One day while lunching at an African foudak, half way between Tangier and Tetuan, I was led to moralize on the conjugal superiority of Mohammedan roosters to Mohammedan men.  Noticing a fine large cock in the yard, I threw him a handful of bread-crumbs.  He was all alone at the moment and might have easily gobbled them all up.  Instead of doing such a selfish thing, he loudly summoned his harem with that peculiar clucking sound which is as unmistakable to fowls as is the word dinner or the boom of a gong to us.  In a few seconds the hens had gathered and disposed of the bread, leaving not a crumb to their gallant lord and master.  I need not add that the Sultan of a human harem in Morocco would have behaved very differently under analogous circumstances.

THE GALLANT ROOSTER

The dictionary makers derive the word gallant from all sorts of roots in divers languages, meaning gay, brave, festive, proud, lascivious, and so on.  Why not derive if from the Latin gallus, rooster?  A rooster combines in himself all the different meanings of the word gallant.  He is showy in appearance, brave, daring, attentive to females, and, above all, chivalrous, that is, inclined to show disinterested courtesy to the weaker sex, as we have just seen.  In this last respect, it is true, the rooster stands not alone.  It is a trait of male animals in general to treat their females unselfishly in regard to feeding and otherwise.

UNGALLANT LOWER RACES OF MEN

If we now turn to human beings, we have to ascend many strata of civilization before we come across anything resembling the unselfish gallantry of the rooster.  The Australian savage, when he has speared a kangaroo, makes his wife cook it, then selects the juiciest cuts for himself and the other men, leaving the bones to the women and dogs.

Ascending to the much higher Polynesians and American Indians we still find that the women have to content themselves with what the men leave.  A Hawaiian even considers it a disgrace to eat at the same place as his wife, or with the same utensils.

What Kowney says (173) of the Nagas of India—­“she does everything the husband will not, and he considers it effeminate to do anything but fight, hunt, and fish”—­is true of the lower races in general.  An African Kaffir, says Wood (73), would consider it beneath his dignity to as much as lift a basket of rice on the head of even his favorite wife; he sits calmly on the ground and allows some woman to help his busy wife.  “One of my friends,” he continues,