TAWHIAO.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3552, 27 November 1882, Page 4

TAWHIAO.

When I first saw Tawhiao (writes a correspondent of the Auckland Herald) he was sitting in front of his whare, playing a game of cribbage with the Waikato chief Whitiora, an old tattooed warrior, who during the war, had done a good deal of blood-letting in connection with the Bangariri Pa. He received me politely as he rose from his seat —a rush mat —and by the; aid' of mutual salutations and a couple bf cigars, we were soon on friendly terms. The King was habited in European attire, consisting of a pair of dark trousers and a grey frock-coat trimmed with red braiding about the sleeves, and which at the first glance reminded me of the redingote gris affected by Napoleon 1., and which obtained for him the"sobriquet of the 'little corporal.' A black billycock that shaded his countenance, and in his left ear he wore a lage piece of roughly polished greenstone and in his right a shark's tooth. In stature he is a little below the middle height, sparely made, but keenly knit, and he has a round, well-formed head, while his features, which are elaborately tattooed, are well defined, and, although he has a cast in the left eye, his countenance is pleasant, and as he speaks in his slow, deliberate way, he invariably displays in his cony ersation a good deal of cool, calculating shrewdness. He does not appear to be at this period of his life a particularly ambitious man, and I think the crowning desire of his existence would be to see his now landless Waikato tribe restored to the happy hunting grounds of their forefathers. Notwithstanding that Tawhiao's sovereignty has been shorn of much of its outward show since he appeared at the Kopua meeting in tho midst of a phalanx of natives and surrounded by a body guard of armed Hauhaus, he still exercises a widespread influence over the various tribes of the King country, to whom he is universally esteemed for his ability and kindly disposition, and so marked is this latter feature in his character that even the most cynical of European settlers here invariably say a good word in favour of the 'old King.'