1: They made cartridges of them. These were the Hau Haus, a sect of Maories who, when the prestige of Christianity first began to wane in the native mind, abolished the New Testament, retained the Old, which was more to their taste, and by mixing with it a large quantity of their old heathenism, produced a religion entirely devoted theoretically and practically to plunder and blood. 2: I regret to say that the strict propriety (according to the received code of that day) with which the Poverty-Bay massacre, and the fighting which followed it, were prosecuted on both sides, was marred by the scandalous behaviour of a settler whose name I forget; this man's wife and child were mutilated, killed, &c., at the massacre; it was done in a most correct way, but somehow made him most unaccountably and unreasonably angry. He joined the expedition that was sent in pursuit of the murderers, and in one of the first engagements some dozen of them were made prisoners. At night he approached them, and, taking treacherous advantage of their guileless confidence, asked them if they had participated in the massacre, feast, &c.; and they, never dreaming that they had anything to fear from the admission, innocently answered in the affirmative, whereon this monster, knowing well that the poor fellows would escape capital, or even very serious, punishment, on the grounds that they were prisoners of war, or had brown skins, or excellent motives, or a deficient moral sense, or a defective education, deliberately shot the whole lot with his revolver. I need hardly mention that had this act been performed by a Maori upon white men by way of "utu" (revenge, payment) for some of his tribe that had been killed, it would have been quite "tiku" (correct, proper); but for a white man so to behave was scandalous. I forget what punishment was awarded him: let us hope he got what he deserved; and may this story be a warning to those who let their angry passions rise.

The leader of the Hau Hau expedition was a ruffian called Te Kooti. The chief of the native contingent that joined in their pursuit was a Maori, of the old-fashioned sort, named Ropata. A friend of mine asked him one day what he thought would be done with Te Kooti if he were taken. "Oh, you'll make him a judge," answered Ropata, coolly. "What do you mean?" asked my friend. "Well," said Ropata, "the last two rebels you caught you made native assessors, and Te Kooti's a much greater man than either of them; so I don't see how you can do less than make him a judge. But you won't if I catch him," he added, with a grin. 3: The Maori notion of prayer reaches no higher than the thing we call an incantation. One day I was talking to the old Pakeha Maori (i.e. a white man who lives amongst the Maories) on the subject of missionary labour. At last he said, "I'll tell you a story that will establish your name for ever at Exeter Hall, only you musn't tell it quite the same way that I do. I was here at the time when both the Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries were first beginning to make their way in the country; and the Maories of my tribe used to come to me and ask me which had the greatest 'mana' (i.e. fortune, prestige, power, strength)—the Protestant God or the Romanist one. I was always a good Churchman, and used to tell them that the Protestant God could lick the other into fits. There was an old Irish sailor about five miles from me who used to back up the Roman Catholic God, but I had a long start of him, and moreover was the best fighting man of the two, which went a long way. In a short time I had about two hundred of the most muscular, blood-thirsty, hard-fighting Protestants you could wish to see.

"Well; it so happened that one day we had a little difference with some of our neighbours, and were drawn up on one side of a gully all ready to charge. I liked the fun of fighting in those days, and was rigged out in nothing but a cartridge-box and belt, with a plume of feathers in my hair, and a young woman to carry my ammunition for me; moreover, I had been put in command of the desperate young bloods of the tribe, and burned to distinguish myself, feeling the commander of the Old Guard at Waterloo quite an insignificant person in regard to myself in point of responsibility and honour.

"Lying down in the fern, we waited impatiently for the signal to charge; had not we, on the last occasion worth speaking of, outrun our elders, and been nearly decimated in consequence? Shall it not be different now? See! there is the great war-chief, the commander of the 'Taua,' coming this way (he was a real 'toa' of the old stamp, too seldom found among the degenerate Maories of the present day). Little cared he for the new faith that had sprung up in the last generation; his skill with the spear, and the incantations of his 'Tohungas' (i.e. priests or magicians), had kept him safe through many a bitter tussle; his 'mana' was great. Straight to me he came and addressed me thus:—'Look here, young fellow! I've done the incantations and made it all square with my God; but you say that you've got a God stronger than mine, and a lot of our young fellows go with you; there's nothing like having two Gods on our side, so you fellows do the proper business with him, and then we'll fight.' Could anything have been more practical and business-like than this? But I was quite stuck up; for though I could have repeated a prayer from the liturgy myself, my worthy converts, who philosophically and rightly looked upon religion merely as a means to an end (i.e. killing the greatest possible quantity of enemies), were unable to produce a line of scripture amongst them.

