But the row is not half over yet. Here comes the chief in the ship's boat. The other is miles off with its one man crew still pulling no one knows, or at all cares, where. Some one has been off in a canoe and told the chief that "Melons" and the "New Pakeha" were fighting like mad on the beach. Here he comes, flourishing his _mere ponamu_. He is a tall, stout fellow, in the prime of life, black with tatooing, and splendidly dressed, according to the splendour of those days. He has on a very good blue jacket, no shirt or waistcoat, a pair of duck trousers, and a red sash round his waist; no hat or shoes, these being as yet things beyond a chief's ambition. The jacket was the only one in the tribe; and amongst the surrounding company I saw only one other pair of trousers, which had a large hole at each knee; but this was not considered to detract at all from its value. The chief jumps ashore; he begins his oration, or rather to "blow up," all and sundry, the tribe in general, and poor "Melons" in particular. He is really vexed, and wishes to appear to me more vexed than he really is. He runs gesticulating and flourishing his _mere_ about ten steps in one direction, in the course of which ten steps he delivers a sentence; he then turns and runs back the same distance, giving vent to his wrath in another sentence, and so back and forward, forward and back, till he has exhausted the subject, and tired his legs. The Englishmen were beside me, and gave a running translation of what he said.