The sentimentalist's heart will throb with a flutter of hope when he reads in the same book (240) that among the Latookas it is considered a disgrace to kill a woman in war. Have these men that respect for women which makes romantic love possible? Alas, no! They spare them because women are scarce and have a money value, a female being worth from five to ten cows, according to her age and appearance. It would therefore be a waste of money to kill them.
I may as well add here what Baker says elsewhere (Ismailia, 501) by way of explaining why there is no insanity in Central Africa: there are "no hearts to break with overwhelming love." Where coarseness is bliss, 'twere folly to be refined.
NO LOVE AMONG NEGROES
Let us now cross Central Africa into the Congo region on the Western side, returning afterward to the East for a bird's-eye view of the Abyssinians, the Somali, and their neighbors.
In his book Angola and the River Congo (133-34) Monteiro says that negroes show less tenderness and love than some animals:
"In all the long years I have been in Africa I have never seen a negro manifest the least tenderness for or to a negress…. I have never seen a negro put his arm round a woman's waist or give or receive any caress whatever that would indicate the slightest loving regard or affection on either side. They have no words or expressions in their language indicative of affection or love. Their passion is purely of an animal description, unaccompanied by the least sympathetic affections of love or endearment."[145]
In other words, these negroes not only do not show any tenderness, affection, sympathy, in their sexual relations, they are too coarse even to appreciate the more subtle manifestations of sensual passion which we call caresses. Jealousy, too, Monteiro says, hardly exists. In case of adultery "the fine is generally a pig, and rum or other drink, with which a feast is celebrated by all parties. The woman is not punished in any way, nor does any disgrace attach to her conduct." As a matter of course, where all these sentiments are lacking, admiration of personal beauty cannot exist.
"From their utter want of love and appreciation of female beauty or charms they are quite satisfied and content with any woman possessing even the greatest amount of hideous ugliness with which nature has so bountifully provided them."
A QUEER STORY
Thus we find the African mind differing from ours as widely as a picture seen directly with the eyes differs from one reflected in a concave mirror. This is vividly illustrated by a quaint story recorded in the Folk Tales of Angola (Memoirs of Amer. Folk Lore Soc., Vol. I., 1804, 235-39), of which the following is a condensed version: