456 



A NATVJtAlLST'B 



to that I was properly uttendefL His instnietitms, how- 

 ever, were neglected the moroent he turn«Hl his hack and left 

 the direction of affairs to his old uncle, wlio acted as Viceroy. 

 The kingdom was by their custom bound to Bui>ply me with 

 proTisions^ each family having one day*s rati«>ns to [jrovide 

 and deliver at our guorda. As the people lived so widely 

 scattered, they often managed to shirk their duty, leaving us 

 utterly without anything to eat, I would far rather have 

 purchased provisions ; hut no one would sell or desired to sell. 

 Out of their scant stc^e^ they grudgingly gave what they were 

 orderetl to give, and Imd they accepted any price for it, it 

 would have been claimed by the Eajah. 



On one occasion, after having gone without a particle of 

 food for a whole day, even after apj^eal and threats t^ the 

 Viceroy, I took the law into my own hands by shooting the 

 first large fat pig I encountered. It was the property, as it 

 luckily tunied out, of the Rajah himself. I say hi<;kily, for 

 I would rather that his herds were plundered than his jx*ople*s, 

 and because this simple act disclosed for rae a curious 

 law of their emntry. By the fault of some member of this 

 community my act had caused this loss to the Rajah, a wrong 

 which had to be expiated by a fine levied on all the Sukus of 

 tlie kiiif^dom, not on the offending individual alone. 



In tiie e^irly days of our own history, " the price of life or limb 

 was paid, not by the wroug-doer to the man be ^\Tonged, but by 

 the family or house of the wrong-doer to the family or house of 

 the wronged. Or<ler and law were thus made to rest in each 

 little gfoup of English people upon the blood-bond which knit 

 its families together ; every outrage was held to have been done 

 by all who were linked by blood to the doer of it ; every crime 

 to have been done against all who were linked by blood to the 

 sufferers from it. From this sense of the value of the family 

 bond as a meiins of restraining the wrong-doer by forces which 

 the tribe as a whole did not possess, sprang the first rude forms 

 of English justice. Eavh kinsman was his kinsman's keeper, 

 bound ti> protect him from wnjug-doing, and to suffer with 

 and pay for him if wrong were done." * 



Til is incident is one which well illustrates how near a 

 traveller seeking tor ijifurmation oi an abstract kind, may be 

 * Green's ' Hi&tor.v of the English People,' page 3. 



