WAR CEREMONIES. 
195 
which is that of the bird most highly prized in New Zea- 
land, on account of its feathers. They continued to live 
together until the officer's company was ordered down to 
Wanganui, full four hundred miles further to the south. 
Though her partner left her she was determined not to be 
abandoned, but actually undertook the journey on horseback, 
an extraordinary attempt then, as it had never before been 
done there being no roads, it was the more wonderful in a 
country like New Zealand, filled with dense forests and deep 
morasses, rugged mountains and rapid rivers ; still love car- 
ried her through, and enabled her to overcome all these 
natural difficulties. She went by Maunga Kahia to the 
Wairoa, thence to Kaipara, Waitemata, Waikato, and so into 
the interior to Taupo, thence to Ahuriri, and crossed over 
to Otaki. Beiug the eldest daughter of so great a chief as 
Pomare she was there received with the greatest respect, and 
a large cortege of young chiefs attended her to Wanganui, 
which she reached at the head of a cavalcade of fully sixty ; 
her entrance was that of a princess, and caused quite a 
sensation ; she found her partner, again lived with him, 
and some time afterwards gave birth to a daughter, a very 
fine fair child ; it was brought to Putiki for baptism, and 
named Nota Elwes, the former being the Maori pronun- 
ciation for North Star, a ship of war in which her father, 
Pomare, had been confined, having accepted a summons to 
meet the Governor he was detained as a prisoner although 
a flag of truce was then flying. The name was given to 
commemorate the treacherous act. She continued to reside 
at Wanganui for a period of about two years, when the officer 
received the news of the death of some relative by which 
he came into possession of a large property, he obtained 
permission to return home, and left poor Nga Huia and 
his child, with the promise of sending for them ; no letter 
ever arrived, she waited, and waited but in vain, then again 
returned, to her father and gradually pined away. It is said 
that when Nga Huia returned home she showed her father 
a heitiki, which she had given her husband, but when he 
abandoned her, as it was a greatly prized jewel of her family, 
o 2 
