pay many fines. Near relations of criminals must pay, when the criminals are unable to do so.
Kafir lands are not sold or permanently alienated. Any man may occupy unoccupied land and no one but the Chief can disturb him. Should he quit the land he has occupied, and another come upon it, he can recover the use of the land he has once cultivated.
Murder is punished by a fine,—which seems to be of the same amount whatever be the circumstances of the murder. The law makes no difference between premeditated and unpremeditated murder,—the injury done being considered rather than the criminality of the doer. A husband would be fined for murder if he killed an adulteress, let the proof have been ever so plain. Even for accidental homicide a Chief will occasionally fine the perpetrator,—though in such case the law does not hold him to be guilty. For adultery there is a fine of cattle, great or small in accordance with the rank of the injured husband. Rape is fined, the cattle going to the husband, if the woman be married. If a girl be seduced, the seducer is fined,—perhaps three head of cattle. The young man probably has not got three head of cattle. Then his older friends pay for him. Among Kafir customs there are some which might find approbation with a portion of our European communities. It cannot, at any rate, be said that the Kafirs have a bloody code.
All theft is punished by a fine of cattle, the fine being moderated if the property stolen be recovered. But the fine is great or small according to the rank of the injured person. If a Chief have been robbed general confiscation of every thing
