After the _tangi_ was ended, the two tribes seated themselves in a large irregular circle on the plain; into this circle strode an orator, who, having said his say, was followed by another, and so the greater part of the day was consumed. No arms were to be seen in the hands of either party, except the greenstone _mere_ of the principal chiefs; but I took notice that about thirty of our people never left the nearest gate of the pa, and that their loaded muskets, although out of sight, were close at hand, standing against the fence inside the gate: I also perceived that under their cloaks or mats they wore their cartridge boxes and tomahawks. This caused me to observe the other party more closely. They also, I perceived, had some forty men sleeping in the shed; these fellows had not removed their cartridge boxes either, and all their companions' arms were carefully ranged behind them in a row, six or seven deep, against the back wall of the shed. The speeches of the orators were not very interesting, so I took a stroll to a little rising ground at about a hundred yards distance, where a company of natives, better dressed than common, were seated. They had the best sort of ornamented cloaks, and wore in their heads, feathers, which I already knew "commoners" could not afford to wear, as they were only to be procured some hundreds of miles to the south. I therefore concluded these were magnates or "personages" of some kind or other, and determined to introduce myself. As I approached, one of these splendid individuals nodded to me in a very familiar sort of manner, and I, not to appear rude, returned the salute. I stepped into the circle formed by my new friends, and had just commenced a _tena koutou_, when a breeze of wind came sighing along the hill-top; my friend nodded again, and his cloak blew to one side. What do I see?--or rather what do I not see? _The head has nobody under it!_ A number of heads had been stuck on slender rods, a cross stick being tied on to represent the shoulders, and the cloaks thrown over all in such a natural manner as to deceive any one at a short distance; but a green _pakeha_, who was not expecting any such matter, to a certainty.