Page:Some Account of New Zealand.pdf/48

Rh ing gestures, shouts, grimace, and other tokens of defiance, which, to an European tacititian, would appear extremely ridiculous, and, to an indifferent spectator, at least ungraceful and unbecoming, though they would strike both as exceedingly terrific.

The elders have great weight in the councils of the chiefs, and in all affairs, excepting those of a military description, they decide independently of them, though the authority of the chiefs would undoubtedly enable them to prevent the elders from carrying any projected measure into execution, should they feel disposed to exert this authority.

Thus, though the government is purely aristocratical, and probably abounding in wise and salutary laws; the local circumstances of most of the states require that its civil forms should yield to military discipline and etiquette: but during their short intervals of peace they consider themselves amenable to civil power, if such a term is admissible.