As in the Abyssinian climate, girls marry at eleven, ten, and even nine years of age; and there being no difficulty in supporting children, it is, by a Galla, reckoned creditable to be encircled by a numerous family; and, therefore, if his wife presents him with only a few children, she herself endeavours to persuade her husband, for her sake, to take another to assist her in surrounding him with his most natural protectors. To any objections he may urge, she replies by naming and describing to him all the most interesting girls of her acquaintance; and, as soon as he relents, her next step is to proceed to the house of the person selected, whom she asks of her parents to be her husband's wife, that their united families may be strong enough in the day of battle not to fall into the hands of the enemy.
After this second marriage is concluded, the old wife still retains her precedence, treating her companion, not as a rival, but more like a grown-up daughter.
When the father, from old age, has become useless and unfit for war, he is obliged to surrender the whole of his effects to his eldest son, who is bound to support him; and in case this son dies, leaving a widow, the youngest brother of all is expected, out of respect to his memory, to marry her.
Bruce's description of the Gallas, from which the above sketch has been principally taken, was one of the many parts of his narrative which were very generally disbelieved; and yet no one acquainted with savage life but must recognise in Bruce's description all those general lines which form its characteristic features.
Bruce described the Galla tribes as being intelligent and active, but, at the same time, dirty, ignorant, and having the most absurd religious notions; and this general description being strictly correct, his details should in justice never have been doubted. But he unfortunately experienced that a man may suffer from prejudices and narrow-minded incredulity long after he has bid adieu to savage society.
The uncivilized tribes which surround, as well as inhabit Abyssinia, having been now described, the character of the Abyssinians themselves will appear in the following short abstract of their history.
FOOTNOTE:
[24] The Chinese have a map which consists of a very large country, and a little speck; the former, they say, is "China;" the latter, "the rest of the world."