been
an extraordinary case, that is certain; she has preached a sermon
indeed, if she has wrought this upon you.

_W.A._ Why, I first told her the nature of our laws about marriage, and
what the reasons were that men and women were obliged to enter into such
compacts as it was neither in the power of one or other to break; that
otherwise, order and justice could not be maintained, and men would run
from their wives and abandon their children, mix confusedly with one
another, and neither families be kept entire, or inheritances be settled
by a legal descent.

_R.C._ You talk like a civilian, Will. Could you make her understand
what you meant by inheritance and families? They know no such thing
among the savages, but marry any how, without any regard to relation,
consanguinity, or family; brother and sister, nay, as I have been told,
even the father and daughter, and the son and the mother.

_W.A._ I believe, Sir, you are misinformed;--my wife assures me of the
contrary, and that they abhor it. Perhaps for any further relations they
may not be so exact as we are; but she tells me they never touch one
another in the near relations you speak of.

_R.C._ Well, what did she say to what you told her?

_W.A._ She said she liked it very well; and it was much better than in
her country.

_R.C._ But did you tell her what marriage was?

_W.A._ Ay, ay, there began all our dialogue. I asked her, if she would
be married to me our way? She asked me, what way that was? I told her
marriage was appointed of God; and here we had a strange talk together
indeed, as ever man and wife had, I believe.

[N.B. This dialogue between W. Atkins and his wife, as I took
it down in writing just after he told it me, was as follows:]

_Wife_. Appointed by your God! Why, have you a God in your country?

_W.A._ Yes, my dear; God is in every country.

_Wife._ No your God in my country; my country have the great old
Benamnekee God.

_W.A._ Child, I am very unfit to shew you who God is; God is in heaven,
and made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is.

_Wife._ No makee de earth; no you God makee de earth; no make my
country.

[W.A. laughed a little at her expression of God not making
her country.]

_W.A._ No laugh: why laugh me? This no ting to laugh.

[He was justly reproved by his wife, for she was more serious
than he at first.]

_W.A._ That's true, indeed; I will not laugh any more,