from their infancy, is one of the chief causes of this
decrease in strength and stature.

I am landed at last, certainly; but I am tattered and wet, and in a
most deplorable plight: so, to make my story short--for I see, if I am
too particular, I shall never come to the end of it--I returned to the
ship, put myself to rights, and came on shore next day with all my
_taonga_, to the great delight of the chief and tribe. My hospitable
entertainer, Mr. ----, found room for my possessions in his store, and
a room for myself in his house; and so now that I am fairly housed we
shall see what will come of it.

I have now all New Zealand before me to caper about in; so I shall do
as I like, and please myself. I shall keep to neither rule, rhyme, nor
reason, but just write what comes uppermost to my recollection of the
good old days. Many matters which seemed odd enough to me at first,
have long appeared such mere matters of course, that I am likely to
pass them over without notice. I shall, however, give some of the more
striking features of those delectable days, now, alas! passed and gone.

Some short time after this, news came that a grand war expedition,
which had been absent nearly two years at the South, had returned. This
party were about a thousand strong, being composed of two parties, of
about five hundred men each, from two different tribes, who had joined
their force for the purpose of the expedition. The tribe with which Mr.
---- and myself were staying, had not sent any men on this war party;
but, I suppose to keep their hands in, had attacked one of the two
tribes who had, and who were, consequently, much weakened by the
absence of so many of their best men. It, however, turned out that
after a battle--the ferocity of which has seldom been equalled in any
country but this--our friends were defeated with a dreadful loss,
having inflicted almost as great on the enemy. Peace, however, had
afterwards been formally made; but, nevertheless, the news of the
return of this expedition was not heard without causing a sensation
almost amounting to consternation. The war chief of the party who had
been attacked by our friends during his absence, was now, with all his
men, within an easy day's march. His road lay right through our
village, and it was much to be doubted that he would keep the peace,
being one of the most noted war chiefs of New Zealand, and he and his
men returning from a successful expedition.

All now was