&c.
_____

July 31st.--The Bishop arrived at the College in the afternoon, and at 5 o'clock set out for Papakura. The party further consisted of Rota Waitoa, the Bishop's trusty companion in all his former walking Visitations; and two Maori men who had been working on the College farm of late. It is quite delightful to see how perfectly unchanged Rota is in the simplicity of his character, notwithstanding his raised position to be a Deacon in the Church. He carried a portion of my burden all the way to Taranaki, after the first day or two, when he saw it was too much for me; and worked away much more readily and cheerfully than our paid lads, at striking the tent, cooking, &c.; in short, the Bishop said he was just as useful to him in these respects (and much move so in others), as when he took him twelve years ago on his first overland walk. My pikau (or burden) weighed 301bs.; and very hard work did I find it, that first night, ploughing through mud up to our knees, from Panmure to Papakura. The Bishop exchanged with me occasionally, and so helped me on; for his weighed only 15 lbs. or so. I began to fear that I should be a drag upon him, as [3/4] we were bound to Taranaki on urgent business. The Governor had requested the Bishop to go down there to try and arrange matters between the two contending parties of natives, who had begun firing at one another within five miles of the town of New Plymouth; and the English were afraid that if the party they favoured was beaten, they would take refuge in the town, and so involve the settlers in the quarrel. They had, consequently, made urgent applications for troops to be sent to keep the peace, and the soldiers were to be there in a fortnight or so. But as the arrival of soldiers might be misunderstood by the natives, the Government was anxious that the Bishop should go down, and try to make peace between them; and explain that the soldiers were not coming to interfere in their quarrel, but to protect the English town from being involved in it. Therefore, we were anxious to be there before the ship arrived with the troops; and, as the Bishop had been sent down there ten years ago, with Rota, on exactly the same errand, and had accomplished the journey in seven days, by forced marches of thirty miles a-day, I felt pretty sure that if that was to be the order of march this time, I should knock off in a couple of days. However, as we went on we found, by the end of the third day, that a year's stay in England, with railway travelling and seven months' sea voyaging, had beaten the Bishop off his walking lees; and Rota was much fatter and less active than in the year '45; so that when Rota relieved me of 15 lbs. of my [4/5] pikau, I was equal to the pace, and was not likely to detain them. Besides, on that former occasion they had no companions to carry the food, &c.; whereas now our two lads were knocked up the first two days, being quite unused to the work.

Well, to go back to our first afternoon, we started in the rain, and there was no moon; so we scrambled on as best we could, through the swamp between Panmure and Otahuhu. There we overtook the mail, who wished to go in company with us as far as Kawhia. We had not got out of Otahuhu, when we heard a cry behind us that Mr. Ashwell was there in a house, having ridden down from his station expressly to see the Bishop, and having thus almost missed him. We stuck in the mud, waiting for him to overtake us, and held a Synod of Clergy there, drenched with rain. It was most amusing to see, or rather to hear him--for it was pitch-dark--continually jumping off his horse into the swamp, and trying to persuade the Bishop or me to ride. He seemed so shocked to be riding aloft, while his Diocesan was up to his knees.

We got Papakura by 9 o'clock that night, having walked about thirteen miles from College. There is a beautiful place for an encampment there,--wood and water in abundance, and we soon pitched our tent, and made ourselves comfortable, in spite of rain.

Aug. 1st.--Up early. Breakfasted and started off for Waiuku. This is a roundabout way of getting there. We might have crossed from Onehunga, in [5/6] twelve hours; but I fancy the Bishop took the land route to spare me the sea-sickness. After leaving Runciman's farm at Opeheke, it is a very uninteresting country. We took the surveyor's line for a path, and found the tide up, which stopped our progress over a creek. The Bishop found a ford. There are several rapid streams to cross, very deep, but not wide. We generally got over them by fallen trees; but as these trees are very narrow, and our wet shoes very slippery, it is a chance if you get over without a ducking. The Bishop fell in over head and ears at once. The only remarks he made, was one of anxiety for his watch and his pedometer,--the other, when he found them uninjured and kept dry in his waterproof girdle, was, that he now understood the full meaning of the poet's language about "purling brooks." We did not reach Waiuku that day; stopped at Whanakahu, all of us foot-sore and weary. The mail left us.

Aug. 2d.--Started early for the Awaroa, and found a very large party of natives encamped there, at the portage, with supplies of wheat. There could not have been less then 200 people, and we could see upwards of thirty canoes. The Waiuku carts were carrying off the produce, to be embarked for the Auckland market. Of course, we had much talk with all these people. They were very hearty in welcoming back the Bishop, and asked infinite questions about England and the Queen. They were chiefly from Rangiawhia, (the people who sent the Queen the present of flour some years ago;--the [6/7] first grain that had been grown and ground by the Maories; and to whom she sent a present of the picture, which is highly valued by them,) and were guided across the river in a war-canoe. At last, we got off on our walk, and were guided across a very deep and ugly swamp, a quarter of a mile wide, on fallen trees, under water, so that you had to feel with your stick before you for your footing. Luckily, I had hobnails in my boots, so clung to the slippery boards; but the Bishop had none, and he had some very narrow escapes. The natives of the place very kindly eased me of my pikau, or else I should have tumbled in. We then had a walk on the beach for ten miles to Maraetani, Mr. Maunsell's old station at Waikato heads. We hailed a canoe; and when it arrived with three people in it, one man named Tiopira, and most undeserving of the name (Theophilus), wanted to charge 16s. for taking us over. We refused, and stepped back on shore. The other two remonstrated with the fellow, and accordingly he reduced his charges to whatever we chose to give him. The native teacher and chief on the other shore was very indignant at the Bishop's being so used, and promised to make a tariff; and, moreover, he made us a present of food. This is a fair instance of the character of the people, perhaps. Many persons abuse the whole race as covetous, because they meet with such impostors as this Tiopira; but they forget that two out of the three were the very reverse, and that the leading men repudiate such conduct. An Englishman here [7/8] said to the Bishop the other day, "I find your Lordship's words in one of your Journals fully verified, where you say that the Maories are the most covetous people you ever met with." To which the Bishop added, "But you have only quoted half my sentence, for I said further, 'except the English.'"

We got to Mr. Maunsell's empty house at 9 o'clock at night, very tired; the sand-walking being a very fatiguing termination of our day's work. We were right glad, therefore, to have no tent to pitch, and to find wood and water at hand. The Bishop had established half-a-dozen frightful "raws" on his soles and heels, and was besides very sick and unwell. Rota and I did what we could to make him comfortable; and we agreed to give ourselves a thorough rest that night, so that we might enjoy Sunday at one of our own villages before we got among the Wesleyans, who occupy all the territory between Waikato and Taranaki.

