My plunge into the battle was a
little risky, but I calculated that the Maoris would, most likely, be
glad of an excuse to stop fighting. Combatants who fall out easily,
generally are. They regard as a benefactor, anybody who can rescue them
from their scrape, with due form of ceremony and guarantee of dignity. My
order to the Maoris, desiring peace, was obeyed.'
This is the Sir George Grey whose doings you follow with the keenest
tingle of interest--Grey, Pro-Consul. But his other activities all
grouped round this signature, and they are to be read with it. From
England he went back to New Zealand, thinking he could best influence the
Old World from the shores of the New World. He sat himself down in the
remote solitude of Kawau, among his books, and every morning his heart
beat round the Empire, a morning drum.
Twice Governor of New Zealand, he was yet to be its Prime Minister, a
record which is unique. Being asked to work in New Zealand domestic
politics, he replied: 'I will be a messenger if in that capacity I can
usefully serve the State.' Yet, once more, you turn to the romance maker
and discover him taking down, by the lake side of Rotorua, that of Hine-
Moa. He rescued it, a Hero and Leander legend, with a variation, from the
Maori ages, and placed it, a pearl, among his other delvings from
Polynesian mythology.
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