years ago by Sir George Grey , in acknowledgment of his services 
as guide and travelling companion on a journey to Lake Taupo. 
Iwikau Te Heuheu has five wives, and at the time of our 
visit he expressed himself inclined to take two more. He is the 
worthy sire of a numerous progeny, his pride and his joy; but, 
although not quite averse to Christianity , he has always refused 
to be baptized, fearing to lose by such a step his influence and 
authority as chief, which is based upon various pagan notions, 
especially upon his supposed power over the evil spirits of the 
earth, water and air. He is of middle size, delicately rather than 
robustly built, wearing his black hair in long locks. His beard- 
less face, but imperfectly tattooed upon the right cheek, with the 
small sparkling eyes characterized him to me as a man of cunning, 
calculating shrewdness. He has nothing of the imposing, majestic 
hero-stature of his deceased brother Tukino Te Heuheu, who is 
said to have been a giant nearly seven feet high with silvery hair, 
the great man, to whom the present Te Heuheus owe their fame 
and authority. Tukino Te Heuheu had met his death by an awful 
catastrophe in May 1846, in the neighbouring village Te Rapa. 
He was burned alive with his six wives and fifty-four persons by 
a land-slip connected with a flood, which occurred during night 
time. Iwikau had the corpse of his brother exhumed from the 
entombed village , and accorded him a solemn interment. Accord- 
ing to Maori custom in the case of great chiefs, the remains 
were disinterred after some years , laid out upon a kind of bed-of- 
state, and preserved in a magnificently carved coffin. The sacred 
remains were intended to be then conveyed to the summit of the 
Tongariro; for the dee}) crater of the volcano was intended to 
be the final grave of the hero, with the heaven-ascending pyra- 
mid of scoriae and ashes for his monument. Rut the grand idea 
was but half carried out. As the bearers were approching the top 
of the ever steaming cone , a subterraneous roaring noise became 
audible , and awe-struck they deposited their heavy load upon 
a projecting rock. There the remains still lie. The mountain, 
however, is most strictly tapu, and nobody is allowed to ascend it. 
