180 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VI. 
were then appended to it, including the women and 
the children, whom the chiefs compelled to come and 
touch the pen, as they would be the future chiefs. 
Two or three young men, who had acquired the 
knowledge of writing, signed their names in full. The 
others made a cross opposite to their names, as had 
been done on former occasions. 
A party of fifty or sixty natives, who had arrived 
from a settlement further south, now expressed a 
desire to sell another tract of land adjoining that sold 
by the Ngamotu chiefs ; and a large number of them 
signed a second deed after a short negotiation. The 
goods were then landed in whale-boats through the 
surf. 
The Ngamotu natives got quietly through the dis- 
tribution of their share ; but those from the south- 
ward, who were extremely wild and uncouth in their 
manners and appearance, although professing to be 
strict mihanere, or " missionaries," could not effect it 
without a scramble. A small stream divided the two 
parties. As soon as the southern party began to show 
a disposition to scramble, one of the chiefs of the Nga- 
motu tribe raised an exciting shout, and cheered his 
followers on to take advantage of this confusion, in 
order to partake of the spoil of their neighbours, after 
they had stowed their own away. 
They came rushing on along the hundred yards of 
beach which separated the two parties, flourishing their 
arms. The readiness with which the others, close to 
whom I was sitting on a sand-hill, dropped their own 
disagreements and threw themselves into a defensive 
attitude, was well worthy of admiration. Along their 
own side of the little rill, the most stalwart warriors 
knelt, protruding forward their sharp wooden spears, 
or grasping the tomahawk firmly, ready to spring upon 
