peace at the Chathams for several hundred years longer. It was only after Pakeha sealers and whalers arrived in the Pacific that the Chatham Islands were drawn to Maori attention: Te Rauparaha was then on the warpath, and ‘a displaced and restless group’ of Taranaki people took over first a trading brig and then the Chatham Islands. The poor Morioris didn't have a chance. The seal seems to have been important in their way of life. On a limestone wall by Te Whanga Lagoon is carved a great shoal of flickering seal-like figures; but we don't really know what they mean. But sealing was A rock painting on a limestone bank at Te Whanga Lagoon hard on the Morioris, for they ate seal meat and wore sealskin clothes; and although (as in New Zealand) the introduction of ailments like measles and influenza was quite accidental, it was still devastating to a people who had never met such things. Like the moa hunters, they seem to have been a peaceful, wandering people; that, and their undermined health and spirits, must have made it all the easier for the newcomers to take them over. Enough of them must have been killed and umu'd to show was boss; many became slaves. The women went to the victors. All this was according to the customs of Maori warfare of those times. A few years later, missionaries were persuading their converts to free their slaves, but by then the Morioris had little to live for. History is no longer treated as a matter of ‘goodies and baddies’ so much as a jockeying for position in the matter of land, food and other goods; but it is always sad when a whole race dies out. However, there are still strains of Moriori, as well as Maori. Portuguese, Russian Finn, Scandinavian, French and British stock, among the Chatham Island families; and they add up to a friendly, easy-going and kindly people. There are hundreds of Moriori carvings on trees and rocks if you know where to look; and in the sandhills you sometimes find middens of various ages. Sand blown aside revealed the place an old-timer had been laid to rest; it was so long ago, and he looked so peaceful, that one could only hope that no wandering stock would disturb his bones. One gets rather used to bones on the Chathams: sheep, cattle, horses, sometimes persons; and along the lagoon shore the teeth of sharks that died not thousands but millions of years ago. One is very much aware of the past, and of the fact that man hath but a short time to live; but at the same time there is every reason to enjoy life while the going's good! People live scattered about, but nowadays it isn't too difficult to hop in the Landrover and join the rest at some gathering: a wedding, a hangi, the pictures maybe. We saw the giant blue forgetmenots all right: a great shoal of them, as blue as could be, flowerheads the size of A & P Show