l its natural
simplicity! No soldiers, gendarmes and policemen, no nobility, kings,
regents, prefects or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits, and still affairs
run smoothly. All quarrels and disputes are settled by the entire
community involved in them, either the gens or the tribe or the various
gentes among themselves. Only in very rare cases the blood revenge is
threatened as an extreme measure. Our capital punishment is simply a
civilized form of it, afflicted with all the advantages and drawbacks of
civilization. Not a vestige of our cumbersome and intricate system of
administration is needed, although there are more public affairs to be
settled than nowadays: the communistic household is shared by a number
of families, the land belongs to the tribe, only the gardens are
temporarily assigned to the households. The parties involved in a
question settle it and in most cases the hundred-year-old traditions
have settled everything beforehand. There cannot be any poor and
destitute--the communistic households and the gentes know their duties
toward the aged, sick and disabled. All are free and equal--the women
included. There is no room yet for slaves, nor for the subjugation of
foreign tribes. When about 1651 the Iroquois had vanquished the Eries
and the "Neutral Nation," they offered to adopt them into the league on
equal terms. Only when the vanquished declined this offer they were
driven out of their territory.

What splendid men and women were produced by such a society! All the
white men who came into contact with unspoiled Indians admired the
personal dignity, straightforwardness, strength of character and bravery
of these barbarians.

We lately received proofs of such bravery in Africa. A few years ago the
Zulus, and some months ago the Nubians, both of which tribes still
retain the gentile organization, did what no European army can do. Armed
only with lances and spears, without any firearms, they advanced under a
hail of bullets from breechloaders up to the bayonets of the English
infantry--the best of the world for fighting in closed ranks--and threw
them into confusion more than once, yea, even forced them to retreat in
spite of the immense disparity of weapons, and in spite of the fact that
they have no military service and don't know anything about drill. How
enduring and able they are, is proved by the complaints of the English
who admit that a Kaffir can cover a longer distance in twenty-four hours
than a