"There was an awkward pause; our commander was furious. Suddenly one discovers that he has a hymn-book in his pocket. General exultation! 'Now!' cries the old chief, foaming at the mouth with excitement, 'go down upon your knees (I know that's the custom with your God) and repeat the charm after him. Mind you don't make a mistake, now, for if one word is wrong, the whole thing will be turned topsy-turvy, and we shall be thrashed.'

"And then, having repeated one hymn word for word on our knees, I and my converts charged, and walked into the Amorites no end; but whether it was the hymn or the fighting that did it is of course an open question to this day." 4: Of the Maori's passion for fighting for its own sake, with the chivalrous appearance that it somewhat misleadingly bore, I will give an instance. A certain chief had a missionary whom he desired to get rid of. Whether he was tired of his sermons, disliked his ritual, or what, I cannot say. However, he forwarded him on to another chief, with his compliments, as a present. Chief number two not being in need of a chaplain, having no living vacant, and having perhaps, too, a suspicion that the missionary was unsound in some respect from the careless way he was disposed of, declined him, and returned him untried. Chief number one was insulted, and declared that if chief number two had not known his superiority in arms and ammunition, he would not have dared to behave in such manner. When this came to the ears of number two, he divided his arms, &c., into two halves, and sent one to the enemy, with an invitation to war.

A distinguished friend of mine in New Zealand once asked a Maori chief who had fought against us on the Waikato, why, when he had command of a certain road, he did not attack the ammunition and provision trains? "Why, you fool!" answered the Maori, much astonished, "If we had stolen their powder and food, how could they have fought?"

Sometimes two villages would get up a little war, and the inhabitants, after potting at each other all day, would come out of their "pas" in the evening and talk over their day's sport in the most friendly manner. "I nearly bagged your brother to-day." "Ah, but you should have seen how I made your old father-in-law skip!" and so on. After one or two had been really killed, they would become more in earnest.

I have heard old Archdeacon ——, of Tauranga, relate how in one of these petty wars he has known the defenders of a pa send out to their adversaries to say they were short of provisions, who immediately sent them a supply to go on with. Also how he has performed service on Sunday between two belligerent pas, the inhabitants of which came out to pray, and met with the most perfect amity, returning to their pas when service was over, to recommence hostilities on Monday morning. The fact is, that they were, as the Pakeha Maori says, a race so demoralized by perpetual war that they had got to look instinctively upon fighting as the chief object in life. How difficult it was for the average Englishman to see this at first, and how misleading traits such as I have mentioned might be to him, it is not hard to imagine. 5: Printer's Devil:—How is this to be done?—which? what?—how?—civilise or exterminate? Pakeha Maori:—Eaha mau! 6: Hongi was shot through the body at Mangamuka, in Hokianga, of which wound he died, after lingering some years. The speech here given was not spoken on the day of his death, but some time before, when he saw he could not recover. 7: The Governor made some presents of no great value to some of the natives who signed the Treaty of Waitangi, and a report in consequence got about, as is related here, that he was paying a high price for signatures. Many suppositions and guesses were made by the ignorant natives of the part of the country alluded to in the story, as to what could be the reason he was so desirous to get these names written on his paper, and many suggested that he had some sinister design, probably that of bewitching them. 8: When a native says anything for which he thinks he may at some future time be called to account, he so wraps his ideas up in figurative and ambiguous terms as to leave him perfectly free, should he think fit, to give a directly contrary meaning to that which is most obvious at the time he speaks. Some natives are very clever at this, but it often happens that a fellow makes such a bungle of the business as to leave no meaning at all of any sort. This is what the narrator of the story means when he says, "the meaning of what the speaker of Maori said was closely concealed," which is a polite Maori way of saying that he was talking nonsense. 9: This is a common native superstition. The natives believe in omens of a thousand different kinds, and amongst others think it a very bad omen if, on an occasion when any business of importance is on hand, the food happens to be served underdone; or before a battle it is a particularly bad omen. 10: These presents were given to the natives, and, in their matter-of-fact manner, understood to be payment for signing the treaty. 11: The Treaty of Waitangi. 12: Auckland, the capital of New Zealand. 13: After the flagstaff had been cut down, the customs-duties were repealed, and, in consequence, tobacco and other articles on which duties had been levied became cheaper. This fully convinced the natives that there was some mysterious connection between the dearness of different goods and the existence of the flagstaff, which they now thought was the source of all evils, and which will account for their determined persistence in cutting it down so often, at all risks. 