“Here is Pétatoné. This is the 10th of December; The sun shines, and the birds sing; Clear is the water in rivers and streams; Bright is the sky, and the sun is high in the air. This is the 10th of December; But where is the money? Three years has this matter in many debates been discussed, And here at last is Pétatoné; But where is the money?” A band of Maori women, slowly chanting in a high, strained key, stood at the gate of a pah, and met with this song a few Englishmen who were driving rapidly on to their land. Our track lay through a swamp of the New Zealand flax. Huge swordlike leaves and giant flower-stalks all but hid from view the Maori stockades. To the left was a village of low wahrés, fenced round with a double row of lofty posts, carved with rude images of gods and men, and having posterns here and there. On the right were groves of karakas, children of Tanemahuta, the New Zealand sacred trees--under their shade, on a hill, a camp and another and larger pah. In startling contrast to the dense masses of the oily leaves, there stretched a great extent of light-green sward, where there were other camps and a tall flagstaff, from which floated the white flag and the Union Jack, emblems of British sovereignty and peace. A thousand kilted Maories dotted the green landscape with patches of brilliant tartans and scarlet cloth. Women lounged about, whiling away the time with dance and song; and from all the corners of the glade the soft cadence of the Maori cry of welcome came floating to us on the breeze, sweet as the sound of distant bells. As we drove quickly on, we found ourselves in the midst of a thronging crowd of square-built men, brown in color, and for the most part not much darker than Spaniards, but with here and there a woolly negro in their ranks. Glancing at them as we were hurried past, we saw that the men were robust, well limbed, and tall. They greeted us pleasantly with many a cheerful, open smile, but the faces of the older people were horribly tattooed in spiral curves. The chiefs carried battle-clubs of jade and bone; the women wore strange ornaments. At the flagstaff we pulled up, and, while the preliminaries of the council were arranged, had time to discuss with Maori and with “Pakéha” (white man) the questions that had brought us thither.