affection as well as
trade, and, at length, insisted upon becoming my father-in-law!

I had always heard in Italy that it was something to receive the hand
of a princess, even after long and tedious wooing; but now that I was
surrounded by a mob of kings, who absolutely thrust their daughters on
me, I confess I had the bad taste not to leap with joy at the royal
offering. Still, I was in a difficult position, as no graver offence
can be given a chief than to reject his child. It is so serious an
insult to refuse a wife, that, high born natives, in order to avoid
quarrels or war, accept the tender boon, and as soon as etiquette
permits, pass it over to a friend or relation. As the offer was made
to me personally by the king, I found the utmost difficulty in
escaping. Indeed, he would receive no excuse. When I declined on
account of the damsel's youth, he laughed incredulously. If I urged
the feebleness of my health and tardy convalescence, he insisted that
a regular life of matrimony was the best cordial for an impaired
constitution. In fact, the paternal solicitude of his majesty for my
doubloons was so urgent that I was on the point of yielding myself a
patient sacrifice, when Joseph came to my relief with the offer of his
hand as a substitute.

The Gordian knot was cut. Prince Yungee in reality did not care so
much who should be his son-in-law as that he obtained one with a white
skin and plentiful purse. Joseph or Theodore, Saxon or Italian, made
no difference to the chief; and, as is the case in all Oriental lands,
the opinion of the lady was of no importance whatever.

I cannot say that my partner viewed this matrimonial project with the
disgust that I did. Perhaps he was a man of more liberal philosophy
and wider views of human brotherhood; at any rate, his residence in
Africa gave him a taste not only for its people, habits, and
superstitions, but he upheld practical amalgamation with more fervor
and honesty than a regular abolitionist. Joseph was possessed by
Africo-mania. He admired the women, the men, the language, the
cookery, the music. He would fall into philharmonic ecstasies over the
discord of a bamboo _tom-tom_. I have reason to believe that even
African barbarities had charms for the odd Englishman; but he was
chiefly won by the _dolce far niente_ of the natives, and the Oriental
license of polygamy. In a word, Joseph had the same taste for a
full-blooded _cuffee_, that an epicure has for the _haut