It was a small brig, the Mary and Elizabeth, from Hobart Town, that first brought Frederick Edward Maning to the land of the Maori. The page 26 coming Pakeha-Maori was a tall, lithe, broad-shouldered young six-footer (or a trifle more), a lively Irish lad whose every movement and expression betokened him a born adventurer. His confidence, courage, high opinion of himself, impatience of weakness, recklessness, conjoined to a stalwart frame and great good looks, all were qualities that appealed to the warrior race in whose shining river his anchor went down for good. He had seen something of the rough side of life before he set foot on Hokianga's shore. Born in Dublin on July 5, 1811, his father took him, with the rest of the family, to seek a new home round the curve of the world, in 1824. The long sailing-ship voyage ended at Hobart. After nine years in Tasmania, Frederick, then twenty-two years old, took ship again, this time on his own account, to try his future in Cannibal Land. Hokianga was then the great seat of the kauri timber trade. Many of Maning's compatriots—one was Lieutenant McDonnell, late R.N., who established a shipyard at Te Horeke—were then settled along the shores of Hokianga Harbour, and vessels were continually arriving to load kauri for Australia and England. The life there as a trader and intermediary between the ships and the Maoris fitted in very well with Maning's liking, and presently we find him becoming the complete pakeha-Maori by taking to wife the daughter of a Rarawa chief, a handsome lass with a tattooed chin and a pedigree going back six centuries and more.