630 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND, Chap. XIX. 
of the stalwart and invincible colonists who have 
chosen it for their abode. 
But I foresaw for them at least many months more 
of harassing delays, doubts, and torments, under the 
tread of a ruler who seemed well inclined to adopt, as 
far as regarded the delicate native question, the whole 
determination of the intolerant portion of the mis- 
sionaries to " thwart them by every means in their 
" power." 
And I grieved when I felt sure that the poor natives 
must inevitably descend one step nearer towards a 
miserable end, while debased by the care of a father so 
weak as to yield indulgently to every whimsical 
demand and self-destroying caprice which the spoiled 
child might imagine — so foolish as to encourage the 
savage in his infantile ambition to maintain himself in 
a rivalry with the White man. 
The last hope fippeared still to be that some really 
great man might be despatched in time to remedy the 
evils which were accumulating for both Whit-e people 
and natives. Some such man as Lord Metcalfe or Sir 
Henry Pottinger, able and willing to grasp with his 
master-mind the task of uniting two races in one 
natidn, might yet heal the wounds inflicted by a 
prejudiced incapable. A firm and unwavering course 
of foreseeing philanthropy could alone lay sound foun- 
dations for a gentle and permanent union. 
We were 37 days in reaching Valparaiso: I re- 
mained five weeks at that port and in the neighbouring 
part of Chile ; and then rounded Cape Horn in a 
French merchantman, which made the voyage to Bor- 
deaux in 92 days. 
And since my arrival I have written the foregoing 
narrative. I hoj)e it is not unbecoming in me to say 
