ure; the last of which occurred just at the time I came into the
country, but before I had the advantage of his acquaintance. His tribe
were at war with some people at the distance of about a day's journey.
One of their villages was on the border of a dense forest. My
_rangatira_, then a very old man, started off alone, and without saying
a word to any one, took his way through the forest, which extended the
whole way between his village and the enemy, crept like a lizard into
the enemy's village, and then, shouting his war cry, dashed amongst a
number of people he saw sitting together on the ground, and who little
expected such a salute. In a minute he had run three men and one woman
through the body, received five dangerous spear-wounds himself, and
escaped to the forest; and finally he got safe home to his own country
and people. Truly my old _rangatira_ was a man of a thousand,--a model
_rangatira_. This exploit, if possible, added to his reputation, and
every one said his _mana_ would never decline. The enemy had been panic
stricken, thinking a whole tribe were upon them, and fled like a flock
of sheep: except the three men who were killed. They all attacked my
old chief at once, and were all disposed of in less than a minute,
after, as I have said, giving him five desperate wounds. The woman was
just "stuck," as a matter of course, as she came in his way.

The natives are unanimous in affirming that they were much more
numerous in former times than they are now, and I am convinced that
such was the case, for the following reasons. The old hill forts are
many of them so large that an amount of labour must have been expended
in trenching, terracing, and fencing them--and all without iron tools,
which increased the difficulty a hundred-fold--that must have required
a vastly greater population to accomplish than can be now found in the
surrounding districts. These forts were also of such an extent that,
taking into consideration the system of attack and defence used
necessarily in those times, they would have been utterly untenable
unless held by at least ten times the number of men the whole
surrounding districts, for two or three days' journey, can produce. And
yet, when we remember that in those times of constant war--being the
two centuries preceding the arrival of the Europeans--the natives
always, as a rule, slept in these hill forts with closed gates, bridges
over trenches removed, and ladders of terraces drawn