192 NATIVES INHABITING [PART I. 



over their graves. Many runaway convicts from 

 New South Wales and Australia were amongst 

 these irregular settlers, many of whom were men of 

 desperate character. The society was a curious 

 motley of men of all nations and colours, who had 

 lived an adventurous life from their childhood ; yet, 

 with all these elements of vice among them, the 

 natives had preserved many of their good qualities ; 

 and the colonists of the Company found them better 

 prepared to acknowledge a more regulated state of 

 society, and to acquiesce in present sacrifices with a 

 view to their future benefit, than was the case with 

 the natives in the more northern parts of the island, 

 although missionaries had lived among them during 

 a long period. None of these missionaries have 

 paid Cook's Straits more than a passing visit, yet 

 many of the natives were initiated into the tenets 

 of Christianity, and could read and write, having 

 learned these arts from mutual instruction. The 

 zeal of these new proselytes went so far as often to 

 cause me annoyance. 



Many changes have taken place amongst the in- 

 habitants of Cook's Straits during the last thirty 

 years. Several tribes have disappeared, or have emi- 

 grated to more distant places, in consequence of war. 

 The natives who inhabited Cook's Straits at the 

 time when the country was visited by Captain Cook 

 and Forster have been replaced by tribes coming 

 from the western coast and the interior of the 

 northern island : war, or the desire to be connected 



