you about, you are not going to touch food with your _hands_?" "Indeed, but I am," said I, and stretched out my hand. Here another scream--"You must not do that, it's the worst of all things; one of us will feed you; it's wrong, wrong, very wrong!" "Oh, bother," said I, and fell to at once. I declare positively I had no sooner done so than I felt sorry. The expression of horror, contempt, and pity observable in their faces, convinced me that I had not only offended and hurt their feelings, but that I had lowered myself greatly in their estimation. Certainly I was a pakeha, and pakehas will do most unaccountable things, and may be, in ordinary cases, excused; but this, I saw at once, was an act which, to my friends, seemed the _ne plus ultra_ of abomination. I now can well understand that I must have, sitting there eating my potatoes, appeared to them a ghoul, a vampire--worse than even one of their own dreadful _atua_, who, at the command of a witch, or to avenge some breach of the _tapu_, enters into a man's body and slowly eats away his vitals. I can see it now, and understand what a frightful object I must have appeared. My friends broke up their camp at once, not feeling sure, after what I had done, but I might walk in amongst them in the night, when they were asleep, and bedevil them all. They marched all night, and in the morning came to my house, where they spread consternation and dismay amongst my household by telling them in what a condition I was coming home. The whole of my establishment at this time being natives, they ran at once; and when I got home next evening, hungry and vexed, there was not a soul to be seen. The house and kitchen were shut up, fires out, and, as I fancied, everything looked dreary and uncomfortable. If only a dog had come and wagged his tail in welcome, it would have been something; but even my dog was gone. Certainly there was an old tom cat, but I hate cats, there is no sincerity in them, and so I had kicked this old tom on principle whenever he came in my way, and now, when he saw me, he ran for his life into the bush. The instinct of a hungry man sent me into the kitchen; there was nothing eatable to be seen but a raw leg of pork, and the fire was out. I now began to suspect that this attempt of mine to look down the _tapu_ would fail, and that I should remain excommunicated for some frightfully indefinite period. I began to think of Robinson Crusoe, and to wonder if I could hold out as well as he did. Then I looked hard at the leg of pork. The idea that I must cook for myself brought home to me the fact more forcibly than anything else how I had "fallen from my high estate"--cooking being the very last thing a _rangatira_ can turn his hand to. But why should I have anything more to do with cooking? Was I not cast off and repudiated by the human race? (A horrible misanthropy was fast taking hold of me.) Why should I not tear my leg of pork raw, like a wolf? "I will run a muck!" suddenly said I.