it lies in a
cave, with the spear and tomahawk beside it.

The two old wives were hanging by the neck from a scaffold at a short
distance, which had been made to place potatoes on out of the reach of
rats. The shrivelled old creatures were quite dead. I was for a moment
forgetful of the "correct" thing, and called to an old chief, who was
near, to cut them down. He said, in answer to my hurried call,
"By-and-by; it is too soon yet: _they might recover_." "Oh," said I, at
once recalled to my sense of propriety, "I thought they had been
hanging all night," and thus escaped the great risk of being thought a
mere meddling pakeha. I now perceived the old chief was employed making
a stretcher, or _kauhoa_, to carry the bodies on. At a short distance
also were five old creatures of women sitting in a row, crying, with
their eyes fixed on the hanging objects, and everything was evidently
going on _selon les regles_. I walked on. "_E tika ana_," said I, to
myself. "It's all right, I dare say."

The two young wives had also made a desperate attempt in the night to
hang themselves, but had been prevented by two young men, who, by some
unaccountable accident, had come upon them just as they were stringing
themselves up; and who, seeing that they were not actually "ordered for
execution," by great exertion, and with the assistance of several
female relations, whom they called to their assistance, prevented them
from killing themselves out of respect for their old lord. Perhaps it
was to revenge themselves for this meddling interference that these two
young women married the two young men before the year was out; in
consequence of which, and as a matter of course, the husbands were
robbed by the tribe of everything they had in the world (which was not
much), except their arms. They also had to fight some half-dozen duels
each with spears; in which, however, no one was killed, and no more
blood drawn than could be well spared. All this they went through with
commendable resignation; and so, due respect having been paid to the
memory of the old chief, and the appropriators of his widows duly
punished according to law, farther proceedings were stayed, and
everything went on comfortably. And so the world goes round.

CHAPTER XV.

Mana.--Young New Zealand.--The Law of England.--"Pop goes the
Weasel."--Right if we have Might.--God save the Queen.--Good
Advice.

In the afternoon I went home musing on what I had he