The Silver Messenger

Marriage in the Andamans.

Gorgeous Ceremony and Fine Lace Not Requisites.

The day was warm. The sailor sat in an ice cream saloon eating ice cream and lady cake.

"The queerest marriage I ever seen, miss," he said, "was in the Andaman islands. But maybe you ain't interested in marriages?"

He laughed, as men always laugh over this joke, and the pretty waitress permitted herself to smile.

"The islanders in them islands," he said, "is dwarfs. Four feet, on the average. Very fierce and ugly.

"If a young islander wants a girl for his wife he asks her parents for her. They never refuse. They take the girl and hide her in the forest. There the lad must find her before morning. If he finds her she's his. If he don't she ain't.

"Of course I don't need to tell you that if the girl wants the young feller she sees to it that he finds her all right.

"And vice versa.

"Here is how the marriage ceremony is performed. The lad climbs up a slim young tree and the girl climbs up another close to him. Her clothes don't bother her in climbin'—clothes never bother an Andaman islander. Well, up they go, and as they near the top their weight bends the slim trees over towards each other prettily. The trees bow and bend and courtesy, and finally the lad's head touches the girl's and from below a shout goes up, for the head-touchin' has done the business. The ceremony is finished. The young folks' troubles have begun."
—Chicago Chronicle.