346 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



to the sons and brothers of the preceding king. Then, of 

 ancient Peru, Gomara says &quot; nephews inherit, and not sons, 

 except in the case of the Yncas : &quot; this exception in the 

 case of the Yncas, having the strange peculiarity that 

 &quot; the first-born of this brother and sister [i.e., the Ynca and 

 his principal wife] was the legitimate heir to the king 

 dom&quot;: an arrangement which made the line of descent 

 unusually narrow and definite. And here we are 



brought back to Africa by the parallelism between the case 

 of Peru and that of Egypt. &quot; In Egypt it was maternal 

 descent that gave the right to property and to the throne. 

 The same prevailed in Ethiopia. If the monarch married 

 out of the royal family the children did not enjoy a legiti 

 mate right to the crown.&quot; When we add the statement that 

 the monarch was &quot; supposed to be descended from the gods, 

 in the male and female line ;&quot; and when we join with this 

 the further statement that there were royal marriages between 

 brother and sister ; we see that like causes worked like effects 

 in Egypt and in Peru. For in Peru the Ynca was of sup 

 posed divine descent ; inherited his divinity on both sides ; 

 and married his sister to keep the divine blood unmixed. 

 And in Peru, as in Egypt, there resulted royal succession in 

 the male line, where, otherwise, succession through females 

 prevailed. Ancient Ceylon, where &quot; the form of government 

 was at all times an unmitigated despotism,&quot; appears to have 

 furnished a parallel case ; for Sir J. E. Tennant tells us that 

 &quot; the Singhelese kings frequently married their sisters.&quot; 



With this process of transition from the one law of descent 

 to the other, implied by these last facts, may be joined some 

 processes which preceding facts imply. In New Caledonia a 

 &quot; chief nominates his successor, if possible, in a son or 

 brother :&quot; the one choice implying descent in the male line 

 and the other being consistent with descent in either male or 

 female line. And in Madagascar, where the system of female 

 kinship prevailed, &quot; the sovereign nominated his successor 

 naturally choosing a son.&quot; Further it is manifest that where, 



