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Epilogue.

"Keep your face toward the sunshine
and the shadows will fall behind."

Someone will say—and nothing surer—on glancing over these pages, prior to settling down to read: "Why it's all about the Maoris!" Dear me, why so it is, and with very good reason, for in the early days the inhabitants of Wairoa, the permanent residents, I mean, were all Maoris, the rest were interlopers, living here under the sufferance of the Maoris. Gradually they became usurpers of the soil, then exploiters of the Maoris, then their masters. Of course many of these pages are about the doings of the Maoris, for the white men did little worthy of record. One might as well try to reproduce the play of Hamlet, omitting the part of the Prince of Denmark, as write about Old Wairoa and say nothing about the Maoris. The foregoing pages are submitted as possibly the author's last effort on behalf of Old Wairoa. Please take the bantling in and care for it.

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