HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 



993 



Bay of Islands chief, was the most notable of these. Ruatara was another. While quite 

 a lad he joined one of the whalers that touched at the coast in 1805, and after 

 spending four years at sea he reached London in 1809. He came back with the 

 Reverend Samuel Marsden, at that time the senior chaplain of the settlement at Port 

 Jackson, and after spending a year there returned to New Zealand by way of Norfolk 

 Island, where he was detained for some time. He visited Sydney again in 1814, and 

 when Mr. Marsden with his missionaries went to New Zealand he accompanied the expe- 

 dition. But perhaps the most famous of all, or only second to the ill-fated Te Pahi, 

 was Hongi Hika, of the Ngapuhi nation. He was known among his own people as a 

 brave warrior and a powerful chief. In 1814 he accompanied Ruatara to Sydney, and 

 stayed for some time at the house of Mr. Marsden, observing the manners and 

 customs of Europeans, and, we are told, embracing the Christian teaching. However, the 

 models of Christian life and conversation brought under his notice in the convict times 

 of the mother-colony do not appear to have influenced his character very beneficially, for 

 we find him, soon after his return to New Zealand, as the pioneer of Christianity, engaging 

 in destructive and successful wars with the tribes in the neighbourhood of Roturua, Hoki- 

 anga, Whangaroa, and 

 the Bay of Plenty. 

 Some years later, as 



we shall presently see, 



- ; - x'' t. 



Hongi Hika went to 



England, with another 

 chief, and was pre- 

 sented to George IV. 

 These visits brought 

 Australia and New 

 Zealand nearer to- 

 gether, and it only re- 

 mained for missionary 

 enterprise to establish 

 a permanent connec- 

 tion. From the time 

 of the senior chaplain's 

 first acquaintance with 



these Maori visitors he seems to have entertained the project of instituting a mission to 

 New Zealand, and from the date of the visit of Te Pahi and four of his sons in 

 1806, Mr. Marsden, to his death in 1838, never ceased his efforts to Christianize 

 the Nf\v Zealanders. Between the missionary and the Maori chief a very warm friend- 

 ship existed, and it was Te Pahi's innate nobility of soul, singular intelligence, and 

 natural suavity of manner, that kindled in Mr. Marsden the desire to bring under the 

 influence of the Gospel a race which he felt could not be otherwise than superior 

 when it produced so fine a type. Te Pahi was the lion of his clay in Sydney. He 

 was feted at Government House, shewn the sights of the city, and returned to his 

 - impressed with the wondrous power of the white man, and anxious for the 





Till-: FIRST MISSION HOUSE, WAIMATE. 