14: This was really the belief of the natives at the time; I have heard it said not once but fifty times. To tell the contrary was perfectly useless; the flagstaff, and nothing but the flagstaff, was "the cause of all the evil"—and there were not wanting ill-disposed Europeans who encouraged this belief, as I think with the purpose to bring on a war. 15: This is a native saying or proverb, meaning that in fact one man is as good as another, or that the best or bravest man is but a man, and therefore not to be too much feared. The speech is a literal verbatim translation. 16: Before a war or any other important matter, the natives used to have recourse to divination, by means of little miniature darts made of rushes or reeds, or often of the leaf of the cooper's flag (raupo). This was very much believed in, but of course the chiefs and priests or tohunga (such of them as did not deceive themselves) could make the result favourable or otherwise as they liked. There is an allusion to a custom of this kind (divining by darts) in the Bible. 17: It astonished the natives greatly that the soldiers paid no attention to omens, and also to see them every five minutes doing something or another monstrously "unlucky." 18: The first man killed in a battle is called the mataika. To kill the mataika is thought a great distinction, and young men will risk themselves to the utmost to obtain it. Many quarrels arise sometimes after a fight, in consequence of different individuals claiming the honour of having killed the first man. The writer knows a man who in different battles has killed eleven mataika. 19: This is a very good example of the manner in which a native chief raises men for a war party; they are all his relations with their different connections, and it is this which causes the natives to be so careful to remember all who are, however remotely, related to them. In a word, to be "a man of many cousins" is to be a great chief. 20: This is word for word a literal translation of the speech of the atua wera to Heke's men. He was, however, supposed only to speak the words of the Ngakahi by whom he was at the moment inspired. 21: That the sailors were quite a different hapu, though belonging to the iwi of England, and in no way "related" to the soldiers, I have heard often stated by the natives, as well as by the narrator of this story. Neither will we wonder at their having jumped at this conclusion, after having compared "Jack," let loose for a run on shore, with the orderly soldiers. I will here take occasion to state that I shall not hold myself accountable for the many mistakes and misapprehensions of my old friend the Ngapuhi chief, when he speaks of us, our manners, customs, and motives of action; when he merely recounts the events and incidents of the war, he is to be fully depended on, being both correct and minutely particular in his relation, after the native manner of telling a story, to omit nothing. I have had, indeed, to leave out a whole volume of minute particulars, such as this for instance: where a pakeha would simply say, "we started in the morning after breakfast," &c., the native would say, "in the morning the ovens were heated, and the food was put in and covered up; when it was cooked it was taken out, and we eat it, and finished eating, then we got up and started," &c. In the course of the narration I have translated, I have had to listen to the above formula about fifty times; the lighting of a pipe and the smoking it, or the seeing a wild pig (describing size and colour, &c.), is never omitted, no matter if it is five seconds before commencing a battle. This is the true native way of telling a story, and it is even now a wonder to them to see how soon a European tells the story of a journey, or voyage, or any event whatever. If a native goes on a journey of three days' duration, during which nothing whatever of any consequence may have occurred, it will take him at least one whole day to tell all about it, and he is greatly annoyed at the impatient pakeha who wants to get the upshot of the whole story by impertinently saying, "Did you get what you went for?" To tell that too soon would be out of all rule; every foot of the way must be gone over with every incident, however trivial, before the end is arrived at. They are beginning now to find that in talking to Europeans they must leave out one half at least of a story to save time, but the old men can't help making the most of a chance of talking. To cut a story short seems to them a waste of words by not speaking them, while we think it a decided waste of words to speak them. In old times the natives had so few subjects for conversation that they made the most of what they had, which accounts for their verbosity in trifling matters. 22: Heke's pa at the lake, the first we ever attacked, was the weakest ever built by the natives in the war. Had it not been for Kawiti's appearance just at the moment the storming party were about to advance, and thus making a diversion, it would most certainly have been taken, and as certain all its defenders killed or taken prisoners; for if the soldiers had entered then, the friendly natives, who were outside in great numbers, would have prevented any escaping. As it turned out, however, the place was not taken, and this gave the natives courage to continue the war, in the course of which they acquired so much confidence, that now they think less of fighting Europeans, and are less afraid of them, than of their own countrymen. 23: "E aha te kai e pahure i aia." My translation is not very literal; a literal translation would not give the sense to the reader not acquainted with the Maori language; my free translation gives it exactly. 