Here I must remark that in those days the value of a pakeha to a tribe was enormous. For want of pakehas to trade with, and from whom to procure gunpowder and muskets, many tribes or sections of tribes were about this time exterminated or nearly so by their more fortunate neighbours who got pakehas before them, and who consequently became armed with muskets first. A pakeha trader was therefore of a value say about twenty times his own weight in muskets. This, according to my notes made at the time, I find to have represented a value in New Zealand something about what we mean in England when we talk of the sum total of the national debt. A book-keeper, or a second-rate pakeha, not a trader, might be valued at say his weight in tomahawks; an enormous sum also. The poorest labouring pakeha, though he might have no property, would earn something--his value to the chief and tribe with whom he lived might be estimated at say his weight in fish-hooks, or about a hundred thousand pounds or so; value estimated by eagerness to obtain the article. The value of a musket was not to be estimated to a native by just what he gave for it; he gave all he had, or could procure, and had he ten times as much to give he would have given it, if necessary, or if not, he would buy ten muskets instead of one. Muskets! muskets! muskets! nothing but muskets, was the first demand of the Maori; muskets and gunpowder at any cost. I do not, however, mean to affirm that pakehas were at this time valued "as such,"--like Mr. Pickwick's silk stockings, which were very good and valuable stockings, "as stockings"--not at all. A loose, straggling pakeha--a runaway from a ship for instance,--who had nothing, and was never likely to have anything, a vagrant straggler passing from place to place,--was not of much account even in those times. Two men of this description (runaway sailors) were hospitably entertained one night by a chief, a very particular friend of mine, who, to pay himself for his trouble and outlay, eat one of them next morning. Remember, my good reader, I don't deal in fiction; my friend eat the pakeha sure enough, and killed him before he eat him, which was civil, for it was not always done. But then, certainly, the pakeha was a _tutua_, a nobody, a fellow not worth a spike nail; no one knew him; he had no relations, no goods, no expectations, no anything: what could be made of him? Of what use on earth was he except to eat? And, indeed, not much good even for that--they say he was not good meat. But good well-to-do pakehas, traders, ship captains, labourers, or employers of labour, these were to be honoured, cherished, caressed, protected, and plucked. Plucked judiciously, (the Maori is a clever fellow in his way,) so that the feathers might grow again. But as for poor, mean, mere, _Pakeha tutua,--e aha te pai?_