[1] This is _Chomeni_ in the original, but I have ventured to correct it.

CHAPTER LV.

CONCERNING THE ADMINISTERING OF JUSTICE AMONG THE TARTARS.

The way they administer justice is this. When any one has committed a
petty theft, they give him, under the orders of authority, seven blows of
a stick, or seventeen, or twenty-seven, or thirty-seven, or forty-seven,
and so forth, always increasing by tens in proportion to the injury done,
and running up to one hundred and seven. Of these beatings sometimes they
die.[NOTE 1] But if the offence be horse-stealing, or some other great
matter, they cut the thief in two with a sword. Howbeit, if he be able to
ransom himself by paying nine times the value of the thing stolen, he is
let off. Every Lord or other person who possesses beasts has them marked
with his peculiar brand, be they horses, mares, camels, oxen, cows, or
other great cattle, and then they are sent abroad to graze over the plains
without any keeper. They get all mixt together, but eventually every beast
is recovered by means of its owner's brand, which is known. For their
sheep and goats they have shepherds. All their cattle are remarkably fine,
big, and in good condition.[NOTE 2]

They have another notable custom, which is this. If any man have a
daughter who dies before marriage, and another man have had a son also die
before marriage, the parents of the two arrange a grand wedding between
the dead lad and lass. And marry them they do, making a regular contract!
And when the contract papers are made out they put them in the fire, in
order (as they will have it) that the parties in the other world may know
the fact, and so look on each other as man and wife. And the parents
thenceforward consider themselves sib to each other, just as if their
children had lived and married. Whatever may be agreed on between the
parties as dowry, those who have to pay it cause to be painted on pieces
of paper and then put these in the fire, saying that in that way the dead
person will get all the real articles in the other world.[NOTE 3]

Now I have told you all about the manners and customs of the Tartars; but
you have heard nothing yet of the great state of the Grand Kaan, who is
the Lord of all the Tartars and of the Supreme Imperial Court. All that I
will tell you in this book in proper time and place, but meanwhile I must
return to my story which I left off in that great plain when we began to
speak of the Tartars