XVIII AEW ZEALAND 447 



preparation for war ; — their muskets clean and bright, and their 

 ammunition ready. He reasoned long on the inutility of the 

 war, and the little provocation which had been given for it. 

 The chief was much shaken in his resolution, and seemed in 

 doubt : but at length it 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 argu- 

 ment for the necessity of immediately declaring war: the idea 

 of allowing so much good gunpowder 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 principal 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 powerful 

 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. 

 Presents were valued only as they could be converted into 

 arms ; of the arts, those alone interested him which were con- 

 nected 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 overthrown, 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 good-natured person. 



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

 Baker, one of the missionaries, to pay a visit to Kororadika : 

 we wandered 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 



