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 for 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 the casual observation of strangers by being covered over with the leaves of the plants: 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 stored and out of sight before daylight, lest any one should be able to form any idea of the extent of the crop. When the digging of one field was completed another would be done in the same manner, and so on till the whole crop was housed in this stealthy manner. I have been at several of these midnight labours, and have admired the immense amount of work one family would do in a single night; working as it were for life and death. In consequence of this mode of proceeding, even the families inhabiting the same village did not know what sort of a crop their neighbours had, and if a question was asked (to do which was thought impertinent and very improper), the invariable answer was "Nothing at all; barely got back the seed: hardly that; we shall be starved; we shall have to eat fern root this year," &c. The last time I observed this custom was about twenty-seven years ago, and even then it was nearly discontinued and no longer general.