Frederick Edward Maning (1812–1883)

This book was fun, easy and fairly short, taking me only a few days to read. Maning is a great story teller, working wit and humour and probably a good deal of exaggeration into his story of New Zealand prior to European colonisation.

I'd never heard of the Maori concept of muru before, although coincidentally it also appeared in another - far more serious - book I'm also currently reading.