g the purchase of
my estate. I am sure I have been keeping house a long time before it is
built, which is I believe clear against the rules; so I must get rid of
this talk about the _tapu_ the best way I can, after which I will start
fair and try not to get before my story.

Besides these different forms of the _tapu_ which I have mentioned,
there were endless others; but the temporary local _tapus_ were the
most tormenting to a pakeha: as well they might, seeing that even a
native could not steer clear of them always. A place not _tapu_
yesterday might be most horribly _tapu_ to-day, and the consequences of
trespassing thereon proportionately troublesome.

Thus, sailing along a coast or a river bank, the most inviting
landing-place would be almost to a certainty the freehold property of
the Taniwha, a terrific sea monster, who would to a certainty, if his
landed property was trespassed on, upset the canoe of the trespassers
and devour them all the very next time they put to sea. The place was
_tapu_, and let the weather be as bad as it might, it was better to
keep to sea at all risks than to land there. Even pakeha, though in
some cases invulnerable, could not escape the fangs of the terrible
Taniwha. "Was not little Jackey-_poto_, the sailor, drowned by the
Taniwha? He _would_ go on shore, in spite of every warning, to get some
water to mix with his _waipiro_; and was not his canoe found next day
floating about with his paddle and two empty case-bottles in it?--a
sure sign that the Taniwha had lifted him out bodily. And was not the
body of the said Jackey found some days after with the Taniwha's mark
on it,--one eye taken out?"

These Taniwha would, however, sometimes attach themselves to a chief or
warrior, and in the shape of a huge sea monster, a bird, or a fish,
gambol round his canoe, and by their motions give presage of good or
evil fortune.

When the Ngati Kuri sailed on their last and fated expedition to the
south, a huge Taniwha attached to the famous warrior, Tiki Whenua,
accompanied the expedition, playing about continually amongst the
canoes; often coming close to the canoe of Tiki Whenua, so that the
warrior could reach to pat him approvingly with his paddle, at which he
seemed much pleased; and when they came in sight of the island of
Tuhua, this Taniwha chief called up the legions of the deep! The sea
was blackened by an army of monsters, who, with uncouth and awful
floundering and wallowing, perfo