little ball of scarlet spines about an inch and half in diameter, which I afterwards found to belong to a plant with an almost invisible stem, and leaves clinging closely to the ground, so that a careless observer would think that the heads of flowers which he saw scattered about formed the entire plant. I found it to be a new species of Acæna, a genus allied to the common burnet. It is a very beautiful and curious plant, which I hope to be able to introduce into English gardens.
It was about ten at night when we arrived at Pirata. This pa is very strongly situate on the top of some perpendicular cliffs, rising from a small stream which runs into Towpo, from which lake it is only about ten miles distant. The people were not over-disposed to be civil at first, fancying I was only a "Pakiha Mowrie;" but when the missionary lads came up, they quite altered their tone.
It was necessary to make inquiries here about a canoe to take us across Towpo, as Mr. Chapman had before told me there would be a difficulty about it. Next morning, before I was up, the old chief "Pirate," or "Ze Pirate," came to see me. He is the head chief of this pa, and was quite a gentlemanly old fellow. He said there was one canoe at this end of the lake, and that he would send some people to bring it round to the nearest part. He had several children who had curious sandy-coloured hair, which looked very disagreeable; the others had, as usual, black hair; but I could not find out whether they all had the same mother or not. The wife who came with him was a well-looking young woman, about the age of his eldest son, and apparently a great flirt; she took a great fancy to me—so she said; but it was most probably to my blankets: however, she got a new pipe and some of the weed from me, in return for her compliments and smiling looks.
I found all my men rebellious this morning; they had made
