On entering the village we found each party of natives as they arrived or were arriving busily engaged in erecting toi toi huts and tents the latter being chiefly formed of red and white blankets calico or whatever garment could be most easily spared to afford temporary shelter from the heavy sleet which was falling. These tents studded about on the different embankments surrounding the village to gether with the large assemblage of people congregated in the depth of winter in such a peaceable harmonious manner as compared with former years in a wild sequestered part of the country formed a more picturesque and interesting scene of New Zealand life than can be easily imagined. On the 16th a plentiful display of food was presented to the meeting consisting of twelve hundred kitts of kumeras several large hampers of taro with pupus made of bark containing a variety of birds boiled in their own fat which preserves them for two or three years besides dried eels from Waipa inangas or white bait from the Taupo lakes and a quantity of pigs and potatoes. The usual ceremony of dividing the food being over I had conversations in my tent with Pihi Te Manaku and several of the most influential chiefs who informed me that they were under some anxiety respecting interior claims at Taupo Waikotu and Murumotu an unavailable wooded district situated some distance inland of the Rangitikei purchase which they suspected had been included by the Ngatiapa in the boundaries of that purchase. I assured them such was not the case, and that there was no intention of interfering with their distant and distinct claims which explanation seemed to give perfect satisfaction as they had been informed to the contrary by some natives who are constantly in the habit of circulating exaggerated reports of whatever occurs especially in connection with the purchase of land. From what I could discern Te Mamaku and his followers appeared to magnify these unfavourable reports in all cases where European interests were concerned and to support an opinion similar to that frequently expressed by their late colleague Rangihaeita such as that the Europeans were gradually acquiring all the country and would soon disinherit the natives of all their rights leaving them like those at Port Nicholson without any land to settle on but rocks, from which they were driven from time to time by the Pakehas. To such of these arguments as were adduced in my presence I gave the natives a convincing proof to the contrary by alluding to the ample provision in land made by the Government for the natives in the late purchase at Rangitikei and to the benefits accrueing to that tribe from such liberal arrangements for their superfluous land. I find that the natives in the vicinity of the European settlement are so conscious of the advantages they derive by exclusively monopolising the sale of firewood and produce for the troops that they have been using various expedients to keep those who have been engaged in hostilities against the Europeans from participating