44 SHAPE OF A KR1SS. 



very expensive. The blade was rough and rusty- 

 looking, the fibre of the iron plainly appearing, as 

 it is never allowed to be polished, the handle small, 

 ornamented with gold and a few small diamonds. 

 There is no guard, the expansion of the base of the 

 blade serving that purpose. Different krisses are 

 figured in Sir Stamford Raffles's work, and in Craw- 

 ford's Indian Archipelago. They are poor affairs 

 considered as weapons, and could only be of use 

 against a man off his guard. 



About nine o'clock, after seeing if we were satis- 

 fied with our apartments, and inquiring if he could 

 do anything more for us, and after having arranged 

 our plans for the morrow, the Rongo took his de- 

 parture, with an escort of five or six men, to his 

 own house, by the side of the great square. We 

 found a guard posted in our verandah, of three or 

 four men, with tall spears, and on retiring to my 

 bedroom, which was one of the detached ones, I 

 found two spearmen there, preparing to take up 

 their quarters in the small verandah before the 

 door. I believe, however, all this was a mere guard 

 of honour, and not at all necessary as a measure of 

 precaution. * 



* Many of the details in the foregoing pages, as in those that 

 follow, are no doubt trivial enough, and to any one familiar with 

 the country, would seem not worth recording. To me, however, 

 the whole country, and the manners and customs of the people 

 were so new and interesting, that I hardly knew how to select 

 from the mass of daily incidents those which were most descrip- 



