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Chapter XV. Waitanui's Message.

Ngamotu—signifying abode of separate branches of the family—perhaps it may as well be explained, besides being the name of the Ngatiawa hapu's war-pah, is also the name of the surrounding district in Taranaki, about the size of an ordinary-sized parish, and which comprises the present town of New Plymouth…. The Waikato, of which the approach of was signalled by bonfire, gong, and conch on the morning referred to at the close of the preceding chapter, came no nearer, on this occasion, than Te Hua, which is nearly five miles distant from Moturoa, the Sugar Loaves. In the course of the day, Waitanui forwarded a message by one of the Ngatiawas, who had been taken prisoner, of a very placative nature, stating that the only object which he had in moving farther south, was simply, and nothing more, but to enable him to try to carry out the very great desire of his heart—make a durable peace with all the hapus of the tribe of Taranaki. He further stated that he, Waitanui, could not be held responsible for the late massacre—that was, as everybody knew, the work of Tukaraihu, his father. He had, in that case, only to do what was commanded for him to execute: such was his evident position. In the event of the Ngatiawa, at Ngamotu, not looking on what he had then advanced in a proper light, and unwisely refusing to respond to his entreaty by not receiving he, Waitanui, in goodfellowship, according to his request—according to the extreme desire of his heart—then, there was nothing left further to be done than that of endeavouring to open their door by sheer compulsion, or starving them into a ready compliance. They all knew what that meant. As a proof that it was not agreeable to his wishes to do either of these things, he should advance next day or the day following, with but an inconsiderate force, altogether unfitted to undertake any aggression. As an earnest that Tukaraihu, his father, had no thought of further fighting, he had already turned his face to the north, taking as many men with him as could guard the prisoners—prisoners, let it be borne in mind, who would be restored to their tribe the moment in which it became known that the Ngatiawa had acted reasonably, and had received the Waikato, as would be their best policy so to do, with open page 91 arms. The Taranaki cannot be blind to what would afterwards befal them by treating this which is now asked of them with improper scorn: brave as they are known to be, this much they must certainly be well aware of, that, within one moon, the Waikato could bring such a force that positively nothing could withstand: no, not even the Toropukas [hills] in the sea could keep them off, for, there, with their war canoes they could go: nor not even the Pakehas with their “pung! pungs!” which we have already heard something about, would cause them to sway for a moment either to the right or to the left! “O, ye children of the hapus of Taranaki, my speech is entirely friendly, take my word for that, and my thoughts are entirely the thoughts of friendship and peace! Your answer, I say, when communing with my own mind, must be no other than this—' Welcome, welcome, Waitanui! Waitanui, come ye quickly hither to receive our friendly embrace! Too long, too long altogether, have we acted as quarrelsome brothers; but, henceforth, all men shall either witness or hear of our exceeding brotherly love.’”

Wander to and fro, wheresoever one lists, all over the face of this ever-moving, ever-spinning earth, the clothed individual designated “man,” will be found readily accessible to gullibility!—that is, should the designing operator thereupon subtly use the necessary excogitation to carry out the desired effect. Let anyone desirous of trying on their hand at this less dignified than generally profitable sort of proceeding, discover in individual or in mass, it matters not which, any particular fatuousness, any very tenacious partizanship, any viscid clinging to cult—religious, political, or social—procure the “tip,” as best they may be able, of who is locally the most considerable magaate, land which is locally the most influential body, and then go to work at once, by planting such snares as must inevitably redound to your besought advantage. Should your position be that of a stranger, then, use your utmost artifice of winning for yourself the good graces of local notability. Probe such in a polite manner, so as to procure a thorough knowledge of whoever-it-may-be's most cherished conceptions: these acquiesce in, with an eager readiness; with a natural-put-on enthusiasm; I then, such is sure to exude. If an erratic caterer for public amusements, skilfully introduce into your advertised manifestations what you have before-hand ascertained will go readily down best, with whatever is therein much the most numerous set. If religion, adopt an austere moral vein; if political, denounce vehemently, with a lofty indignation, what the insignificant minority upholds; if social, admire their many beneficial institutions and their aptitude in framing constitutional bylaws. But, in the matter of gullibility, the strangest thing of all is this: that generally those who, for selfish motives, are most given to dispensing bunkum to others, are the very ones who are themselves the most easily duped. Take, for example, the Maori: he is generally put down to be an out and out “crack-hand” in the practise of misleading cajollery; yet, notwithstanding all that, a perfect baby he is by way of imbibing, incontinently, any sop of a saccharine nature which may be page 92 presented to him. He may afterwards, it is true, become indignant and recalcitrant, but that in no way modifies the fact of his almost invariable proneness to “swig” freely at inception at this particular kind of dug.

