One of the finest examples of native architecture was made tapu by this same chief, who seems to have had a singular pleasure in exercising his powers. It was a pah called Waitahanui, and was originally the stronghold of Te Heu-heu. It is on the borders of the lake, and the side which fronts the water is a full half-mile in length. It is made, as usual, of upright posts and stakes, and most of the larger posts are carved into the human form, with visages hideously distorted, and tongues protruded seaward, as if in defiance of expected enemies. Within this curious pah were the cannibal cook-houses which have already been figured, together with several of the beautifully carved patukas or receptacles for the sacred food of the chief. Specimens of these may be seen figured on page 831. In this pah Mr. Angas found the most elaborate specimen of the patuka that he ever saw. It was fortunate that he arrived when he did, as a very few years more would evidently complete the destruction of the place. Many of the most beautiful implements of native art were already so decayed that they were but a shapeless heap of ruins, and the others, were rapidly following in the same path. Of these specimens of Maori carving and architecture nothing is now left but the sketches from which have been made the illustrations that appear in this work. Here I may be allowed to controvert a popular and plausible fallacy, which has often been brought before the public. Travellers are blamed for bringing to England specimens of architecture and other arts from distant countries. It is said, and truly too, that such articles are out of place in England. So they are: but it must be remembered that if they had not been in England they would not have been in existence. The marvellous sarcophagus, for example, brought to London by Belzoni, and now in the Soane Museum, would have been broken to pieces and hopelessly destroyed if it had been allowed to remain in the spot where it was found. Again, had not the Assyrian sculptures found a home in the British Museum, they would have been knocked to pieces by the ignorant tribes who now roam over the ruins of Nineveh the Great. Even had the vast statues defied entire destruction, the inscriptions would long ago have been defaced, and we should have irreparably lost some of the most valuable additions to our scanty knowledge of chronology. So again with the Elgin Marbles. Undoubtedly they were more in their place in Greece than they are in England; but, if they had not been brought to England, the iconoclastic hand of the Mussulman would have utterly destroyed them, and the loss to art would have been indeed terrible.