A rare illustration of this ambition to get heads occurred about ten years ago. In an unexpected attack upon a village one morning, a young man fell stunned by a blow. Presently he recovered consciousness, felt the weight of some one sitting on his shoulders and covering his neck, and the first sounds he heard was a dispute going on between two as to which of them had the right to cut off his head. He made a desperate effort, jostled the fellow off his back, sprang to his feet, and with his head all safe in his own possession, soon settled the matter by leaving them both far behind him. The headless bodies of the slain scattered about in the bush after a battle, if known, were buried, if unknown left to the dogs. In some cases the whole body was pulled along in savage triumph, and laid before the chiefs. One day when Mr. Turner was in a war-fort, endeavouring to mediate for peace, a dead body of one of the enemy was dragged in, preceded by a fellow making all sorts of fiendish gestures, with one of the legs in his teeth, cut off by the knee. If the war became general, and involved several districts, they formed themselves into a threefold division of highway, bush, and sea fighters. The fleet might consist of three hundred men in thirty or forty canoes. The bushrangers and the fleet were principally dreaded, as there was no calculating where they were or when they might pounce unawares upon some unguarded settlement. The fleet met apart from the land forces and concocted their own schemes. They would have it all arranged, for instance, and a dead secret, to be off after dark to attack a particular village belonging to the enemy. At midnight they land at an uninhabited place some miles from the settlement they intend to attack. They take a circuitous course in the bush, surround the village from behind, having previously arranged to let the canoes slip on quietly and take up their position in the water in front of the village. By break of day they rush into the houses of the unsuspecting people before they have well waked up, chop off as many heads as they can, rush with them to their canoes, and decamp before the young men of the place have had time to muster or arm. Often they are scared by the people who during the war keep a watch night and day at all the principal openings in the reef; but now and then the plot succeeds and there is fearful slaughter. In one of these early morning attacks from the fleet the heads of thirteen were carried off. One of them was that of a poor old man who was on his knees at his morning devotions, when off went his head at a blow. In another house that same morning there was a noble instance of maternal heroism in a woman who allowed herself to be hacked from head to foot bending over her son to save his life. It is considered cowardly to kill a woman, or they would have dispatched her at once. It was the head of her little boy they wanted, but they did not get it.