The few I brought went that way, and I have seen
them swapped for shillings, which were thought more becoming.

What cared I? A fish-hook was worth a dozen of them, and I had lots of
fish-hooks. Little did I think in those days that I should ever see
here towns and villages, banks and insurance offices, prime ministers
and bishops; and hear sermons preached, and see men hung, and all the
other plagues of civilization. I am a melancholy man. I feel somehow as
if I had got older. I am no use in these dull times. I mope about in
solitary places, exclaiming often, "Oh! where are those good old
times?" and echo, or some young Maori whelp from the Three Kings,
answers from behind a bush,--NO HEA.

I shall not state the year in which I first saw the mountains of New
Zealand appear above the sea; there is a false suspicion getting about
that I am growing old. This must be looked down, so I will at present
avoid dates. I always held a theory that time was of no account in New
Zealand, and I do believe I was right up to the time of the arrival of
the first Governor. The natives hold this opinion still, especially
those who are in debt: so I will just say, it was in the good old
times, long ago, that from the deck of a small trading schooner, in
which I had taken my passage from somewhere, that I first cast eyes on
Maori land. It _was_ Maori land then; but, alas! what is it now?
Success to you, O King of Waikato. May your _mana_ never be less;--long
may you hold at bay the demon of civilization, though fall at last I
fear you must. Plutus with golden hoof is trampling on your land-marks.
He mocks the war-song, but should _I_ see your fall, at least one
Pakeha Maori shall raise the _tangi_; and with flint and shell as of
old shall the women lament you.

Let me, however, leave these melancholy thoughts for a time, forget the
present, take courage, and talk about the past. I have not got on shore
yet; a thing I must accomplish as a necessary preliminary to looking
about me, and telling what I saw. I do not understand the pakeha way of
beginning a story in the middle; so to start fair, I must fairly get on
shore, which, I am surprised to find, was easier to _do_ than to
describe.

The little schooner neared the land, and as we came closer and closer,
I began in a most unaccountable manner to remember all the tales I had
ever heard of people being baked in ovens, with cabbage and potato
"fixins." I had before this had some conside