the water, and then gravely and quietly break the cup to pieces, or otherwise he would appropriate it by causing it to vanish under his mat. The new pakeha would immediately fly into a passion, to the great astonishment of the native, who considered, as a matter of course, that the cup or glass was, in the estimation of the pakeha, a very worthless article, or he would not have given it into his hand and allowed him to put it to his head, the part most strongly infected by the _tapu_. Both parties would be surprised and displeased; the native wondering what could have put the pakeha into such a taking, and the pakeha "wondering at the rascal's impudence, and what he meant by it?" The proper line of conduct for the pakeha in the above case made and provided, supposing him to be of a hospitable and obliging disposition, would be to lay hold of some vessel containing about two gallons of water (to allow for waste), hold it up before the native's face, the native would then stoop down and put his hand, bent into the shape of a funnel or conductor for the water, to his mouth; then, from the height of a foot or so, the pakeha would send a cataract of water into the said funnel, and continue the shower till the native gave a slight upward nod of the head, which meant "enough," by which time, from the awkwardness of the pakeha, the two gallons of water would be about expended, half, at least, on the top of the native's head, who would not, however, appear to notice the circumstance, and would appreciate the civility of his pakeha friend. I have often drank in this way in the old times; asking for a drink of water at a native village, a native would gravely approach with a calabash, and hold it up before me ready to pour forth its contents; I, of course, cocked my hand and lip in the most knowing manner. If I had laid hold of the calabash and drank in the ordinary way as practised by pakehas, I would have at once fallen in the estimation of all bystanders, and been set down as a _tutua_--a nobody, who had no _tapu_ or _mana_ about him; a mere scrub of a pakeha, whom any one might eat or drink after without the slightest danger of being poisoned. These things are all changed now, and though I have often in the good old times been tabooed in the most diabolical and dignified manner, there are only a few old men left now who, by little unmistakable signs, I perceive consider it would be very uncivil to act in any way which would suppose my _tapu_ to have disappeared before the influx of new-fangled pakeha notions. Indeed I feel myself sometimes as if I was somehow insensibly partially civilized. What it will all end in, I don't know.