The native tribes were still at war with each other, and with the European settlers--the miserable effect of Captain Guard's rash conduct. From the missionary station at Pahia Mr. Marsden's daughter counted one morning twenty-one canoes passing up the bay. A battle followed, which she witnessed at a distance, and the Europeans all around fled to the missionary station. In the engagement three chiefs fell; a second fight occurred soon afterwards. "We have heard firing all day," she writes; "many have been killed; we saw the canoes pass down the river containing the bodies of the slain." Mr. Marsden himself was absent on a visit to the southward, or his presence might possibly have prevented these scenes of blood.
Wherever the venerable man appeared, he was received by the converted natives with Christian salutations and tears of joy; the heathen population welcomed him with the firing of muskets and their rude war dances. Wherever he went, he was greeted with acclamations as the friend and father of the New Zealanders. One chieftain sat down upon the ground before him gazing upon him in silence, without moving a limb or uttering a single word for several hours. He was gently reproved by Mr. Williams for what seemed a rudeness. "Let me alone," said he, "let me take a last look; I shall never see him again." "One principal chief," writes Mr. Marsden, "who had embraced the gospel and been baptized, accompanied us all the way. We had to travel about forty miles, by land and water. He told me he was so unhappy at Hokianga that he could not get to converse with me from the crowds that attended, and that he had come to Waimaté to speak with me. I found him to be a very intelligent man, and anxious to know the way to heaven." While at Kaitai he held a constant levée, sitting in an arm-chair, in an open field, before the mission house; it was attended by upwards of a thousand Maories, who poured in from every quarter; many coming a distance of twenty or thirty miles, contented to sit down and gaze on his venerable features; and so they continued to come and go till his departure. With his characteristic kindness and good nature he presented each with a pipe and fig of tobacco; and when he was to embark at last, they carried him to the ship, a distance of six miles.