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Preface

This sketch of the Maori War is not intended to have any merit except spontaneity. I have consulted no authorities, read no dispatches.

I hold that no one who was a participator in the events of this war could realize its true character by reading the published accounts of it.

I have a photographic plate in my brain of everything that I saw, from which I can strike off pictures at will. And I can act as a phonograph of everything I heard. I can describe and narrate by word of mouth without difficulty, but I am a cramped writer, and mere penmanship makes my progress like that of a horse

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galloping with his legs tied. All the same, as I shall soon be dead and gone, I now give effect to the wish I have had in my mind for more than thirty years.

I scorn a lie in any form, not merely on account of its intrinsic faultiness (for I have known dozens of fine fellows in all walks of life lie on occasion without circumstance), but because, if I told a lie, I would have to own up at once and take the consequences, lest my adversary should think I was afraid of him. What I have written I have seen or heard from true and worthy witnesses, and if you will look through my eyes, you will see it also. The knowledge cannot fail of a humanizing effect. You will thus learn what blundering asses we were, and what fine fellows the Maori.