264 Essays. 
were often used for the same purpose. The creepers, aka (Metrosideros 
scandens), and kareao or pirita (Rhipogonum parviflorum), were extensively 
used for tying up fences, platforms, and the heavy frame-work of houses. 
Sometimes other creepers (Passiflora tetrandra and Parsonsia sp.) were 
used, but not commonly ; and among the northern tribes the creeping fern 
mangemange (Lygodium articulatum) was generally used to bind the out- 
ward thatch securely on the roof of their houses. The raupo or large 
bulrush (Typha angustifolia) was universally used to cover the frame-work 
of their houses; the outer thatch being toetoe (Cyperus ustulatus), or 
rautahi (Carex ternaria), or ririwaka (Scirpus maritimus), or of two kinds of 
wiwi, or rushes (Juncus maritimus and effusus); sometimes, however, a 
hard-jointed rush (Leptocarpus simpler) was advantageously used; being 
by far the best of all the rushes or sedges for thatching, on account of its 
durability. The leaves of the ti or cabbage-tree (Cordyline australis), were 
also used for this purpose; but for the inner works of roofs, sides, partitions, 
&c., the large fronds of the nikau or New Zealand palm (Areca sapida), and 
the handsome reed kakaho (Arundo conspicua), were extensively used. The 
interior of the verandahs and sides of their chiefs' houses was often neatly 
ornamented with chequered work of various regular patterns and designs, 
caused by interlacing narrow strips of the leaves of the bright orange-coloured 
pingao (Desmoschenus spiralis), with the greyish-green kiekie (Freycinetia 
banksii), and the olive-coloured harakeke (Phormium tenax), which, worked 
regularly, had a very pleasing effect. Sometimes, especially in the interior, 
the outside of their better houses was formed of hard fibrous slabs cut from 
the stout red-brown fern-tree, wekiponga (Dicksonia australis) ; and in other 
parts of the island, smaller pieces cut from the trunk of the black fern-tree, 
korau or mamaku (Cyathea medullaris), were closely placed like a plinth 
around the lower part of the house, especially if it was a sweet potato store, 
to keep out the rats. Their large and small fish-traps or creels were very 
strongly and skilfully made of the flexible stems of two species of Muhlen- 
beckia (adpressa and ephedroides), and also of the long fibrous roots of the 
New agmen: flax veio: the stems of the twining-fern (Lygodium 
l vely used for this purpose by the northern tribes. 
Their fishing nets, of all sizes of mesh (some of which nets were very long, 
and most skilfully made, the admiration of Cook and of all early voyagers), 
were made of the split but unscraped leaves of the New Zealand flax (Phor- 
mium) ; for floats, the light wood of the small tree whau, or hauama (Entelea 
arborescens), was used, and sometimes the leaves of the raupo, or large bul- 
rush, rolled up ; and for net-ropes, the tough stringy bark of the houhere, 
. and also of the whauwhi or houi (Hoheria populnea, and its varieties), was 
2 um eer leaves of Phormium were also used for this purpose. 
