308 ttW ZEALAND [CHA*. SVIM. 



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, where a few hovels were collected together, 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 country 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 conspicuous by the 

 platforms which are raised on four posts ten or twelve feet above the 

 ground, and on which the produce of the field 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, placing 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 absence 

 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 formalities arise between the 

 different grades of society : thus at Tahiti all were formerly obliged to 

 uncover themselves as low as the waist in the presence of the king. 



The ceremony of pressing noses having been duly completed with 

 all present, we seated ourselves in a circle in the front of one of the 

 hovels, and rested there half an hour. All the hovels have nearly the 

 same form and dimensions, and all agree in being filthily dirty. They 

 resemble a cow-shed with one end open, but having a partition a little 

 way within, with a square hole in it, making a small gloomy chamber. 

 In this the inhabitants keep all their property, and when the weather is 

 cold they sleep there. They eat, however, and pass their time in the 

 open part in front. My guides having finished their pipes, we continued 

 our walk. The path led through the same undulating country, the 

 whole uniformly clothed as before with fern. On our right hand we 

 had a serpentine river, the banks of which were fringed with trees, and 

 here and there on the hillsides there was a clump of wood. The 

 whole scene, in spite of its green colour, had rather a desolate aspect. 

 The sight of so much fern impresses the mind with an idea of sterility ; 

 this, however, is not correct; for wherever the fern grows thick and 



