282 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. IX. 
called Puma, where Turoa had lately built a few huts 
and established himself. The river was very deep 
here, our anchor being down in seven fathoms not 
twenty yards from the shore. 
While I was waiting for the return of E Kuru and 
the gathering of the clans, Messrs. Williams and Had- 
field arrived by land. They held no communication 
with me ; but I heard from the natives, and also from 
Macgregor, the skipper, who called upon them in their 
tent, what had been their proceedings. Turoa and 
Te Ana-ua^ with several other of the chiefs who had 
held communication with them, told me that Mr. 
Williams had asked them to sign a paper, and pro- 
mised them a present of a blanket from the Queen. 
They had answered at first by requesting him to show 
the paper to the other White people then on the spot, 
in order that the transaction should be a public one ; 
which he had refused to do. He then asked them 
who the White people in the ship were ; and upon 
their informing him, he had urged them not to sell 
their land, saying that " all the goods in the vessel 
" were light, and might be lifted with the hand, but 
" that the one-one^ or ' land,' could not." They took 
care to assure me, however, that this hangareka or 
"joke" of Williams, as they termed it, had not shaken 
their resolution of abiding by their bargain. 
In the evening of the day after Mr. Williams's arrival, 
they came on board, and told me that Turoa and Te 
Ana-ua had received a blanket each on signing, and 
that Williams had departed to the southward. I could 
not ascertain whether any other chiefs had signed or 
not. I gathered from Macgregor that the paper was 
one ceding the sovereignty to the Queen, similar to that 
to which the adhesion of the Port Nicholson chiefs 
had been obtained ; and was rather surprised that Mr. 
