The speech was esteemed by Sir George at more than warriors, and the memory of it made him exclaim:  ’Ah, they were fine fellows, those old Maori chieftains!  You required to understand them, but they were worth every study; nobles of a noble race!’

Meanwhile, Te-Whero-Whero had died.  A concert of tribes had made him Maori King, and his son Tawhiao succeeded to the newly set up throne.  It was the symbol of a movement to keep the Maori nation intact, though land rights were the immediate subject of clash.  Many things had happened while Sir George Grey was in South Africa; he was the problem-solver called in late.

‘You might put it broadly,’ he expressed the problem, ’that the Maoris were making a last stand for their fatherland, and credit be to them in that sense.  They, no doubt, wished to be full governors of New Zealand, and they talked of driving out the Europeans.  I set to work, with my best energies, to smooth away the troubles which threatened so thickly.’

Sir George went quietly among the disaffected natives, hence a dramatic scene at the graveside of Te-Whero-Whero.  He journeyed alone to the Maori headquarters, feeling that he was in no danger.  When he arrived, the place was almost deserted, the Maoris being elsewhere in council.  He sought out the grave of Te-Whero-Whero, bowed his head in tribute over it, and there stood to ruminate on old associations.  Thus the Maoris discovered him, to their astonishment, and they cried:  ’Come here!  Come here!’ If there had been no welcome for him the Maori cry would have been:  ‘Go away!  Go away!’

‘Word of my presence,’ Sir George remembered, ’was sent to King Tawhiao, and he started to ride to me, but was unable, being worn out, to complete his journey.  With royal etiquette, he had a certificate to that purport made out and sent on to me for my satisfaction.  It was drawn up and attested with every precision, and I got it all right, nor could I help laughing at the idea.

’But Tawhiao’s anxiety that I should be assured of his good faith, even in so trifling a matter, struck me as a pleasing item of character.  I took a fancy to him after we became personally acquainted, and he was one of the last persons I saw, when I finally left New Zealand for England.  Years before, I had bidden him another good-bye, he being then the one who was setting out on a visit to England.’

Estimated by his name, Tawhiao was a ‘scorner of the sun,’ but unhappily not of spirits.  They were apt, in the days when his kingship had grown an empty name, to make him quite unkingly.  He naturally called upon Sir George Grey, for years out of official life, to learn about England.

‘Will you answer me a question?’ Sir George broached him, adding:  ’There need be no false modesty between friends.’  Tawhiao waited sedately for the question, which was:  ’What would you think of a man who, by some wrong means, had brought about the death of a fellow-being?’