After this the land about which this little misunderstanding had arisen, was, so to speak, thrown into chancery, where it has now remained about forty years; but I hear that proceedings are to commence _de novo_ (no allusion to the "new system") next summer, or at farthest the summer after; and as I witnessed the first proceedings, when the case comes on again "may I be there to see." Chapter V. Every Englishman's house is his castle. -- My estate and castle. -- How I purchased my estate. -- Native titles to land, of what nature. -- Value of land in New Zealand. -- Land commissioners. -- The triumphs of eloquence. -- Magna Charta. "Every Englishman's house is his castle," "I scorn the foreign yoke," and glory in the name of Briton, and all that. The natural end, however, of all castles is to be burnt or blown up. In England it is true you can call the constable, and should any foreign power attack you with grinding organ and white mice, you may hope for succours from without, from which cause "castles" in England are more long lived. In New Zealand, however, it is different, as, to the present day, the old system prevails, and castles continue to be disposed of in the natural way, as has been seen lately at Taranaki. I now purchased a piece of land and built a "castle" for myself. I really can't tell to the present day who I purchased the land from, for there were about fifty different claimants, every one of whom assured me that the other forty-nine were "humbugs," and had no right whatever. The nature of the different titles of the different claimants was various. One man said his ancestors had killed off the first owners; another declared his ancestors had driven off the second party; another man, who seemed to be listened to with more respect than ordinary, declared that his ancestor had been the first possessor of all, and had never been ousted, and that this ancestor was a huge lizard that lived in a cave on the land many ages ago, and sure enough there was the cave to prove it. Besides the principal claims, there were an immense number of secondary ones--a sort of latent equities--which had lain dormant until it was known the pakeha had his eye on the land. Some of them seemed to me at the time odd enough. One man required payment because his ancestors, as he affirmed, had exercised the right of catching rats on it, but which he (the claimant) had never done, for the best of reasons, _i.e._, there were no rats to catch, except indeed pakeha rats, which were plenty enough, but this variety of rodent was not counted as game. Another claimed because his grandfather had been murdered on the land, and--as I am a veracious pakeha--another claimed payment because _his_ grandfather had committed the murder! Then half the country claimed payments of various value, from one fig of tobacco to a musket, on account of a certain _wahi tapu_, or ancient burying-ground, which was on the land,