All their spare time they sit in the palaver-house and talk, stopping for an occasional nap. The old men as they sit scratching themselves with the itch relate wonderful tales and tell infinite lies about their achievements when young, how many women eloped with them, how many enemies they had killed in war, and how they had fought wild animals with unheard-of bravery. But they turn out interesting tales and are always listened to respectfully because of their years. The chief factor in the social life is the marriage customs and the relations of husband and wife. The woman is regarded as inferior in every way to the man. It would be disgraceful to a man to be caught eating with his wife. Her duty is to work for him and to provide for him. She is bought with a price and is a part of his wealth; indeed, a man’s wealth and influence are measured by the number of his wives. The son inherits the father’s wives, all but his own mother. Frequently in the forest one may see a woman staggering along the rough bush-path under a load of forty or fifty pounds, and perhaps carrying her poor babe in a strap hung at her side, while her lordly husband walks before her with only his gun or a knife. In some tribes a wife must keep a certain distance behind her husband as they walk. If he should fall she must also fall, lest she laugh at him. [Illustration: MAN AND WIFE. _The woman always carries the load._] [Illustration: TWO MEN DANCING. _The music, supplied by various drums, may have charms to soothe the savage breasts; it certainly would soothe no other kind._] A man and his wife once came to me from a distant town, the woman carrying a load of food which they wished to sell, the man carrying nothing. I told them that I had no use for the food and could not buy it; whereupon the man appealed to my pity and urged that the poor woman, who was exhausted, and who was suffering with an ulcer on her foot, was not able to carry the load back home. I replied that I knew how to relieve her, and I asked them both to turn their backs and close their eyes. They did as I asked, probably expecting that I would perform some miracle that would make the burden light. But, taking the burden from the woman’s back, I suddenly put it upon the man, and threw the strap over his shoulder. He flung it upon the ground with an angry protest at the great indignity I had put upon him in the presence of his wife.