g a consideration. Incensed at
the denial, the chief flew into a violent rage, and testified, by loud
reproaches, how grievously he was provoked by the ill-success of his
project. He told the person, who very properly refused to comply with
his demand, that 'he was no good,' and that he would never again bring
him anything more. He attempted the same crafty experiment upon another
of our party also, but this proved equally abortive, the person being
well aware of his character, and knowing he would require from him ten
times more than the worth of his pretended favour."

Though so covetous and crafty himself, however, Pomaree had no mercy to
show for the delinquencies of others. On one occasion, when a poor
"cookee" had been detected in the commission of some petty theft about
the vessel, he was loud in his exhortations to the captain to hang him
up immediately. The man appears, indeed, to have been altogether
divested even of those natural affections which scarcely any of his
savage countrymen but himself were found to be without.

When Marsden and Nicholas left New Zealand, a number of the chiefs sent
their sons with them to Port Jackson; and such a scene of anguish took
place on the parting between the parents and their children that there
was no European present, Nicholas says, not excepting the most obdurate
sailor on board, who was not more or less affected. "But I cannot help
noticing," he adds, "that in the general expression of inconsolable
distress, Pomaree was the only person who showed no concern; he took
leave of his son with all the indifference imaginable, and hurrying into
his canoe, paddled back to the shore--a solitary exception to the
affecting sensibility of his countrymen."

Even Pomaree, however, could weep on some occasions, as the following
account which Marsden gives us of an interview he had with him four or
five years after this will show. "He told me," says Marsden, "that he
was very angry that I had not brought a blacksmith for him; and that
when he heard that there was no blacksmith for him, he sat down and wept
much, and also his wives. I assured him that he should have one, as
soon as one could be got for him. He replied it would be of no use to
him to send a blacksmith when he was dead; and that he was at present in
the greatest distress: his wooden spades were all broke, and he had not
an axe to make any more; his canoes were all broke, and he had not a
nail or a gimlet to mend them w