244 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND CHAP, x 



cultivate, necessarily must. When we first came to Tegadu 

 the crops were just covered, and had not yet begun to sprout ; 

 the mould was as smooth as in a garden, and every root had 

 its small hillock, all ranged in a regular quincunx by lines, 

 which with the pegs still remained in the field. 



We had not an opportunity of seeing them work, but 

 once saw their tool, which is a long and narrow stake, 

 flattened a little and sharpened ; across this is fixed a piece 

 of stick for the convenience of pressing it down with the 

 foot. With this simple tool, industry teaches them to turn 

 pieces of ground of six or seven acres in extent. The soil 

 is generally sandy, and is therefore easily turned up, while 

 the narrowness of the tool, the blade of which is not more 

 than three inches broad, makes it meet with the less 

 resistance. 



Tillage, weaving, and the rest of the arts of peace are 

 best known and most practised in the north-eastern parts ; 

 indeed, in the southern there is little to be seen of any of 

 them ; but war seems to be equally known to all, though 

 most practised in the south-west. The mind of man, ever 

 ingenious in inventing instruments of destruction, has not 

 been idle here. Their weapons, though few, are well cal- 

 culated for bloody fights, and the destruction of numbers. 

 Defensive weapons they have none, and no missives except 

 stones and darts, which are chiefly used in defending their 

 forts ; so that if two bodies should meet either in boats or 

 upon the plain ground, they must fight hand to hand and 

 the slaughter be consequently immense. 



Of their weapons, the spears are made of hard wood 

 pointed at both ends, sometimes headed with human bones ; 

 some are fourteen or fifteen feet long. They are grasped by 

 the middle, so that the end which hangs behind, serving as a 

 balance to keep the front steady, makes it much more difficult 

 to parry a push from one of them than it would from one of 

 a spear only half as long which was held by the end. Their 

 battle-axes, likewise made of a very hard wood, are about six 

 feet long, the bottom of the handle pointed, and the blade, 

 which is exactly like that of an axe but broader, made very 



