S34 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XIII. 
He then began to talk about the land with much 
violence ; which surprised me, as I had seen him fre- 
quently at Otaki in the course of the last few months 
without his even broaching the subject. Rangihaeata, 
too, as usual excited by drink, ran up and down for a 
little while using very violent language on the sul>- 
ject ; but he went back to lie down in his hut when I 
laughed, lit my pipe, and passed some merry joke upon 
his large mouth having it all to himself. 
Rauperaha then pursued the subject in a conversa- 
tional style, as I lay on the shingly beach close by him, 
among his basking train. 
" Do you mean to take all the land?" said he ; "you 
*' are driving the natives first from one place and then 
" from another ; are you and Wide-awake to have it 
" all ?" He went on for some time, positively as though 
the natives were being driven out instead of the White 
people, as was really the case in all the settlements ; 
and he declared he would stop it. 
I knew it was useless to argue the point with him, 
as I felt sure that some sinister influence had been at 
work upon him recently, from his irritated manner and 
tone. So I answered, jokingly, and rather to turn 
off" the subject, that I supposed when ships enough 
with 200 people in each had sailed past Kapit'i to 
Port Nicholson, they would, in time, cover the land 
with their grandchildren. And I asked him why he 
did not stop the ships in the Strait with his canoe. I 
told him, too, that it was no affair of mine, and that I 
had no control over it ; that the Governor and Wide- 
awake would settle between them what he had really 
sold and pay him for the rest. I concluded by urging 
him, as I had often done before, to go and see Wide- 
awake at Wellington, and convince himself that no- 
thing but kindness was meant to the Maori. He scorned 
the offer as usual, saying he should be thought a l)eggar ; 
