hard-besieged

Updated: June 20, 2025

The belles of Kisemo are noted for their vanity in brass wire, which is wound in spiral rings round their wrists and ankles, and the varieties of style which their hispid heads exhibit; while their poor lords, obliged to be contented with dingy torn clouts and split ears, show what wide sway Asmodeus holds over this terrestrial sphere for it must have been an unhappy time when the hard-besieged husbands finally gave way before their spouses.

Henry M. (Henry Morton) Stanley - How I Found Livingstone; travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone, by Henry M. Stanley