In other words, he receives an immensely large fief for his services. If previously he was not, he now becomes the greatest man in his country, though before he probably was the most powerful landlord in his official district. He will hereafter do exactly what his equals in rank are doing, although they may not have his official position; that is to say, he will, only on a larger scale, continue to settle new lands with ever newly recruited serfs. By this he increases his military strength; and this must be wished for and aided by the central government. For it is the fate of these states, that they must fatten those very local powers, that are to engulf them. Conditions arise which enable the warden of the marches to impose the terms of his military assistance, especially in the inevitable feuds which arise over the right of succession to the central government. Thereby he obtains further valuable concessions, especially the formal acknowledgment of the heritability of his official fief, so that office and lands come to be held by an identical tenure. By this means, he gradually becomes almost independent of the central authority, and the complaint of the Russian peasant, “The sky is high up and the Tsar is far off,” tends to become of universal application. Take this characteristic example from Africa: “The empire of Lunda is an absolute feudal state. The chieftains (Muata, Mona, Muene) are permitted independent action in all internal affairs, so long as it pleases the Muata Jamvo. Usually, the great chieftains, living afar, send their caravans with their tribute once a year to the Mussumba; but _those living at too great a distance, sometimes for long periods omit making any payments of their tribute_; while similar chiefs in the neighborhood of the capital forward tribute many times a year.”[110] Nothing can show more plainly than this report, how, because of inadequate means of transportation, extent of distance becomes politically effective in these states loosely held together and in a state of payment in kind. One is tempted to say that the independence of the feudal masters grows in proportion to the square of their distance from the seat of the central authority. The crown must pay more and more for their services, and must gradually confirm them in all the sovereign powers of the state, or else permit their usurpation of these powers after they have seized them one after the other. Such are heritability of fiefs, tolls on highways and commerce, (in a later stage the right of coinage), high and low justice, the right to exact for private gain the public duties of repair of ways and bridges (the old English _trinodis necessitas_) and the disposal of the military services of the freemen of the country.