In this genesis of verse, Sir George also found the noise of all combat with skilled weapons.  A cry of sorrow and repentance by Lamech, at some ill-starred act, which filled him with remorse?  Surely, rather the exultant note of a rude spirit, handling mastery anew in the ingenuity of his son.

There stood Lamech, on the edge of creation, crowing over the cunning forces Tubal Cain had discovered.  ’I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt!’ It was to be a long roll.  Sir George would recite the lines once, twice, yet again, and the thunder tramp of a Maori impi sang in his ears.  ‘The story of my going to New Zealand,’ he thought, ’may appear quaint in these days, when the cable anticipates all pleasant surprises.  We had heard at Adelaide, through a coaster arriving from Sydney and Van Diemen’s Land, also from a British man-of-war on the Australian station, of serious fighting in New Zealand.  A friend of my own was in command of the war-ship in question, which had put into Adelaide for supplies.  I spoke to him of events in New Zealand, the heavy slaughter of British soldiers, and the evident critical situation.  I had no distinct authority to order his vessel to New Zealand, but I felt it to be a wise step.

Accordingly, I wrote him a letter saying he ought to proceed to the scene of trouble, and that I was prepared to assume the responsibility.  We got together what materials of war were available in South Australia, and what money we could spare from the Treasury of the Colony.  So furnished, he sailed for New Zealand.

’A few days later, I was out riding with my step-brother from England, who was on a visit to me at Adelaide.  We were cantering along a road near the coast, when a man with a light cart stopped us.  An unknown ship had been sighted before we left Adelaide, and this man came from the quarter where she had taken up anchor.  He stated that it was the “Elphinstone,” belonging to the East India Company, that despatches had been brought for me, and that he had them in his cart.  He added that the “Elphinstone” had come to take me away, and that some of the officers would very likely be landed by the time I got to the place of anchor-age.  This was all very puzzling.  I jumped off my horse, sat down beside some trees, opened the despatch bag, and devoured its contents.’

It had been carried express from London, first overland to Suez where the “Elphinstone” awaited, and then by sea to Adelaide.  The British Government, much alarmed as to affairs in New Zealand, borrowed the “Elphinstone” from the East India Company.  In effect, it was adopting the Suez Canal route, long before the Suez Canal existed.  Not often, perhaps, did the Colonial Office, of the young Oceana period, have such a healthy attack of nerves.  Also, it spoke of Sir George Grey handsomely in these despatches; which was encouraging.