We were given comfortable quarters in the _wharepuni_ in which the chief's family dwelt, and which consisted of a spacious building constructed of _totara_, and spread about with clean white mats. We found Pehi's family to consist of Ngaruma, his wife, a pleasant woman with an almost Grecian cast of countenance, although a pure Maori; Te Wao, the chief's henchman, and his wife Ngawini; Turongoiti, with his wife Rauia; Rene, another native; and Hinekura, Rora, and Pureti, the chief's three daughters. We were invited by Pehi to remain as long as we liked, and the three days we sojourned with the old chief formed the most agreeable stage of our long journey. There was only one drawback, and that was that we had to sleep with thirteen others in the _wharepuni_, and as there were always two charcoal fires kept burning, the heat was at times--especially during the first part of the night--intolerable, the thermometer often reaching as high as 100° Fahr., while outside it indicated from four to six degrees below freezing-point. Unfortunately, it was always dark by six o'clock in the evening, when the _wharepuni_ was closely fastened up, and we would have to remain twelve hours in the stifling atmosphere until daylight. At the first glance it struck me that Pehi Hetau Turoa looked and walked a chief. Taken altogether, he was the finest specimen of his race I had ever seen. In age he appeared to be sixty, or thereabouts, but his stature was that of a well-conditioned athlete. He stood about six feet three, as upright as a dart, big-boned and muscular, and in his younger days he had the reputation of being one of the strongest men of his time. His well-formed features were cast in the true Maori mould, and he had a singularly massive and well-shaped head. Over his closely clipped beard hung a thick moustache, and above this, again, the blue tattooed lines wound round his nostrils, then over his face, and ended in small circles over his brows. During the war Pehi had been a noted Hauhau leader, but, unlike most of the warriors of his race I had met with, he, as if anxious to preserve his military renown, moved about with the air of a well-drilled soldier, while he possessed at all times and in all his actions that genial yet dignified tone of manner so characteristic of the Maori of the old school.