Now I wonder if Brutus had had such a thing as a nine-pounder about him at Phillippi, whether he would have thought of using it in this way. I really don't think he would. I have never looked upon Brutus as anything of an original genius, but Tiki Whenua most certainly was. I don't think there is another instance of a man blowing himself from a gun--of course there are many examples of people blowing others from cannon, but that is quite a different thing--any blockhead can do that. But the _exit_ of Tiki Whenua has a smack of originality about it which I like, and so I have mentioned it here. But all this is digression on digression; however, I suppose the reader is getting used to it, and I cannot help it; besides, I wanted to show them how poor Tiki "took arms against a sea of troubles," and for the want of a "bare bodkin" made shift with a carronade. I shall never cease to lament those nice lads who met with that little accident (poor fellows!) on Motiti. A fine, strapping, stalwart set of fellows, who believed in force. We don't see many such men now-a-days; the present generation of Maori are a stunted, tobacco-smoking, grog-drinking, psalm-singing, special-pleading, shilling-hunting set of wretches; not above one in a dozen of them would know how to cut up a man _secundem artem_. Pshaw! I am ashamed of them. I am getting tired of this _tapu_, so will give only one or two more instances of the local temporary _tapu_. In the autumn, when the great crop of _kumera_ was gathered, all the paths leading to the village and cultivated lands were made _tapu_, and any one coming along them would have notice of this by finding a rope stretched across the road about breast-high; when he saw this, his business must be very urgent indeed or he would go back, and it would have been taken as a very serious affront indeed, even in a near relation, supposing his ordinary residence was not in the village, to disregard the hint given by the rope,--that for the present there was "no thoroughfare." Now, the reason of this blockade of the roads was this. The report of an unusually fine crop of _kumera_ had often cost its cultivators and the whole tribe their lives. The news would spread about that Ngati so-and-so, living at so-and-so, had housed so many thousands of baskets of _kumera_. Exaggeration would multiply the truth by ten, the fertile land would be coveted, and very probably its owners, or rather its _holders_, would have to fight both for it and their lives before the year was out. For this reason strangers were not welcome at the Maori harvest home. The _kumera_ were dug hurriedly by the whole strength of the working hands, thrown in scattered heaps, and concealed from any casual observation by strangers by being covered over with the leaves of the plants, and when all were dug then all hands set to work, at night, to fill the baskets and carry off the crop to the storehouse or _rua_, and every effort was made to get all