ms of transfer on it in English to my own perfect satisfaction.
The cost per acre to me was, as near as can be, about five and a half
times what the same quantity of land would have cost me at the same
time in Tasmania. But this was not of much importance, as the value of
land in New Zealand then (and indeed now) being chiefly imaginary, one
could just as easily suppose it to be of a very great value as a very
small one; I therefore did not complain of the cost.

While I am on the subject of land and land titles, I may as well here
mention that many years after the purchase of my land I received notice
to appear before certain persons called "Land Commissioners," who were
part and parcel of the new inventions which had come up soon after the
arrival of the first governor, and which are still a trouble to the
land. I was informed that I must appear and prove my title to the land
I have mentioned, on pain of forfeiture of the same. Now, I could not
see what right any one could have to plague me in this way, and if I
had had no one but the commissioners and two or three hundred men of
their tribe to deal with, I should have put my pa in fighting order,
and told them to "come on;" for before this time I had had occasion to
build a pa, in consequence of a little misunderstanding, and being a
regularly naturalized member of a strong tribe, could raise men to
defend it at the shortest notice.

But somehow these people had cunningly managed to mix up the name of
Queen Victoria, God bless her! (no disparagement to King Potatau) in
the matter; and I, though a pakeha Maori, am a loyal subject of her
Majesty, and will stick up and fight for her as long as ever I can
muster a good imitation of courage, or a leg to stand upon. This being
the case, I made a very unwilling appearance at the court, and
explained and defended my title to the land in an oration of four
hours' and a half duration; and which, though I was much out of
practice, I flatter myself was a good specimen of English rhetoric,
and, for its own merits--as well as for another reason which I was not
aware of at the time--was listened to by the court with the greatest
patience.

When I had concluded, and been asked "if I had anything more to say?" I
saw the commissioner beginning to count my words, which had been all
written, I suppose, in short-hand; and having ascertained how many
thousand I had spoken, he handed me a bill, in which I was charged by
the word, for ev