594 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



a part of the eastern coast, was shown on the Portuguese 

 charts some fifty years before Cook's arrival at New Zealand. 



' ' A strong proof of the visit of the Spaniards or Portuguese 

 exists in the fact of Spanish names attaching in the old charts 

 to capes on the eastern coast. The coast-line from Poverty 

 Bay to Cabo Formosa, or East Cape, was laid down on the 

 Portuguese charts, whilst Dusky Bay and portions of the 

 south-west coast appear in the charts of the Spaniards pre- 

 vious to the voyage of Cook. 



" Note : The Portuguese nomenclature appears to have 

 been copied for some time at the Hydrographic Office. On 

 the Admiralty charts of the Indian Ocean of 1827, against 

 the draft of the group, appears this note : ' Neio Zealand, dis- 

 covered and named by Tasman, 1642, hut ivJiose eastern coast 

 ivas hioion to the Portugiiese ahoiit 1550.' And also, against 

 Cook Strait, east side : ' GiilpJi of the Portuguese, 1550.' 



" The Spanish navigator, Juan Fernandez, in the year 

 1574, sailing from the coast of Chili ... in a small ship, 

 with some of his companions, reached in about a month a 

 tierra firma, which was fertile and pleasant, and inhabited 

 by a race of ivhite people, well made, and dressed in a species 

 of ivoven cloth, and who were of an amiable disposition. 

 Several rivers fell into the sea, and altogether it appeared 

 much better and richer than Peru." 



Dr. Thompson estimates the distance between Peru and 

 New Zealand as 7,000 miles. 



The speaking of the natives as white may be in contrast 

 to black of the Negro race. 



From this view of the case we cannot deny the possibility 

 — nay, even the probability — that a Spanish or Portuguese dog 

 or dogs were left at New Zealand long before the time of 

 Captain Cook, more especially when it seems certain that this 

 word pcro was only used by the Maoris of the extreme North. 

 But that they also had the dog of Polynesia, or, at least, the 

 recollection of its Polynesian name, there is ample proof, kuri 

 and liuii being the name for dog all through Polynesia. I 

 speak thus cautiously because, although the Maori had no pigs 

 before they were brought to New Zealand by Cook, yet they 

 had a knowledge of its Polynesian name, as Cook himself 

 says."^' 



It seems that men of science in the Northern Hemisphere 

 are, like ourselves, more or less ignorant as to what kind of 

 animal the New Zealand dog really was. In the last volume 

 of Transactions (xxv.) you will notice a translation from " The 



* A dog of the name of Pedro (Peter) might be left or stolen from a 

 ship, and the Maoris would call it and its half-bred descendants 'pero, 

 pero, in place of 7noi, moi. 