Aug. 3d.--We did not start till 10 o'clock in the morning. The Bishop better, and cheering up as we reached the top of the first hill, and saw our destination before us, 100 miles off,--the snow pyramid of Mount Egmont, overhanging Taranaki, and rising 8,000 feet above the sea, greeted our eyes, sparkling in the sun, and seemed to lighten the hearts of our Maori lads, when, for the first time, they saw the glorious monarch of New Zealand mountains. It reminded me very much of my first impressions on seeing Mont Blanc, twenty years ago, from Geneva. [8/9] Not that this has any avalanches for his sceptre; but at this time of the year the snow comes two-thirds of the way down his sides, and the "eternal sunshine settles on his head," as seen in the distance; while the necklace of clouds float half-way, and when you are on the spot very often shut out the view. The walk from this point to Taranaki consisted of continual changes from ridge-paths and table-land to wood; up and down, high and low, sandy beach, rocky beach, cliffs and river, so that every muscle was alternately called into action, and no one set overwrought; besides, the successive varieties freshened the spirits. I cannot think of any place but the coast of Devon, north and south, that could afford such beautiful and grand scenery for so many days continually. We were never more than a couple of miles from the coast. We were walking for an hour, perhaps, on the beach; then inland, on an undercliff, like the Isle of Wight; then up the side of a high hill, covered with forest trees of every variety of colour and shape, starred with luxuriant fern trees on the slopes. Of course, the ascent involved a descent through the forest on the other side; and though this is difficult walking, from the slippery path and the tanglement of the root and supple-jack, yet it changes the muscles, and helps you get over the ground pretty quick. Then we come down into a rich valley or glade, with a fresh stream rattling over the stones to the sea, or else deep enough to make you wade up to your waist. The bath [9/10] refreshes you for another hour's walk on the beach, and then comes the tug of war. After dinner, a stray goat-path along the side of the cliff, the earth crumbling beneath every step, and your nails worn out with digging "stand punkts" different from Neander's, and your hands cut to pieces by the toe-tee, which you rashly laid hold of to save yourself from falling. Luckily there are no dinner-parties on the road, or at the end of your journey, else your hand would be hardly presentable, what with toe-tee and rocks. These last form the colophon to the day's varieties. I did not care for the slippery cliff, for I had hobnail shoes, as I said before. But when we came to the rocky beach, and the tide was coming in, and we had to leap from stone to stone, and climb the rocks as best we could, the Bishop was in his element; springing from one to another like a schoolboy; laughing and joking, scrambling and clinging on, like a sailor to a mast; while my hobnails were slipping off every stone, and my hands streaming with blood from every crag I had to seize hold of. However, his turn for the struggle had come,--up the muddy, clayey, or crumbling cliffs, when his shoes were like glass, and his poor wrung heels and soles were gnawed half-an-inch deep with holes. Nothing, however, could dam up the vein of humour and wit with which all this was met; and he assured me that he did not suffer half so much as I thought he did; and that he now believed what post-boys in England used to say of horses with raws, that they would not feel them when [10/11] they got hot, and that he wasted a good deal of unnecessary compassion upon them. "Non si male nunc et olim sic erit," was my motto; but he would not allow it was male at all. His keen sense of the beauty of nature, his painter's eye for a sketch, and thorough enjoyment of the beautiful weather we had had since the first day, and his unceasing flow of quotations from Homer, Milton, and Horace, made the walk comparatively light to me. As to himself, in spite of his heels, he always asserted himself "Persarum rege beatiorem," and pitied the unhappy folk that rode in railway-carriages. But not withstanding his making the best of everything, he never incurred himself, or put us in the way of, unnecessary danger. And so, on this evening, when about 4 o'clock, or an hour before sunset, Rota led us up a winding precipice where no path was visible, and the landslip had made all uncertain, and he saw that there was every chance of our being benighted on this precipice, and having to pass the cold winter's night on our hind-legs, or else break our necks in attempting to cross; he marched us back to Waikato River, and there we slept.

Aug. 4th.--We had the usual alterations of ridge-paths and sand beach to Pukerewa. The people came out to greet us, and made us presents of potatoes. We carried off the population with us to Rangikahu, the last station of any Church Missionary towards Taranaki; so we wished to spend our Sunday there. We found ourselves, accordingly, arrived at our destination by early afternoon.

[12] Such a beautiful spot for a regular Native Congregation to take root, if they could be persuaded to make a right use of their position. It is an amphitheatre intersected by a stream, which comes down from the distant hills; and would carry all their produce to Manakau, for the Auckland market. On one side,--where the few people now live, and where we encamped,--it is all fern land, and the lower portions on both sides the river would grow beautiful crops of wheat and potatoes; while the upper portions, near the sea, would make excellent sheep runs. Then, on the opposite side, there is a forest affording an inexhaustible supply of wood, and bush range for cattle. The Bishop pointed out to the people all their advantages, and urged them to come and live together in closer connexion; so that they might the more easily support themselves, and have the advantages of pastoral visitation more frequently, besides those of education. However, they are intent solely on keeping pigs, which run almost wild in the bush; and give not thought or trouble, besides that of hunting them up with dogs, twice a year, when they wish to drive them 100 miles to market in Auckland. The Bishop always points out to them the different moral effect of the swineherd's and the shepherd's and tiller's mode of life; and illustrated it very happily from the language of Scripture, where all we read of the former is, that after the miracle of the devils entering the herd of swine, the Gadarenes [12/13] besought him to depart out of their coasts; and the Prodigal Son, who had left his father's home, went to feed swine, and would fain have eaten the husks that the swine left; while, on the other hand, every most tender and winning name and work of Christ, is connected with the life of the shepherd, and the tiller of the earth.

We found a state of things at Rangikahu sadly illustrating some of his words; for the Chapel, by the side of which we pitched our tent, was shamefully neglected and uncared for, and in fact had become a pigsty. The Bishop set himself and us to work to clean it out, and all the churchyard around it; and Rota effected quite a metamorphosis of it by strewing it with fresh fern, to the astonishment of the native teacher and his people. After this work was done, we set off to fetch firewood, &c., for our two days' use. I was amused at seeing every evening, immediately on our arrival at our sleeping-place, how exactly the Judge's remark was fulfilled about the Bishop unconsciously resembling Paul at Melita, who evidently had gone to fetch firewood directly he landed, and from it shook off the viper into the fire.

Aug. 5th.--We had a good attendance at all the Services. At the early morning we had the Litany; then, at 10, the rest of the Morning Service. The Bishop preached on the Gospel of the day,--the Parable of the Bad Steward,--and applied it with great force to the state of things in the island generally; specially reminding them of their own former zeal and attention to religion, when he was there [13/14] some years back, as contrasted with their present slackness in all matters of religion; and their activity in acquiring money, yet at the least possible cost of care and industry; all this, of course, based on the verse about "the children of this world being in their generation wiser than the children of light." But talking with the people about this sad change that had come over them, we got the invariable answer, "E tika ana," "It is true what you say;" which at first used to please me to find that they so readily acknowledged what was wrong in themselves, and what would be the right thing. But since I see that this goes no further than word, and does not the least imply that they intend or wish to remedy their faults, I fear the acknowledgement falls under the head of that son's answer, who said, "I go, Sir," and went not; and perhaps it would be more helpful if they did not so readily acquiesce in what you say, but afterwards "repented and went." At School, in the afternoon, the Bishop took the children; Rota, the non-readers; and I, the readers. They were all more than usually ignorant; but when the Bishop catechised all on his sermon, they one and all showed how thoroughly they had caught the gist of the matter. In the evening I preached on the Epistle for the day. Altogether we spent a very quiet and peaceful day, and were refreshed for the week's walk that awaited us.

