CHAP, ii.] CANNIBALS' COVE. 31 



and offered a shake of the hand as a welcome. 

 Amongst the houses was a large one, which they 

 had built for an Englishman, who at the end of 

 the whaling season lived with them. His house 

 formed also the meeting-house for the tribe, as they 

 had lately become converted to Christianity by a 

 native, who had been with the missionaries in the 

 Bay of Islands, and had learned to read and write. 

 Some of the tribe in Anaho had already acquired 

 from him these arts, and all were anxious to learn 

 them. These people were well provided with the 

 necessaries of life; provisions were plentiful, and 

 we were enabled to lay in a large stock of potatoes 

 and pigs at a very moderate price. From the 

 neighbouring whaling establishments they had ob- 

 tained articles of European clothing in exchange 

 for their commodities, and their condition seemed 

 to be a happy one. I was astonished to find it so 

 easy to deal with them ; and instead of sinister 

 savages, brooding nothing but treachery and mis- 

 chief, as many travellers have depicted them, they 

 were open, confident, and hospitable, and proved of 

 the greatest service to me during my frequent ram- 

 bles in the woods. A party of them had soon after 

 our arrival established themselves in temporary 

 huts opposite our vessel in Ship Cove ; the women 

 washed for us, and the men helped us to refit the 

 ship. But for the interference of a noisy fellow of 

 the name of " Dogskin," who belonged to another 

 place, our good understanding would never have 