A pitiful instance in point, of what is above remarked upon, was, at this time, the Taranakian tribe swallowing, with the utmost avidity, the this time, captions and ingenuously prescribed message of Waitanui in toto, childlike, with speculative enthusiasm, enumerating the prodigious benefits which the Waikato's friendship would confer upon them, and, how good indeed it really was of Waitanui to advonce such favourable concessions, at the time, too, when he was strong and they were weak, for, how could now they hope to cope with the Waikato when successful they were when their number was more than twice as great? The matter was in every way so obviously benetical to them that, hesitation how to act there really, they admitted, ought none to exist: therefore they would, without further delay, put things into ship-shape, in order to confer on Waitanui and his followers a befittingly hearty greeting. How, too, it would cheer the hearts of the prisoners in captivity when they learned what had been so wisely done, so as to ensure their speedy release? “Ha! Waitanui,” they jocundly exclaimed, “is as different from the old man, Tukaraihu, as are pebbles to baked clay marbles—not at all like father and son, No, that indeed they evidently are not!”

When this tide of craven sentiment which had set in among the Ngatiawa got to the ear of Dickey Barrett, be plunged and reared his well-knit, sturdy frame like to a curbed, high-spirited charger refusing to unclench its molars for the snaffle, and vehemently, declared that, if such was the correct state of feeling among those he had so long reposed implicit trust in, he would remove himself, his whalers, his boats, and the whole of his gear right away from the place—ay! in less than twenty-four hours, he would. He had ventured Cook's Straits before in an open coggle, and that he could readily do again. “Hang it all!” vociferated Dickey, appending a pardonable round English anathema, “Let them go, if they like, and join force with the scabby Waikato—with my men well in hand, I'll fight the whole deuced box and dice of them, although numbering thousands! By heaven's I will! Waitanui means treachery just as sure as a mule means mischief when it lets go in the air its hind heels. This is what it is—he is thirsting for a repetition here of what his brutal old father caused at Pukerangioro! He no more means peace—the skunk—not he, than I mean to be dumb. diddled by him. No: by all that's sacred! I never, never will be that.”

At these brave, out-spoken sentiments of the Gaff, as the whalers generally named him, the face of every man amongst the squad irradiated with the utmost satisfaction, they, the whalers, being one and all in the one mind of not showing the white feather, let come whatever would—ay! if needs be they would fight like “Roundheads.”

“Quite right, chief,” said Jack Love, alias Chips, “:Gad, we'll just fight under any circumstances.”

“Quite right,” next followed Bill the Freacher. “By heaven's page 93 nelp we'll turn them like unto Sennacherib and the Assyrians of old into dry bones: yea, into whitened dry bones! Right will overcome might!”

“Quite right, chief,” followed Jimmie Ling; “if the worst comes to the worst, it will be just a predicament to which weel enough I remember, a remarkable com—–”

“Coincidence,” taking the words from Jimmie's mouth, abruptly, as if as to do was the design, began old crippled Joe Grundy, “The coincidence, Gaff, lies in you having every man and mother's son of us here, well in hand, to pull with you while a shred of the rope sticks together, like that 'ere coon in the old ballad, ‘in doleful dumps: if I can't fight on my feet, I'll fight on my stumps.’ I'll hitch them, I will: do you mind now?—may be just as good as the best!”

When the Maori got to hear of these inexorable sentiments entertained by Mr. Barrett and his men, one by one of them began to recognise their characteristic proneness of initially getting captivated by hollow and artful representations; then gradually made their minds up, after further carefully deliberating, that they would now stick to Dickey Barrett, whatever might be the consequences of such adhesion. In due course, the messenger, on parole, was sent back with this anything but polite answer: “Come Waitanui; come ye hitherward, and we'll serve you in the like fashion that a buck-whale would that had you in its muzzle. We'll gobble you up—rump, stump, and stomach! Have a care! Have a care!”

Whara Pori, on meeting Mr. Barrett soon after this uncourteous message had been despatched, abased his head abashedly, as that of a dog which had given its master grievous offence, and showed the utmost abject contrition for his recent too confiding simplicity—his ill-considered compliance—promising the chief of the whalers that, come benceforth whatever would—ah, he, Mr. Barrett, need not alarm himself any more about his ever consenting to welcome, what now he called, the “No kute pluty Waikato,” saving with the edge of his tomahawk, the flat of his mere, or the point of his spear! “Maori,” Pori subjoined, “you know, Mr. Barrett, always te same: them take nui nui [plenty] te puison if ronnt and roum covered wit te honey! You, te kute man Barrett, and no all te same as te pluty Maori, who tont know notink at all, not so much as te decoy bird from a snare.”

