86 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. IV. 
rately any particular limit between the waste land 
under their jurisdiction and that at the disposal of an- 
other tril>e. The Kawia tribe, indeed, laid a claim to 
this whole neighbourhood, also without exact bounda- 
ries. The Ngatiawa chiefs knew that they had a 
right to occupy any portion of the land near Port 
Nicholson, because E Mare had told them to do so, 
and because they maintained by their own gallantry 
and strength their right to clear new patches where 
they pleased and to live unejected by their enemies. 
But they knew not of any further right to a district 
covered with primaeval forest, far too vast for the use 
of any descendants of their tribe whom they could look 
forward to, and likely, as far as they thought, to re- 
main both unvisited and useless for ages to come. No 
hunting ever led to disputes concerning limits in the 
forest, there being no beasts to hunt ; and the only dis- 
putes respecting land which had yet occurred between 
the natives themselves arose from the invasion of lands 
already cleared or likely to be wanted soon, or the 
taking of trees from a forest already marked out by 
another savage for a supply of canoes or house-timber. 
The first clearer became the acknowledged owner of 
a tract of hitherto intact land : the first axeman in a 
primaeval forest laid claim to the surrounding trees. 
But a claim to waste land beyond this natural one of 
seizure and occupancy was unknown among them at 
this time. It may be safely asserted that Tf^arepori 
considered himself to be making over to Colonel 
Wakefield this vague right deduced from proximity, 
together with that over the more actual possessions of 
the tribe near the sea, when he pointed with his finger 
along a line of hills forming the horizon of sight all 
round, on which he had probably never been, and con- 
.cerning which he could have no certain knowledge 
