864 Essays. 
might be that the people in the canoe had all got safely to land, or were 
coming by special invitation to visit that very village, perhaps to lament over 
their dead. Strangest of all, the (unfortunate ?) people in the upset canoe 
would be the very first to resent—even to fighting—any kind alleviation of 
this strange law! so that such conduct, while appearing to us (as Blackstone 
says) to be “ consonant neither ‘to reason nor humanity,’ was not to them 
the ‘ adding of sorrow to sorrow.’” So also, goods floating at sea (a canoe, 
&e.), or found on the high-road, or anywhere dropped, not hidden, became 
the property of the finder. Recently hidden property, if discovered, was 
restored to its owner, on its being clearly identified; but anciently hidden 
property (mostly stone axes and stone ornaments) became the property of 
the lord of the manor, who sometimes gave it (ez proprio motu) to the 
descendants of the person, when known, to whom it had belonged. 
(2.) Of common rights —Such everywhere existed, both to—(i.) movable 
and to (ii) immovable property: (i.) As where several joined together to 
build a village, to build a large house, to make a large net, to fell a forest, 
and to plant the ground, to fish with a seine net, or to snare birds in 
company, to make a large eel-weir, &c., &c. (ii.) To land, including what it 
spontaneously produced (which latter was often of the greater moment to 
them) ; such was common and unrestricted for every purpose to all the tribe, 
and to their relatives by marriage of other tribes, and to their friends; 
always excepting any such isolated peculiar claims and rights as those already 
mentioned. Hence, any one of the tribe or sub-tribe would clear a portion 
of the forest for planting, or set fire to the fern or swamp, or select and mark 
for himself a tree in the wood, to be hereafter felled by him and made into 
a canoe, &c. 
21. Their treatment of internal diseases, excepting, perhaps, rheumatism, 
was altogether bad, yet ignorantly so, as they wholly relied on the efficacy of 
the objurgations or exorcisms of the “ priest,” or skilled man. In rheumatic 
affections, however, among other remedies, they often resorted to a rude hot 
vapour bath; and both in rheumatism, and in some obstinate cutaneous 
diseases, the tribes living near to hot springs and hot sulphurous mud wells 
used them advantageously. But, while bad physicians, they were tolerably 
good surgeons, especially in reducing dislocations and setting broken bones, 
as they knew well the economy of the human frame, from their too often 
cannibal feasts, as well as from their practice of cleaning the bones of the 
dead. They set broken bones admirably, using splints of totara bark, or of 
the broad green bases of the large flax leaves. They also managed to cut off 
crushed fingers and toes, and even badly maimed hands, feet, and fore-arms, 
in a creditable manner, although wholly ignorant of the arterial system: 
RER broken off within and perceived, they managed to cut out; but, if 
