The Christian Abyssinians are in this respect no better than the others, regarding lewd conduct with indifference. But the most startling exhibition of Abyssinian grossness is given by the Habab and Mensa concerning whom Munzinger says (150), that whenever a girl decides to give herself up to a dissolute life "a public festival is arranged, cows are butchered and a night is spent amid song and dances."
The four volumes of Combes and Tamisier on Abyssinia give a vivid idea of the utter absence of sexual morality in that country. With an intelligence rare among explorers they distinguish between love of the senses and love of the heart, and declare that the latter is not to be found in this country. "Abyssinian women love everybody for money and no one gratis." They do not even suspect the possibility of any other kind of love, and the only distinction they make is that a man who pleases them pays less.
"But what one never finds with anyone in Abyssinia is that refined and pure sentiment which gives so much charm to love in Europe. Here the heart is seldom touched; tender words are often spoken, but they are banal and rarely sincere; never do these people experience those extraordinary emotions of which the very remembrance agitates us a long time, those celestial feelings which convert an atheist into a believer. In this country love has all its existence in a moment, having neither a past nor a future."
The authors go so far as to doubt a story they heard of a girl who was said to have committed suicide to escape a hated suitor forced on her; but there is nothing improbable in this, as we know that a strong aversion may exist even where there is no capacity for true love, and the former by no means implies the latter. Jealousy, they found further,
"is practically unknown in Abyssinia," "If jealousy is manifested occasionally by women we must not deceive ourselves regarding the nature of this feeling; when an Abyssinienne envies the love another inspires she is jealous only of the comfort which that love may insure for the other" (II., Chap. V.).
ABYSSINIAN BEAUTY AND FLIRTATION
Abyssinian women are not deficient in a certain sensual kind of beauty. Their fine figures, large black eyes, and white teeth have been admired by many travellers. But Parkyns (II., 5) avers that "though flowers of beauty nowhere bloom with more luxuriance than in Aethiopia, yet, alas! there shines on them no mental sun." They make use of their eyes to great advantage—but not to express soul-love. What flirtation in this part of the world consists in, may be inferred from Donaldson Smith's amusing account (245, 270) of a young Boran girl who asked permission to accompany his caravan, offering to cook, bring wood, etc. She was provided with a piece of white sheeting for a dress, but when tired from marching, being unused to so much clothing, she threw the whole thing aside and walked about naked. Her name was Ola. Some time afterward one of the native guides began to make love to Ola:
"I oversaw the two flirting and was highly amused at the manner in which they went about it. It consisted almost entirely in tickling and pinching, each sally being accompanied by roars of laughter. They never kissed, as such a thing is unknown in Africa."
GALLA COARSENESS
South of Abyssinia there are three peoples—the Galla, Somali, and Harari—among some of whom, if we may believe Dr. Paulitschke, the germs of true love are to be found. Let us briefly examine them in turn, with Paulitschke's arguments. Hartmann (401) assigns to the Gallas a high rank among African races, and Paulitschke (B.z.E., 51-56) describes them as more intelligent than the Somali, but also more licentious. Boys marry at sixteen to eighteen, girls at twelve to sixteen. The women are compelled to do most of the hard work; wives are often badly treated, and when their husbands get tired of them they send them away. Good friends lend each other their wives, and they also lend them to guests. If a man kills his wife no one minds it. Few Schoa girls are virgins when they marry (Eth. N. Afr., 195), and the married women are easily led from the path of virtue by small presents. In other parts girls take a pride in preserving their purity, but atone for it by a dissolute life after marriage. Brides are subjected to an obscene examination, and if not found pure are supposed to be legally disqualified from marriage. To avoid the disgrace, the parents bribe the bridegroom to keep the secret, and to assert the bride's innocence. A curious detail of Galla courtship consists in the precautions the parents of rich youths have to take to protect them from designing poor girls and their mothers. Often, when the parents of a rich youth are averse to the match, the coy bride goes to their hut, jumps over the surrounding hedge, and remains there enduring the family's abuse until they finally accept her. To prevent such an invasion—a sort of inverted capture, in which the woman is the aggressor—the parents of rich sons build very high hedges round their houses to keep out girls! Not infrequently, boys and girls are married when only six or eight years old, and forthwith live together as husband and wife.