– vi –

– vii –

To the Reader

Confinement to my room during a slow convalescence, following a severe illness, has enabled me to fulfil a promise to write my recollections of sixty years of a rather strenuous life.

On its literary side, I am well aware that my book falls very short of the requirements of the age. The reminiscences, however, include many incidents in the Maori wars which hitherto have not been recorded, and on that account I venture to hope that most New Zealanders will find them interesting.

Even those who are strangers to the land, which, before the coming of the white man, was known to the Maoris as “The Long White Cloud” may, I hope, find pleasure in reading these pages.