must be slaughtered as speedily and cleverly as possible.

Most of the men keep at a respectful distance, not caring to get too
close to those formidable tusks; but they are actively employed in
shouting and brandishing knives and tomahawks. Close in front of the
pig, amid a whirling circle of barking dogs, Old Colonial, O'Gaygun, and
one or two Maoris appear to be performing an exciting kind of war-dance.
They are endeavouring to urge in the dogs, and are trying to draw the
pig out from among the tree-roots; while, at the same time, they are
springing actively about in order to avoid each fancied and expected
rush of the boar.

But the boar is not to be drawn out from among the high branching roots
that protect his flanks and stern. At every near approach of dog or man
he feints to charge, lowering and tossing his head, uttering yet fiercer
notes of wrath, or tearing up the ground, and sending splinters flying
from the tree with blows from his tusks; such threatening movements on
his part effectually deterring his foes in their advance. Sticks and
stones, large and weighty, are hurled at him from all sides. What does
he care for such puny projectiles? Even a well-aimed tomahawk, that
strikes him full and fairly, fails to hurt or penetrate his armour of
bristles and tough hide. Like Achilles, his weak place is in his
heels--his rear, and that is well protected behind him.

But another foeman to the swinish champion now appears upon the scene. A
man, whom I have come close to in the hurry-skurry, suddenly calls to
me--

"Look at old Tama up there behind the tree!" Then he shouts in
stentorian delight--

"Te toa rere, te toa mahuta! Go it, Tama, old boy! Hopu te poaka! Jump
in and kill him!"

Looking up at the great trunk of the rata, with its extensive pedestal
of gnarled and twisting roots, that for six or eight feet from the
ground branch down all round its base, I see peering round the stem, and
from above the roots, a face that I know well; it is that of
Tama-te-Whiti. He has made a circuit, got behind the tree, and is now
climbing over and among the extended roots, cautiously and silently
stealing upon the pig, with intent to drive it out of the cover of the
tree.

Old Tama's grey hair hangs loosely over his brows; his elaborate
tattooing looks unusually conspicuous; his arms are bare to the
shoulder; and, as he gradually draws himself into our view, we see his
body is almost bare, except a few fluttering