Rawhinia's father, Te Puki, next paid his tribute of maudlin thankfulness to the manly whaler chief, making all sorts of mortifying regrets for his entertaining for an instant Waitanui's sincerity, and further went on by calling himself all sorts of derogatory names Eraugi, the superintendent over the wahines, was not a whit behind the others in self-reprehensiveness upon his own conduct; and chief after chief, of more or less importance, came to Mr. Richard Barrett precisely on the same “lay.” Mr. Richard Barrett, like many other sturdy Englishmen and the most of his vocation, was not wanting in humour, and sarcastically put the question to those bumptious and pretentious page 94 doughty chiefs who spoke so valorously at the recently great feast, where their courage now had gone when they acceded ail, as one man, to such poltroonery? But they, every man of them, emphatically made declaration, by ever so many solemn protestations, that they were now all staunch to the very—ay! to the very back bone, and all that they had proffered to do at the place in question, they should now unflinchingly perform, and more especially were the prize to be given, as was afterwards offered by Te Puki, as a reward for valorousness! It was doubtlessly, they averred, the Spirits of Evil which made them smitten by Waitanui's words, and goodness! how were they to blame for that?

But forsooth! the climax of shame of these Maori vacillating magnates was still held in reserve…. When their women, upon the island of [gap — reason: unclear] got wind of all that had been going on, they were no way backward: they were not afraid to give their inborn indignation the utmost vent, by shouting from thereon, with high, farreaching voices—‘tis curious, no musical professor has not yet profitably utilized the mellow clarion-toned voices of numbers of Vaori women—“Ka pai te pakeha! Ka nui pai te pakeha! Ka kino: ka kino te Maori. Ta Maori tonu [ever] pluty fool!” The chiefs at this, it is useless to say, though shamming in lifference, were evidently piqued at this unprecedented license being taken by the tender ones of their own flesh and blood. This pique, of course, they tried their best to hide: but it was quite beyond their power to succeed in their attempts to deceive in this matter. Dickey Barrett, recognizing how deep such tantalizing had penetrated, despatched two of the whalers on an embassy of placative expediency to Moturoa, apprehensive, as he had good cause to be, that a continuation of such unnatural partizan conduct on the part of the wahines might have an untoward winding up and spoil his game.

On further in the afternoon, all the scattered Natives in the neighbourhood were peremptory called inside the pah, in order to be marshalled and assigned distiuct posts, to be prepared for defence should an attack be made upon them either during the night or early in the morning. Whara Pori was himself again, and, as is vulgarly termed, “up to his eye-brows” in incessant training. All the non-inflammatory material, such as skins of beasts and fishes, which anywhere around could at all be picked up, was got to spread over the combustible rapou which roofed and lined their whares, as a precautionary measure, should the enemy take to throwing thereto red hot stones. The big gong at the gate leading to a sort of rude drawbridge across the inner ditch would be struck three times on their observing the approach of any reconnoitreing party; and thrice-three if that they should be in full force. Each principal chief would then sound the conch to gather around him him his own hapu. No such thing was in the slightest degree to be tolerated as that of the pernicious practice which was too frequently indeed adopted, of everyone trying to drown others' voices, for the mere gratification of listening to their self-considered captivating own: the different chiefs' directions to their companies were the only voices page 95 which must be heard. Noise was all very well, added Pori, when pursuing a flying, terrified enemy. If they now stuck to what was told them, there was no telling how soon every one should have the satisfaction of shouting as much as ever they liked, even until their lungs gave out.

Simultaneously, the unshaven-faced sea-faring men were no less arduous in their preparations for the parts, in the great struggle in the game of war, laid down for them to play. The rude-fashioned cartridges, and the much ruder charges of netfilled-up pieces of old iron, bolts, nuts, and nails, were already home to the sadly honey-combed chambers of their obsolete ordnance: a-light, the slow-match of nitre-saturated rope, kept dangling from the improvised lint-stocks; and the vents were even now primed. Their cutlasses were edged nearly as sharp as Sheffield razors, and slung by pieces of spun-yarn to their sides. After everything appeared in proper “fettle,” they prepared to restore from exhaustion renewed vigor to their bodies by lying down for the night on the cold ground, sheltered from the beat of the elements by the roof of the excavated tunnels which they occupied.

Groggy Dyson, in an embarrassed-looking pose, with rather a woebegone, grave, pleading face, in impassioned language represented to the Gaff, the obvious impropriety of leaving the liquor-tub at such an awkward distance from the field of operation.

“Ah! you are quite right, Groggy,” frankly replied the good-natured chief, tickled with the fellows naiveté, and struggling to suppress a guffaw, which would persistently keep rising in his throat, “but before you ever reminded me, Groggy, of this serious embarrassment, let me tell you, it was my full intention, it was, to send you round as much French cognac as would serve you all with a judicious ‘nightcap.’”

“You're nothing short of a pure ruby, Gaff,” rejoined the highly-elated Groggy. “Long life to you, Gaff, and a crown-knot splice to you soon!” The Groggy went about humming—

“For the King cannot swagger,
Nor get drunk like a beggar,
Nor be half so happy as I!”