FEB. 1770 COOK'S STRAITS 215 



place where we were shooting shags, and invited us to join 

 the rest of them, twenty or thirty in number, men, women, 

 and children, dogs, etc. We went, and were received with 

 all possible demonstrations of friendship, if the numberless 

 hugs and kisses we got from both sexes, old and young, in 

 return for our ribbons and beads may be accounted such. 



2Qth. Went to-day to take another view of our new 

 straits, 1 as the captain was not quite sure of the westernmost 

 end. We found a hill in a tolerably convenient situation, 

 and climbing it, saw the strait quite open, and four or five 

 leagues wide. We then erected a small monument of stone, 

 such as five stout men could do in half an hour, and laid in 

 it musket balls, beads, shot, etc., so that if perchance any 

 Europeans should find and pull it down, they will be sure 

 it is not of Indian workmanship. 



5th February. Our old man, Topaa, was on board, and 

 Tupia asked him many questions concerning the land, etc. 

 His answers were nearly as follows : " That the straits 

 we had seen from the hills were a passage into the 

 eastern sea ; that the land to the south consisted of two or 

 several islands round which their canoes might sail in three 

 or four days ; that he knew of no other great land than 

 that we had been upon (Aehie no Mauwe), of which Tera 

 Whitte was the southern part ; that he believed his ancestors 

 were not born there, but came originally from Heawije " 

 (from whence Tupia and the islanders also derive their 

 origin), "which lay to the northwards where were many lands; 

 that neither himself, his father, nor his grandfather had ever 

 heard of ships as large as this being here before, but that 

 they have a tradition of two large vessels, much larger than 

 theirs, which some time or other came here, and were totally 

 destroyed by the inhabitants, and all the people belonging 

 to them killed." 



This last Tupia says is a very old tradition, much older 



1 Cook's Straits. 



2 The Maoris are by some authorities supposed to have originally come 

 from Hawaii, the direction of which agrees very fairly with that given by the 

 natives to Banks. The Sandwich Islands really lie N.N.E. from New 

 Zealand. 



