194 JOHN RUTHERFORD encamped, waiting for reinforcements. Mean while messengers were continually passing from the one party to the other, with messages concerning the war. “One of them informed us that there was a white man in his party who had heard of and wished to see me; and that the chiefs, who also wished to see me, would give me permission to cross the river to meet him, and I should return unmolested whenever I thought proper. With Aimy’s consent, therefore, I went across the river; but I was not permitted to go armed, nor yet to take my wife with me. When I arrived on the opposite side, several of the chiefs saluted me in the usual manner by touching my nose with theirs; and I afterwards was seated in the midst of them by the side of the white man, who told me his name was John Mawman, that he was a native of Port Jackson, and that he had run away from the ‘ ‘ Tees ’ ’ sloop of war while she lay at this island. He had since joined the natives, and was now living with a chief named Rawmatty ;* whose daughter he had married, and whose residence was at a place called SukyannaJ on the west coast, within fifty miles of the Bay of Islands. He said that he had been at the Bay of Islands a short time before, and had seen several of the English mission aries. He also said that he had heard that the natives had lately taken a vessel at a place *Raumati. fAnother rendition of Hokianga.