Colenso. — History of a Block of Greenstone. 601 



Mr. William Broughton, from Eenata's village at Omaahu, 

 was present at the sale, and purchased one of the slabs. At 

 this time the Maori king, Tawhiao, had recently arrived at 

 Omaahu from Wellington, via Waipawa ; and I, who had long 

 known Mr. Broughton, gave him one of the slabs I had just 

 purchased as a present to the Maori king, Mr. Broughton 

 taking it away with him in his dog-cart. I should mention 

 that I had been invited by Benata to attend the public 

 meeting and banquet given by him at Omaahu on the follow- 

 ing day. 



The next day I went to Omaahu. A pretty full descrip- 

 tion of what took place there on that occasion was given in 

 the Napier papers, from which I extract one sentence 

 respecting the said slab of greenstone : " A big bell rang. 

 Tawhiao came out of a large whare (Maori house), and was 

 met by Benata, who, with a finished courtesy which would 

 have done no discredit to a European host, took him by the 

 hand and led him to the seat of honour in the tent, before 

 which stood a large slab of greenstone, a present from Mr. 

 Colenso."— (Hawkes Bay Herald, 16th March, 1883.) 



Dinner over (which was a large one), "King" Tawhiao 

 walked leisurely back to his tent and clan, carrying carefully 

 his large greenstone prize closely laid across his breast. Kings, 

 emperors, and mighty chiefs of other countries and peoples, 

 both Christian and heathen, have often from time immemorial 

 dined off gold plate, but I fancy no Maori chief before 

 Tawhiao ever dined off a flat greenstone dish ! — no doubt in 

 his opinion, and in those of his ancestors, of. far greater value 

 than gold itself. 



Subsequently I got three of them roughly polished on one 

 side by our monumental stone- and marble-mason, Water- 

 worth, who did not, however, readily undertake the work, 

 as such a stone was well known to be very hard, and had not 

 hitherto been worked by him.* Two of those slabs I show 

 here to you this night ; one of them, also, being an outer 

 slab of the original block, is peculiarly worn and irregularly 

 rounded on the outside, somewhat resembling some of those 

 big abnormal lumps and nodules of limestone and of flint 

 (pot-stones) found in chalk at Home, and like them in having 

 a thick white incrustation closely investing. 



And so it was that on my again visiting Omaahu in 

 September, at the funeral of Noa Huke (as mentioned by me 

 in my "Introduction"), being also the first time since that 

 otherpublic visit of mine in 1883, the place, the greenstones, 

 the circumstances past and present, the men (including the 



* I may mention his charge for so doing was £1 15s. for the first and 

 £1 10s. each for the remaining two. 



