Early sexual intercourse, and sometimes with nearly a whole tribe of men, is, as I have intimated, the chief cause of the early decay of physical beauty among the women of the tropics; but constant toil, poor food and climatic conditions, doubtless exert a great influence in its production. It is well known that both men and women preserve the bloom of youth and health far longer in cold than in hot countries; and for very well defined physiological reasons not necessary to enter upon here;* but, while female beauty almost always underlies man's sexual desire, his taste for change, unless overruled by religious principle, love, or the precepts of honor, will always stand in the way of prolonged constancy to any one type.4

Thus the negroes of Angolo excused themselves for their frequent breaches of marital fidelity by the statement that they "were not always able to eat out of the same dish;"* and, as we shall see later, when we come to notice the question of divorce, that, as Mr. Lane remarks, " fickle passion is the most evident and common motive both of polygyny and divorce."1