5. Him through whose betrayal a blood-enemy is killed, count as himself a blood-enemy, with all his family.
He who holds his tongue will save his head.
1. The bek shall summon the general assembly every year: if he does not, remove him.
2. From him who does not come at the bek's call take a hundred yards of linen.
3. From a country without a ruler, from a community without a general assembly, from a flock without a shepherd, from an army without a leader and from a village without aldermen, no good will come. Let him who has sense think of this.
4. Have a care, bek! Speak the truth. Truth exalts a man and makes his power endure for ever. The earth does not consume, but glorifies, the body of him whom God has blessed.
5. Have a care, people of Kaitaga! Receive the truth. It is by justice and truth that a community becomes great.
The above are only a few extracts from a long and detailed code of criminal law written in Arabic and preserved in the mosque of an East Caucasian village. The separate rules are known as adats, or precedents, and the system of jurisprudence founded upon them is called "trial by adat," to distinguish it from the course of procedure laid down in the Koran and known as "trial by shariat." It is hardly necessary to say that in such a state of society as that reflected in this barbarous and archaic code of laws there must exist the elements of the profoundest tragedy and almost infinite possibilities of suffering. Out of grief, tragedy and suffering grows the literature of heroism, bearing fruit in such fierce triumphant songs as the one which follows. It is supposed to be sung by the spirit of a mountaineer who has been killed in battle:
THE DEATH-SONG OF THE CHECHENSE.
The earth is drying on my grave, and thou art forgetting me, O my own mother!
The weeds are overgrowing my burial-place, and they deaden even thy sorrow, O my aged father!
The tears fall no more from the eyes of my sister, and from her heart the misery is passing away;
But do not thou forget me, O my elder brother! until thou shalt have avenged my death;
And do not thou forget me, O my younger brother! until thou shalt lie beside me.
Thou art hot, O bullet! and thou bringest death, but hast thou not been my true slave?
Thou art black, O earth! and thou coverest me, but have I not spurned thee under my very horses' feet?
Thou art cold, O death! but I have been thy master.
My body is the inheritance of earth, but my soul rises in triumph to heaven.