Aug. 6th.--We crossed over the ridge-paths to the beach, which we called Hardbake--it looked so like that well-known confection--and reached [14/15] Whangaroa by noon. There we found one of our College scholars of yore, Wiclif by name; he was looking as pleasant and amiable as ever, and did not seem to have fallen back at all into Ramya Maori ways. He and his friends were exceedingly hospitable to us; and after having given us a good dinner on potatoes and shell-fish, they launched their canoe, and paddled us five miles up the river to our road. The old chief came down to accompany us, dressed in a large military cloak, given him by Governor Wynyard, and a white hat, holding in his hand his sceptre, or insignia of chieftainship--the Meri, a large flat piece of green stone, handed down, like Agamemnon's of old, from generation to generation. He was delighted at the Bishop's salutation, "Haere mai, Kawana," "Come hither, Governor of Whangaroa;" thus recognising in him a sort of English office, as well as his native chieftainship. For, strange to say, this old chief is most anxious to sell parts of his land to the English, and to get them to settle amongst his people, and become one with them; and he actually took us all the way in his canoe, begging the Bishop to write down certain words he had used about the two races dove-tailing into one another like, that he might show them to his own people and the neighbouring chiefs that oppose him. I say, strange to say; for this was no other than the notorious old Kiwi, who had written to the Attorney-General six months before, to threaten he would fling over the cliff any Englishman that passed his way, unless the Englishman who killed the native (one of his tribe) [15/16] on Christmas-day last, was hung. However, the old man was ashamed of his letter before the day of the trial, and came to the judge to make a sort of apology, and offered to accompany the judge on the day of trial to court, which of course the judge declined. The old man afterwards told the judge that he was quite satisfied with the trial by jury, in all points but one; and that was that he had expected to see gentlemen and educated men on the jury, instead of an Iwi to-carta (a set of men that drove carts). However, I should say that no great reliance can ever be placed on these wayward creatures holding to any notions they have taken up, or adhering to their peaceable intentions; for this same old gentlemen, "Te Kiwi," on the same day after the trial, came into Major Nugent's house as wild as a tiger, and with evident intention of mischief. He held his Meri behind his back, and danced about the room in a towering rage, threatening vengeance. Major Nugent kept his eye fixed on him, and got a table or chair or something always between him and the chief, till at last another native came into the room in a state of great excitement, and forced old Kiwi out. Major Nugent thoroughly understands the people, and deals with them as a parent would deal with a wayward, willful child. Instead of making a fuss about old Kiwi's antics, he persuaded him that no man of rank ought to go about without shoes and stockings; accordingly he got the old man in the stocks by inducing him to wear a pair of tight boots, which made him limp about instead of being [16/17] able to dance and flourish his tomahawk round men's heads. He has quite succeeded in subduing the dangerous activity of the old man. Major Nugent has learned these sensible lessons of managing the Maories, as a mother of a family would manage her troublesome fractious children, from Sir George Grey, to whom he was private secretary for sometime, and who always gained his objects with the native chiefs by some such simple process of "Nursery" government; as, for instance, when he got Rangihaeata to make a road by giving him a gig--the immediate consequence of which was that the old warrior set all his slaves and free people to work at making a road, on which he could drive his new toy.

We found some English settlers in the open spaces, formerly cleared by the natives, as we walked through the forest: one family of the name of McArthur, another Phillips from Bath, another Day. All seemed pleased with the land, which, though small in quantity, was very good in quality. We stopped half-an-hour after sunset at one of these "saltus," called Mata, where Rota and our lads had proceeded; and pitched our tent in a beautiful spot, where I expect to see, in five years' time, a fair population, and perhaps a Church.

Aug. 7th.--Walked off towards Aotea harbour; passed through a village of Wesleyan natives, called Makaka, very kind and hospitable. They had had a marriage the day before, and we came in for the remains of the feast. Certainly, we found no [17/18] difference of treatment from these people all the way down; their hospitality perhaps exceeded what we met with from our own, till we came to Taranaki; and here the Wesleyans have been very zealously endeavouring to make out that Katatore and his party are all Churchmen and bad people, while Adam Clarke and his Te ninia Pa are all good Wesleyans. Unluckily for this argument, Katatore's baptized name is Waitere, the name of the leading Wesleyan Missionary in these parts, Mr. Whitely. We got down to the entrance of the Aotea harbour, where the canoes generally cross, but the wind was so high, and the waves so rough, that no one would venture to come and fetch us across; so in vain we lighted fires and made signals--we lost the whole day, and no one came till 7 o'clock at night, when the wind lulled. This loss of a day was a serious one; not only for itself, but because it threw us out of the low tide sand-walking all the rest of the week.

Aug. 8th.--Walked off early to Kawhia, nearly seven miles, intending to be there to breakfast with Mr. Mitford, the Custom-house officer. Finding him in small quarters, and his wife not well, the Bishop only stayed with him, though he was very pressing to me. I went with Rota and our lads to the inn, where we were most hospitably treated by Mr. Charlton's married daughter, who refused all payment for our hearty breakfast. We bought fresh provisions for our journey, and she gratuitously added a large supply of dough she had made up, which fed us for the rest of the week.

[19] At Kawhia we found great excitement, in consequence of a letter from Mr. Turton, the Wesleyan Missionary at Taranaki, summoning them to the number of 400, to come with guns and help "the friendly natives" as he chooses to call Adam Clarke's party. These Kawhia people had the good sense to say that they would not stir at the bidding of a "Tangatoa Noa," who had no business to interfere in such a point; but if the Governor sent for them, they would come. Curiously enough, another Wesleyan Catechist, the Schoolmaster there, told us that it was a most dangerous experiment sending for these natives at all, as it was by no means certain what side they would take when they got there.

A couple of Englishmen, named Westmacott and Peter, took us in Mr. Mitford's boat across Kawhia harbour, five miles to Maiha. Thence we passed by the tomb of the two great chiefs, Pihopa and Te Manihere, that have lately died, who would have interfered with effect to settle this unhappy quarrel. "Atawhaitia te Pakeha," "Be kind to the English," was the burden of all their talk in former days. I should have said that at Kawhia, near Mr. Mitford's house, the natives point out the spot where the first native canoe (the Tainni) from Hawaiki, landed 500 years ago. There is a rock, something like a canoe, on the beach, which the Maories believe to be that identical Tainni petrified. A full account of this canoe and her voyage is given in Dr. Shortland's interesting second volume "On the Manners of the New Zealanders."

[20] The view from the mountain top between Pihopa's tomb, is perhaps the grandest I have seen in New Zealand. Looking northwards, you have Kawhia harbour, surrounded with richly-wooded hills, Whangaroa promontory, and the sea; and a distant view reaching to Manakau and Auckland. To the south, the two pretty landlocked lakes of Taharoa lying below us, in the midst of the wooded hills; just beyond them, the great hill called Mocatoa, and Tapiri Moko Cliff; and Taranak's high snowy top in the far distance, out to seaward. I wished for my wife's pencil. The Bishop could have sketched these grand views, but he never has used his opportunities for drawing like his brother Bishop of Tasmania, not for lack of interest and pleasure in it, but for lack of time; because generally when he is travelling through the country, wherever he stops, he has to talk to the natives, instead of indulging his own keen taste for the beauties of nature.

After some indifferent beach-walking, we reached Hari hari, and found the place empty, but plenty of potatoes stored up on the top of the house, which we took the liberty of helping ourselves to, and next day met the owner, to whom we acknowledged our debt. It is not unusual to help yourself in this way, and write up on the door that you have done so, and hang up a shilling or so in payment.

