hem,
or I should have taken them. I could have paid for them some time or
another. It was wrong, wrong, very wrong, to let that tribe have those
muskets. He is not their pakeha; let them look for a pakeha for
themselves. Those Ngatiwaki are getting too many muskets--those three
make sixty-four they have got, besides two _tupara_. Certainly we have
a great many more, and the Ngatiwaki are our relations; but then there
was Kohu, we killed, and Patu, we stole his wife. There is no saying
what these Ngatiwaki may do if they should get plenty of muskets; they
are game enough for anything. It was wrong to give them those muskets;
wrong, wrong, wrong!" After experience enabled me to tell just what the
chief's soliloquy was, as above.

But all this time the boat is darting to the shore; and as the distance
is only a couple of hundred yards, I can hardly understand how it is
that I have not yet landed. The crew are pulling like mad, being
impatient to show the tribe the prize they have made,--a regular
_pakeha rangatira_ as well as a _rangatira pakeha_ (two very different
things), who has lots of tomahawks, and fish-hooks, and blankets, and a
_tupara_, and is even suspected to be the owner of a great many "pots"
of gunpowder! "He is going to stop with the tribe, he is going to
trade, he is going to be a pakeha _for us_." These last conclusions
were, however, jumped at; the "pakeha" not having then any notions of
trade or commerce, and being only inclined to look about and amuse
himself.

The boat nears the shore, and now arises from a hundred voices the call
of welcome,--"_Haere mai! haere mai! hoe mai! hoe mai! haere mai,
e-te-pa-ke-ha, haere mai!_" Mats, hands, and certain ragged petticoats
put into requisition for that occasion, all at the same time waving in
the air in sign of welcome. Then a pause. Then, as the boat came
nearer, another burst of _haere mai!_ But unaccustomed as I was then to
the Maori salute, I disliked the sound. There was a wailing melancholy
cadence that did not strike me as being the appropriate tone of
welcome; and as I was quite ignorant up to this time of my own
importance, wealth, and general value as a pakeha, I began, as the boat
closed in with the shore, to ask myself whether possibly this same
"_haere mai_" might not be the Maori for "dilly, dilly, come and be
killed." There was, however, no help for it now; we were close to the
shore, and so, putting on the most unconcerned countenance possib