210 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VIII. 
Commissioner sitting all day, with nothing before 
him. 
The next day a report was brought that TVarepori 
was dead. The Court adjourned, and proceeded bodily 
to Nga hauranga, where he was lying very ill ; a sur- 
geon, who accompanied the party, blistered and cupped 
the invalid till he rallied. 
Mr. Spain had given out that there would be no 
Court the next day. But, in the absence of the Com- 
pany's Counsel, Mr. Hanson demanded that the case of 
Mr. Tod, another rival claimant, might be brought on. 
The Court acceded ; and the case was partly heard, 
without the knowledge of any one but the Court, the 
claimant, and his Counsel. The next day. Dr. Evans, 
who considered the taking this case in the midst of 
the Company's case as most informal, cross-examined 
Mr. Tod. His claim broke down most lamentably. It 
was proved that he had given 12/. in January 1840 
for two small plots of ground to two natives, who had 
not signed the deed of the Company, but belonged to 
a tribe of which the chief had signed, and had both 
received a share of the goods. One of them had even 
at a later period expressed remorse for having taken 
Tod's money, and offered to return it. Dr. Evans 
elicited some curious contradictions from Mr. Tod; 
who stated that he had come from Australia to Port 
Nicholson solely for the benefit of his wife's health, 
and then Acknowledged that he had brought with him 
deeds for the purchase of land which had been pre- 
pared in anticipation at Sydney. 
And so the tedious affair dragged on. Now a 
holiday was taken to arrange the mass of evidence 
which had accumulated ; now a squabble among the 
lawyers found its way to the gossips of the beach ; 
now some unusual bit of contradictory evidence or 
