point, but somehow or other the girl could not see the fitness of the thing, and refused to give her consent to the arrangement. But that mattered little or nothing, since her "big father," the term given to the elder brother of a father, and her mother had agreed that it must be done. The brother claimed to be opposed to the match on the ground that the man was not a Christian, and in his heart I believe this was true; but he was not blind to the fact that it would mean much to him to be connected by this alliance to the "biggest man in the county."
The Christian friends of the girl were much exercised concerning the matter, and made a strong appeal to us to try to break the engagement and save the girl from a fate which they seemed to think worse than death, for, they said: "She will lose both soul and body." I agreed to consider the matter and see what we could do. At first the brother agreed to go with us to see the man and try to persuade him to break the engagement. This, however, he refused to do when the final test came. I spoke to the girl, and she assured me that she did not want to be the man's wife and begged me to break the engagement and save her. The day before we were to leave, one of the Christian women told me that the girl would eat opium and die before she would become that man's wife. This was too much for me, and I determined to go and see the man, even if the brother would not go with me. When I announced this purpose to the old woman, she became furious. She raved and fumed, declaring that from the days of the ancients nothing like this had ever hap-
