TE KOOTI.
(From a Sketch by the Author.)
When the new arrivals had pitched the tents they had brought with them, and were squatting in a circle round the hero of Poverty Bay, I went into the camp, when Te Kooti saluted me with "Tena koe, pakeha," and invited me to be seated. I took in his outward appearance at a glance. He was a man apparently of about fifty years of age, over medium height, of athletic form, broad shouldered and keenly knit, and with a remarkably stern expression of countenance, which imparted to his whole visage a hard and even a cruel look. His features, cast in the true native mould, were strongly defined. His head was well formed, with a high arched forehead, and his lips were well cut and firm, while his quick, dark, piercing eyes had a restless glance about them as if their owner had been kept all his life in a chronic state of nervous excitement. He wore a moustache and long pointed beard, which, for the apparent age of the man, appeared to be prematurely grey. There were no tattoo marks about his face, but when he smiled in his sinister way every line of his expressive features seemed to be brought into play. Taken altogether, Te Kooti had a decidedly intelligent cast of countenance, in which the traits of firmness and determination appeared to be strongly marked.
TE KOOTI'S WIFE.
His wife, who was apparently a few years younger than himself, was a strongly built, gaunt woman, with a remarkably bold expression of countenance, and I could well imagine that during the troubled times of the war she must have proved a daring and willing helpmate to her desperate lord.
The followers of Te Kooti, who sat around, were mostly men of over six feet in height, powerful in build, and stern and savage-looking in countenance, and with the same air of watchfulness about them as was observable in the manner of Te Kooti, as if they, like their chief, had been ever on the qui-vive for their lives during their long sojourn of outlawry in the fastnesses of the King Country.
The first question put to me by Te Kooti was to inquire where I had come from, and when Turner explained to him the course of our journey he replied, "They told me as soon as I arrived that a pakeha was in camp, and that he had travelled through the country; and I said, now that he has been through and seen all, let him remain. I did many a long journey," he continued, "during the war, but I never did a ride like that on one horse. I was always careful to have plenty of horses." I told him that I had seen the remains of his pa at Te Perore, near Tongariro, where one of his great battles was fought; and taking his left arm out of a sling, he said, "This is what the pakehas gave me there," and he showed me how a rifle-ball had struck him between the knuckle joints of the two first fingers, crippling them both. Ever since he was wounded in this way, he has always made it a rule to hide this hand as much as possible, and for that purpose he carries it constantly in a sling. He asked me whether I came from England, and when answered in the affirmative, he put many questions to me about the country, and was especially anxious to know whether the Queen was still alive, as he stated that he had often heard of her when at war with the Europeans. He then said that the Maoris did not want that war, but the pakehas would fight, and the Maoris fought them. I remarked that it was now time for the two races to be as one, and that all the troubles of the past should be forgotten, and that the King Country should be opened by roads and railways. "I do not object," said Te Kooti, "to roads and railways; but," he continued, "we must hold the lands; it will not do for the natives to lose everything." I pointed out that in India a handful of pakehas ruled over 200,000,000 of people, and that roads and railways had been made in that country, and the natives had benefitted. Te Kooti, without a moment's hesitation, replied, "In India the pakeha rules justly; here the governments have not treated the Maoris fairly: one government has promised one thing and one another, and they have all broken faith."