into which this island was divided by Toogee,* 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 considered by them as a crime at all. This apparent disagreement, however, arises, in all probability, merely from that misappre hension, or imperfect conception, of the customs of a foreign people into which we are so apt to be misled by the tendency we have to mix up constantly our own previously acquired notions with the simple facts that present themselves to us, and to explain the latter by the former. With our habits and improved ideas of morality, we see in theft both a trespass upon the arbi trary enactments of society, which demands the correction of the civil magistrate, and a violation of that natural equity which is inde pendent of all political arrangements, and would make it unfair and wrong for one man to take to himself what belongs to another, although *Tuki.