eir spears stuck upright in the
ground. It was a quiet scene. Most of the scenes of that time which
have come down to us were not of quietness. Some of them have been
sketched in the last two chapters, and are examples of the condition
of things which the missionaries landed to confront, and amidst which
they worked. More have now to be described, if only to show things as
they were before annexation, and the miseries which the country, and
the Maori along with it, suffered before the influences of White
adventurers and their fatal gifts were tempered by a civilized
government.

From 1818 to 1838 was a time of war far surpassing in bloodshed and
ruin anything witnessed in the Islands before or since. For the
first time the Maoris used firearms. Probably a fourth of their race
perished in this ill-starred epoch. Hongi, the chief of the Ngapuhi
tribe, before referred to, is usually spoken of as the first to
introduce the musket into the tribal wars. This was not so. His tribe,
as the owners of the Bay of Islands and other ports frequented by
traders, were able to forestall their fellow-Maoris in getting
firearms. A war-party of the Ngapuhi, only one hundred and forty
strong, is said to have gone through the length and breadth of the
North Island putting all they met to flight with the discharge of
two old flint-lock guns. The cunning warriors always followed up the
awe-inspiring fire with a prompt charge in which spear and tomahawk
did the work for which panic had prepared the way. Another Ngapuhi
chief, the leader of an attack on the men of Tauranga, managed to
arm his men with thirty-five muskets, which they used with crushing
effect. This was in 1818. Hongi saw the bravest warriors run before
the new and terrible weapon. He never forgot the sight. To go to
England and get guns became the dream of his life. A hopeful pupil of
Marsden, in Sydney, he knew the ways of the white men. In 1820, he and
a brother chief were taken to England by Kendall to help Professor Lee
with his grammar and dictionary. The pair were lionized, and on all
sides presents were made to them. They were presented to King George
IV., who gave Hongi a suit of armour. On his return this grammarian's
assistant heard at Sydney that his tribe was at war with the natives
of the Hauraki or Thames district, and that one of his relatives had
been killed. Now was his time. He at once sold all his presents,
except the suit of armour, and bought three hundred