The other instance of dodging the law was as follows:--I was the first pakeha who had ever arrived at a certain populous inland village. The whole of the inhabitants were in a great state of commotion and curiosity, for many of them had never seen a pakeha before. As I advanced, the whole juvenile population ran before me at a safe distance of about a hundred yards, eyeing me, as I perceived, with great terror and distrust. At last I suddenly made a charge at them, rolling my eyes and showing my teeth, and to see the small savages tumbling over one another, and running for their lives, was something curious, and though my "demonstration" did not continue more than twenty yards, I am sure some of the little villains ran a mile before looking behind to see whether the ferocious monster called a pakeha was gaining on them. They did run! I arrived at the centre of the village, and was conducted to a large house or shed, which had been constructed as a place of reception for visitors, and as a general lounging place for all the inhabitants. It was a _whare noa_, a house to which, from its general and temporary uses, the _tapu_ was not supposed to attach, I mean, of course, the ordinary personal _tapu_ or _tapu rangatira_. Any person, however, _infected_ with any of the more serious or extraordinary forms of the _tapu_ entering it, would at once render it uninhabitable. I took my seat. The house was full, and nearly the whole of the rest of the population were blocking up the open front of the large shed, all striving to see the pakeha, and passing to the rear from man to man every word he happened to speak. I could hear them say to the people behind, "The pakeha has stood up!" "Now he has sat down again!" "He has said, how do you all do?" "He has said, this is a nice place of yours!" etc., etc. Now there happened to be at a distance an old gentleman engaged in clearing the weeds from a _kumera_ or sweet potato field, and as the kumera in the old times was the crop on which the natives depended chiefly for support, like all valuable things it was _tapu_, and the parties who entered the field to remove the weeds were _tapu_, _pro tem._, also. Now one of the effects of this temporary extra _tapu_ was that the parties could not enter any regular dwelling-house, or indeed any house used by others. Now the breach of this rule would not be dangerous in a personal sense, but the effect would be that the crop of sweet potatoes would fail. The industrious individual I have alluded to, hearing the cry of "A pakeha! a pakeha!" from many voices, and having never had an opportunity to examine that variety of the species, or _genus homo_, flung down his wooden _kaheru_ or weed exterminator and rushed towards the town house before mentioned. What could he do? The _tapu_ forbade his entrance, and the front was so completely blocked up by his admiring neighbours that he could not get sight of the wonderful guest.