We have collected these notices in order to give a more complete illustration of so singular and interesting a character as that formed by the union of the rude and bloodthirsty barbarian with the bustling trafficker. It is an exhibition of the savage mind in a new guise. We have only to add, with regard to Pomaree, that it appears by other authorities, as well as by the notice we find in Rutherford, that he was in the habit of making very devastating excursions occasionally to the southern part of the island. When Cruise left New Zealand in 1820, he had been away on one of these expeditions nearly a year, nor was it known exactly where he had gone to. The people about the mouth of the Thames said they had seen him since he left home, but he had long ago left their district for one still farther south. The last notice we find of him, is in a letter from the Rev. H. Williams, in the "Missionary Register" for 1827, in which it is stated, that he had a short time before fallen in battle, having been cut to pieces, with many of his followers, by a tribe on whom he had made an attack.
This event, of the circumstances of which Dillon was furnished with a particular account by some of the near relations of the deceased chief, took place in the southern part of the island.
FOOTNOTES:
This is one of the discrepancies in Rutherford's narrative. Taranaki is a district on the West Coast of the North Island, and is about 150 miles from Cook Strait.
Otago is a large province in the southern part of the South Island, 300 miles from the Strait. Rutherford probably refers to Takou, a Wairarapa chief, who was connected with the Ngai-Tahu of Otago.