The tapu descended into the commonest details of daily life, and it reached to the most solemn and obscurest depths of the Maori mythology. It was a law—a code of laws, based on superstition, elaborated with diplomatic skill, enforced by human justice, universally and entirely accepted, and in its most important aspects was invested with the grimmest terrors of the unseen world. A Maori would certainly rather die than enter the precincts of a wahi tapu; his terrors would probably kill him if he were so much as touched by a ngarara, or little green lizard. Incredible as it may seem, the Maori were indeed sometimes killed by fear. Instances are on record of individuals who have unknowingly violated the tapu, in some one of its important phases. No one else might be aware of the crime, so that the culprit would have nothing to dread from human justice. But he has been so absolutely terror-stricken, that he has gone straight away into the bush, laid down, and died there. Everything about an ariki was invested with a sacred mystery. His clothes, weapons, ornaments, or house could not even be touched by the inferior. He must eat alone, could not carry food, could not blow the fire, could not do many things, lest his tapu should unwittingly slay some unfortunate person, or his mana become impaired. The law of the tapu made government possible among the Maori, and bound them together in their tribes; just as the law of Moses made government possible among the Hebrews. Indeed, in many of its applications the tapu is strangely similar to the Jewish code. Sometimes it may seem ridiculous to us in certain of its forms, so do many of our customs seem ridiculous to the Maori. The other day, one of the Maori members of the House of Representatives rose in his place to oppose a motion for an hour's adjournment of business. He said that the Pakeha system of adjourning for refreshment every now and then was a ridiculous one. Honourable members went and got more or less drunk—so the Maori alleged—and then returned only to wrangle or go to sleep. It would be better to conclude the business on hand, and do the drinking afterwards, observed this sapient legislator. Some "teetotallers'" organ, commenting on the incident, said "his remarks actually shamed the House into decent behaviour for a day or two." The early missionaries made a dead set against the tapu as a heathen custom, and herein, I think, their policy was a mistaken one. But its whole working was not known to them at that period, and, besides that, it caused them no inconsiderable annoyance. The following story is recorded—by a writer who was himself one of the missionaries—of the first serious blow that heathenism received in New Zealand, and from which originated the acceptance of Christianity by all the tribes of the Maori.