Chap. IV. TOO LATE FOR SELECTION OF LANDS. 81 
high water, with boats ahead. She was then drawing 
nine feet seven inches. Opposite my house she was 
rather carelessly run aground on the mud-bank ; but 
this did her no harm. 
We found that the selection was over, our messenger 
having come too late. The passengers of the Gem sent 
a remonstrance to Colonel Wakefield, begging that 
the choice might begin again, as the two or three se- 
lectors who had arrived by land in time had secured 
the best choices for their high numbers as well as their 
low ones, the order of choice of absent persons being 
considered reserved till a future selection, when more 
sections should be laid open. Colonel Wakefield an- 
swered in the negative, as his message to have the 
selection postponed had been perfectly conditional on 
the assent of all parties concerned, including those who 
had taken advantage of our absence. He remarked 
that we had come by water of our own free will, and 
that the accidental delay was the fault of ourselves, if 
of anybody. Although I was a party interested, having 
long before bought three land-orders from a sectionist 
who had not had patience to wait till the survey was 
completed, I was compelled to acknowledge that the 
decision was just. 
I remained rather more than a month at Tf^anganui, 
leading my old half-feudal, half-shopkeeping life ; with 
the house full of goods and of guests, of natives and 
White people, of various classes. Pig-hunts and walks 
with the Surveyors into new districts again spent the 
time agreeably, and I became more and more attached 
to this part of the country. The missionary natives^ 
however, were daily becoming more and more trouble- 
some in their obstruction to the peaceable location of any 
of the sections selected ; new repudiators, who had been 
parties to the sale, daily sprang up, and, after vain re- 
VOL. II. G 
