The Cairo Bulletin

NOT MUCH OF ROMANCE THERE.

Wooing and Wedding of an Indian, as Dickens Saw It.

If an Indian wants a wife, he appears before the kennel of the gentleman whom he has selected as his father-in-law, attended by a party of male friends of a very strong flavor, who screech and whistle and stamp an offer of so many cows for the lady's hand, wrote Charles Dickens. The chosen father-in-law, also supported by a high-flavored party of male friends, screeches, whistles and yells (being seated on the ground he can't stamp) that there never was such a daughter on the market as his daughter and that he must have six more cows. The son-in-law and his select circle of backers screech, whistle, stamp and yell in reply that they will give three more cows. The father-in-law (an old deluder, overpaid at the beginning) accepts four and rises to bind the bargain. The whole party, the young lady included, then fall into epileptic convulsions, screeching, whistling, stamping and yelling together. The noble savage is considered married, and his friends make demoniacal leaps at him, by way of congratulation.