276 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Zealand. He sailed Northwards, describing, both in Journal 

 and in Charts, the prominent features of the coast in such 

 a way that they can be easily identified by the modern 

 student. 1 On the i6th, he reached a point at which " the 

 land fell off so abruptly that we did not doubt that this 

 was the furthest extremity." In fact it was the Cape 

 which the next visitor, Cook in 1770, called Cape Fare- 

 well, the Northernmost point of the South Island. Round- 

 ing this point, they " saw a large open bay " and resolved 

 to " try to get ashore here and find a good harbour " 

 (i8th December). They anchored, 2 and two prows came 

 towards them. "The men began to call out to us in a 

 rough hollow voice, but we could not understand a word 

 of what they said." They also blew several times on 

 an instrument of which the sound was " like that of a 

 Moorish trumpet." The Dutch trumpeters replied, and 

 the natives paddled home. 



The Maori. Next day, they came again, but the Dutch again failed 

 to understand their speech by use of their vocabularies of 

 New Guinea and the Solomons. They got a good view, 

 however, of the men, and wrote the first European descrip- 

 tion of the Maori. " As far as we could observe, these 

 people were of ordinary height. They had rough voices 

 and strong bones. The colour of their skin was between 

 brown and yellow. They wore tufts of black hair right 

 upon the tops of their heads, tied fast in the manner of the 

 Japanese at the back of their heads, but somewhat longer 

 and thicker, and surmounted by a large, thick, white 

 feather. Their boats consisted of two long narrow prows 

 side by side, over which a number of planks or other seats 

 were placed. Their paddles are upwards of a fathom in 

 length, narrow and pointed at the end. With these 

 vessels they could make considerable speed. For clothing 

 it seemed to us some of them wore mats, others cotton 

 stuffs. Almost all of them were naked from the shoulders 



1 See exact explanation of the detail in M'Nab's From Tasman to 

 Marsden, pp. 4 to 15. 



2 Tasman's anchorage was " in Golden Bay, off Waramanga Beach, 

 two miles W. by N. N. of Separation Point " (M'Nab's From Tasman 

 to Marsden, p. 9). 



