216 CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF NEW ZEALAND CH.'IX 



than his great-grandfather, and relates to two large canoes 

 which came from Olimaroa, one of the islands he has 

 mentioned. Whether he is right, or whether this is a 

 tradition of Tasman's ships (which they could not well 

 compare with their own by tradition, and which their 

 warlike ancestors had told them they had destroyed), is 

 difficult to say. Tupia has all along warned us not to put 

 too much faith in anything these people tell us, " for," says 

 he, " they are given to lying ; they told you that one of 

 their people was killed by a musket and buried, which was 

 absolutely false." 



The doctor and I went ashore to-day, and fell in by 

 accident with the most agreeable Indian family we had 

 seen upon the coast, indeed the only one in which we 

 have observed any order or subordination. It consisted of 

 seventeen people ; the head of it was a pretty boy of about 

 ten years old, who, they told us, was the owner of the land 

 about where we wooded. This is the only instance of 

 property we have met with among these people. He and 

 his mother (who mourned for her husband with tears of 

 blood, according to their custom) sat upon mats, the rest sat 

 round them : houses they had none, nor did they attempt 

 to make for themselves any shelter against the inclemencies 

 of the weather, which I suppose they by custom very easily 

 endure. Their whole behaviour was so affable, obliging, and 

 unsuspicious, that I should certainly have accepted their 

 invitation to stay the night with them, were not the ship to 

 sail in the morning. Most unlucky shall I always esteem it 

 that we did not sooner make acquaintance with these people, 

 from whom we might have learnt more in a day of their 

 manners and dispositions than from all we have yet seen. 



Qth. Foul wind continued, but we contrived to get into 

 the straits, which are to be called Cook's Straits. Here we 

 were becalmed, and almost imperceptibly drawn by the tide 

 near the land. The lead was dropped, and gave seventy 

 fathoms ; soon after we saw an appearance like breakers, 

 towards which we drove fast. It was now sunset, and 

 night came on apace ; the ship drove into the rough water, 