24: The natives often call a line or column of men a fish, and this term is just as well understood as our "column," "company," "battalion," &c. I will here say that though the native language is, as might be supposed, extremely deficient in terms of art or science in general, yet it is quite copious in terms relating to the art of war. There is a Maori word for almost every infantry movement and formation. I have also been very much surprised to find that a native can, in terms well understood, and without any hesitation, give a description of a fortification of a very complicated and scientific kind, having set technical terms for every part of the whole—"curtain, bastion, trench, hollow way, traverse, outworks, citadel," &c. &c., being all well-known Maori words, which every boy knows the full meaning of. 25: In allusion to the fact of the war party having come by water. 26: The natives when speaking to each other seldom mention their chief except as "our friend," or, if he be an old man, as "our leader." Speaking to Europeans, however, they often say our rangatira, that having become the only word in use among the Europeans to signify the chief of a tribe, though it may also mean many other ranks, according as it is applied. 27: That weakness is crime with the natives is a fact, and in consequence the disgrace of being taken prisoner of war degrades a native as much as with us it would degrade a man to be convicted of felony. I have heard two natives quarrelling when one called the other "slave," because his great-grandfather had been once made prisoner of war. The other could not deny the traditional fact, and looked amazingly chop-fallen. He, however, tried to soften the blow by stating that even if his ancestor had been made prisoner, it was by a section of his own tribe, and consequently by his own relations he was defeated. Thus endeavouring to make a "family affair" of it. 28: Poor Hauraki was no doubt delirious from the effects of his wound, and no doubt thought he saw the vision he recounted when his people found him. 29: One of the ancestors of Hauraki, according to a tradition of the Rarawa, hearing, even in the Reinga (the Maori Hades), of the warlike renown of one of his sons, became jealous of his fame, and returned to this world. Emerging from amongst the waves at Ahipara, on the west coast, where his son lived, he challenged him to single combat. At the first onset the son had the worst. Then the father said, "Had you been equal to your ancestors I would have remained here as your companion in arms; but you are degenerate and a mere man. I return to the Reinga, to be with the heroes of the olden time." He then disappeared in the waves. 30: The pihe is a funeral chant sung standing before the dead. It is a very curious composition, and of great antiquity, having been composed long before the natives came to this country. Part of the language is obsolete. It has allusions which point in a remarkable manner to the origin of the natives, and from whence they have come. They do not themselves understand these allusions, but they are clear enough to any person who has taken the trouble to trace the race from which they are derived through the Pacific Islands, far into north latitude, next into Asia, and to observe the gradual modifications of language and tradition occasioned by time and change of abode. 31: It is a native custom, when any chief of importance has been killed in fair fight, for his friends to form a party and enter even the enemy's country, should he have fallen there, and fire some volleys in his honour on the spot where he fell. This they call paura mamae—powder of pain or grief. They, of course, do it at the risk of being attacked, but the natives often allow the custom to be fulfilled without molesting the party, although a party of this kind always plunder and ravage all before them. 32: The natives estimate distances by fathoms and tens of fathoms. A kume is ten fathoms. 33: The priest had promised Heke that he should be himself personally invulnerable so long as the old superstitious war customs were observed, but which Heke had in this instance broken. 34: This whole scene between Heke and Te Atua Wera is described exactly as it occurred. I have heard it described by several eye-witnesses, one of whom was the Atua Wera himself, and they all gave the same account. The native priests proscribe many rules and observances to the people, and prophecy good fortune, provided none of these rules be broken, well knowing that some of them will to a certainty be broken by the careless and incorrigible Maori. In case of the failure of any of their predictions, they have the excuse that some sacred rule had been broken. In this particular instance the Atua Wera, seeing the battle going against Heke, took advantage of his having handled the bloody cartridge-box; the people having been forbidden to touch anything having the blood of the enemy on it, until certain ceremonies of purification had been performed after the battle, to render plunder or spoil lawfully tangible. 35: Heke had been for years a Christian, according to the Maori notion of Christianity, which was then, if not now, a mere jumble of superstition and native barbarism. Here Heke says, that because he prayed to the "fellow in heaven"—by which he means that at stated periods he had for some years made use of certain words which were supposed to gain the favour of "the European God"—that in consequence that God should favour him now if he was able. The word karakia which Heke made use of does not mean prayer as we understand that word. Karakia properly signifies a formula of words or incantation, which words are supposed to contain a power, and to have a positive effect on the spirit to whom they are addressed, totally irrespective of the conduct or actions, good or bad, of the person using them. The fact is that the Maori has, perhaps, the lowest religious character of any human being; his mental formation seems to have the minimum of religious tendency. The idea of a supreme being has never occurred to him, and the word which the missionaries use for God (Atua) means indifferently, a dead body, a sickness, a ghost, or a malevolent spirit. Maui, the Atua, who they say fished up the island from the sea, is supposed to have died long ago by some, and all agree that he no longer exists. 