Penny for the Haka.

Dispense with all its special attractions and Ohinemutu is still a place where you can spend many a pleasant hour. It is delightful merely to wander in and out aimlessly among the narrow streets of the village. Here you will encounter little fellows of three and four and upwards who will clamour loudly to honour you with a haka so that you may reward them with a penny. Such a haka, too—what they lack in skill they make up for in gusto, conscientiously determined to give you your “penn'orth.” Perhaps, further along, you will meet one of the old wahines. She smokes her pipe contentedly. She stops when you come up to her, and, giving you a hearty “Tenakoi,” shakes hands quite vigorously, and says a number of things in Maori which you know from her broad smiles must be some friendly message. The wonderfully happy spirit of camaraderie which the Maoris show to everybody alike is their most delightful characteristic, which we are able to appreciate the more keenly because of our natural aloofness.

So we leave Ohinemutu. though we have touched only on the fringe of its inexhaustible charms.