"The reader, I trust, will excuse my having so often departed from the
line of my profession in giving my opinion on subjects that are not
military" (for instance, his objections to the head-cutting business),
"but having had occasion to know the people of France I freely venture to
submit my judgments to the public and have the satisfaction to find that
they coincide with the opinion of those who know that extraordinary nation
_still better than myself_."




THE ODD PEOPLE


The people of Monomotapa, of whom I have written more than once, I have
recently revisited; and I confess to an astonishment at the success with
which they deal with the various difficulties and problems arising in
their social life.

Thus, in most countries the laws of property are complex in the extreme;
punishable acts in connexion with them are numerous and often difficult to
define.

In Monomotapa the whole thing is settled in a very simple manner: in the
first place, instead of strict laws binding men down by written words,
they appoint a number of citizens who shall have it in their discretion to
decide whether a man's actions are worthy of punishment or no; and these
appointed citizens have also the power to assign the punishment, which may
vary from a single day's imprisonment to a lifetime. So crimeless is the