UGANDA AND THE WAGANDA. 187 is a purely business arrangement. The ordinary price of a wife is either three or four bullocks, six sewing needles, or a small box of percussion caps, and I have often been offered one in exchange for a coat or a pair of shoes. There are no laws forbidding the marriage of near relations, and they frequently do marry ; indeed on the death of any man the eldest son inherits all his father's wives, with the exception of his own mother. The women rarely have more than two or three children, and the law is that when a woman has borne a child she must live apart from her husband for two years, at which age the children are weaned ; and the king and principal chiefs have establishments in the country where their wives are sent for that period. In the case of the birth of twins great rejoicings take place. On the fifth or sixth day after the birth all the villagers assemble outside the hut where the mother and children are living ; the women dress themselves with a girdle of banana -leaves, and dance, or rather sidle, in a circle round a couple of drums (which are vigorously beaten for several hours by relays of men) singing a monotonous sort of chant ; the men squat about and watch the dancing, or amuse themselves by wrestling, which is one of their favourite amusements. The happy father, dressed in all his finery, meantime wanders about from group to group, receiving the congratulations of his friends. The navel cord is preserved, and in the case of