ll do I know that either party would have almost given his life
for a chance to exterminate the other with all his tribe; and
twenty-seven years afterwards I saw the two tribes fighting in the very
quarrel which was pretended to have been made up that day. Before this,
however, both these chiefs were dead, and others reigned in their
stead.

While the _tangi_ was going on between the two principals, the
companions of our chief each selected one of the visitors, and, rushing
into his arms, went through a similar scene. Old "Relation Eater"
singled out the horrific savage who had begun the war dance, and these
two tenderhearted individuals, for a full half-hour, seated on the
ground, hanging on each other's necks, gave vent to such a chorus of
skilfully modulated howling as would have given Momus the blue devils
to listen to.

After the _tangi_ was ended, the two tribes seated themselves in a
large irregular circle on the plain; into this circle strode an orator,
who, having said his say, was followed by another, and so the greater
part of the day was consumed. No arms were to be seen in the hands of
either party, except the greenstone _mere_ of the principal chiefs; but
I took notice that about thirty of our people never left the nearest
gate of the pa, and that their loaded muskets, although out of sight,
were close at hand, standing against the fence inside the gate: I also
perceived that under their cloaks or mats they wore their cartridge
boxes and tomahawks. This caused me to observe the other party more
closely. They also, I perceived, had some forty men sleeping in the
shed; these fellows had not removed their cartridge boxes either, and
all their companions' arms were carefully ranged behind them in a row,
six or seven deep, against the back wall of the shed.

The speeches of the orators were not very interesting, so I took a
stroll to a little rising ground at about a hundred yards distance,
where a company of natives, better dressed than common, were seated.
They had the best sort of ornamented cloaks, and wore in their heads,
feathers, which I already knew "commoners" could not afford to wear, as
they were only to be procured some hundreds of miles to the south. I
therefore concluded these were magnates or "personages" of some kind or
other, and determined to introduce myself. As I approached, one of
these splendid individuals nodded to me in a very familiar sort of
manner, and I, not to appear rude, return