"It is an old war-path," replied the guide. "When the Ngapuhi came down from Maketu on their raids, they mostly used this route. I am not old enough to have seen anything of Heke's war in '45. It was the first real protest against the pakeha. The natives were beginning to be afraid, very reasonably, that the white man would take the whole country. If the tribes had been united, they could have defied any force then brought against them, and driven your people into the sea." "And why did they not make common cause?" "The old story. Blood-feuds had embittered one tribe against another. Chiefs of ability and forecast, like Waka Nene and Patuone, his brother, saw that they must be beaten in the long run. They allied themselves with the British. They had embraced Christianity, and remained faithful to the end, fighting against the men of their own blood without the least regard to their common origin." "I need not ask you," said Massinger, "on which side your sympathies are enlisted." "No! it goes without saying," answered the guide. "I have had a fair education; I have been about the world, and I cannot help recognizing the resistless power of England, against which it would be madness to contend. I should never think of joining the natives in case of war. A war which is coming, from all I hear. At the same time, I cannot help feeling for them. Amid these woods, lakes, and through these mountains and valleys, their ancestors roamed for centuries. No people in the world are more deeply attached to their native land. Think how hard for them to be dispossessed." "And have you an alternative to offer?" "None whatever, if war breaks out. It is idle to expect that New Zealand, able to support millions of civilized people, should be abandoned to less than a hundred thousand savages; for such, with exceptions, I am afraid I must call them. As for justice and mercy in dealing with conquered races, these are mere words. _Force_ is the only law, as it has ever been. What mercy did the Maoris show to their conquered enemies? They slew, enslaved, tortured--and worse! They exterminated weak tribes, and took their lands. They have little ground for complaint if a nation stronger in war applies the same measure to them." "I congratulate you," said Massinger, "upon the logical view which you take of the question. But is there no way of reconciling the interests of the colonists and the children of the soil?"