Taranaki 10 Jany. 1859. My dear McLean, I have been for a long time intending to write you a letter but something always occurs to prevent me doing so. I hope you are well and that everything prospers with you. Parris is busy with the Mangoraka land and appears to conduct the negotiation with prudence and success - that is he has made a proportionate reduction in the purchase money on account of the Natives not being able to give a title to all they Waitara, and perhaps want of vegetables - a sort of land scurvey. I don't think of any news. The Steamer takes a cargo of sheep, and there are still more for shipment. It is a sad thing that we should be sending ewes and lambs out of the place by hundreds purely because we have no land to feed them on. I wish the day were arrived when they could go by droves south to spread over the country between this and Patea. Yours sincerely, W. Halse. P.S. My little girl Will be two years old in May. offered in the first instance and what he is buying he is getting without dissension. He, Kenny and.o. Carrington left at 7 this morning with the Kaipakopako share of the money and took with them the deed for signature. This will explain your not receiving any letters from either should they not write by the Steamer. By the way another youngster (a boy) was born to him (Henry) last Friday night. This makes the 5th. child for his quiver, which should make him shiver. There is a report (you know what a glorious place this is for reports) that the land between Omata and Tatara is under offer, and some colour is given to it by Parris having applied for a tracing of the land. O.C. tells me that the offer is only a Maori threat - a mere expression of anger on the part of some natives on account of the triangular piece sold by some of the tribe - near the mountain - for which £200 were paid to Tamati te Ngahuru. On the other hand Paringa and Paratene are of the threatenersand if in earnest even the Bobbites must give way. It would be a splendid thing to get some of that fine tract of country we rode over Wanganuiwards when poor Hare Purumene beat your roarer ridden by yourself by a neck, and got a kick in passing which lasted him for life. Our Xmas is chiefly remarked for the extreme fierceness of the season which is all owing to the Comet. A hot sun and clear sky by day, and occasional showers chiefly by night, and an absence hitherto of those drying winds from the Sugar loaves and the clouds of dust raised thereby. Picnics and dances are the rage, but somehow or other we in the Offices are letting another year go by without getting a holyday. I should like a week on the coast south very well but cannot spare the time this year. The Esther came in on Saturday from the Chatham Islands with 30 natives. I hear they are Mimi-ites, but whether they have come to sell or not do not know. A good many natives - some of note - have died here since you were at Taranaki, and they appear to die without seeing the folly of leaving the land to the survivors. Tamati the prophet seems to be the most formidable opponent the Government has at this place and he is so deucedly legal and civil in all he does that you could scarcely quarrel with him if you chose. The imposition he practises on his gullible countrymen is his and their affair, and may be only imposition according to our Judgement of his actions. John Bull is the most gullible and gulled animal in the world. I went with Parris some weeks since to friend Ihaias place to get Wi te Ahoaho's consent to a new road at Waiwakaiho for the bridge. They are perched on a cliff which commands Waitera point, and they seemded to be continually looking in that direction. The flat beneath and around them is under cultivation ploughs and harrows at work in every direction, but they abused the place when I said it was good ground and said Waitara was the place. From this I inferred that they lived on in hope of getting back there some day by fair means or foul. They are unassailable in their positon, and have besides their cultivations to depend upon, an abundance of fish, and the sea is open to them in fair weather for communication. I did not see many natives at the place which is a mile or so this side Mimi, but I went on to Mimi with Parris who was on a mission to Raumoa's widow whom after a toilsome march up and down hill we found. Parris commenced blubbering at some distance and he rubbed noses with the widow and the 3 or 4 other withered old things there. It was worth the trip to see profile of Parris' mug as he was getting up the steam. I had intended to joke him on the subject but he was so cursed dismal on the road back that I couldnt venture on it. I suppose he had a ''motive'' for it, or thought he had, which is the same thing - some hopes of land in that direction. Ihaia was suffering from skin disease brought on I can imagine from filth and confinement at