76 Transactions. —Miscellaneous, 
out canoes would be re-used, being renovated for the occasion ; formerly, 
the stem and stern pieces were detached and stored in sheds when a war- 
canoe was laid up in ordinary. 
Our canoe is now at last ready for launching, nearly as much time 
having been occupied in its building as would in England have turned out 
an ironclad; a feast marks the event; and though to the rangatiras of the 
kainga the day was one of rejoicing, fifty years back it would have been a 
poor hapu that could not afford a slave or two as a kinaki, or relish, for such 
an occasion, 
The canoe is run over the skids into the water and anchored; many are 
the comments on the way she sits; presently another one is launched, 
crews of young men are found for each; they paddle out some distance 
quietly, turn and race back, animated by the cries and oon of the 
assembled spectators. 
As with us a name is fixed upon as soon as the keel has been laid, so, I 
think, with the Maori; at a very early stage of the work the appellation 
is agreed upon. 
I do not know what led to the name of Toki-a-tapiri being given to 
the canoe to which these carvings belonged. I had hoped to have 
interested you with a narration of battles in which she had been engaged— 
though sea-fights were not common—or voyages she had made, but can 
only tell you that she was built by the Ngatikahungunu, of Hawke Bay, 
and given by a chief of that tribe to Hone Ropiha, better known as 
* John Hobbs," during Governor Browne's administration ; at that time 
the canoe was not an old one. Hobbs afterwards sold her to Aihepene 
Kaihau and other Ngatiteata chiefs at Waiuku for £700. At the com- 
mencement of the Waikato war she was seized at Waiuku by a party of 
volunteers and militia, composed of Messrs. J. C. Firth and others, and 
brought to Onehunga. She was subsequently conveyed overland to Auck- 
land, by order of the late Mr. John Williamson, when Superintendent, for 
the purpose of landing H.R.H. Prince Alfred, on the occasion of his first 
visit to Auckland, and was used by the natives when the Orakei land claim 
was investigated. 
I ean only add that her length was some 78 or 80 feet, and beam about 
63 feet. 
In Auckland's infant days, twenty or twenty-five of these war-canoes 
rom the Thames alone might be found hauled up in Mechanics’ Bay. 
Where, alas! are these now ? 
