18.21. 21. The Civil Law of the Tartars.
Father Du Halde says that amongst
the Tartars the youngest of the males is always the heir, by reason that
as soon as the elder brothers are capable of leading a pastoral life
they leave the house with a certain number of cattle, given them by
their father, and build a new habitation. The last of the males, who
continues at home with the father, is then his natural heir.
I have heard that a like custom was also observed in some small
districts of England; and we find it still in Brittany, in the duchy of
Rohan, where it obtains with regard to ignoble tenures. This is
doubtless a pastoral law conveyed thither by some of the people of
Britain, or established by some German nation. By Csar and Tacitus we
are informed that the latter cultivated but little land.
