Note 6 — PREFACE.

Many years ago, Hongi Ika, the great warrior chief of New Zealand, was dying.[6] His relations, friends, and tribe were collected around him, and he then spoke to them in these words: "Children and friends, pay attention to my last words. After I am gone, be kind to the missionaries, be kind also to the other Europeans; welcome them to the shore, trade with them, protect them, and live with them as one people; but if ever there should land on this shore a people who wear red garments, who do no work, who neither buy nor sell, and who always have arms in their hands, then be aware that these are a people called soldiers, a dangerous people, whose only occupation is war. When you see them, make war against them. Then, O my children, be brave! then, O friends, be strong! Be brave that you may not be enslaved, and that your country may not become the possession of strangers." And having said these words, he died.