L 835.1 CEREMONY OF KUBBING NOSES. 423 



panied me a few hundred yards on the road : I could not help 

 admiring the cool impudence of the hoary old villain, whom we 

 left lying in the boat, when he shouted to Mr. Bushby, " Do 

 not you stay long, I shall be tired of waiting here." 



We now commenced our walk. The road lay along a well- 

 beaten path, bordered on each side by the tall fern, which covers 

 the whole country. After travelling some miles, we came to a 

 little country village, w here a few hovels were collected toge- 

 ther, and some patches of ground cultivated with potatoes. The 

 introduction of the potato has been the most essential benefit to 

 the island ; it is now much more used than any native vegetable. 

 New Zealand is favoured by one great natural advantage ; 

 namely, that the inhabitants can never perish from famine. The 

 whole countrj^ abounds with fern ; and the roots of this plant, if 

 not very palatable, yet contain much nutriment. A native can 

 always subsist on these, and on the shell-fish, which are abundant 

 on all parts of the sea-coast. The villages are chiefly conspi- 

 cuous by the platforms which are raised on four posts ten or 

 twelve feet above the ground, and on which the produce of the 

 fields is kept secure from all accidents. 



On coming near one of the huts I was much amused by 

 seeing in due form the ceremony of rubbing, or, as it ought to be 

 called, pressing noses. The women, on our first approach, began 

 uttering something in a most dolorous voice ; they then squatted 

 themselves down and held up their faces ; my companion standing 

 over them, one after another, placed the bridge of his nose at right 

 angles to theirs, and commenced pressing. This lasted rather 

 longer than a cordial shake of the hand with us ; and as we vary the 

 force of the grasp of the hand in shaking, so do they in pressing. 

 During the process they uttered comfortable little grunts, very 

 much in the same manner as two pigs do, when rubbing against 

 each other. I noticed that the slave would press noses with any 

 one he met, indifferently either before or after his master the 

 chief. Although among these savages, the chief has absolute 

 power of life and death over his slave, yet there is an entire ab- 

 sence of ceremony between them. Mr. Burchell has remarked 

 the same thing in Southern Africa, with the rude Bachapins. 

 Where civilization has arrived at a certain point, complex for- 

 malities soon arise between the different grades of society : thup 

 19 



