82 HABITS AND CUSTOMS.

days before her marriage. When a woman is illtreated by her husband, or there exists any other cogent reason, she requests to be divorced from him, and the separation is effected without the slightest difficulty. She takes her marriage portion, and if there be children, the girls away with her, whilst the boys remain with the father. A separation is, however, frequently insisted upon without any good cause, for if the husband does not make his wife a sufficient allowance of telka,* she may sue for a divorce. Many men separate from their wives when they begin to age, as they generally do after the birth of the second child, and marry a second time with a young girl. To these cast-off wives a tukkoli is then accorded, and a maintenance sufficient to keep them, consisting generally of twenty paras, little more than three halfpence daily. The rich of course are only able to follow this custom, one man, however, scarcely ever has more than two wives in lawful wedlock ; but every one keeps a number of female slaves as concubines, especially when his wives begin to grow old. They do not pay much attention to those clauses in matrimony, prescribed by the mahommedan religion, and to which * A pomatum for anointing the body, prepared from Spikenard, Mahaleb, and Tuffer. Burckhardt, in his Travels in Nubia, p. 200, mentions a preparation of sheep's-fat, soap, musk, pulverized sandal-wood, senbal, i. e., Spikenard, and Mahaleb. Brown names as one of the articles of this unguent, dufr, a species of shell of a fish used for perfume. Browns Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria.—Tr.