366 : Essays. 
the ground, one foot closely before the other; hence they walked in very 
narrow pathways, yet they trod firmly, and stood strong on their legs. 
23. Of drinks, save water, no people had fewer; of really artificial ones 
none. In summer they everywhere drank the sweet and pleasant juice of 
the tutu, sometimes mixed with gelatinous seaweeds or a little prepared fern 
root to give it consistency. Sometimes they mixed the fresh gathered watery 
honey of the flax flowers, korari (Phormium), with water; and sometimes the 
large roots of the cabbage-tree, ti (Cordyline australis), were slowly baked and 
bruised up in water, and yielded a sweetish drink. 
24. Their masticatories were few and scanty, yet most of what they had 
they prized. The resin of the tarata (Pittosporum eugenioides) they gathered 
and mixed into a ball with the gum of the sow-thistle, which they chewed. 
A kind of bitumen which was sometimes found thrown up on their coasts, 
though rarely, and called by them “ kauritawhiti,” and “ mimiha," they also 
chewed ; as they did the fresh resin of the kauri tree (Dammara australis). 
In using them, they passed them freely from one to another without 
hesitation. 
25. Fond of children, pets, and playthings, they endeavoured to domesti- 
eate a few animals. Foremost among them was their dog, which, for many 
reasons, must have been one of their great treasures; this animal they 
prized for his long tail-hair, his skin, and his flesh. In some places they 
dexterously managed to flay the outer skin of his living tail in narrow strips, 
so as to obtain the much coveted long white hair; which in time grew again! 
They also had a very ingenious mode of castrating them. This variety of 
dog has long become wholly extinct in New Zealand. Next to their dog, as 
being like him wholly at liberty, were the two large sea-gulls, the karoro and 
the ngoiro (Larus sp.) ; these, however, were of no real service; they would 
go to the sea and return again to the village. The large brown parrot, 
kaakaa (Nestor meridionalis), and the parson-bird, tui, or koko (Prosthema- 
dera nove-zealandie), they also tamed, the former as a useful decoy-bird for 
catching his fellow-parrots, the latter merely for his song, talking, and antics. 
They kept the £u in a kind of rude cage, and taught him to repeat tolerably 
well a long song; while the poor parrot was always kept fast confined, tied 
by his leg to a cord with a running noose on a light perch or spear. They 
also sometimes kept the white crane, kotuku (Ardea flavirostris), in a miser- 
able cage of basket work, much smaller than the bird required to stand 
upright in, where they scantily fed him with small fresh-water fish ; this was 
done for the sake of its prized feathers, which were regularly plucked every 
four or six months. d 
26. Of games and diversions the New Zealanders had several; some of 