Aug. 9th.--This was the hardest day's work we had all along, and most thankful were we that the fine weather lasted up to the close of this day; as, if the rain that fell this night had caught us on [20/21] Thursday, the route would have been almost dangerous, and perhaps not passable. It began with an ascent up a place called Hapuku, where no path was visible; a landslip having left the cliff almost destitute of shrub and clothing. Consequently, we had to dig our way with our hands, and feet, and sticks, along a crumbling slippery goat's path. The Bishop was a pioneer, and did the hard work, as usual; and I certainly could not help amusing myself with the thought of some of the good people in England, who have complained of the Bishop not visiting the West Coast oftener, trying the experiment of a Visitation this way. I pictured to myself the complainants holding on by their hands and nails to the crumbling crag 500 feet overhanging the sea; and when they slipped, catching hold of the grass which cuts your hand like a knife. The fact is, however, that the Bishop has been this route three times in twelve years, and has visited the West Coast by sea on six other occasions. When we complained to one of the old chiefs about this road, he conceived he had given a sufficient reason why he should not try to improve it, by saying that God made the earth, and we must take it as we find it: whereto the Bishop replied that "God made the potatoes grow, but he doubted whether the old gentleman ate them in their raw state." The fact is, there might be a beautiful road made, at no very great expense, the whole way to Taranaki, by just skirting round the hills and keeping inland a little. After the slippery ascent of Hapuku, we had to mount Mocatoa by [21/22] a ridge-path. We were an hour and a-half going the one and a-half mile of Hapuku, and an hour going up Mocatoa, according to the Bishop's new pedometer. We have tested the instrument now in many ways, and found it pretty correct. The Bishop will probably walk back from Wellington to Auckland before Easter, and test his former measurements of the East Coast, and then publish a full and corrected itinerary in the almanack. The present path up Mocatoa is on a ridge overlooking the old precipitous goat's path of Tapirimoko. It is a frightful-looking place; and I cannot conceive how people used it so long.

The place is like the inside of a brown cup, with a small ledge just inside the rim. We got to Nukukakiri that night, and pitched our tent inside a half-finished house. The rain came on at night, loosened the earth in which the tent-pegs were fixed, and brought it about our ears, in the middle of the night, and swamped us. The Bishop assured me that nothing gave you a better night's rest than having been waked up in the middle; an Irish, yet not altogether unfounded view of the matter, as I certainly did sleep sounder afterwards. I find I am not a good hand at sleeping on the hard ground, and seldom got more than four hours sleep at night; though, for lack of candles, we went to our blanket-bags at seven or eight o'clock at night. The great treat was, when you could pitch a tent on the sand, and could dig out a little hole for your hip to lie in. But I was mainly kept awake by cold feet.--[22/23] However, as one has not much time for reflection by day, when walking along a bush path, and keeping your eyes and thoughts intent upon it, lest you break your shins or neck by carelessness,--it is no unpleasant thing to lie awake at night, and review the day's work, with the past, present, and future. The Bishop used to laugh at me for saying I had been awake at night; and seemed to think it was like what we charge our wives with at Taurarua, when a book is being read out, and they drop off, and yet never allow it.

We were kindly received by the people of Nuhukahari. Rota has been this way six times; and is so heartily welcomed by the people, that he is sure to attract all kinds of presents of food, even if the Bishop were not with us.

Aug. 10th.--One of the native Teachers, a relative of Rota's, accompanied us on the road, and helped us up the rope-ladder, which is rather a formidable affair, as it consists merely of flax leaves tied together; and you have to pull yourself up a sheer precipice of rock by it, which, as I said before, my hobnail boots rendered more difficult. This man carried our knapsacks for us up to the rock, so that an active man would not make much of it. At Waikawau--the next village--we saw a specimen of an old Maori chief of the best style,--a perfect gentleman by nature; very handsome features; quite grey hair. He made us a present of potatoes, and escorted us to the boundary of his estate. The adjoining portion he had sold to the Government; [23/24] and, as he stood under a large Puriri tree, which was eighteen feet in circumference, and pointed it out as the border mark of his land, I wished I could have sketched him and his tree, each so noble of the kind. We could not get far that afternoon, as we reached Kaiawhi-point too late for the low-tide passage. This is a precipitous rock running out into the sea, and can only be rounded at low water by jumping from stone to stone. Accordingly, we had to wait on the north side till twelve o'clock the next day before we could start.

Aug. 11th.--When the tide was half out, we attempted the passage, but were foiled. Papaki tonu is the expressive onomato-pia to describe a place where the sea beats against a rock, and leaves no space: (it is pronounced like pop-pok-i) and great would have been Johnny's delight to have seen his papa chasing and playing hide-and-seek with the waves, as he attempted to jump to the first stone, and had to run for it again and again. At last he reached the first block, and there found a reservoir of kupus, which, though pronounced like cuckoos, are not birds, but shell-fish. Immediately that he had discovered this, he gave notice to the Maories, who are so fond of the food, that they made an attempt to reach the place, and got a good ducking thereby. Having no such appetite, and standing in fear of my hobnails, I bided my time. It took us an hour or more to accomplish the half-mile round the point, and the whole process may be described by the old game of "Hop, step, and a jump". [24/25] I suffered severely from scrambling up the rocks, made doubly rough by the small shell-fish which cut my fingers to pieces: but there was no danger, and only the fear of getting thoroughly soused; so that the whole scene was more like a parcel of boys out larking than a Bishop, Priest, and Deacon on a Visitation. We rounded the point at three-quarters tide, but it must be remembered that they were neap-tides; and probably we could not have done so had it been the spring-tide.

On reaching the southern side we came in sight of a fine headland, like a judge with his full cauliflower wig on. A man put us across the Awakerio River, and we got to Mokau by 4 o'clock. Mr. Schuakenberg, the Wesleyan German Missionary, was away at Taranaki. His English wife, a genuine simple woman, cried at seeing the Bishop again, and begged hard for a good chat about England, and wanted to be hospitable to us; but we had been so long on the road that we could not afford to lose an hour or two; and, besides, we were rather shy of taxing the old lady to receive so many for two nights and a day, as the morrow was Sunday. She sent us across the Mokau River in her canoe; and we had to run hard to get round the southern head of the river, as the tide was rushing in so fast. We got to a place called Waiki for Sunday.

Aug. 12th.--As the place belonged entirely to Wesleyans and Roman Catholics, we contented ourselves with our Service from the Prayer-book, which they all attended; and, instead of a Sermon, the [25/26] Bishop catechised the children on the Creed. They fed us, while we stayed, on potatoes; and we nursed a crying baby, and fed it with arrowroot, which the poor little thing relished, and found less griping than its mother's tobacco milk. We left her a supply of arrowroot and sugar, and taught her how to make it.

Aug. 13th, Monday.--Starting early, we at length came among our people again at Wai-iti; where the Ngatiawa tribe begin northward, reaching, as they do, all along the coast, with intervals, to Wellington, and over to Nelson, and as far off as the Chatham Isles on the east. The people of Wai-iti immediately recognised the Bishop's shovel-hat, and greeted him warmly. There was nothing remarkable about our walk this day.

From Mokau to Taranaki it is all flat plain sailing, except one spot, called Pari-ninihi (Slanting Cliffs), of white chalk-looking clay. This had been the bugbear of our march. We heard continually of the rope descent, 150 feet perpendicular, and I was prepared for my hands being sacrificed, in going down the rope like a sailor, of which the Bishop, being a skipper, thought little. Like most other apprehended dangers, it turned out a molehill instead of a mountain. A landslip had occurred, and the descent by rope was only twenty feet, and not more difficult than going down the side of a man-of-war into a boat.

