und first. There is plenty of land at present to
be obtained anywhere, and there are many things to be considered in
choosing a location. Carriage is of course a vital consideration, and a
settler on a river has a great advantage over one who has to send his
produce a long distance to market by waggon. Then, again, some people
prefer taking up virgin land and clearing it for themselves, while
others are ready to pay a higher sum to take possession of a holding
where much of the hard work has already been done, and a house stands
ready for occupation.

"At present no one, of course, with a wife and daughter would think of
settling in the disturbed district, although farms can be bought there
for next to nothing. The war is, I hope, nearly at an end, now that we
have ten British regiments in the island. They have taken most of the
enemy's pahs, though they have been a prodigious time about it, and we
colonists are very discontented with the dilatory way in which the war
has been carried on, and think that if things had been left to ourselves
we could have stamped the rebellion out in half the time. The red-coats
were much too slow; too heavily weighted and too cautious for this sort
of work. The Maoris defend their pahs well, inflict a heavy loss upon
their assailants, and when the latter at last make their attack and
carry the works the Maoris manage to slip away, and the next heard of
them is they have erected a fresh pah, and the whole thing has to be
gone through again. However, we need not discuss that now. I take it
that anyhow you would not think of settling down anywhere in the
locality of the tribes that have been in revolt."

"Certainly not," Mr. Renshaw said. "I am a peaceful man, and if I could
get a house and land for nothing and an income thrown into the bargain,
I should refuse it if I could not go to bed without the fear that the
place might be in flames before the morning."

"I am bound to say that the natives have as a whole behaved very well to
the settlers; it would have been easy in a great number of cases for
them to have cut them off had they chosen to do so. But they have fought
fairly and well according to the rules of what we may call honourable
warfare. The tribesmen are for the most part Christians, and have
carried out Christian precepts.

"In one case, hearing that the troops assembling to attack one of their
pahs were short of provisions, they sent down boat-loads of potatoes and
other v