It may be stated as a general rule, that even in the apparently most extreme cases of _despotism_, no monarchical _absolutism_ exists. The ruler may, undeterred by fear of punishment, rage against his subject class; but he is checked in no small degree by his feudal followers. Ratzel, in speaking of the subject generally, remarks: “The so-called ‘court assemblage’ of African or of ancient American chiefs is probably always a council.... Although we meet with traces of absolutism with all peoples on a low scale, even where the form of government is republican, the cause of absolutism is not in the strength of either the state or of the chieftain, but in the moral weakness of the individual, who succumbs without any effective resistance to the powers wielded over him.”[102] The kingdom of the Zulu is a limited despotism, in which very powerful ministers of state (Induna) share the power; with other Caffir tribes it is a council, sometimes dominating both people and chieftains.[103] In spite of this control “under Tshaka every sneezing or hawking in the presence of the tyrant, as well as every lack of tears at the death of some royal kinsman, was punished with death.”[104] The same limitation applies to the West African kingdoms of Dahomy and Ashanti, notorious because of their frightful barbarities. “In spite of the waste of human life, in war, slave trade, and human sacrifices, there existed at no place absolute despotism.... Bowditch remarks on the similarity of the system prevailing in Ashanti, with its ranks and orders, with the old Persian system as described by Herodotus.”[105]