es that with the
exception of Pliny's Troglodites "no tribe or people are surely more
brutish, ignorant, and miserable." Our amazement at Chapman's
assertion increases when we examine his argument more closely. Here it
is (I., 258-59):

"Although they have a plurality of wives, which they
also obtain by purchase, there is still love in all
their marriages, and courtship among them is a very
formal and, in some respects, a rather punctilious
affair. When a young Bushman falls in love, he sends
his sister to ask permission to pay his addresses; with
becoming modesty the girl holds off in a playful, yet
not scornful or repulsive manner if she likes him. The
young man next sends his sister with a spear, or some
other trifling article, which she leaves at the door of
the girl's home. If this be not returned within the
three or four days allowed for consideration, the
Bushman takes it for granted that he is accepted, and
gathering a number of his friends, he makes a grand
hunt, generally killing an elephant or some other large
animal and bringing the whole of the flesh to his
intended father-in-law. The family now riot in an
abundant supply.... After this the couple are
proclaimed husband and wife, and the man goes to live
with his father-in-law for a couple of winters, killing
game, and always laying the produce of the chase at his
feet as a mark of respect, duty, and gratitude."

It would take considerable ingenuity to condense into an equal number
of lines a greater amount of ignorance and naivete than this passage
includes. And yet a number of anthropologists have accepted this
passage serenely as expert evidence that there is love in all the
marriages of the lowest of African races. Peschel was misled by it;
Westermarck triumphantly puts it at the head of his cases intended to
prove that "even very rude savages may have conjugal affection;" Moll
meekly accepts it as a fact (_Lib. Sex._, Bd. I., Pt. 2, 403); and it
seems to have made an impression on Katzel, and even on Fritsch. If
these writers had taken the trouble to examine Chapman's
qualifications for serving as a witness in anthropological questions,
they would have saved themselves the humiliation of being thus duped.
His very assertion that there is love in _all_ Bushman marriages ought
to have shown them what an untrustworthy witness he is; for a mor