hey should collect a still larger present in return for
his kindness; but, as he found out their intention was to take the
schooner, and knock himself and crew on the head, he made off in the
night. Yet he maintains, to this day, that "virtue is its own reward:"
"at least 'tis so at Taranaki." Virtue, however, must have been on a
visit to some other country (she _does_ go out sometimes), when I saw
and heard a British subject, a slave to some natives on the West Coast,
begging hard for somebody to buy him. The price asked was one musket;
but the only person on board the vessel possessing those articles,
preferred to invest in a different commodity. The consequence was, that
the above-mentioned unit of the great British nation lived, and ("Rule,
Britannia" to the contrary notwithstanding) died a slave: but whether
he was buried, deponent sayeth not.

My old _rangatira_ at last began to show signs that his time to leave
this world of care was approaching. He had arrived at a great age, and
a rapid and general breaking up of his strength became plainly
observable. He often grumbled that men should grow old, and oftener
that no great war broke out in which he might make a final display, and
die with _eclat_. The last two years of his life were spent almost
entirely at my house; which, however, he never entered. He would sit
whole days on a fallen puriri near the house, with his spear sticking
up beside him, and speaking to no one, but sometimes humming in a low
droning tone some old ditty which no one knew the meaning of but
himself, and at night he would disappear to some of the numerous nests,
or little sheds, he had around the place. In summer, he would roll
himself in his blanket and sleep anywhere; but no one could tell
exactly where.

In the hot days of summer, when his blood, I suppose, got a little
warm, he would sometimes become talkative, and recount the exploits of
his youth. As he warmed to the subject, he would seize his spear and go
through all the incidents of some famous combat, repeating every
thrust, blow, and parry, as they actually occurred, and going through
as much exertion as if he was really and truly fighting for his life.
He used to go through these pantomimic labours as a duty whenever he
had an assemblage of the young men of the tribe around him; to whom, as
well as to myself, he was most anxious to communicate that which he
considered the most valuable of all knowledge, a correct idea of the
u