Aug. 14th.--The natives have so neglected their inland paths, that two of the Wai-iti men who [26/27] undertook to escort us toward Waitera by the path inland instead of the beach (as it was high-water), altogether lost their way, and dragged us through high fern bush for an hour or two, till at length we reached Onaeri. As all the male inhabitants of the Wesleyan villages above Maokau had gone off to Taranaki, to aid Arama Karaka, so the men of these part had gone to aid Katatore and William King. The former belonged to the Ngatimaniapoto tribe, and these to the Ngatiawa. From Oneiro and other places, men accompanied us to Waitera, carrying guns, and we began to feel ourselves in the midst of war. We walked along the beach to Tanawha Cape; which I suppose was worshipped in former days as a god, that being the name of their Nereus, Neptune, or Proteus. It grew dark as we approached Waitera; we saw lights in the distance, and head loud shouts, which we supposed indicated a military camp, with all its lawlessness and excitement. What was our surprise, then, at finding, when we reached the river, and were carried across in our English cargo boat, that so far from there being any war camp, or any hostility to the English on W. King's part (of which he is accused), that he and all his men had gone out to tow off an English schooner which had got aground at the mouth of the river, and which they were preparing to haul out when the flood-tide came up. Accordingly, we saw only one or two men that night, who gave us board and lodging in the Pa. I had never been inside a regular Pa before, and next morning was struck with its character. Having a [27/28] high stockade of forest timbers all round, and standing on two or three acres of ground, it is broken up within into small squares, where separate families reside; all strongly fenced and connected by narrow passages, well adapted for defence. Once in the middle, it is like a labyrinth to find the way out, or from one house to another. These men succeeded in getting off the schooner, which was full of potatoes, which a trader had bought of the Maories for 1,000l.

Aug. 15th.--Next morning, before we were up and out of our bags (not beds), two natives put their heads in at the tent-door, and tena koe'd the Bishop. One was a fine old gentleman, with a kindly face and no guile in it. The younger, but perhaps sixty years of age, with a broad, open handsome face, somewhat bloated, perhaps, and yet not at all unpleasant. They came in, and sat talking for an hour, while we shaved and dressed and ate our breakfast with them. When they went away, I asked who they were, and the Bishop said the first was an old chief of the tribe he had known long time ago at Nelson, and the younger of the two was the notorious and much-abused William King, the man who first saved the government under Sir George Grey in 1844, by driving old Rangihaeta out of the country; and then took a decided line against the Governor, who tried to prevent his coming up here to Taranaki, to settle in the inheritance of his forefathers, whence he had been driven by the Waikatos twenty-five years ago, but was now allowed to return in peace to the unoccupied land, when Sir George Grey threatened to prevent his [28/29] returning, by planting guns at his canoes. He still persevered, and some of his people brandished their tomahawks about the Governor's head; and come they did, in spite of the threats and guns, and most determined are they to retain their lands, and prevent the English getting hold of any; hinc illæ lacrymæ. Hence all this disturbance we have come to try and settle. Rawiri and his party wanted to sell the disputed land to the English; Katatore shot him down in cold blood, unarmed.

After breakfast, we all went to have Service, and about 200 people assembled in the open air; for I am sorry to say they have fallen away so far from all their good habits at Waikanae, that instead of having a Church capable of holding 500 people, and attending it daily for Service and school, they have neither Church Service nor school. However, they came in good force to Service this morning; and the Bishop preached a short sermon on some words from the Lesson for the day, in which he reminded them of the happy days they spent at Waikanae of old,--when they and their children met daily for worship and school,--when they and their Clergymen were like children under the eye of a good Father. Then he spoke of the change,--the absolute neglect of all external religion, and the absence of all signs of inward faith; their wars, and rumours of wars, their drinking habits and covetousness. It was a touching scene. The Bishop spoke more energetically and earnestly than ever, and his heart is deeply attached to this people, to whom he ministered personally in [29/30] former days, when Archdeacon Hadfield was ill, and whom he has since seen spread over half the several islands of New Zealand--and all so fallen from their first love! I do hope that if he ordains Levi, their native teacher in former days, who has since been under Mr. Hadfield's and Mr. Kissling's eye, and lately preparing for ordination under the Bishop himself--this excellent man may raise again their tabernacle, and be enabled to revive the dead bones to something like their former state.

We had a conference after Church, and heard their account of their part in this quarrel between Katatoro and Arama Karaka; whose Pas are three or four miles off, between Waitera and Taranaki. W. King said that he did not wish to take a part in it, but Arama Karaka had lately come on some disputed ground nearer Waitera, and he began to be afraid lest he should gradually draw nearer to William King's land at Waitera, and sell it to the English. Proximus ardet Ucalegon was his principle of action. The English here accuse him of duplicity, because he promised the Governor to take no part in it; but things have altered since then, and he found his road tapu-ed by Arama Karaka, and his people prevented from coming into market. If Arana Karaka would retire from Te Ninia (this new fighting Pa), he would retire. All this talk being ended, we marched off with a dozen of them, to Katatore's Pa, Kaipahopaho. It was certainly an exciting scene to see the men dressed like Sir Walter Scott's Highland chiefs, in tartan kilts, with mauds gracefully [30/31] tied across the shoulder; a band of crepe and oilskin, with a feather in it, round the temples, and guns in their hands, with a cartouche-box round the waist. William King' fine handsome face and iron grey hair, and his giant form of six feet three inches, with breadth in proportion, certainly gave one the idea of a warrior chieftain. The dress reminds one of the Highlands; but the face and customs of the Jews--and Wiremu Kingi would not make a bad portrait of Saul, before the evil spirit had settled on his heart, and marked him externally, such as Rembrandt conceives of him in that wonderful picture at Knowsley Hall. We reached Katatore's Pa, and found one hundred men or so within. It had been newly-fenced for war; and inside an earthwork four feet high thrown up, between which and the outer fence was a trench and an embrasure for the men to lie in and attack the besiegers. They are almost impregnable to mere musketry. Within the earthwork are the houses; and all the followers were seated on the ground to hear what the Bishop had to say. After a few minutes a man, dressed like a would-be flash criminal at Newgate, came up to us. It was Katatore; a little, cunning-looking, ill-favoured rascal as I ever saw, dressed in a black patetot, moleskin trousers, boots, and a little hat on the top of an immense bush of hair. He then told us the story of the murder. When he came to it, the Bishop said, "So, then, you killed an unarmed man in cold blood for the matter of land?" "Yes." "Then you repeated the act of Cain towards Abel, [31/32] and in the sight of God and man you are a murderer."

The man started up in great wrath, but the Bishop calmly repeated it. The man started on his feet and left the ring of people, muttering and growling; but his own people did not seem disposed to support him on that point, nor to question the Bishop's judgment or right to express that judgment. The bold plainness of speech the Bishop used towards the murderer, and the abuse that the newspaper writers have lavished on him for holding any intercourse at all with the murderer, &c. &c., seem together exactly to make up the duties required of a Christian minister in the Collect for St. John Baptist's Day:--that he should "boldly rebuke vice, constantly speak the truth, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake." It has been the Bishop's practice for the last thirteen years, during which he has been so attacked by the same person in all the settlements, to "answer him never a word." Still the Bishop has written a Pastoral Letter to his own people and flock, explaining the course and the view he has taken of the native quarrel, and the land disputes existing between the natives with one another, and with the English.

