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sneak about, sticking to rocks and to the sides of brooks and gullies,[1] may not have it all. Sit, Governor, sit, for me, for us. Remain here, a father for us, &c. These chiefs say, ‘Don’t sit,’ because they have sold all their possessions, and they are filled with foreign property, and they have also no more to sell. But I say, what of that? Sit, Governor, sit. You two stay here, you and Busby—you two, and they also, the missionaries.”
Matiu, a chief of the Uri-o-ngongo Tribe, rose and said, “O Governor! sit, stay, remain—you as one with the missionaries, a Governor for us. Do not go back, but sit here, a Governor, a father for us, that good may increase, may become large to us. This is my word to thee: do thou sit here, a father for us.”
Kawiti, chief of the Ngatihine Tribe, rose and said, “No, no. Go back, go back. What dost thou want here? We Native men do not wish thee to stay. We do not want to be tied up and trodden down. We are free. Let the missionaries remain, but, as for thee, return to thine own country. I will not say ‘Yes’ to thy sitting here. What! to be fired at in our boats and canoes by night! What! to be fired at when quietly paddling our canoes by night! I, even I, Kawiti, must not paddle this way, nor paddle that way, because the Governor said ‘No’—because of the Governor, his soldiers, and his guns! No, no,no. Go back, go back; there is no place here for the Governor.”
Wai, a chief of the Ngaitawake Tribe, rose and said, “To thee, O Governor! this. Will you remedy the selling, the exchanging, the cheating, the lying, the stealing of the whites? O Governor! yesterday I was cursed by a white man. Is that straight? The white gives us Natives a pound for a pig; but he gives a white four pounds for such a pig. Is that straight? The white gives us a shilling for a basket of potatoes; but to a white he gives four shillings for a basket like
- ↑ “Piritoka,” and “piriawaawa”—words of deep metaphorical meaning: anglice, homeless wanderers, skulks, loafers.
