When the law of England is the law of New Zealand, and the Queen's writ will run, then both the Queen and the law will have great _mana_: but I don't think either will ever happen, and so neither will have any _mana_ of consequence. If the reader has not some faint notion of _mana_ by this time, I can't help it: I can't do any better for him. I must confess I have not pleased myself. Any European language can be translated easily enough into any other; but to translate Maori into English is much harder to do than is supposed by those who do it every day with ease; but who do not know their own language, or any other but Maori, perfectly. I am always blowing up "Young New Zealand," and calling them "reading, riting, rethmatiking" vagabonds, who will never equal their fathers; but I mean it all for their good--(poor things!)--like a father scolding his children. But one _does_ get vexed sometimes. Their grandfathers, if they had "no backs," had at least good legs; but the grandsons can't walk a day's journey to save their lives: _they_ must _ride_. The other day I saw a young Maori chap on a good horse; he wore a black hat and polished Wellingtons, his hat was cocked knowingly to one side, and he was jogging along with one hand jingling the money in his pocket; and may I never see another war dance, if the hardened villain was not whistling "Pop goes the weasel!" What will all this end in? My only hope is in a handy way (to give them their due) which they have with a _tupara_; and this is why I don't think the law will have much _mana_ here in my time: I mean the _pakeha_ law; for, to say the worst of them, they are not yet so far demoralized as to stand any nonsense of that kind; which is a comfort to think of. I am a loyal subject to Queen Victoria, but I am also a member of a Maori tribe; and I hope I may never see this country so enslaved and tamed that a single rascally policeman, with nothing but a bit of paper in his hand, can come and take a _rangatira_ away from the middle of his _hapu_, and have him hanged for something of no consequence at all, except that it is against the law. What would old "Lizard Skin" say to it? His grandson certainly is now a magistrate, and if anything is stolen from a pakeha, he will get it back, _if he can_, and won't stick to it, because he gets a salary in lieu thereof; but he has told me certain matters in confidence, and which I therefore cannot disclose. I can only hint there was something said about "the Law," and "driving the pakeha into the sea." I must not trust myself to write on these matters. I get so confused, that I feel just as if I was two different persons at the same time. Sometimes I find myself thinking on the Maori side, and then just afterwards wondering if "we" can lick the Maori, and set the law upon its legs; which is the only way to do it. I therefore hope the reader will make allowance for any little apparent inconsistency in my ideas, as I really cannot help it.