420 NEW ZEALAND. [chap, xviii. 



occurred to him that a barrel of his gunpowder was in a bad 

 state, and that it would not keep much longer. This was brought 

 forward as an unanswerable argument for the necessity of imme- 

 diately declaring war : the idea of allowing so much good gun- 

 powder to spoil was not to be thought of; and this settled the 

 point. I was told by the missionaries that in the life of Shongi, 

 the chief who visited England, the love of war was the one and 

 lasting spring of every action. The tribe in which he was a prin- 

 cipal chief, had at one time been much oppressed by another tribe, 

 from the Thames River. A solemn oath was taken by the men, 

 that when their boys should grow up, and they should be power- 

 ful enough, they would never forget or forgive these injuries. 

 To fulfil this oath appears to have been Shongi's chief motive for 

 going to England ; and when there it was his sole object. Pre- 

 sents were valued only as they could be converted into arms ; of 

 the arts, those alone interested him which were connected with 

 the manufacture of arms. When at Sydney, Shongi, by a strange 

 coincidence, met the hostile chief of the Thames River at the 

 house of Mr. Marsden : their conduct was civil to each other ; 

 but Shongi told him that when again in New Zealand he would 

 never cease to carry war into his country. The challenge was 

 accepted ; and Shongi on his return fulfilled the threat to the 

 utmost letter. The tribe on the Thames River was utterly over- 

 thrown, and the chief to whom the challenge had been given was 

 himself killed. Shongi, although harbouring such deep feelings 

 of hatred and revenge, is described as having been a goodnatured 

 person. 



In the evening I went with Captain Fitz Roy and Mr. Baker, 

 one of the missionaries, to pay a visit to Kororadika : we wan- 

 dered about the village, and saw and conversed with many of the 

 people, both men, women, and children. Looking at the New 

 Zealander, one naturally compares him with the Tahitian ; both 

 belonging to the same family of mankind. The comparison, 

 however, tells heavily against the New Zealander. He may, 

 perhaps, be superior in energy, but in every other respect his 

 character is of a much lower order. One glance at their respec- 

 tive expressions, brings conviction to the mind that one is a 

 savage, the other a civilized man. It would be vain to seek in 

 the whole of New Zealand a person with the face and mien of 



