I did not then know what was their reason for keeping me there so long, as I was sure they could have crossed the lake before, had they chosen to do so. I afterwards discovered they were debating whether or not they should kill my two Waikato men, Moning-aw and Mahia, and were only prevented by the opposition of Rangey O'Nare, and the consideration that they were but slaves; it had been such a nice point that they had actually loaded a musket to shoot them. I am very glad I did not know this at the time, for I might have made matters worse than they turned out, as I was uncommonly angry at being kept there so long, and the having nothing to eat all day had not improved my temper: although very hungry I did not like eating what was dressed in the hot springs; and there was no wood to be had in the whole Pa for love or money. I had an instance to-day of the great value the natives sometimes set on their ornaments of green stone maries (meri), as the whites call them. I saw one which I admired, which was not so elaborately carved as some are, but simply a straight piece about five inches long and half an inch wide; on my asking the native to sell it, he had the moderation to demand my double-barrel gun for it, nor would he lower his price: this was in fact but another way of telling me that he would not sell it at all, it having been a present from a deceased friend. These pieces of jude might be very easily imitated in England, but I do not think they would then be valued by the natives more than large beads, or anything else of the kind, as their value certainly arises from their having been made by a friend who is dead, and given by him to the possessor—somewhat in the same way we value a keepsake; but the feeling is of a much more superstitious character with these people than with us.
I cannot describe the delight I felt in again visiting a house belonging to one of my own countrymen—heightened by the
