understand; but this does not matter, as I shall add a "glossary,"
in Coptic, to make things clear.

Some time after this, a little incident worth noting happened at my
friend Mr. ----'s place. Our chief had, for some time back, a sort of
dispute with another magnate, who lived about ten miles off. I really
cannot say who was in the right: the arguments on both sides were so
nearly balanced, that I should not like to commit myself to a judgment
in the case. The question was at last brought to a fair hearing at my
friend's house. The arguments on both sides were very forcible; so much
so that in the course of the arbitration our chief and thirty of his
principal witnesses were shot dead in a heap before my friend's door,
and sixty others badly wounded, and my friend's house and store blown
up and burnt to ashes.

My friend was all but, or, indeed, quite ruined; but it would not have
been "correct" for him to complain--_his_ loss in goods being far
overbalanced by the loss of the tribe in men. He was, however, consoled
by hundreds of friends who came in large parties to condole and _tangi_
with him, and who, as was quite correct in such cases, shot and ate all
his stock, sheep, pigs, goats, ducks, geese, fowls, &c., all in high
compliment to himself: at which he felt proud, as a well conducted and
conditioned pakeha Maori (as he was) should do. He did not, however,
survive these honours long, poor fellow. He died; and, strange to say,
no one knew exactly what was the matter with him: some said it was the
climate, they thought.

After this, the land about which this little misunderstanding had
arisen, was, so to speak, "thrown into chancery," where it has now
remained about forty years. But I hear that proceedings are to commence
_de novo_ (no allusion to the "new system") next summer, or at farthest
the summer after; and as I witnessed the first proceedings, when the
case comes on again "may I be there to see."

CHAPTER V.

Every Englishman's House is his Castle.--My Estate and Castle.--
How I purchased my Estate.--Native Titles to Land, of what Nature.
--Value of Land in New Zealand.--Land Commissioners.--The Triumphs
of Eloquence.--Magna Charta.

"Every Englishman's house is his castle," "I scorn the foreign yoke,"
and glory in the name of Briton, and all that. The natural end,
however, of all castles is to be burnt or blown up. In England it is
true you can call the constable, and should