36: In the agitation caused by hearing that Heke had fallen, the Atua Wera called Heke by the name of Pokaia. This was the name of Heke's father, a celebrated cannibal warrior and desperate savage. His closing scene took place in the country of the Ngatiwhatua, where, having gone in a war expedition, he and his 300 men were killed and eaten, almost to a man, by the Ngatiwhatua, who in their turn were all but exterminated by Hongi Ika in revenge for Pokaia. 37: "Whai mai e te hoia, ki tetahi utu maua akato wharoro ana koe, kei Taumata tutu—whai mai! whai mai!"—The watch-cry. 38: Colonel Despard. 39: The pa at Ohaeawae was attacked against the advice of the friendly native chiefs, who well knew its strength, and the certain repulse to be expected. They called Colonel Despard anything but a soldier, and the term "foolish and inexperienced" is the mildest they applied to him. 40: This report actually was really spread in the camp the night after the attack. It struck the natives with consternation, and there are those who still believe that there was some foundation for it, and that a retreat had been talked of. 41: Amongst other superstitious native customs, when a battle has been fought, the victorious party send to their priest, no matter how far he may be off, a collection of the herbage actually growing on the field of battle; he takes it and performs with it certain ceremonies, and sends back the messenger with his advice, &c., &c. This is called sending the rahu rahu of the battle field. Rahu rahu is the name of the fern which is the most common plant in the North Island. 42: The friendly natives never lost sight of the possibility that they themselves might some day have to fight us. They therefore scrutinized closely all our military proceedings, and were anxious to see us do our very best, or rather, our worst, so that they might know what they would have to contend against. 43: It is a common practice when a native has killed a man of any note in battle, for the party who killed the other to commemorate the exploit by taking the name of the dead man. 44: Kawiti seeing that all the other forts had made so good a defence wished not to abandon his without standing an assault. Heke, however, who was the best general, saw the place would soon become quite untenable from the fire of the artillery, and advised an immediate retreat to the border of the forest; he, however, had great difficulty to get Kawiti, who had a good deal of the bulldog in him, to retreat. The old chief, however, did fire a volley in the inside of the place when the soldiers entered, which he considered saved his honour, as it could not be said he left his fort without fighting. 45: Hundreds of natives believed firmly in this absurd story before and during the war. In the present day (1861), when these notes are written, "Young New Zealand" would only laugh at it. But formerly this and other equally ridiculous tales were not only believed but had very serious effects. Heke was not the author of the story, but he found it to his hand, added the "books" to it, and turned it to his account. His "pakeha friend" is still extant, as well as the other "pakeha" who endeavoured to prevent Walker's people from taking our part in the war, but they are not by any means such "great men" as in the days when it was believed that one of them was the conqueror of both Wellington and Buonaparte! 46: This convivial scene with my friend the chief is no fiction, but a faithful relation, like everything else in this book, of what actually was said and done. It certainly does not come into the "History of the War," but is inserted just to give some idea of the state of things in the country districts, and the terms on which the country settlers manage to exist with their native "friends." The chief's speculation in the distilling line is faithfully given word for word, as he explained it to me. But it has never come to anything, for although he actually got the "pakeha" to come to his place for the purpose of making "rum" out of corn, when he got him there he plucked him to such an extent, not leaving him even a blanket on his bed, that he ran for it, and the distillery in consequence came to naught. 47: Kapai Heke! tantamount to Vive Heke! In vino veritas—in his cups this stout defender of the pakeha lets out that he in reality is an admirer of Heke, and in another war would probably join him, being, as all the natives are, without any exception, distrustful of the European, and suspecting we intend eventually to rob them of their country. I think their chief reason for this belief is that they themselves would treat us in that way were they able, they being all plunderers and marauders, both by nature and practice, and so "measure our corn in their own bushel." 48: I am happy to be able to announce to the whole world that my friend the Ngapuhi chief has been to Auckland and returned safe back, having been extremely well received by the Governor. I have also to inform my friends that the chief has told me the whole story of his journey, leaving out nothing; he has told me every word he said to the Governor, and every word the Governor said to him, all of which I have written in a book for the instruction and improvement of future ages, together with a plan of attack, whereby Auckland would, as he thinks, be taken, sacked, and burned, which this friend of mine made just to wile away the time when not engaged in paying his court to the Governor. I shall, however, reserve this last history till I see what fortune this my wakaka may have.