A guileless reader of Chavanne’s book on the Sahara is apt to get the impression that there is, after all, an oasis in the desert of African lovelessness and contempt for women.  Touareg women, we are told therein (208-10), are allowed to dispose of their hands and to eat with the men, certain dishes being reserved for them, others (including tea and coffee) for the men.  In the evening the women assemble and improvise songs while the men sit around in their best attire.  The women write mottoes on the men’s shields, and the men carve their chosen one’s name in the rocks and sing her praises.  The situation has been compared to mediaeval chivalry.  But when we examine it more critically than the biassed Chavanne did, we find, using his own data, more of Africa than appeared to be there at first sight.  The woman, we are informed, owes the husband obedience, and he can divorce her at pleasure.  When a woman talks to a man she veils her face “as a sign of respect.”  And when the men travel, they are accompanied by those of their female slaves who are young and pretty.  Their morals are farther characterized by the fact that descent is in the female line, which is usually due to uncertain paternity.  The women are ugly and masculine, and Chavanne does not mention a single fact or act which proves that they experience supersensual, altruistic love.

So far as the position of Touareg women is superior to that of other Africans, it is due to the fact that slaves are kept to do the hard work and to certain European and Christian influences and the institution of theoretical monogamy.  Possibly the germs of a better sort of love may exist among them, as they may among the Bedouins; they must make a beginning somewhere.

AN AFRICAN LOVE-LETTER

T.J.  Hutchinson declares that the gentle god of love is unknown in the majority of African kingdoms:  “It in fact seems to be crawling into life only in one or two places where our language is the established one.”  He prints a quaint love-letter addressed by a Liberian native to his colored sweetheart.  The substance of the letter, it is true, is purely egotistic; it might be summed up in the words, “Oh, how I wish you were here to make me happy.”  Yet it opens up vistas of future possibilities.  I cite it verbatim: 

“My Dear Miss,—­I take my pen in hand to Embrac you of my health, I was very sick this morning but know I am better but I hope it may find you in a state of Enjoying good health and so is your Relation.  Oh my dear Miss what would I give if I could see thy lovely Face this precious minnit O miss you had promis me to tell me something, and I like you to let you know I am very anxious to know what it is give my Respect to the young mens But to the young ladys especially O I am long to see you O miss if I don’t see you shortly surely I must die I shut my mouth to hold my breath Miss don’t you cry O my little pretty turtle dove I wont you to write to me, shall I go Bound or shall I go free or shall I love a pretty girl a she don’t love me give my Respect all enquiring Friend Truly Your respectfully,

“J——­H——­