Chap. XVI. T^IAROA. 427 
to stop. Accordingly we pulled up our horses ; and he 
introduced me to Taiaroa, the chief from Otako in the 
Middle Island, who had made a friendly alliance with 
Rauperaha, as reported to Major Richmond. Taiaroa 
talked to me for some time about land, in a disgusting 
jargon composed of whaling slang, broken French, 
and bad English ; so that I was obliged to beg him to 
talk Maori, which I could better understand. I then 
made out that he was angry with Wide-awake and 
the other White people for taking so much land ; and 
he said he should turn the White people off to the 
southward, if he did not get plenty of utu. 
Among others, he mentioned a Mr. John Jones, 
who had a large farming and whaling establishment 
at a place called TVaikawaikiy between Banks's Penin- 
sula and Otako. Mr. Jones was a merchant in Sydney 
when we first arrived in the country ; and though we 
knew that he was connected with the whaling stations 
on this coast, and he had been one of the largest con- 
signers of cattle to Port Nicholson, we had not been 
aware till within a few months before that he had 
100 acres of land under grain crop, nearly 100 head 
of horses besides cattle, and several families of cotta- 
gers employed as farm-labourers at Tf^aikawaiki, be- 
sides a whaling-station. At this time, however, having 
failed in Sydney, he had retired to his New Zealand 
estate with all his family, and had visited Wellington 
on his way, to close accounts with his agents there, 
people sent from Sydney, who had pilfered his property 
to a large extent. 
I asked Taiaroa why " Bloody Jack," or Tuawaike, 
the great chief of his tribe, had not come ; and he told 
me that there was a riri, or " quarrel," between them, 
and that he would not trust himself in Rauperahas 
power. 