After the conference was over at the Kaipakopako Pa, some of the people escorted us to the stream boundary that separates them from their enemy in the Ninia Pa. The two opposing Pas are about half a mile from one another, and the men that escorted us handed us on to the enemy with cries of [32/33] "Pihopa-ma." There did not seem to be individual enmity between the followers of Katatore on the one hand, and of Arama Karaka on the other. They met on the borders of the Waitaka River, and hailed one another just as the French and English piequets held friendly conversations and made presents of food to one another across a river in Spain during the Peninsular War. We were received, first, by one man perfectly unarmed, then we met two more, with guns, I suspect, under their blankets; and we were conducted to Ninia Pa, and welcomed by Arama Karaka; a fine, courteous old gentlemen, with a pleasant countenance enough--certainly a great contrast to Katatore.

The Bishop made a speech to them as to the Kaipakopako people, recommending them to send away their allies, who had nothing to do with the quarrel, and then go, each to his cultivation for this month or two, till the new Governor should arrive and settle the dispute; leaving the Pas in the hands of a few men on each side while the truce lasted. This advice was not accepted by either party at first, and the Bishop left them to think over it. We walked off at sunset to the town, and reached the parsonage at seven o'clock; where we were heartily greeted by Mr. Govett, the Clergyman, and son of the Vicar of Staines and Laleham, with whose person and ministrations I had been so familiar all the early part of my life. His son is wonderfully like him in appearance, as I knew him thirty and twenty-five years ago.

[34] Aug. 16th, 17th, 18th.--We rested quietly, and gave our sore feet time to recover, while we thoroughly enjoyed looking over the beautiful scenery of this country. The mountain, in all its glorious diadem of snow, sending down such healthy bracing breezes day and night as speedily restored our strength, and added to the bush appetite that we had brought with us. Instead of the old proverb, "Good wine need no bush," the Bishop always rendered it, "Good bush needs no wine;" and certainly its effects are lasting and most exhilarating--I have been quite ashamed of my appetite. I feel as if I have a lee-way of a fortnight's bush-fare to make up, over and above the stimulating effects of this delicious climate. We have completed our walk of 245 miles, as shown by the corrected pedometer.

The country here seems to be fern-land for the first two or three miles back from the sea, and then forest, no one knows how far inland;--about three miles of it has been reclaimed by settlers. The soil is very rich and productive, immediately it is cleared. The fern-land is beautiful light scoria, mixed with mould and sand, admirably suited for potatoes and clover paddocks. But though it looks so flat, it is broken up into gullies and valleys as much or more than Auckland, and the road worse and more steep, besides having no stone very near for metalling. The sea-shore, however, would afford supplies of large round stone, which would cost a great deal to break up. But the porous nature of the soil soon lets the road dry up with a warm sun and a cold [34/35] mountain breeze. The general appearance of the country is that of a number of small farms (held by substantial English yeomen and native owners) somewhat overstocked with sheep and cattle, and a scattered village for the chief township.

Sunday, Aug. 19th.--The Bishop took the Morning Service in the town at St. Mary's. This is by far the prettiest and most ecclesiastical building I have seen in the Colony, and the Bishop says there is certainly nothing like it elsewhere. It is an early-pointed stone Church, with a very high pitched roof, the interior of which is in keeping and good taste. It was built by Mr. Thatcher, through the energy and zeal of the first Clergyman, the Rev. William Bolland, who died in 1847; and almost every Church work, material or spiritual, in the district, seems to have owed its origin to him. The present Clergyman follows in his steps, and succeeds in securing the respect and good-will of his congregation and the community by his own genuine single-mindedness and goodness, and by a rigid adherence to all that Mr. Bolland introduced. The love and regard for Mr. Bolland's memory was proved by our finding, on a visit to his grave, some fresh flowers strewn over it by some unknown hand;--no relative of his is residing here now.

The Bishop went in the afternoon to the Pa for Service. I had walked over on Saturday evening to Omata, a village five or six miles off toward the south; and had gone to the Clergyman's house, the Rev. G. Bayley's, to see him and offer assistance on [35/36] Sunday. The Chapel there is in a most dilapidated state; and I am thankful to say that at a meeting of Church-people held there in the course of the ensuing week, they agreed to remove the building to a more eligible site, that has been given for Church and School purposes, and to put it up as a temporary Church, and to be used as a School-room when the new Church is erected on the land given by Major Lloyd.

I returned, in the afternoon, to the town, and took the Evening Service at St. Mary's. The chanting and singing seem to be the relics of what once was good; but, owing to the usual disagreements of musicians, they have now sunk into a scarcely-audible drawl, drowned by an harmonium.--As at the Morning Service, I understood that several Dissenters had attended to hear the Bishop.

Aug. 20th, Monday.--Being now pretty well refreshed and re-invigorated for foot-tramps, we started off to the hostile Pas after breakfast; and first visited Arama Karaka (Adam Clarke's), which is nearest the town. We found him and his people very "pakeke" and obstinate. The "Duke of Portland" had arrived on Sunday evening with 200 troops of the 58th Regiment and some Sappers and Miners; three guns and a Captain of Engineers; another of Artillery, and six officers of the 58th; under Major Nugent. The Ninia people had become very insolent, and one charged William King, the Chief of Waitera, with being implicated in the murder of Rawiri; for which the Bishop rebuked [36/37] him and referred him to the ninth commandment. Some of them also insulted him with a cry of "Haere hi te karakia hi ou tamariki whahahehe toto."--"Go and have Service with your blood-shedding children;" alluding to his having gone yesterday to Kaipakopaho for Afternoon Service; and they asked him what was the good of his going "to preach to those bad men?" The answer was obvious from our Lord's own words and deeds: but the self-complacent Pharisaism of these men was very disgusting; the more so that it had probably been put into their minds by others who ought to know better.

We went on to Kaipakopako Pa; and there we found the people in a great state of excitement about the soldiers having come; and they had evidently been told that the opposite party would now attack them in conjunction with the soldiers. They began by a sort of hint that the Bishop was deceiving them in saying the soldiers had not come to take any part in their quarrel, but only to protect the English. He reassured them of his own frankness and openness to them, and of his positive belief that there was no idea of the soldiers being used against them. They were all dressed for action; and most striking, certainly, was their appearance. Most had red tartan kilts, with shawls round their waists. Katatore himself looked very different from what he had before when he had English clothes on. Now, he had a kilt of red pocket-handkerchiefs and a handsome tartan plaid gracefully thrown over his [37/38] shoulder, hanging down on the one side to his feet. He had no hat, but his mop of black hair stood up a foot above his head; and as he spoke to the Bishop, calmly or energetically as the subject suited, he evidently swayed his people to and fro with the talent of a real orator.

The burden of his speech was, that now the soldiers had come, and there was a danger of their being attacked, and his being captured, he had gone to the different tribes that had come to help him, and said to them, "Hadn't you better go home, now that the soldiers are come? Leave me to my fate, and don't risk your lives for me!" But they one and all had said, "No, we will stand by you."

