POWER OF THE CHIEFS. 121 
The inferior chiefs also exercised the same au¬ 
thority over their dependants. The father was 
magistrate in his own family; the chief in his own 
district; and the king nominally dispensed law 
and justice to the whole. The final appeal, in all 
matters of dispute, was made to the chief ruler; 
and the parties who resorted to his decision 
usually regarded it as binding. There was no regular 
police, for the maintenance of public order. The 
chief of each district was accountable for the con¬ 
duct of the people under his own jurisdiction. 
The chieftains who were in attendance on the 
king, with the servants of his establishment, were 
the agents usually employed to carry his measures 
into effect. The servants of the raatiras performed 
the same duty in their respective localities, and the 
king often sent his order to the district chief, who 
employed his own men in its execution. 
Notwithstanding the many acts of homage paid 
to the head and other branches of the reigning 
family, and their imagined connexion with the 
gods, the actual influence of the king over the 
'.haughty and despotic district chieftains, was 
neither powerful nor permanent, and he could 
seldom confide in their fidelity in any project 
which would not advance their interests as well as 
his own. Every measure was therefore planned 
with the most cautious deliberation, the approval 
and aid of a number of these nobility of the 
country being essential to carry it into effect; but 
when the interests of the reigning family and those 
of the chieftains were opposed, it produced no 
small embarrassment. These raatiras, who re¬ 
sembled the barons of the feudal system, kept the 
people under them m a state of the greatest sub¬ 
jection, and received from them not only military 
