Lovemaklng Extraordinary.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 21 September 1917, Page 3

Lovemaklng Extraordinary.

Many Odd Wuys of Wooing.

The wild gipsies of Galicia use cake as love-letters. A coin is baked into the cake, which at the first opportunity is flung to the favoured object. The retention of this is looked upon as a virtual "acceptance"; its forcible return, an intimation that the "attentions" are undesired. Amongst an Indian tribe a rather pretty courtship custom obtains. At the annual "love-tfeast" a girl will hide a pitcher by the reeds near the river, nnd then, pointing towards the youth with wh< m she is in love, she will whisper, "Fair youth, find!" If the maiden seems as fair to him as he to her, he searches, finds, and places the pitcher on her head, and they are husband and wife.

Among the semi-savage tribes in the Arabian desert, the lover tries to seize the girl while she is pasturing her father's flocks. She pelts him with mud, sticks, and stones, and will be held in lifelong repute if she succeeds in wounding him. Once driven into her father's tent, the lover is reckoned to have won her, and the betrothal is proclaimed.

The Eskimo smitten one goes one better,inasuch as he marcheß openly and without any beating about the bush to hi 3 loved one's abode, seizes her by her long, strong hair or her fur garments, and drags her to his lair of ice or tent of skin. *

The maiden of Burma lights a "lovelamp" in her window when the desired one passes at'night, and if he be will-" ing, he speedily conveys the glad information to her. When the Sumatra girl has reached twenty-five—and her life up to then has been passed in strict seclusion —and no ooe ?,has come to ask for her hand, she" attends to the matter in her own way, dresses in red', and goes out.ttfice a day, until successful, to find a husband. A remarkable custom prevails among the Dyaks of Borneo.* When one 'of them would woo the .maiden of his heart he chivalrously helps her in the hardest portion of her uneasy daily toil. If she smiles upon him, ever so sweetly, he does not immedi ately respond, but waits until the next dark night. Then he steals to her house, and lightly wakens her as v she lies beside her sleeping parents. The •parents, if they approve, make no sign but sleep on—or pretend to, If the girl accepts, she rises, and takes from her lover the betel and sweetmeats he has brought her. That seals their be trothal, and he departs as he cameneither speaking nor being.spoken toi