I had now grown to such sudden importance among the natives, that the neighboring chiefs and kings sent me daily messages of friendship, with trifling gifts that I readily accepted. One of these bordering lords, more generous and insinuating than the rest, hinted several times his anxiety for a closer connection in 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 gout of a stale partridge, and was in ecstasies at my extrication. He neglected his siestas and his accounts; he wandered from house to house with the rapture of an impatient bridegroom; and, till every thing was ready for the nuptial rites, no one at the factory had a moment’s rest.

As the bride’s relations were eminent folks on the upper part of the river, they insisted that the marriage ceremony should be performed with all the honorable formalities due to the lady’s rank. Esther, who acted as my mentor in every “country-question,” suggested that it would be contrary to the Englishman’s interest to ally himself with a family whose only motive was sordid. She strongly urged that if he persisted in taking the girl, he should do so without a “colungee” or ceremonial feast. But Joseph was obstinate as a bull; and as he doubted whether he would ever commit matrimony again, he insisted that the nuptials should be celebrated with all the fashionable splendor of high life in Africa.

When this was decided, it became necessary, by a fiction of etiquette, to ignore the previous offer of the bride, and to begin anew, as if the damsel were to be sought in the most delicate way by a desponding lover. She must be demanded formally, by the bridegroom from her reluctant mother; and accordingly, the most respectable matron in our colony was chosen by Joseph from his colored acquaintances to be the bearer of his valentine. In the present instance, the selected Cupid was the principal wife of our native landlord, Ali-Ninpha; and, as Africans as well as Turks love by the pound, the dame happened to be one of the fattest, as well as most respectable, in our parish. Several female attachÉs were added to the suite of the ambassadress, who forthwith departed to make a proper “dantica.” The gifts selected were of four kinds. First of all, two demijohns of trade-rum were filled to gladden the community of Mongo-Yungee’s town. Next, a piece of blue cotton cloth, a musket, a keg of powder, and a demijohn of pure rum, were packed for papa. Thirdly, a youthful virgin dressed in a white “tontongee,”[2] a piece of white cotton cloth, a white basin, a white sheep, and a basket of white rice, were put up for mamma, in token of her daughter’s purity. And, lastly, a German looking-glass, several bunches of beads, a coral necklace, a dozen of turkey-red handkerchiefs, and a spotless white country-cloth, were presented to the bride; together with a decanter of white palm-oil for the anointment of her ebony limbs after the bath, which is never neglected by African belles.

While the missionary of love was absent, our sighing swain devoted his energies to the erection of a bridal palace; and the task required just as many days as were employed in the creation of the world. The building was finished by the aid of bamboos, straw, and a modicum of mud; and, as Joseph imagined that love and coolness were secured in such a climate by utter darkness, he provided an abundance of that commodity by omitting windows entirely. The furnishing of the domicil was completed with all the luxury of native taste. An elastic four-poster was constructed of bamboos; some dashing crockery was set about the apartment for display; a cotton quilt was cast over the matted couch; an old trunk served for bureau and wardrobe; and, as negresses adore looking-glasses, the largest in our warehouse was nailed against the door, as the only illuminated part of the edifice.

At last all was complete, and Joseph snapped his fingers with delight, when the corpulent dame waddled up asthmatically, and announced with a wheeze that her mission was prosperous. If there had ever been doubt, there was now no more. The oracular “fetiche” had announced that the delivery of the bride to her lord might take place “on the tenth day of the new moon.”

As the planet waxed from its slender sickle to the thicker quarter, the impatience of my Cockney waxed with it; but, at length, the firing of muskets, the twang of horns, and the rattle of tom-toms, gave notice from the river that Coomba, the bride, was approaching the quay. Joseph and myself hastily donned our clean shirts, white trousers, and glistening pumps; and, under the shade of broad sombreros and umbrellas, proceeded to greet the damsel. Our fat friend, the matron; Ali-Ninpha, her husband; our servants, and a troop of village ragamuffins, accompanied us to the water’s brink, so that we were just in time to receive the five large canoes bearing the escort of the king and his daughter. Boat after boat disgorged its passengers; but, to our dismay, they ranged themselves apart, and were evidently displeased. When the last canoe, decorated with flags, containing the bridal party, approached the strand, the chief of the escort signalled it to stop and forbade the landing.

In a moment there was a general row—a row, conceivable only by residents of Africa, or those whose ears have been regaled with the chattering of a “wilderness of monkeys.” Our lusty factotum was astonished. The Cockney aspirated his h’s with uncommon volubility. We hastened from one to the other to inquire the cause; nor was it until near half an hour had been wasted in palaver, that I found they considered themselves slighted, first of all because we had not fired a salvo in their honor, and secondly because we failed to spread mats from the beach to the house, upon which the bride might place her virgin feet without defilement! These were indispensable formalities among the “upper ten;” and the result was that Coomba could not land unless the etiquette were fulfilled.

Here, then, was a sad dilemma. The guns could be fired instantly;—but where, alas! at a moment’s notice, were we to obtain mats enough to carpet the five hundred yards of transit from the river to the house? The match must be broken off!

My crest-fallen cockney immediately began to exculpate himself by pleading ignorance of the country’s customs,—assuring the strangers that he had not the slightest inkling of the requirement. Still, the stubborn “master of ceremonies” would not relax an iota of his rigorous behests.

At length, our bulky dame approached the master of the bridal party, and, squatting on her knees, confessed her neglectful fault. Then, for the first time, I saw a gleam of hope. Joseph improved the moment by alleging that he employed this lady patroness to conduct every thing in the sublimest style imaginable, because it was presumed no one knew better than she all that was requisite for so admirable and virtuous a lady as Coomba. Inasmuch, however, as he had been disappointed by her unhappy error, he did not think the blow should fall on his shoulders. The negligent matron ought to pay the penalty; and, as it was impossible now to procure the mats, she should forfeit the value of a slave to aid the merry-making, and carry the bride on her back from the river to her home!

