20i COMMENCEMENT OF THE 
determination to regard it for the future. The 
buildings here are, at present, all made of rushes^ 
ana consist of two small dwelling-houses for the 
European families ; a number of cottages, for the 
natives at work in the Station ; a building, which 
is both Chapel and School-house, without either 
door or window, twenty-four feet by eighteen ; 
and a store, twenty feet by sixteen. These are 
the buildings at present in existence: the boys 
have, however, felled a large quantity of timber, 
dug their pits, and commenced sawdng materials 
for more permanent buildings. 
PuRiRi, is another settlement of recent forma- 
tion, and one to which much importance is 
attached, as opening the way more directly to 
the very populous districts, south of the Bay of 
Islands. Till after the late war-expedition of the 
great body of the Bay-of-Islanders to Tauranga, 
such was the unsettled state of the native mind, 
and the fearfulness in wdiich they were living, 
that, with respect to the southward, every door of 
access seemed closed against us. And when those, 
who were considered as our friends, resolved upon 
an attack, and left the Bay for that purpose, with 
a determination not to return until they had had 
full revenge, all hope seemed to be utterly de- 
stroyed. But the ways of the Lord are not our 
ways ; nor His thoughts our thoughts. He effects 
his own purposes, by means apparently the most 
unlikely to promote success. 
