ill on the morning of a battle, ordered himself
to be carried to the field on a litter, and set
down in the thick of the fight. In this state,
with the darts, and clubs, and tomahawks of
friends and foes all whirling about his head,
ho sang his war-song, and so died. A terrible
contest then took place over his body, which
was eventually carried off by Te Pomar,
notwithstanding all the furious efforts of Ta?nui.
But the great warrior Te Pomar, knowing how
much the old king had been beloved, and also
greatly revering him for the heroic manner of
his death, nobly restored the body, and sent a
present of honour with it for the funeral
ceremonies. He also proposed honourable terms
of future peace, which were accepted by a
majority of the chiefs of both tribes. This
nobleness of Te Pomar galled the. pride of
Ta?nui as much as the carrying off the body
from the battle-field had enraged his warlike
spirit. However, he bore it all with haughty
and unbroken silence.

But a contest over the body of a very
different kind now ensued. Several Catholic
missionaries had been for some time in Mokau,
where by their skill in medicine and surgery
they had much ingratiated themselves with the
people, and they had contrived gradually to
make a great many converts. Hitherto they
had managed all this very gently, and by
reasoning, and strong appeals to the
imagination; but the death of the king was a great
opportunity for a bold effort at a wholesale
conversion. They, therefore, stepped forward,
and declared that the permission which had
been given them by the old king to dwell in
his country, and teach their religion to those
who chose to listen to them, was a sign that
he himself had been a convert in his heart,—
consequently, he should be buried according
to their rites and ceremonies. At this, Ta?nui
rose in anger, and insisted that the body of
the king should be buried in a secret cave,
according to their old heathen custom with
the greatest chiefs. He prevailed. But while
they were bearing the body to a place from
whence it was to be taken by night to the secret
cave, there suddenly arrived the daughter of
Te Pomar. Her name was Te?ra; she was a
beautiful girl of thirteen, and had just become
a convert to Christianity. She came with
many attendants, and presents, and proposals
of lasting peace between the tribe of her father,
the Waikatotos, and that of Mokau. These
were accepted by the majority of the chiefs;
but a missionary who accompanied her, then
proceeded to request that the late king should
be buried after the forms of the new religion
that had been brought among them. Aided
by the young Te?ra, he was so far successful
with the chiefs and people, that the body
was placed in a shell of basket-work and
broad leaves, by way of a coffin, and, being
hoisted on the shoulders of six of the converts,
they were bearing it off, attended by a large
concourse. They approached the entrance of
a wood, where a grave had been dug. At this
juncture, Ta?nui, in his war-mat, and with
all his arms, met them on the pathway. He
darted at the coffin,—overthrew it with so
violent a shock, that four of the six bearers
rolled over with it on the grass; he then tore
the body of the old king out of the coffin, and
calling upon all those who revered the old
heathen faith of their fathers and their
ancestors, to rally round him, carried off the
body, after a brief struggle, in which many
were wounded on both sides, and several
killed. Te?ra returned to Te Pomar with the
bad news; and Ta?nui, for this act of decision
and valour, was immediately declared King of
Mokau. The missionaries, together with many
of the converts, were driven away; and the
religion of the Tohunga, with all the old
heathen forms, was re-established in its original
barbarity.

Te Pomar held a council of chiefs to determine
what amount of reparation they ought to
demand of the Mokaurie tribe for the recent
outrage on their offers of peace; this question,
however, was speedily settled by Ta?nui,
who declared war upon the Waikatotos, for
their interference with the old religious
ceremonies;—and all the former hostilities were
immediately resumed.

In the first pitched battle that occurred,
Ta?nui, with a view to giving the most
alarming importance to the occasion, caused
the suit of rusty armour (steel, inlaid with
brass) which had been given to one of his
great predecessors by the English king, to be
carried amidst the front line of the bravest
warriors. It may be matter of surprise that
King Ta?nui did not invest himself in the
armour, but the thought never once occurred
to him, because it was held in superstitious
reverence, as coming from the chief warrior
of a great and distant warlike nation, who,
they took for granted (little dreaming that
his Britannic Majesty of that date had worn
a great powdered wig, but never smelt any
other sort of powder), had always worn
it in battle. For anybody else, therefore, to
wear it, would have been irreverent to their
"great friend over sea;" it must also be
confessed that Ta?nui, being well aware of
the weight; (having once, in secret, tried the
armour on, after he became king); had found
that it would impede all those movements of
active skill and chivalrous daring which
characterise the battles of the aborigines. He
therefore displayed it simply as a "terror,"
and to show that the spirit of the great oversea
English warrior aided the righteous battles
of the people of Mokau.

The result, however, was far from gratifying
to the superstitious feelings of the Mokauries.
They won this first battle, it is true, but not
without considerable havoc among their
warriors; while, to add to the chagrin of a
disastrous victory, Te Pomar himself carried
off in his embrace the suit of sacred armour.
The spears on which it had been elevated were
broken and cast upon the earth, and the