This same personal _tapu_ would even hold its own in some cases against the _muru_; though not in a sufficiently general manner to seriously affect the operation of that well-enforced law. Its inconveniences were, on the other hand, many, and the expedients resorted to to avoid them were sometimes comical enough. I was once going on an excursion with a number of natives; we had two canoes, and one of them started a little before the other. I was with the canoe which had been left behind, and just as we were setting off it was discovered that amongst twenty stout fellows my companions there was no one who had a back!--as they expressed it: consequently there was no one to carry our provisions into the canoe. All the lads, women, and slaves had gone off in the other canoe,--all those who had backs,--and so there we were left, a very disconsolate lot of _rangatira_, who could not carry their own provisions into the canoe, and who at the same time could not go without them. The provisions consisted of several heavy baskets of potatoes, some dried sharks, and a large pig baked whole. What was to be done? We were all brought to a full stop, though in a great hurry to go on. We were beginning to think we must give up the expedition altogether, and were very much disappointed accordingly, when a clever fellow--who, had he been bred a lawyer, would have made nothing of driving a mail coach through an act of parliament--set us all to rights in a moment. "I'll tell you what we must do," said he, "we will not carry (_pikau_) the provisions, we will _hiki_ them." (_Hiki_ is the word in Maori which describes the act of carrying an infant in the arms.) This was a great discovery! A huge handsome fellow seized on the baked pig and dandled it, or _hiki'd_ it, in his arms like an infant; another laid hold of a shark, others took baskets of potatoes, and carrying them in this way deposited them in the canoe. And so, having thus evaded the law, we started on our expedition. I remember another amusing instance in which the inconvenience arising from the _tapu_ was evaded. I must, however, notice that these instances were only evasions of the ordinary kind of _tapu_,--what I have called the personal _tapu_; not the more dangerous and dreadful kind connected with the mystic doings of the _tohunga_, or that other form of _tapu_ connected with the handling of the dead. Indeed, my companions in the instance I have mentioned, though all _rangatira_, were young men on whom the personal _tapu_ had not arrived at the fullest perfection: it seemed, indeed, sometimes to sit very lightly on them, and I doubt very much if the play upon the words _hiki_ and _pikau_ would have reconciled any of the elders of the tribe to carrying a roasted pig in their arms; or, if they did do so, I feel quite certain that no amount of argument would have persuaded the younger men to eat it: as for slaves or women, to _look_ at it would almost be dangerous to them.