240 TUTIRA 



was a certain degree of security in this, for the western portion of the 

 run was by itself not worth the rent paid for it. Its occupant would 

 have held it under an even more precarious title than ourselves. Any- 

 way, the new tenure was not such as encouraged improvements except 

 those that would give an immediate return. 



Again, as before, a considerable minority of native owners did not 

 choose to sign. Looking back, I am surprised that any native owner 

 signed at all ; all of them knew that we would have consented to almost 

 any terms sooner than be dispossessed. For the right to remain in 

 possession they might have blackmailed us to almost any extent. They 

 did not do so ; advances of rent were asked for, perhaps, rather 

 more often ; certainly they were not requested in the abject, hang- 

 dog, heart-broken strain I am accustomed to toady my banker; 

 perhaps, approaching his point, the aged petitioner would allow himself 

 to speculate as to when the station would be asking for yet another 

 lease : "I tink some a day you rike te new rease, Te Mite. I sign all 

 righte." Well, well, if one impecunious gentleman won't help another 

 impecunious gentleman, what is the world coming to ? Then, too, having 

 passed all its own life in debt, the station had a fellow-feeling for its 

 landlords, the more so as normal payments of rent to them were snapped 

 up by creditors frittered away in paying debts ; half the storekeepers 

 in the district knew when the Tutira rents were due where the carcase 

 was there were the eagles gathered together. 



Advances of rent were made, however, only to the older men, and 

 then only for serious objects. 



For several years there was a rage for tombstones : one pious native 

 had erected a monument to his progenitor; the custom caught on, 

 others followed suit, until I was hail-fellow-well-met with every under- 

 taker in town, and an adept in appraising the degrees of grief repre- 

 sented by broken columns, mourning doves, crosses, and obelisks. Then 

 after a few seasons tombstones were " off," the station was required to 

 advance for houses built on the European model houses very often not 

 used, the older folk especially, when pride of possession had palled, 

 reverting to the warm smokiness of the raupo whare. A third fashion 

 was in wedding raiment ; the daughters of the tribe had to be attired 

 for the altar. In those days Stuart and I dreaded to see a model clad in 

 bridal attire in a Napier draper's window, lest it should attract the eyes 

 of one of our people. We hated the advent of a wandering parson, God 



