CuAP. VII. THEIR FIRST DOUBTS AND FEARS. 203 
" They will be too strong for us ; my heart is dark. 
" Remain here with your people ; I will go with mine 
" to Taranaki." 
After some ineffectual attempts at dissuading him, 
Colonel Wakefield thought he had better not interfere 
any more with this sudden panic ; and told him that 
if he doubted the power and wish of the White people 
to make the life of the natives happy, he had better go, 
although he should much regret the separation. 
On Tf^arepori's return to the pa, however, he found 
the council of chiefs, from which he had come with 
this message, totally dispersed. The emigrants had 
eagerly urged the natives to assist them in building 
temporary shelter. Some were gazing with delight 
on the liberal offers of blankets, guns, and tobacco 
made by the new-comers for materials and labour ; 
while others had already started off" to the woods to 
cut rafters and ridge-poles. Others were assisting to 
land goods, and could not be persuaded to remain idle 
enough to talk about going while good pay attended 
smart work. They unanimously refused to start until 
they should have reaped the abundant harvest to be ob- 
tained by working for the pakeha ho, or " new White 
" men ;" and when they found that this harvest was con- 
tinual, and that they were not only well paid for their 
work, but treated with uniform kindness and gratitude 
for their prompt services ; — when they found, too, that 
the visitors were not all stalwart, well-armed men, but 
many of them good-natured women and smiling chil- 
dren, while the very men proved kinder than they had 
expected ; — the canoes were hauled up, and the whole 
Taranaki scheme was treated as a vagary of which 
they were much ashamed. PVarepori himself often 
laughed at this sulky fit with Colonel Wakefield and 
myself; and had domesticated himself as the par- 
ticular friend of a family on the banks of the Hutt, 
