24 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. CHij. U. 
drowned, including a Ngatiraukawa chief, named 
Koraria, who was a passenger. In consequence of some 
outrages committed on the body by the Ngatiapa na- 
tives, a party of the Ngatiraukawa had made an excur- 
sion across that river, had killed 100 pigs, and taken the 
wife of Hakeke, the Ngatiapa chief, as a slave. But 
they had moreover tapued the beach between Otaki and 
Rangitikei, thus preventing the passage of native or 
white man in either direction for a considerable space 
of time. It was this which had delayed the surveyors 
in their journey to IVanganui. Many other parties, 
bound thither or to Taranaki, had been grievously 
detained, to their serious inconvenience in many ways, 
by this stringent application of one of the old maori 
customs. Koraria had been a brother of PPatanui, 
and the observance of the tapu was therefore most 
rigidly enforced. 
On the 1st of July, the aggrieved travellers had 
made a formal application to the Police Magistrate at 
Wellington for his oflGicial interference ; thinking 
that, after the proclamation of the sovereignty of the 
Queen of England over New Zealand, the officers of 
the Queen would feel themselves bound to forbid the 
obstruction of the natural highway by any class of 
Her Majesty's subjects. 
But Mr. Murphy had met the question in a very 
easy and diplomatic style. His official answer " deeply 
'.' regretted the inconvenience to which the applicants 
" were subjected ; but he had no power to interfere 
" with what was an immemorial and recognized usage 
" among the natives." 
He hinted at the probability that " this and similar 
" customs might become the subject of acts by the 
Legislative Council of the Colony;" until then, he 
could " discover no grounds which would justify his 
