In the centre of this spacious hall sat the king flanked by his four wives, the principal and most attractive of whom was Pare Hauraki, a fine buxom woman with oval features and artistically tattooed lips, habited in native costume, with a _korowhai_, or cape, bound with _kiwi_ feathers, thrown carelessly across her shoulders, over which her dark raven hair fell in thick, waving clusters. A number of chiefs of the various tribes assembled, squatted in a semicircle in front of the king, who rose from his seat--a rush mat--as I approached, and motioned for me to be seated in front of him. [Illustration: THE MAORI QUEEN PARE HAURAKI.] Tawhiao was habited in European attire, consisting of a pair of dark trousers, patent leather boots, and a grey frock-coat trimmed with red braiding about the sleeves, and which at the first glance reminded me of the _redingote gris_ affected by Napoleon I., and which obtained for him the sobriquet of the "little corporal." A black _huia_ feather tipped with white adorned his hair, and in his left ear he wore a large piece of roughly polished greenstone,[10] and in his right a shark's tooth. In stature he was a little below the medium height, sparely made, but keenly knit, with a round, well-formed head; while his features, which were elaborately tattooed in a complete network of blue curved lines, were well defined in the true Maori mould; and although he had a cast in the left eye, his countenance was pleasant, and as he spoke in a slow deliberate way, he invariably displayed in his conversation a good deal of cool, calculating shrewdness.