the men.  A male Calmuck on horseback looks as if he was intoxicated, and likely to fall off every instant, though he never loses his seat; but the women sit with more ease, and ride with extraordinary skill.  The ceremony of marriage among the Calmucks is performed on horseback.  A girl is first mounted, who rides off at full speed.  Her lover pursues, and if he overtakes her she becomes his wife and the marriage is consummated upon the spot, after which she returns with him to his tent.  But it sometimes happens that the woman does not wish to marry the person by whom she is pursued, in which case she will not suffer him to overtake her; and we were assured that no instance occurs of a Calmuck girl being thus caught, unless she has a partiality for her pursuer.  If she dislikes him, she rides, to use the language of English sportsmen, ‘neck or nothing,’ until she has completely escaped or until the pursuer’s horse is tired out, leaving her at liberty to return, to be afterward chased by some more favored admirer.” (E.D.  Clarke, Travels, 1810, vol. i, p. 333.)

Among the Bedouins marriage is arranged between the lover and the girl’s father, often without consulting the girl herself.  “Among the Arabs of Sinai the young maid comes home in the evening with the cattle.  At a short distance from the camp she is met by the future spouse and a couple of his young friends and carried off by force to her father’s tent.  If she entertains any suspicion of their designs she defends herself with stones, and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she does not dislike the lover, for, according to custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she is applauded ever after by her own companions.”  After being taken to her father’s tent, where a man’s cloak is thrown over her by one of the bridegroom’s relations, she is dressed in garments provided by her future husband, and placed on a camel, “still continuing to struggle in a most unruly manner, and held by the bridegroom’s friends on both sides.”  She is then placed in a recess of the husband’s tent.  Here the marriage is finally consummated, “the bride still continuing to cry very loudly.  It sometimes happens that the husband is obliged to tie his bride, and even to beat her, before she can be induced to comply with his desires.”  If, however, she really does not like her husband, she is perfectly free to leave him next morning, and her father is obliged to receive her back whether he wishes to or not.  It is not considered proper for a widow or divorced woman to make any resistance on being married.  (J.L.  Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, 1830, p. 149 et seq.)

Among the Turcomans forays for capturing and enslaving their Persian neighbors were once habitual.  Vambery describes their “marriage ceremonial when the young maiden, attired in bridal costume, mounts a high-bred courser, taking on