LEGISLATIONS OP ISBAEL AND BADYLOXIA. 147 



AVhere agricultui*al land is leaseil for payments in kind it 

 becomes to the landlord's interest to compel the cultivator to 

 do his duty in tilling the land energetically by forcing? him to 

 pay what the land can be made to bear, even it he has not in 

 tact cultivated it. The code contains provisions to this effect 

 < 42 ff.), which again find a singularly close parallel in India 

 — this time from Apastamba. 



" If a person who has taken (a lease of ) land (for cultivation) 

 does not exert himself, and hence {ihe land) bears no crop, he 

 shall, if he is rich, made to pay (to the owner of the land 

 the value of the crop ) that ought to have grown ' * On this 

 Biihler writes : This Sutra shows that the system of leasing 

 land against a certain share of the crops, which now prevails 

 generally in native states, and is not uncommon in private 

 contracts on British territory [i.e. in India — H. ^I. W.]. was in 

 force in Apastamba 's times.' j 



Like all other ancient legislators who were concerned with 

 peasant landholders, Hammurabi had to face the question of 

 gi\-ing some relief to poor peasants who had mortgaged their 

 holdings and were prevented by bad seasons from meeting their 

 obligations. The lirst secrion which deals with tliis (§ 48; is so 

 humane that it should be quoted in crten-so : 



■ If a man has a debt upon him and a thunderstorm ravaged 

 his field or carried away the produce, or if the corn has not 

 grown through lack of water, in that year he shall not return 

 corn to the creditor, he shall alter his tatdet. Further, he 

 sliall not ?ive interest for tiiat year. ' 



The following sections 49-52) appear to be conceived in 

 a similar spirit and to provide relief for those who handed over 

 their fields to their creditors for cultivation. So far as an 

 opinion can be formed they seem to embody well-devised and 

 equitable rules for the protection of the borrower from 

 oppression by the usurer. 



But if Babylonia was a land of rivers and tilth, it was also a 

 country of pastures and live stock. Hence the code contams 

 provisions for the remimeration of herdsmen, for their 

 responsibiHty for the protection of their charges and for their 

 liability for injury indicted by them on the property of othei-s. 

 Owiog to the similarity of conditions we once more find 

 admirable parallels to all these iu the Indian books. 



* Apastamba, ii, 11, 28, 1. 



t Sacred BooLi of the Eait^ roL ii, 166. 



