them and having no land except on hill sides and a few flas the plough cannot be used. Their poverty is exhibited in the poorness of their dress and the wretched huts they live in, their old Pas which contained some good houses are fast tottering to decay and the sheds they now substitute for houses are of the most temporary and uncomfortable description causing together with their precarious and irregular mode of life notwithstanding the salubrious nature of the climate many premature deaths. The tapu is still upheld and few attempts to transgress its observances are permitted with impunity in Taraias dominions. Te Mapu Huirania Riwai and a few other chiefs with their followers came up to Mr. Lanfears where we had some long speeches