XVIII 
NEW ZEALAND 
447 
preparation for war ;—their muskets clean and bright, and their 
ammunition ready. He reasoned long on the inutility of the 
war, and the little provocation which had been given for it. 
The chief was much shaken in his resolution, and seemed in 
doubt : but at length it occurred to him that a barrel of his 
gunpowder was in a bad state, and that it would not keep much 
longer. This was brought forward as an unanswerable argu¬ 
ment for the necessity of immediately declaring war: the idea 
of allowing so much good gunpowder to spoil was not to be 
thought of; and this settled the point. I was told by the 
missionaries that in the life of Shongi, the chief who visited 
England, the love of war was the one and lasting spring of 
every action. The tribe in which he was a principal chief had 
at one time been much oppressed by another tribe, from the 
Thames River. A solemn oath was taken by the men that 
when their boys should grow up, and they should be powerful 
enough, they would never forget or forgive these injuries. To 
fulfil this oath appears to have been Shongi’s chief motive for 
going to England ; and when there it was his sole object. 
Presents were valued only as they could be converted into 
arms ; of the arts, those alone interested him which were con¬ 
nected with the manufacture of arms. When at Sydney, 
Shongi, by a strange coincidence, met the hostile chief of the 
Thames River at the house of Mr. Marsden : their conduct was 
civil to each other ; but Shongi told him that when again in 
New Zealand he would never cease to carry war into his 
country. The challenge was accepted ; and Shongi on his 
return fulfilled the threat to the utmost letter. The tribe on 
the Thames River was utterly overthrown, and the chief to 
whom the challenge had been given was himself killed. Shongi, 
although harbouring such deep feelings of hatred and revenge, 
is described as having been a good-natured person. 
In the evening I went with Captain Fitz Roy and Mr. 
Baker, one of the missionaries, to pay a visit to Kororadika : 
we wandered about the village, and saw and conversed with 
many of the people, both men, women, and children. Looking 
at the New Zealander, one naturally compares him with the 
Tahitian ; both belonging to the same family of mankind. 
The comparison, however, tells heavily against the New 
Zealander. He may, perhaps, be superior in energy, but in 
