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captain of the man-o’-war in full uniform; on the Governor’s left were Mr. Busby, and the Roman Catholic bishop in canonicals, his massy gold chain and crucifix glistening on his dark-purple-coloured habit; on the right of His Excellency were the members of the Church of England mission, in plain black dresses. The different officers of the “Herald,” together with His Excellency’s suite, stationed themselves as they best could—some here and there on the platform and some immediately before it. In front of the platform, in the foreground, were the principal Native chiefs of several tribes, some clothed with dogskin mats made of alternate longitudinal stripes of black and white hair; others habited in splendid-looking new woollen cloaks of foreign manufacture, of crimson, blue, brown, and plaid, and, indeed, of every shade of striking colour, such as I had never before seen in New Zealand;[1] while some were dressed in plain European and some in common Native dresses. Nearly in the midst stood Hakitara, a tall Native of the Rarawa Tribe, dressed in a very large and handsome silky white kaitaka mat (finest and best kind of garment, only worn by superior chiefs), fringed with a deep and dark-coloured woven border of a lozenge and zigzag pattern, the whole of Native (I might truly say of national) design and manufacture.[2] The sunlight streaming down from an aperture in the top of the tent on this beautiful white dress threw the figure of this chief into very prominent and conspicuous relief, forming a fine contrast to the deep and dark shades of colour around; whilst here and there a hani (or taiaha, a chief’s staff of rank, &c.) was seen erected, adorned with the long flowing white hair of the tails of the New Zealand dog and crimson cloth and red feathers. In the distance the raven-black and glossy locks of the Natives, gracefully ornamented with the snow-white
