From 1818 to 1838 was a time of war far surpassing in bloodshed and ruin anything witnessed in the Islands before or since.  For the first time the Maoris used firearms.  Probably a fourth of their race perished in this ill-starred epoch.  Hongi, the chief of the Ngapuhi tribe, before referred to, is usually spoken of as the first to introduce the musket into the tribal wars.  This was not so.  His tribe, as the owners of the Bay of Islands and other ports frequented by traders, were able to forestall their fellow-Maoris in getting firearms.  A war-party of the Ngapuhi, only one hundred and forty strong, is said to have gone through the length and breadth of the North Island putting all they met to flight with the discharge of two old flint-lock guns.  The cunning warriors always followed up the awe-inspiring fire with a prompt charge in which spear and tomahawk did the work for which panic had prepared the way.  Another Ngapuhi chief, the leader of an attack on the men of Tauranga, managed to arm his men with thirty-five muskets, which they used with crushing effect.  This was in 1818.  Hongi saw the bravest warriors run before the new and terrible weapon.  He never forgot the sight.  To go to England and get guns became the dream of his life.  A hopeful pupil of Marsden, in Sydney, he knew the ways of the white men.  In 1820, he and a brother chief were taken to England by Kendall to help Professor Lee with his grammar and dictionary.  The pair were lionized, and on all sides presents were made to them.  They were presented to King George IV., who gave Hongi a suit of armour.  On his return this grammarian’s assistant heard at Sydney that his tribe was at war with the natives of the Hauraki or Thames district, and that one of his relatives had been killed.  Now was his time.  He at once sold all his presents, except the suit of armour, and bought three hundred muskets and a supply of powder and bullets.

The Sydney Government did not prevent him.  At Marsden’s table, at Parramatta, Hongi met a chief of the offending tribe.  Grimly he warned his fellow-guest to take himself home, make ready for war, and prepare to be killed—­and eaten.  Landing in New Zealand, he determined to imitate Napoleon.  Allowing for the enormous difference in his arena, he managed to be nearly as mischievous.

His luckless enemies, armed only with spears, tomahawks, stones and clubs, were shot and enslaved by thousands and eaten by hundreds.  Wide districts were swept bare of people.  No man cared for anything except to procure a gun and thereby have a chance to save his life.  A musket was, indeed, a pearl of great price.  It has been pleaded for Hongi that he protected the missionaries, and that by forcing his race to get guns at any price he unwittingly developed trade.  It is indeed true that in their desperate straits the tribes sold flax, timber, potatoes, mats, tattooed heads, pigs—­even their precious land—­for firearms.  Without them their