of freedom.

26. Lending money upon interest, and increasing it by usury, [142] is
unknown amongst them: and this ignorance more effectually prevents the
practice than a prohibition would do. The lands are occupied by townships,
[143] in allotments proportional to the number of cultivators; and are
afterwards parcelled out among the individuals of the district, in shares
according to the rank and condition of each person. [144] The wide extent
of plain facilitates this partition. The arable lands are annually
changed, and a part left fallow; nor do they attempt to make the most of
the fertility and plenty of the soil, by their own industry in planting
orchards, inclosing meadows, and watering gardens. Corn is the only
product required from the earth: hence their year is not divided into so
many seasons as ours; for, while they know and distinguish by name Winter,
Spring, and Summer, they are unacquainted equally with the appellation and
bounty of Autumn. [145]

27. Their funerals are without parade. [146] The only circumstance to
which they attend, is to burn the bodies of eminent persons with some
particular kinds of wood. Neither vestments nor perfumes are heaped upon
the pile: [147] the arms of the deceased, and sometimes his horse, [148]
are given to the flames. The tomb is a mound of turf. They contemn the
elaborate and costly honours of monumental structures, as mere burthens to
the dead. They soon dismiss tears and lamentations; slowly, sorrow and
regret. They think it the women's part to bewail their friends, the men's
to remember them.

28. This is the sum of what I have been able to learn concerning the
origin and manners of the Germans in general. I now proceed to mention
those particulars in which they differ from each other; and likewise to