Chap. IV. VISIT TO HEUHEU. L Mi 
the same level as the top of the fall ; and at Terapa 
is a small stream and another settlement, at which old 
Heuheu resides in time of peace. 
The terraced flat between a steaming gorge at the 
western extremity oi Kakaramea and the lake is covered 
with plantations and isolated houses. Among these 
latter, that of Heuheu is prominent. It is about 40 feet 
long, 15 broad, and of a proportionate height : a narrow 
verandah ornaments the northern front, before which 
a square is reserved from the kumera grounds which 
surround it on three sides. On the day that we went, 
by previous appointment, to pay our first visit to the 
old man, about 200 people had assembled in the little 
square ; and Heuheu, who sat at one end of the veran- 
dah, attended by his principal wife, motioned us to a 
seat while he went through the necessary tangi with 
the TJ^anganui natives. A splendid feast followed: 
200 kits of boiled potatoes and kumeras, five pigs 
skewered like birds and baked whole, eight or ten pots 
full of white-bait, and three calabashes of pigeons and 
tuis stewed in their own fat (a sort of galantine de 
gibier\ were brought in by a long train of slaves, and 
piled up in the centre of the square. After this had 
been distributed among the visitors, the chief talked tome 
about TVanganuiy the Governor, and Poniki, and asked 
me to come and see him again before I left the neigh- 
bourhood. In the meanwhile, he gave me five pigs for 
food while I remained at Tokanu, and said he was 
ashamed of having no food to offer me such as White 
men liked. He expressed great gratitude for my re- 
ception of him and his war-party at TVanganui the 
autumn before; and begged me to look about the country 
and call it my own, and the people my people. But he 
accompanied this with a warning not to try and buy 
the land from him, for he had determined never to sell 
either that or his chieftainship. 
