About this period, in almost every part of the group the Kings were murdered, and on Tapituea, the skeleton of tbe last hangs to this day in the chief Speak House of the isle, a menace to ambition. Nabakatokia was more fortunate ; his life and the royal style were spared to him, but he was stripped of power. The Old Men enjoyed a festival of public speaking; the laws were continually changed, never enforced ; the commons had an opportunity to regret the merits of Nakaeia; and the King, denied the re source of rich marriages and the services of a troop of wives, fell nob only in discon eideration, but in debt.
