Ch. vii. among modern Pastoral Nations. 129 



"5 



liances and kindred make these wars more ge- 

 neral. When blood is shed, more must expiate 

 it; and as such accidents have multiplied in the 

 lapse of years, the greatest part of the tribes have 

 quarrels between them and live in a state of per- 

 petual hostility.* In the times which preceded 

 Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles are recorded 

 by tradition; and a partial truce of two months, 

 which was religiously kept, might be considered, 

 according to a just remark of Gibbon, as still 

 more strongly expressive of their general habits of 

 anarchy and warfare.f 



The waste of life from such habits might alone 

 appear sufficient to repress their population ; but 

 probably their effect is still greater in the fatal 

 check which they give to every species of indus- 

 try, and particularly to that, the object of which 

 is to enlarge the means of subsistence. Even the 

 construction of a well or a reservoir of water re- 

 quires some funds and labour in advance; and 

 war may destroy in one day the work of many 

 months and the resources of a whole year.;]: The 

 evils seem mutually to produce each other. A 

 scarcity of subsistence might at first perhaps give 

 occasion to the habits of war ; and the habits of 

 war in return powerfully contribute to narrow the 

 means of subsistence. 



gens qu'ils en auront peu a decider par le droit civil. Montes. 

 Esprit des Loix, 1. xviii. c. xii. 



* Voy. de Volney, torn. i. c. xxii. p. 361, 362, 363. 



t Gibbon, vol. ix. c. 1. p. 238, 239. 



% Voy. de Volney, torn. i. c. xxiii. p. 353. 



VOL. I. K 



