Male and female, young and old, there could hardly have been less than three hundred people gathered together on the comparatively small plateau. From their point of view it had exceptional advantages, and had doubtless been selected with foresight and judgment. Overlooking the river, winding through a fertile meadow, which showed by its careful and intense cultivation how the principal food-supply of the tribe was furnished, it was protected by the almost perpendicular river-bank, of great height, from sudden assault. An undulating stretch of open or timbered country filled in the foreground, while in the dim distance rose the giant form of Tongariro, cloud-capped, menacing, in dread majesty and sublimity, and but a few miles to the eastward, calm in the fading light, lay the placid waters of a lake. Strangely beautiful as was the whole landscape, wanting no element which in other lands excites wonder or arouses admiration, there was yet a feeling of undefined doubt, amounting to suspicion of evil, as his eye roved over the unfamiliar scene. This was confirmed, even deepened, as a geyser between them and the lake suddenly shot to a height of fifty or sixty feet in the air, while a hitherto unsuspected fumarole sent its smoke-columns towards the firmament. Yet not a head was turned, not a movement made by the group, "native and to the manner born." Geysers and fumaroles were part of their daily life, it would appear.
"There may be differences of opinion as to the advantages of their proximity," thought the white stranger, as he scanned the grand and majestic features of the wide landscape before him, "but none can deny their sublimity." He could scarce refrain from exclaiming aloud—
"Lives there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said," etc.
If he had carried out the unspoken thought he would have raised himself in the estimation of his newly found acquaintances, as no nation has had a higher appreciation of elocutionary effort; and a free translation by his guide would have doubtless confirmed the entente cordiale. As it was, however, the few sentences uttered by his companion, in which, among others, he recognized the words Pakeha, Rangatira, and Mata Kawana, were sufficiently satisfactory. This was, of course, after the formal greeting of "Haere mai!" had been pronounced by the elders and principal personages of the assembly, as well as by all the women, and the rank and file.
A venerable and imposing-looking personage, apparently of great age, approached to greet the strangers, and, after exchanging a few sentences of an interrogatory nature, pointed the way to an unoccupied whare of larger dimensions than the others. In this, Mr. Massinger was told, through the interpreter, to place his possessions, and to consider himself at home for the present. An adjoining tenement was indicated, in a less formal way, as provided for his companion, the difference of their positions being accurately understood. Indeed, the socialists of the day would be rather scandalized at the gulf which separates the Maori aristocrat, or rangatira, from the "common people" (if one may use such an expression) of the tribe.
The rangatira was, indeed, a personage of no ordinary distinction. Served from his childhood by his "inferiors," in the most true and literal sense of the word; waited upon with deference, mingled with apprehension, by the women, the slaves and the rank and file of the tribal section, or hapu, to which he was born, no wonder that he grew up with the traditional qualities imputed to the mediæval aristocrat.
He was the robber-baron of the Rhine; he was the untrammelled seigneur of the time of Louis Quatorze; he was the piratical Viking of the Norse legends.
He raided his weaker neighbours; he descended upon defenceless coast settlements; he organized carefully thought-out plans of invasion, alliance, or reprisal. He was comprehensively merciless in war, slaying and enslaving at will. But he possessed, by the strongest contemporary evidence, the corresponding virtues. He was brave to recklessness, chivalrous to a degree unknown in modern warfare, sending notice of attack, in ordinary cases, before the commencement of hostilities; and, in well-authenticated instances, even forwarding ammunition to the enemy who had run short of powder, invariably choosing death before dishonour. And he was religious after his own fashion, recognizing superior as well as inferior deities and supernatural personages, whom it was important to honour and conciliate. He was at all times ready to die for his principles, or in vindication of his dignity and hereditary position.
Roland Massinger, when he found himself in full possession of the whare, which had been floored with clean fern, and even adorned with several bunches of the beautiful crimson rata and pohutukawa blossoms, began to revolve the strange chain of circumstances which had led to his finding himself the honoured guest of this sub-section of a more or less ferocious tribe. Nothing imaginable could be more romantic; at the same time, the situation was, at the best, only comparatively satisfactory. The smouldering blood-feud between the races, already dangerously fanned by the mistaken action already referred to, might blaze up at any moment. Then, the war-spirit once aroused, and the boding scream of the Hokioi thrilling all hearts, the position of an isolated European would be doubtful, if not desperate.
Of the risks and chances thus involved, however, our adventurer made but little account. He had not come so far to abstain from exploration of this wonderful country. It was not worse than Africa, whence many an Englishman had returned rich and distinguished. Whatever happened, he was embarked in the enterprise; would go through with it at all hazards.