A clapping of hands and a quick murmur of assent ran through the crowd, telling me that the compromise was accepted. But the porterage was no sinecure for the delinquent elephant, who found it difficult at times to get along over African sands even without a burden. Still, no time was lost in further parley or remonstrance. The muskets and cannon were brought down and exploded; the royal boat was brought to the landing; father, mother, brothers, and relations were paraded on the strand; tom-toms and horns were beaten and blown; and, at last, the suffering missionary waddled to the canoe to receive the veiled form of the slender bride.

The process of removal was accompanied by much merriment. Our corpulent porter groaned as she “larded the lean earth” beneath her ponderous tread; but, in due course of labor and patience, she sank with her charge on the bamboo couch of Master Joseph.

As soon as the bearer and the burden were relieved from their fatigue, the maiden was brought to the door, and, as her long concealing veil of spotless cotton was unwrapped from head and limbs, a shout of admiration went up from the native crowd that followed us from the quay to the hovel. As Joseph received the hand of Coomba, he paid the princely fee of a slave to the matron.

Coomba had certainly not numbered more than sixteen years, yet, in that burning region, the sex ripen long before their pallid sisters of the North. She belonged to the Soosoo tribe, but was descended from Mandingo ancestors, and I was particularly struck by the uncommon symmetry of her tapering limbs. Her features and head, though decidedly African, were not of that coarse and heavy cast that marks the lineaments of her race. The grain of her shining skin was as fine and polished as ebony. A melancholy languor subdued and deepened the blackness of her large eyes, while her small and even teeth gleamed with the brilliant purity of snow. Her mouth was rosy and even delicate; and, indeed, had not her ankles, feet, and wool, manifested the unfortunate types of her kindred, Coomba, the daughter of Mongo-Yungee, might have passed for a chef d’oeuvre in black marble.

The scant dress of the damsel enabled me to be so minute in this catalogue of her charms; and, in truth, had I not inspected them closely, I would have violated matrimonial etiquette as much as if I failed to admire the trousseau and gifts of a bride at home. Coomba’s costume was as innocently primitive as Eve’s after the expulsion. Like all maidens of her country, she had beads round her ankles, beads round her waist, beads round her neck, while an abundance of bracelets hooped her arms from wrist to elbow. The white tontongee still girdled her loins; but Coomba’s climate was her mantuamaker, and indicated more necessity for ornament than drapery. Accordingly, Coomba was obedient to Nature, and troubled herself very little about a supply of useless garments, to load the presses and vex the purse of her bridegroom.

As soon as the process of unveiling was over, and time had been allowed the spectators to behold the damsel, her mother led her gently to the fat ambassadress, who, with her companions, bore the girl to a bath for ablution, anointment, and perfuming. While Coomba underwent this ceremony at the hands of our matron, flocks of sable dames entered the apartment; and, as they withdrew, shook hands with her mother, in token of the maiden’s purity, and with the groom in compliment to his luck.

As soon as the bath and oiling were over, six girls issued from the hut, bearing the glistening bride on a snow-white sheet to the home of her spouse. The transfer was soon completed, and the burden deposited on the nuptial bed. The dwelling was then closed and put in charge of sentinels; when the plump plenipotentiary approached the Anglo-Saxon, and handing him the scant fragments of the bridal dress, pointed to the door, and, in a loud voice, exclaimed: “White man, this authorizes you to take possession of your wife!”

It may naturally be supposed that our radiant cockney was somewhat embarrassed by so public a display of matrimonial happiness, at six o’clock in the afternoon, on the thirtieth day of a sweltering June. Joseph could not help looking at me with a blush and a laugh, as he saw the eyes of the whole crowd fixed on his movements; but, nerving himself like a man, he made a profound salaam to the admiring multitude, and shaking my hand with a convulsive grip, plunged into the darkness of his abode. A long pole was forthwith planted before the door, and a slender strip of white cotton, about the size of a “tontongee,” was hoisted in token of privacy, and floated from the staff like a pennant, giving notice that the commodore is aboard.

No sooner were these rites over, than the house was surrounded by a swarm of women from the adjacent villages, whose incessant songs, screams, chatter, and tom-tom beatings, drowned every mortal sound. Meanwhile, the men of the party—whose merriment around an enormous bonfire was augmented by abundance of liquor and provisions—amused themselves in dancing, shouting, yelling, and discharging muskets in honor of the nuptials.

Such was the ceaseless serenade that drove peace from the lovers’ pillow during the whole of that memorable night. At dawn, the corpulent matron again appeared from among the wild and reeling crowd, and concluding her functions by some mysterious ceremonies, led forth the lank groom from the dark cavity of his hot and sleepless oven, looking more like a bewildered wretch rescued from drowning, than a radiant lover fresh from his charmer. In due time, the bride also was brought forth by the matrons for the bath, where she was anointed from head to foot with a vegetable butter,—whose odor is probably more agreeable to Africans than Americans,—and fed with a bowl of broth made from a young and tender pullet.

The marriage fÊtes lasted three days, after which I insisted that Joseph should give up nonsense for business, and sobered his ecstasies by handing him a wedding-bill for five hundred and fifty dollars.

There is hardly a doubt that he considered Coomba very dear, if not absolutely adorable!

[2] A tontongee is a strip of white cotton cloth, three inches wide and four feet long, used as a virgin African’s only dress. It is wound round the limbs, and, hanging partly in front and partly behind, is supported from the maiden’s waist by strands of showee-beads.