Note 23 — PREFACE.

Now, before the first rocket was fired, Heke came out of the front gate of the pa to watch the effect of the rocket, and he stood outside praying a Maori prayer, and holding with one hand to a post of the fence. Then the first rocket was fired; it came very near him, and passed away without doing any harm. Then another was fired, and missed also; so when Heke saw this, he cried out in a loud voice, "What prize can be won by such a gun?"[23] and this has become a saying amongst us from that day; for whenever we hear a man boasting of what he can do, we think of the rocket, and cry, "What prize can be won by such a gun?"