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side of Tawhiao's aukati, the Natives are less poor ; for the Hauhau, although he banish the Pakeha beyond the pale, is not reluctant himself to cross that pale, or to avail himself occasionally of the settler's stores and merchandise. But the isolation of the Kawhia Native is more exclusive and more stringent. He has only the hills on one side of him, and the dreary ocean on the other. He may, indeed, command a sufficiency of food, attainable by moderate labour —fish, flesh, fowl, vegetable, and fruit; but he wants to be clothed as well as fed. Many of those who came on board the " Luna" were scantily covered, others were in rags; and while one finely-grown man crouched for a while under the ship's side, and hesitated to come on board from mere shame at his ragged clothing, another Native despondingly complained that it was no use for them to come among the Europeans, because they had no money to buy clothes. In others, the hollow cough and sunken aspect betrayed a constitution which already, before the winter is yet on, was suffering from cold and exposure. These poor people evidently felt the evils which they had brought upon themselves by their self-imposed isolation, and must needs long for those comforts which a resumed intercourse with the settlers would diffuse amongst them. Your Lordship will probably believe that the welcome offered by them to their waters was sincere. That welcome was earnestly conveyed also by their chiefs. Seated round the poop deck of the "Luna," they conducted their debate with the regularity of a formal runanga. The Memorandum of the Native Minister gives the general course of the discussion. Suffice it for me to add, that the chief Tapihana, both while replying to the chief Wi Tako, M.L.C., and on his being presented to and shaking hands with myself, declared himself reconciled; while it was repeatedly urged that the "Luna" should visit Kawhia again and again, after which it was intimated the harbour might be opened to all vessels. This assurance was confirmed in the presence of Tv Tawhiao. Nothing could be of fairer promise than was the whole bearing of that young man. His demeanour was dignified, yet modest and becoming. On being presented to myself he bid me the usual Maori salutation, Tena Koe, not with the jaunty—even bantering — air often assumed by the Natives, but slowly, and in a tone of intense melancholy. He then stood before me awhile, with his right hand in mine, his head drooping, in silence, and under visible emotion; until suddenly he drew back, retreated to a bench at the side of the deck, and there sat for a considerable time between two attendant chiefs, his head bent down, his face buried in his two hands, and in silence. At length he rose, stepped forward and again shook hands with me, after which he preserved a more assured composure. The whole conduct of the young man led me to the same conclusion as that formed by the Native Minister—viz., that Tv Tawhiao attributed to his own visit the significance of breakinc; down the barriers of isolation, and pledging himself henceforth to a reconciliation with the Europeans. Upon conditions like the foregoing, it is not unreasonable to hope that the Natives of Kawhia, reduced as they have been by their isolation from prosperity to poverty, will ere long accept the introduction of those comforts which they evidently wish to obtain, and that, as ancillary thereto, the harbour of Kawhia will be reopened to the trade and enterprise of the colonist. But that trade would almost of necessity be accompanied, if not introduced, by the locating of the colonist himself upon those shores; and it is, I believe, invariably found that the introduction of the settler among the Natives is followed by that of the Magistrate, Native as well as European, whose jurisdiction the Natives themselves become ready and eager to invoke in the adjustment of their disputes. Such relations, once established, are not easily dislocated. The Natives have never of themselves failed of their confidence in our Courts of justice as such; and in 1861, after the first year of the Waitara war, the Eesident Magistrate's Court of New Plymouth disposed of a greater number of causes in which Natives were plaintiffs than had ever been disposed of in any one previous year before that tribunal. Having regard, then, to the geographical position of Kawhia, as already described, in connection with the district immediately under the control of Tawhiao, it is not too much to expect that, if such relations as are above indicated should be established on the shores of Kawhia Harbour, the Natives 3 A.—la