Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

1835. DIFFICULTIES OF FinST MISSION. S79 thought I could not do better tliaii leave a present : his wife, or rather one of his wives, was pointed out to us, as the sister of the notorious Shunghi. ' Titore'' was the absent chiefs name. He was out in the country, with a hundred well-armed followers, cultivating, as we were told, his yam and potato grounds. We next saw a burying place, or rather a place where the dead are exposed, upon a raised platform, to the wind and sun. Wrapped in cloth of the country, the bodies are placed upon small square platforms of boards, whicli are fixed upon single central posts, ten feet high. Bushes were growing, unmolested, in the enclosure (or ' Marae'), no foot entering to tread them down. Among these thickets I saw several large boards standing upright like gravestones, some of which were painted red, and uncouthly carved. Re- turning to our boat, the chief whom we had visited presented me with a garment of the country manufacture : his assumed haughtiness was amusing, from being characteristic. Our evening was passed in very interesting conversation with Mr. W. Williams, and Mr. Baker;* the former had just arrived from Waimate, an agricultural settlement, lately established by the missionaries, in the interior. Of the difficulties encovmtered and surmounted by the first missionaries in New Zealand full accounts have been lately pubUshed : the little we then heard strongly excited our curi- osity. Mr. Marsden appeared to have been the originator, as well as the main instrument, in forwarding the great work. On the 23d, I went with Mr. Baker to Tipuna, the place where the first missionaries, Mr. King and Mr. Kendal, esta- blished themselves in 1813. Mr. King was absent, but I saw his wife and son, who told me that he was travelling about among the natives, and would not return for several days ; he was on horseback, his son said, but quite alone. Mrs. King described the former state of things which she had witnessed herself in strong terms ; she eould not look back to those days • I learned that de Thierry was sometime resident in the King's- bench, and that his alleged purchase of land, in New Zealand, was a theme of ridicule among the aborigines. 2 pa