If two men quarrel, and one happen to curse the other’s father or mother, whether they be living or dead, and his antagonist have so much command of himself as to refrain from cursing the other’s father or mother, he recovers two beeves as a compensation.
If a man be caught robbing his neighbour of an ox, or a cow, he is obliged to restore it tenfold; and this is executed too with the utmost rigour, notwithstanding my master frequently broke this good law; but, like other great men, in more polite parts, he was not to be curbed by the ordinary laws of his country; and yet he, as well as most others, found, to his cost, that there were those who could cope with him; and was at last convinced, that if a man will live amongst his fellow-creatures, he must be observant of the fundamental laws, which the community wherein he lives has framed for their mutual peace and tranquillity; without which, men are not sociable animals, but each one is a mere savage, and the world an uncultivated desert.
If any one be found guilty of stealing guinea corn, carravances, potatoes, or the like, out of any of the plantations, he forfeits a cow and a calf to the owner, or more, in some measure proportionate to the offence.
In case one man’s cattle break into another’s plantation, the owner, for every beast found there, must give an iron shovel.
If any one steal another man’s hive of honey, and be caught, the fine is three iron shovels. These iron shovels, hoes, &c., are a kind of small money with these people, for here is no trade but by barter, or the exchange of one commodity for another; and, therefore, they are as exact as they possibly can be, in proportioning the value of one thing to another.
If a man borrow an ox, or a cow, of his neighbour, and does not return it in a year’s time, six calves are looked upon as an equivalent for the ox; and if he neglect payment at that time, those calves are supposed to be three steers, and three heifers; and the increase, which by a fair computation arises by their growth and production, is the man’s right of whom the ox was borrowed; and if it go on for ten years, or any longer term, it is computed what three bulls and three cows might have produced in that space of time, and all that produce is due to the creditor.
If a man lie with the wife of another man who is his superior, he forfeits thirty head of cattle, besides beads and shovels in abundance; but if the men are of equal degree, then the fine is twenty beasts only.[[1]] In this country of Anterndroea, they are not addicted to such a plurality of wives as in some other parts of the island. If a man have but two wives here, and his brother or an intimate friend come to visit him, he never scruples to let him lie with one of them.
[1]. A man can put away his wife at pleasure.
The nearest of kin, even brother and sister, marry, if they have not the same mother.
One brother, after the decease of another, often takes his wife; nay, his father’s too, and lies with them, if they be not their own mothers.