This people he considers to have been a race of Huns, afterwards Tartars, and of whom the Chinese historians relate the most extraordinary traditions. According to these writers, the capital of the _Ta Tsins_ was a hundred leagues in circumference, and was adorned by five palaces, situate ten leagues from each other. The people were, moreover, according to these accounts, most comely and tall, like the Chinese: hence were they called _Ta_, great, and _Tsin_, China. It appears, moreover, evident that the doctrines and fables of the _Boudha_ are similar to those of _Wooden_, or _Odin_. Thus do we find the laws of retaliation and compensation as pertinaciously observed by the Chinese, as by the inhabitants of ancient Germania, although amongst the former duels are unknown. According to the magnitude of the offence, the infliction of the bamboo is ordered: ten strokes for a verbal affront; twenty, for a blow, or a kick; fifty, for tearing off a certain quantity of hair; and eighty, for throwing dust in the face; while life atones for life. According to the laws of Zoroaster, in a work attributed to him, called the _Zend-Avesta_, abridged in a compendium entitled the _Sad-er_, or the _gates_,--intending to strike a blow constitutes the offence called _Agnerefte_; to give it is the _Eonvereschte_. The first misdemeanor is punished with five blows; the second, with ten; increased in aggravated cases, and on reiteration of the offence. To inflict a wound that requires more than two days to heal, is an _Aredosch_; and to strike a man behind, a _Khor_. The punishment of the first, is fifteen strokes; of the second, thirty lashes, inflicted with a leather strap. In Japan, instead of fighting duels, the parties endeavour to display their valour by committing suicide. It is related that two officers of the household of the Emperor having met on the staircase of the palace, their sabres happened to entangle: words arose; one of them imputed the affair to accident, adding, that the quarrel was between the two swords, and the one was as good as the other. “We shall see that presently,” replied his adversary, and with these words he drew his weapon, and plunged it into his own breast. The other, impatient to display similar courage, hurried away, in order to serve up a dish that he was carrying to the Emperor’s table, which having done, he returned to his opponent, who was at the point of death; but on finding that he was still alive, he also plunged his sword into his own body, adding, “You should not have had the start of me, had not my duties obliged me to attend the Emperor. I die, however, contented, since I have proved to you and to the world, that my sabre is as trusty as your own.”