Page:Some Account of New Zealand.pdf/83

64 CHAP. X.

in point of consequence to the arts, subservient to the purposes of existence, is that of war, of which I shall say a few words.

It did not happen during my stay here that any warlike operations took place among the natives: this, I conceive, was not the case, from the neighbouring chiefs being at peace with each other, as I believe those “piping times” are rarely known here, but that there did not occur any convenient opportunity for meeting in the field: it therefore cannot be expected that I can describe the “pomp and circumstance” of