Fortunately, among the men dwelling at Ohinimutu was a Ngapuhi native, and I engaged him to act as messenger; but, although he was a red-hot Christian, nothing would persuade him to come near, much less touch, the wretched toy. I, however, induced this man to go over to Mokoia Island, see the principal tribal tohunga, and get him to come across and interview me. Fitting him out with a gallon of rum and plenty of tobacco, I despatched my Mercury and awaited his return in trepidation. On the morning of the second day he reported himself, and informed me that the tohunga awaited me, but that, as nothing would induce the limb of Satan to land, I must go down to the lake, and he would discourse with me from his canoe. So I had to go to the lake and collogue with the old sinner from the point of a jutting-out cape. After I had tried to make him understand the true state of affairs, I produced the toy; but nothing I could say would induce him to believe that it was composed of inanimate wood. No, he could see it move, swore it was alive, and sternly refused to touch it, or even come closer to me, so that he could examine it. At last, happy thought, I suggested I should burn it. To this he consented. So, putting the unfortunate crocodile on the top of a flat stone, I collected some dry sticks and, with him watching every movement, constructed a funeral pyre, and cremated the wretched toy to ashes. Then he consented to land and came up to my hut, where he went through many incantations and gesticulations, although he avoided touching or entering it. Presently he turned to me and said: "This and all it contains must be at once burned. Have you removed anything from it?" I had not; though, expecting something of this sort to happen, I had taken every care that my servant should do so, and that absolutely nothing of value remained within it; so, like a Radical Minister, I only told half the truth. "Set it on fire," quoth he, and this I did with equanimity, as it would only give the Maoris the trouble of building me a better one, so that in a few minutes not a vestige of my late mansion remained. As everything that had been contaminated by the penny toy was now supposed to be destroyed, the old tohunga consented to discuss terms of peace, which consisted as follows:--first, that I should hand over, privately, to the tohunga himself, one gallon of rum, three pounds of tobacco and twenty-five pounds of flour, the said tohunga guaranteeing to at once dream a dream directing the natives to rebuild my house, with great rapidity. Secondly, that at the general tangi, to be held next day, on the return of the natives, I was to provide ten gallons of rum, twenty pounds of tobacco and half-a-ton of flour, all of which was to be consumed thereat. And lastly, should I on any future occasion go to Napier, and discover any more instruments of white man's devilry, I was to bring them to him, when, with a little