How I kept House. — Maori Freebooters. — An Ugly Customer. — The "Suaviter in Modo." — A Single Combat to amuse the Ladies. — The true Maori Gentleman. — Character of the Maori People.
I never yet could get the proper knack of telling a story. Here I am now, a good forty years ahead of where I ought to be, talking of "title deeds" and "land commissioners," things belonging to the new and deplorable state of affairs which began when this country became "a British colony and possession," and also "one of the brightest jewels in the British crown." I must go back.
Having purchased my "estate," I set up housekeeping. My house was a good commodious raupo building; and as I had a princely income of a few hundred a year "in trade," I kept house in a very magnificent and hospitable style. I kept always eight stout paid Maori retainers; the pay being one fig of tobacco per week, and their potatoes, which was about as much more. Their duties were not heavy; being chiefly to amuse themselves fishing, wrestling, shooting pigeons, or pig-hunting, with an occasional pull in the boat when I went on a water excursion. Besides these paid retainers, there was always about a dozen hangers on, who considered themselves apart of the establishment, and who, no doubt, managed to live at my expense; but as that expense was merely a few hundredweight of potatoes a week, and an odd pig now and then, it was not perceptible in the good old times.
Indeed these hangers on, as I call them, were necessary; for now and then, in those brave old times, little experiments would be made by certain Maori gentlemen of freebooting propensities, who were in great want of "British manufactures," to see what could be got by bullying "the pakeha," and to whom a good display of physical force was the only argument worth notice. These gentry generally came from a long distance, made a sudden appearance, and, thanks to my faithful retainers—who, as a matter of course, were all bound to fight for me, though I should have found it hard to get much work out of them—made as sudden a retreat; though on one or two occasions, when my standing army were accidentally absent, I had to do battle single-handed.
I think I have promised somewhere that I would perform a single combat for the amusement of the ladies, and I may as well do it now as at any other time. I shall, therefore, recount a little affair I had with one of these gentry; as it is indeed quite necessary I should, if I am to give any true idea of "the good old times." I must, however, protest against the misdeeds of a few ruffians—human wolves—being charged against the whole of their countrymen. At the time I am speaking of, the only restraint on such people was the fear of retaliation, and the consequence was, that often a dare-devil savage would run a long career of murder, robbery, and outrage, before meeting with a check, simply from the terror he inspired, and the "luck" which often accompanies outrageous daring. At a time, however, and in a country like New Zealand, where every man was a fighting man or nothing, these desperadoes, sooner or later, came to grief; being at last invariably shot, or run through the body, by some sturdy freeholder, whose rights they had invaded.
I had two friends staying with me, young men who had come to see me from the neighbouring colonies, and to take a summer tour in New Zealand; and it so happened that no less than three times during my absence from home, and when I had taken almost all my people along with me, my castle had been invaded by one of the most notorious ruffians who had ever been an impersonation of, or lived by, the law of force. This interesting specimen of the genus homo had, on the last of these visits, demanded that my friends should hand over to him one pair of blankets; but as the prospectus he produced, with respect to payment, was not at all satisfactory, my friends declined to enter into the speculation, the more particularly as the blankets were mine. Our freebooting acquaintance then, to explain his views more clearly, knocked both my friends down; threatened to kill them both with his tomahawk; then rushed into the bedroom, dragged out all the bedclothes, and burnt them on the kitchen fire.
This last affair was rather displeasing to me. I held to the theory that every Englishman's house was his castle, and was moreover rather savage at my guests having been so roughly handled. In fact I began to feel that, though I had up to this time managed to hold my own pretty well, I was at last in danger of falling under the imposition of "black mail," and losing my status as an independent potentate—a rangatira of the first water. I then and there declared loudly that it was well for the offender that I had not been at home, and that if ever he tried his tricks with me he would find out his mistake. These declarations of war, I perceived, were heard by my men in a sort of incredulous silence (silence in New Zealand gives dis-sent), and though the fellows were stout chaps who would not mind a row with any ordinary mortal, I verily believe they would have all run at the first appearance of this redoubted ruffian. Indeed his antecedents had been such as might have almost been their excuse.
He had killed several men in fair fight, and had also—as was well known—committed two most diabolical murders; one of which was on his own wife, a fine young woman, whose brains he blew out at half a second's notice for no further provocation than this:—he was sitting in the verandah of his house, and told her to bring him a light for his pipe. She, being occupied in domestic affairs, said, "Can't you fetch it yourself? I am going for water." She had the calibash in her hand and their infant child on her back. He snatched up his gun and instantly shot her dead on the spot; and I had heard him afterwards describing quite coolly the comical way in which her brains had been knocked out by the shot with which the gun was loaded. He also had, for some trifling provocation, lopped off the arm of his own brother, or cousin, I forget which; and was, altogether, from his tremendous bodily strength and utter insensibility to danger, about as "ugly a customer" as one would care to meet.
I am now describing a regular Maori ruffian of the good old times; the natural growth of a state of society wherein might was to a very great extent right, and where bodily strength and courage were almost the sole qualities for which a man was respected or valued. He was a bullet-headed, scowling, bow-legged, broad-shouldered, herculean savage, and all these qualifications combined made him unquestionably "a great rangatira;" and, as he had never been defeated, his mana was in full force.
A few weeks after the affair of the blankets, as I was sitting all alone reading a Sydney newspaper (which, being only a year old, was highly interesting), my friends and all my natives having gone on an expedition to haul a large fishing-net, whom should I see enter the room and squat down on the floor, as if taking permanent possession, but the amiable and highly interesting individual I have taken so much trouble to describe. He said nothing, but his posture and countenance spoke whole volumes of defiance and murderous intent. He had heard of the threats I had made against him, and there he was; let me turn him out if I dare. That was his meaning,—there was no mistaking it.