at the wedding sits upon the couch till decency forbids. The connection reminds us of the Persian proverb, ‘The nurse is kinder than the mother.’ Like Orientals and certain peoples of Southern Europe, they make little distinction between near and distant relationship: a man’s son may come from the same city and his brother perhaps from the same province. So in West Africa ‘brother’ has an extensive signification.