ome of the little villains ran a mile before
looking behind to see whether the ferocious monster called a pakeha was
gaining on them. They did run! I arrived at the centre of the village
and was conducted to a large house or shed, which had been constructed
as a place of reception for visitors, and as a general lounging place
for all the inhabitants. It was a _whare noa_, a house to which, from
its general and temporary uses, the _tapu_ was not supposed to attach:
I mean, of course, the ordinary personal _tapu_ or _tapu rangatira_.
Any person, however, _infected_ with any of the more serious or
extraordinary forms of the _tapu_ entering it, would at once render it
uninhabitable. I took my seat. The house was full, and nearly the whole
of the rest of the population were blocking up the open front of the
large shed; all striving to see the pakeha, and passing to the rear
from man to man every word he happened to speak. I could hear them say
to the people behind, "The pakeha has stood up!" "Now he has sat down
again!" "He has said, how do you all do?" "He has said, this is a nice
place of yours!" &c. &c.

Now there happened to be at a distance, an old gentleman engaged in
clearing the weeds from a _kumera_ or sweet potato field, and as the
kumera in the old times was the crop on which the natives depended
chiefly for support, like all valuable things it was _tapu_, and the
parties who entered the field to remove the weeds were _tapu pro tem._
also. One of the effects of this temporary extra _tapu_ was that the
parties could not enter any regular dwelling-house, or, indeed, any
house used by others. The breach of this rule would not be dangerous in
a personal sense, but the effect would be that the crop of sweet
potatoes would fail. The industrious individual I have alluded to,
hearing the cry of "A pakeha! a pakeha!" from many voices, and having
never had an opportunity to examine that variety of the species, or
_genus homo_, flung down his wooden _kaheru_ or weed exterminator, and
rushed towards the town house before mentioned. What could he do? The
_tapu_ forbade his entrance, and the front was so completely blocked up
by his admiring neighbours that he could not get sight of the wonderful
guest. In these desperate circumstances a bright thought struck him: he
would, by a bold and ingenious device, give the _tapu_ the slip. He ran
to the back of the house, made with some difficulty a hole in the
padded _raupo_ wall, and