Tradition : Principally with Reference to Mythology and the

400 THE DECLARATION OF WAR.
Manco Capac's laws of war, and that " in every stage of
the war the Peruvian was open to propositions for peace."
From the Hindoo tradition, apparently, Manu's code
was conceived in an identical spirit. (Vide " Hist, of
India," " The Hindu and Mahometan Periods," by
the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone; Murray, 1866, ch. ii.
p. 26.) " The laws of war (Manu's code) are honourable
and humane. Poisoned arrows and mischievously
barbed arrows and fire arrows are all prohibited." [Dr
Hooker, in his " Himalayan Journal," mentions a similar
tradition among the Limboos, I think, or Lepchas.15]
" There are many situations in which it is by no means
allowable to destroy the enemy. Among those who must
always be spared are unarmed or wounded men, and those
who have broken their weapons, and one who says, ' I am
thy captive.' Other prohibitions are still more generous.
. . . The settlement of a conquered country is conducted
on equally liberal principles. Immediate security is to
be assured to all by proclamation. The religion and
laws of the country are to be maintained and respected."
And I have fancied (vide 395) that the recognition at
least of such a tradition, if it be only the u homage which
vice pays to virtue," is to be read in the devices carried
by the Babylonians.16
15 That there may be limitations to the horrors of war, seems to be
established by the instance of the prohibition of explosive bullets. I read
in the Times (March 11, 1871):-" The British Medical Journal declares
its opinion that the charges which have been put forward of explosive
bullets having been used by the contending armies have been groundless;
and is inclined to believe that the articles of the St Petersburg Convention
have been faithfully adhered to, notwithstanding the mutual recriminations
to the contrary by both French and German Governments."
Indirect evidence of the importance formerly attached to the declaration
of war may, I think, be discovered in the formal addresses and invocations
of the gods by the Homeric heroes previous to combat, which to us
seem so forced and unnatural; and the same sentiment was noticed by the