The cunning of this affected generosity and appeal to their honour was, of course, obvious; but it carried his point and secured their adherence. Then up got a talkative Wesleyan, of the Ngatiwana tribe, (for it is a great mistake to say that Katatore' people are all Churchmen, and Arama Karaka's Wesleyans,) who worked himself up into a great passion about the Englishmen's desire for their land. It was a curious sight to watch the fellow's movements. He ran back to the further end of the circle in which we were sitting, and then crept up towards us, clawing the ground with his toe like a tiger, as he poured forth with great rapidity his whakaaro, (or thoughts.) It gave one an idea of a beast of prey playing with his victim;--but when he had finished he came up very good-humouredly to the Bishop, and sat down laughing, while the [38/39] Bishop said, "Does not this dog bite a well as bark?" Just then a messenger arrived with Colonel Wynyard's letters to William King, assuring him that the Government meant no violence in sending the soldiers, but only the preservation of peace between Native and English. This came in very happily to confirm all the Bishop had said; and they forthwith were very amicable; produced their lampreys and potatoes; seemed to know about King Henry of England having killed himself with eating lampreys; and we parted very good friends with all but Katatore, who is angry with the Bishop for urging the allies to return home. When I wished him good-bye, adding, in Maori phrase, "Sit down on the top of the Bishop's advice," he "umphed," and turned away with a sign of displeasure.

However, the leaven has been at work since then; and first the allies on one side, and then of the other, have gone off to their plantations, and left the original belligerents, their old women and cats, to take care of their Pas--about twenty-five in number on each side.

We then walked off to a Church Meeting of English folk, in the immediate neighbourhood of the battle-field, where we found that only one man of the whole community had the least fear of danger from the proximity to the scene of action; and he had only lately been talked over in the town to the side of the panic.

The Church Meeting was satisfactory. The people agreed to build a Chapel, and to collect money for [39/40] the endowment of their Clergymen, and 50l. were subscribed in the room. There are some very well disposed people in this district; and I never saw Divine Service better conducted in a private house than it was on one of the following Sundays in Mr. Hurst's. The whole of the family sing sacred music very nicely, and evidently take a pleasure in having the Service in their house, and accommodating their neighbours in every way they can.

Aug. 21st, Tuesday.--We walked off to Omata for a Church Meeting, to be held in Mr. Bayley's house. There, as I said before, some practical resolutions were carried, and have since been partly acted on. We spent that night and the following morning at the hospitable house of Mrs. McKellar, whose will-ordered family really seems to deserve the name of "The Church in the house of Phbe."

Aug. 22d, Wednesday.--We went in the middle of the day to Omata Bush, through depths of mud unfathomed, and intricacies of forest well-nigh impervious.

After visiting the neighbours first, and holding a meeting, like all the preceding ones, at a settler's house, we started off in pelting showers, to find our way back to Mrs. McKellar's.

We were escorted by some of the neighbours with pine torches, which, however, the rain put out at last; and Dr. Sealy, one of our company, borrowed a lantern at a cottage we passed, and most kindly led us right through the bush to our destination.

Aug. 23d, Thursday.--A meeting this afternoon at [40/41] Tataraimaka, eight miles further south. The road was partly very pretty, and the land very good for sheep-farming. We reached Mr. Greenwood's in the middle of the day, and were heartily greeted as brother Etonians. There were two meetings there; the first at noon in the open air, being a native gathering. They had come to talk about joining the English in subscription for a Clergyman; but the old men had come to negative any application for land to build Church or school upon; as this is the sore point at present with all the old Maories, who fancy that the English are shoving them off the land on to the "shark's fins," as they call it. The Bishop got a hint of this intended opposition, and said nothing about their giving land, to their surprise; so they all agreed to make collections for clerical endowment and current maintenance, and to combine with the English. It is quite curious to hear how both English and Natives insist upon ministerial weekly visiting as the condition of support. It is very gratifying to find how this is not only recognised, but required by all alike. One native aid, "The old women of my Pa say that they want not only Sunday services, but week-day visits." A Clergyman might gain great influence over his flock, that had strength and will to visit them regularly from house to house.

It was a bitter cold meeting this of three hours in the open air, on an exposed flat. We then adjourned in doors to the English meeting; strange to say that half of the number that met was formed of [41/42] Dissenters. A Roman Catholic was the most hearty assistant there, offering to saw 500 feet of timber for the church, giving a sovereign besides, and having been in the habit for the last year of putting up the tent for service every Sunday, and fetching chairs, &c. all round the neighbourhood for the people; and all this because his wife was a Church of England woman. Money was collected for building the church, and ground was given for the site of the church, school, and parsonage.

The Clergyman and Bishop had given 10l. each, and a layman 5l.; so, when another wealthy layman said to his lay-brother, "I'll follow your example," the Bishop said, "Hadn't you better follow the Clergyman's, and then you'll have 'benefit of Clergy?'"

Then, after the meeting had ended, our host entered most warmly into endless Eton recollections; and evidently enjoyed the opportunity of a talk with two men that were at Eton with him, or just about his time, and so could talk about the same persons, things, and places. His room was full of pictures and sketches of Eton and Windsor, and the public orator of Cambridge might have said of him as he did of P.G., that he was certainly "Etonæ amantissimus."

We walked back that night to Omata, having made an engagement to meet Major Nugent the next morning early, to go to the "Pas."

Aug. 24th, Friday.--Walked back to the town. Major Nugent having much business on hand in pitching his soldiers' camp, put off the visit to the [42/43] native "Pas" till the next day. This evening we had a final meeting of Church people in the town. Here, as elsewhere, the Bishop's admirable arrangement of the Endowment Funds met with ready acceptance; and, I trust, in the town, as in the suburbs, the foundation has been laid for a permanent provision for the Clergy.

It has been quite unexpected and pleasant to find how readily the Bishop' plan for the endowment has been accepted, now, in every parish of this Province. It was a very difficult theorem that the Bishop had to solve; and when he had solved it to his own satisfaction, it was a great question whether it could be made a problem and be practically accepted; whether the "Q. E. D." could become a "Q. E. F." The facts are these: the New Zealand Company made grants for Church purpose in all its settlements, on condition that they were met by equivalents from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which was done. The money was to be invested in land or mortgages in the several settlements; but it got into the hands of trustees in England who would never move in the matter, and all the last twelve or fourteen years it has remained in the English fund, bearing three per cent. instead of producing twelve here, or being laid out in valuable estates when the market was cheap.

This was the identical fund of which ------- told Lord Grey, our Bishop did not know the purposes and nature; whereas he had calculated annually the amount due to the several settlements [43/44] down to a fraction, minus the income-tax. Seeing the trouble the Bishop has taken about all this matter, it afforded us great fun to see him shown up in a Parliamentary Blue Book, as entirely ignorant of the whole Trust. Well, when the Bishop was in England, he got the Court of Chancery to move, and got the Trust handed over to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in a deed reciting all the purposes of the Grant. Now the difficulty lay in this: that the Fund belongs to the whole province, which, of course, is not yet filled up or occupied; and he could not give the sum to the present parishes only, and this generation. So he proposed to the existing parishes that they should purchase, as it were, a permanent claim upon the fund by contributing an equivalent to what they received from it; e.g. if they contributed 200l., they should receive 200l., and so on; and this sum should be managed by elected Trustees from the several contributing parishes, who should invest the money in mortgages or land, and pay the current rate of interest to the particular contributing parish; any surplus should go to the endowment of future parishes on a similar plan. Thus the 1,000l. belonging to New Plymouth will become 2,000l., and endow, in part, three Clergymen, instead of one.

This closed our series of Church meetings.

Aug. 25th, Saturday.--The Bishop went with Major Nugent to Kaipakopaho, and Te Ninia Pas, to try and induce the latter people to take the tapu off the road, whereby they had debarred Wiremu King from [44/45] coming into the town to trade. Arama Karaka was pakeke, but the leaven is gradually working; and he allowed an Englishman, who had bought wheat of W. King, to bring it into the town on the native carts.

