Chap. VIIL PARROTS— TABLE-LANDS. J ^ 259 
them my candid opinion of their truth as well as their 
honesty, but quietly prepared to cross the river in a 
canoe and journey on. All my boys, however, except 
three, refused to proceed any further ; alleging, as their 
reason, that the woman's husband lived at TVaimate, 
and that there the people were much wilder, and the 
affair might end there in murder as well as robbery. I 
was nmch annoyed at not being able to prove to them 
how little I expected such a catastrophe ; but they were 
obstinate in their fears, and the three who agreed to go 
on were not sufficient to carry my things ; so I reluc- 
tantly turned back, and slept at Tihoe that night. 
On the next day I ascended the TVenuakura river 
about ten miles in a canoe. Flocks of wild ducks 
afforded good sport, and the river wound between 
wooded banks of moderate height and occasional Ioav 
lands brought into neat cultivation. Potatoes, maize, 
kumeras, water-melons, and gourds and pumpkins of 
various kinds, were in profusion. I slept under a shed, 
close to the river, in a pretty grove of trees. We had 
feasted on parrots, tuisy pigeons, and ducks. The kaka^ 
or large russet parrot, is of excellent flavour, and very 
abundant in many places. The natives catch many of 
them young, and keej) them as mokai, or pets, with a 
bone ring round their leg, fastened by a string to an 
elastic stick, on which they soon learn to swing. The 
numbers of them on the banks of this river have pro- 
bably originated its name. The other tribes often 
buy parrots' plumage here, to bind round their taiahch 
or long wooden clubs. 
In the morning we ascended the river-bank on the 
south side, through a low coppice, and emerged upon a 
vast table plain. It extends from the edge of the sand- 
hills on the top of the cliff some ten or twelve miles in- 
land, when the land begins to undulate and to be covered 
s2 
