His claim will be inquired into, and, if it seems to be tolerably consistent with likelihood, the man will be paid an additional sum for his consent to the sale. The matter, however, is not at an end, for such is the jealousy with which the natives regard land, that, as long as a foreigner holds an inch of ground, so long will there be a native who prefers a claim to it. Strange as it may seem, the white man would incur less odium by taking the land by force, and seizing it by right of conquest, than by trying to act according to justice and equity. War is a fertile source of misunderstanding about land. A tribe may be driven out of a district, and their land given to others, who hold it as long as they can keep it, the original possessors being sure to reconquer it if possible. It has sometimes happened that a chief to whom such lands have been presented has transferred them to another chief, and he, in his turn, has sold them to European settlers, the bargain being ratified by his own followers, who are considered as having a share in such property. The colonists take the land, clear it, cultivate it, and when the crops are fairly in the ground, the dispossessed tribe will come forward and prefer their claim to it. Those to whom it was sold have already received their price, and do not trouble themselves to oppose the claim; and the consequence is, that the colonists are obliged either to make a second payment or to run the risk of war. As to the claims themselves, they are of the most curious and unexpected character, such as no European would be likely to anticipate. According to Dieffenbach, “There exists a very distinct notion of the rights of landed property among the natives, and every inch of land in New Zealand has its proprietor. Sometimes land is given to a strange tribe, either as pay, or from other considerations, but the proprietor reserves certain rights, some of which are what we should term manorial. “It was formerly very common that the fat of the native rats (Kiore) killed on such lands should be given to the principal proprietor, and in many cases a title to land seems to have been derived from the fact of having killed rats on it. Thus a chief will say, ‘This or that piece of land is mine; I have killed rats on it.’ Generally, however, land descends, as with us, by inheritance.” Such being the complicated tenure on which land is held--a tenure which is often puzzling to the natives themselves--it is no matter of wonder that English settlers should have found themselves in difficulties. It is said that the colonists tried to make themselves masters of the land by unfair means, _i. e._ either by forcibly taking possession of it, or by inveigling the ignorant natives into signing documents which they did not understand, and thus selling their paternal estates for rum, tobacco, and a few blankets.