462 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XVII. 
nets, adorned with gaudy ribbons and albatross fea- 
thers ; and those that had neither gown nor other Eu- 
ropean luxury to show, of which there were but few, 
donned their cleanest blankets or mats. The mission- 
aries and I also went over. A tangi by all hands 
lasted nearly an hour, during which I walked about 
the encampment, and could not help admiring the 
well-formed limbs and clean skins of these natives, 
compared to most of those whom I had before seen. 
Quite free from the cutaneous disease which prevails 
to so great an extent among the inhabitants of Cook's 
Strait, they were moreover the strongest and best- 
built natives that I had yet met with. I was told 
that this was owing to their constant bathing in the 
puhia, or " hot springs," near their settlements ; from 
which they have earned the sobriquet of the f^f^ai- 
korapupu, or " boiling water" tribes. 
To the tangi succeeded speeches, many of them ener- 
getic and well-worded, by both parties, in purport as 
follows. 
An orator spoke from either party alternately, and 
every speech began with nearly these words — *' Come 
" hither, come hither, my relations ; come hither, my 
" fathers, my brothers, my sisters, and my children; wel- 
" come!" The speakers on the Tempo side seemed to wish 
to sound the feeling of the others towards them ; and 
urged their friends to send them canoes to descend the 
river, and also to join them in obtaining a revenge 
which both must desire over their mutual enemies at 
J^yaitotara. The answers of the Pafutokoto were to urge 
them to return quietly, for various reasons : some said 
that they had no canoes to spare ; that the Ngafipehi 
had lost all their young men, and that old men and 
women and children would be all slaughtered at Tf^ai- 
totara ; others, again, said that they had turned miha- 
