There were in the old times two great institutions, which ruled with iron rod in Maori land--the _Tapu_ and the _Muru_. Pakehas who knew no better called the _muru_ simply "robbery," because the word _muru_, in its common signification, means to plunder. But I speak of the regular legalized and established system of plundering, as penalty for offences; which in a rough way resembled our law by which a man is obliged to pay "damages." Great abuses had, however, crept into this system--so great, indeed, as to render the retention of any sort of movable property almost an impossibility, and in a great measure, too, discourage the inclination to labour for its acquisition. These great inconveniences were, however, met, or in some degree softened, by an expedient of a peculiarly Maori nature, which I shall by-and-by explain. The offences for which people were plundered were sometimes of a nature which, to a _mere_ pakeha, would seem curious. A man's child fell in the fire and was almost burnt to death. The father was immediately plundered to an extent that almost left him without the means of subsistence: fishing-nets, canoes, pigs, provisions--all went. His canoe upset, and he and all his family narrowly escaped drowning--some were, perhaps, drowned. He was immediately robbed, and well pummelled with a club into the bargain, if he was not good at the science of self-defence--the club part of the ceremony being always fairly administered one against one, and after fair warning given to defend himself. He might be clearing some land for potatoes, burning off the fern, and the fire spreads farther than he intended, and gets into a _wahi tapu_ or burial-ground. No matter whether any one has been buried in it or no for the last hundred years: he is tremendously robbed. In fact, for ten thousand different causes a man might be robbed; and I can really imagine a case in which a man for scratching his own head might be legally robbed.