he had studied for the medical profession, and, having a few simple remedies with him, he treated Mackay’s knee with such good effect that that indomitable man was ready for the road again in a few days. Food at this particular time was very scarce, the natives having but little to spare and the white men none at all.
When, however, the immediate future looked dark indeed, the schooner Gipsy, which had been chartered to carry supplies to the Grey, hove into sight, and later entered the river (March 5th, 1860), all was well. Nineteen days after Mackay’s arrival at the pa, Von Haast and his party also reached that haven of refuge, in a starving condition, and that night for the first time in the history of Old Westland a party of white men—Mackay, Mackley, Von Haast and James Burnett—foregathered and ate to repletion of good life-giving food, so different from the fern root and occasional eel that the explorers had been forced for some time to subsist upon.
Mackay at once opened negotiations with Tarapuhi as chief of the coastal natives, with the result that it was agreed to convene a meeting of all the tribes to take place at the Poherua Lagoon, near Okarito, which was situated some one hundred and forty miles south of the Mawhera Pa. Accordingly, Mackay, Mackley and James Burnett set out on their tramp to the place appointed, and with
