The old Maori regarded me with commiserative eyes.

“You got te rheumatics?” he asked. “Why you no go Ngawha? Py korry! Ngawha—he cure him orright!”

“But it isn't rheumatics—“ I began

You got te neuritis?” he interrupted. “Never mind! You go Ngawha! He cure him—“

“But I haven't neuritis,” I interrupted in my turn. “I've only a relaxed throat.”

“You got te sore t'roat? Never mind! He all te same t'ing. You go Ngawha! He cure him orright.”

I became impatient of old Kaka's insistence.

“I suppose Ngawha would cure a wooden leg, eh, Kaka?” I said flippantly, and was immediately ashamed for the old fellow took me seriously. He puffed at his pipe reflectively.

“No,” he said at last. “He no cure a wooden leg, but he make you feel so good you no notice te wooden leg.”

After that, what to do but go to Ngawha!

On enquiring the state of the roads —a necessary preliminary to any projected trip in a small car in the north —we are assured that they are “not too bad.” Our pedagogic passenger, who even during week-ends thinks in terms of “two-times and parsing and capes,” speaks his piece between jolts.

“Cha-cha-change one abverb and you've got it,” he stutters, and certainly, “just too bad!” would be a more apt descriptive phrase, for the several miles of pot-holed corrugations that passes muster for a road. It is as though some mammoth monster, whose favourite diet is roads, has pounded heavily along, taking great bites with every leap, and an hour on his trail, in a baby-car makes the prospect of a hot mineral bath trebly attractive.