, however, it is quite possible, and even likely,
are much more completely at the mercy of their caprice and passion than
the general body of the common people, whose vassalage may, after all,
consist in little more than the obligation of following them to their
wars, and rendering them obedience in such other matters of public
concern.

Between the chiefs and the common people, who, as we have already
mentioned, are called "cookees," there seems to be also a pretty
numerous class, distinguished by the name of rungateedas, or, as it has
been more recently written, rangatiras, which appears to answer nearly
to the English term gentry.[AX] It consists of those who are connected
by relationship with the families of the chiefs; and who, though not
possessed of any territorial rights, are, as well as the chiefs
themselves, looked upon as almost of a different species from the
inferior orders, from whom they are probably as much separated in their
political condition and privileges as they are in the general estimation
of their rank and dignity. The term rangatira, indeed, in its widest
signification, includes the chiefs themselves, just as our English
epithet gentleman does the highest personages in the realm.

Although there is no general government in New Zealand, the chiefs
differ from each other in power; and some of them seem even to exercise,
in certain respects, a degree of authority over others. Those who are
called areekees,[AY] in particular, are represented as of greatly
superior rank to the common chiefs. It was, probably, a chief of this
class of whom Cook heard at various places where he put in along the
east coast of the northern island, on his first visit to the country. He
calls him Teratu; and he found his authority to extend, he says, from
Cape Turnagain to the neighbourhood of Mercury Bay. The eight districts,
too, into which this island was divided by Toogee,[AZ] in the map of it
which he drew for Captain King, were in all likelihood the nominal
territories, or what we may call feudal domains, of so many areekees.

The account which Rutherford gives of the law, or custom, which prevails
in New Zealand in regard to the crime of theft, may seem at first sight
to be somewhat irreconcilable with the statements of other authorities,
who tell us that this crime is regarded by the natives in so heinous a
light that its usual punishment is death; whereas, according to him, it
would seem scarcely to be consider