our cross-questioning and charging him with falsehood he still persisted in the same tale, and really appeared to think that he could persuade us of the truth of the assertion.  I told him that it was his duty to have taken care that these sorcerers had not injured the door, and that in future if he did not give the alarm when they came he should be well whipped for neglect, and that in the meantime I had a great mind to have him whipped for telling a story; I however satisfied myself by giving him a severe lecture upon the crime of lying.  He defended himself upon this head by ingenious arguments, altogether overlooking the abstract question of whether lying was a virtue or a vice, and defending himself solely upon the plea of its general usefulness and prevalence in the world.  I got rather worsted in the argument, and therefore, confining myself to admonitions and a few common-place maxims, I departed.

PEERAT’S WIVES SURRENDERED. THEIR PUNISHMENT.

In the course of the forenoon Peerat presented himself at my window.  The tale he told was a very pitiful one.  He had two wives, and to govern them both required no ordinary ability; he assured me that he had beaten them both soundly, but notwithstanding he could not induce them to come into the settlement until, finally losing his temper, he had threatened to spear them, and had thus induced them to follow him; he assured me that he had done nothing but weep and lament since he had last seen me, at one time for the loss of his son, and then again at the obstinacy and bad temper of his wives, and as some recompense for his sufferings he begged to be allowed to beat his wives himself.

I told him to bring them at once to the garden they had robbed, and then, followed by several natives, I repaired to the appointed place.  The native women soon appeared, dreadfully cut and mangled from the beating they had already suffered.  One was a nice-looking girl, about fourteen, but an incorrigible thief.  Peerat threw back his skin to give his arm fair play, and then, brandishing his meerro, was going to hit her a tremendous blow upon the head, which must have laid it open.  The poor girl stood with her back towards her husband, trembling and crying bitterly.  I caught Peerat’s arm, picked up a little switch from the ground, and told him to beat her on the shoulders with that.  He gave her two slight blows, or rather taps, in order to know where it was I meant him to strike; but the poor girl cried so bitterly from fear that I stopped him, told her that for this time she should be pardoned, and then called the other woman up, but she had already been severely beaten and had at that moment a little child sitting on her shoulder, who cried piteously when he saw his mother weeping, so I let her also go free.  Before they started however I gave them and the assembled natives a lecture, talking to them in a ferocious style about my future intentions in the event of robbery being committed, and warning them not to judge of me from my present clemency.