EuTLAND. — History of the Pacific. 3 



inhabitants possessed when Europeans came in contact with 

 them, all of which were ill adapted to the climatic conditions 

 of the country. From these plants, the aute, taro, hue, and 

 kumara, we gather that the inhabitants came from a much 

 warmer zone, and that, between the time of their arrival in 

 the country and its rediscovery by Cook in 1769, they were 

 unable to obtain more suitable species. Besides the foreign 

 plants enumerated, there were in cultivation when the mis- 

 sionaries commenced their labours in the country several 

 varieties of the Phormiuni tenax, an endemic species, proving 

 that it was not the lack of knowledge that limited agriculture. 



I will now exajnine separately each of the plants men- 

 tioned, and ascertain what evidence can be extracted from 

 them . 



Aute, or Paper Mulberry {Broiissonetia papyrifera) . — 

 When Captain Cook ■•' visited the Bay of Islands in 1769 he 

 noticed in cultivation about half a dozen of the " cloth 

 plants" with which he had become familiar while in Tahiti. 

 The cloth made from the bark, he remarked, was very scarce, 

 being worn only as an ornament in the ear, and rarely seen. 

 Of the various articles offered to the natives in barter by the 

 crew of the " Endeavour," the tapa cloth brought from Poly- 

 nesia, everywhere, excepting Queen Charlotte Sound, was 

 most highly esteemed. Possibly the southern natives, who 

 were not agriculturists at Cook's time, had lost this memento 

 of their former home. Their indifference may, however, point 

 in a different direction. 



The presence of the paper mulberry, or aute as it was 

 generally styled throughout Polynesia as well as New Zea- 

 land, proved beyond doubt that the latter islands were regu- 

 larly colonised — not accidentally peopled, the explanation until 

 recently generally received. In Polynesia, where the shrub 

 was extensively cultivated for the sake of its bark, it was in- 

 variably propagated by cuttings. A transportation of the 

 plant thus raised across the broad expansive ocean that 

 separates the nearest of the Polynesian groups from New Zea- 

 land bespeaks at once skill and forethought ; the scarcity of 

 the plant, and the fact of its dying out since the missionaries 

 commenced their labours in New Zealand, shows that even 

 after it was established in the country it could only be grown 

 with the utmost care. 



The B. papyrifera belongs to the flora of Japan, and pro- 

 bably to that of China, where it still furnishes material for 

 one of the many fabrics called "grass cloth." How the 

 species found its way into Polynesia, and from thence to New 

 Zealand, there is little hope of discovering, but its presence-in 



— _ XX^^'-'^i . > 



*" Captain Cook's Journal." /^y .^.O^ '^/.v^.^^^ 