While they were there, the only hostilities, or approach to fighting, occurred, that we have heard of since we came here. W. King was sending a present of potatoes to the soldiers, as Arama Karaka had done, and the other natives; and the latter sent out a party of men to turn them back, and, if necessary, to fire at them. It ended quietly.

It is quite curious to see the deeds of peace and war mixing so closely as they do here; all round the Pas the men are ploughing and putting in potatoes. It reminds one of Homer's Shield of Achilles, where a rim of war adjoins a rim of peace.

Sunday, Aug. 26th.--The Bishop held a Confirmation at St. Mary's. It was a very wet day; but only one of the Candidates failed, though many came from neighbouring parishes. I took the Morning Service in the little district chapel of Te Henui, and the evening at St. Mary's.

Monday, Aug. 27th.--This week was a wet one, so we were glad to have got over our Church Meetings the preceding week; and this one was spent in hearing and discussing in all direction, the attacks that have been made upon the Bishop respecting the Land and Maori question here. The people here have generally confounded two such distinct things as Life and Land; because Wiremu Kingi has set himself against the sale of land, he is as violently opposed [45/46] and attacked as Katatore, who murdered Rawiri. We had a series of tea-parties this week at the houses of the neighbours, who have been very civil, and show a kindly disposition; and I cannot recollect any event worth recording till Friday the 31st of August, when William King sent for Major Nugent and the Bishop, in great hurry, to say that he had heard that Mr. Turton had sent for Rawiri's widow and the widows of the others who were killed on that occasion, to get warrants taken out against Katatore, and that the resident Magistrate intended applying to the Military to put them into execution. They rode over and reassured him, and prevented his doing what would have been a most alarming step for the outlying settlers; namely, taking refuge in the Bush, and building a Pa, where he would be free from the attack of the soldiers, and could easily maraud the neighbours, to which he would be driven by lack of food. This was stopped, and Major Nugent found on his return a letter from the resident Magistrate, as W. King had heard. Major Nugent said he had no instruction to do the police work of the province, but only to defend the English, and recommended Mr. Turton to keep himself to his own spiritual duties. So things have settled down quietly, and the Ngatirianuis have returned home, according to the advice of the Bishop. It was very striking to see the men's delight when he wound up his speech with their old song:

"Ka tangi te riroriro,
Kei tea hi au tamaritu!"--

[46/47] the Maori equivalent for "Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home," &c. All the good advice and sober counsel given before, seemed to tell but little; but this quotation set the whole party on the alert, and it was repeated and bandied from one to another, well illustrating the well-known saying, "Give me the writing of your ballads, and I don't care who make the laws."

Sept. 1st.--Our letters and newspapers came in the "Gem" from Auckland, giving us the account of the bombardment of Sebastopol, and its failure. The fatigue of reading up a dozen papers to get at the pith, instead of keeping au courant of the news by driblets, as in England, gave rise to the Bishop's making an apt quotation from Horace, who speaks of the limæ labor, the labour of the file in polishing down verses, and compositions of all kinds. The Bishop says that in a Colony this means a file of newspapers.

It was a refreshment in its way, however sad and humiliating are the circumstances, to have the current of talk and thought turned from the pettiness of this Colonial town to the great interests at stake in Europe. The Bishop having just come from England, and having seen there so many well-informed persons and private letters, is able to give more graphic sketches of the siege than one gets even from the "file" and "our Special Correspondent." He talked on very wisely about the grievous mistake the English Government made in 1827, after the battle [47/48] of Navarino, in not getting the Christian question in Jerusalem and the Turkish dominions settled then by treaty, and so effecting the object of the 200 years' Crusading, and forestalling the Russian interference and designs upon Turkey and Europe under the pretext of defending the Christian. That "untoward event," as it was called, might have been used to save us this awful war; the end of which does not even loom in the future!

Those cunning fellows at the fighting Pas here have got hold of this Russian war and it history; and when we were urging their allies to retire, and calling them Pokanoas, (men who have interfered in a matter that did not concern them,) one fellow quietly asked how it was that the English were mixed up in the war between Turkey and Russia?

Though I spoke slightingly just now of the petty questions of Colonial towns, I must record one of the most petty of the acts of this provincial Government, for the sake of the comment that was made upon it. A trader here demanded the services of a cargo-boat, belonging to Government, on the same ground as a man demands a place in a railway-carriage, or a coach, being public conveyances. It was refused; he brought an action against the master, and gained it. Immediately the Provincial Council passed an Act retrospective and prospective, that no provincial officer was responsible to the Law Courts. Next week the Pound-keeper became a defaulter to some amount; and when the Government sued him, [48/49] this act was pleaded in his favour, and he escaped, which whole transaction the Bishop called "Penny wise and Pound foolish."

Sept. 2d, Sunday,--The Bishop went to Omata and Omata Bush. I took the Military Service and St. Mary's at eleven. The Gospel for the day, being the Parable of the Good Samaritan, afforded a good opportunity for speaking to the former about the war in Europe, in which they are soon likely to be engaged; and reminding them of the Christian spirit shown by our soldiers to the Russian wounded, as contrasted with theirs to ours. Of course, too, I took the occasion to enforce their duties towards the natives of Taranaki, and to make them feel towards them as fellow-subjects and brother Christians, which I am afraid is not the kind of teaching they would get in the town, as one man had said to us, "Now there is a chance of our getting British law and British justice, as one of the soldiers has threatened to drive his bayonet into an impudent Maori."

I went out to the Bell Block, the neighbourhood of the fighting Pas, and had a very pleasant simple service with the good folks of that district, who I hope will have their Chapel up before I go again in December.

Sept. 3d to 8th.--Waiting idly for the steamer. Our Church work being done, and the native quarrel having apparently subsided for the present, the Bishop, who must always be doing something, carried all his party on to the road, which was very [49/50] dangerous and full of great holes; and having in vain tried to persuade the people to mend them, we all "turned to," and in a day and a-half had made it passable: a broad hint to them in every sense "to mend their ways." The Church was fully represented in this way-wardship, there being a Bishop, a priest, and a Deacon, and two Lay Maories, and four Lay boys. It caused much amusement to the passers-by, but I am afraid little shame.

Sept. 9th, Sunday.--The Bishop went to Henui Chapel in the morning, and St. Mary's in the evening. A very striking passage of his Sermon on the Evening Lesson, Jer. xxii. 29--"O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord." Thrice earthy man! 1st. Whom God formed out of the dust of the ground, who was doomed for sin to return to the dust whence he was formed--Hear the word of God the Father, who made all the world. 2dly. O earth, hear the word of God the Son, who hath redeemed thee and all mankind. The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second is the Lord from heaven. As we have borne the image of the earthy, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord! 3dly. O created, redeemed earth, once more, hear the word of the Lord! Fallen and cursed, yet redeemed man, still falls back into the earthiness of sin, wallows in the mire, cleaveth to the ground, still [50/51] regenerated and renewed by the Spirit, grieve Him not, neither quench Him, but be raised to heaven, and in heart and mind thither ascend by the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth all the elect people of God.

Sept. 10th.--The "Zingari" steamer arrived, and we were off by five o'clock P.M., and reached Manakau by six P.M. next day. Got into Champion's Boat, reached Onehunga, and walked home by eleven P.M. Sept. 11th. All well. DEO GRATIAS.

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

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