(which like most places on the West coast, improves no doubt, as you go inland) the settlers are entirely living on native sufferance, paying them small sums of money or food, for permission to get their cattle run; and they seem to consider themselves perfectly secure under the protection of Taratoa and other chiefs of the river, who no doubt consider it a beneficial and lucrative means of reaping a return from their hitherto waste lands. The protection thus afforded seems to be more efficient than what any Government could, in the present state of the country, afford. Nor do I suppose that it would be now an easy matter to obtain by