30 Transactions. 
and remarks that “nothing more clearly shows the truth of the old adage, 
‘the best corrupted is the very worst, than that a party of New Zealanders 
should be so carried away by the diabolical frenzy of the moment as wholly to 
forget their strongly and highly characteristic natural feelings, and kill, roast, 
and eat little children.” I need not, however, dwell any further on the 
subjects specially treated in this chapter, for their habits and customs must 
necessarily come, more or less, under further consideration throughout the 
course of my narrative. 
CHAPTER IT. 
BEFORE noticing the condition of the New Zealand tribes during the twenty 
years immediately preceding the systematic colonization of the islands, I think 
it necessary to call attention to the accounts we have received, both from early 
voyagers and from late writers of authority, as to the extent of the native 
population, and their habits of life, previously to the introduction of fire- 
arms ; and I do this chiefly for the purpose of showing, that notwithstanding 
the savage character of the former wars of the New RRO the effects 
which those wars produced upon their numbers were as naught when com- 
pared with the destruction of life, both direct and indirect, which followed 
upon the use of the more deadly weapon of the civilized man, The earliest 
notice we have of the present race, occurs in the history of the voyage of 
Abel Tasman to the South Seas, in the seventeenth century, from which we 
learn that, in December, 1642, he discovered a high mountainous country, 
which he named Staaten Land, or Land of the States, but which is now 
called New Zealand. A day or two afterwards, he anchored in the beautiful 
bay at the north-western extremity of the Nelson Province, formerly named 
Massacre, or Murderer’s Bay, on account of the murder to which I am about 
to refer, but which is now known, on the maps of the Nelson Province, as 
Golden Bay. He says that he there found abundance of inhabitants, whom 
he describes as very large made people, of a colour between brown and yellow, 
with hoarse voices, and with hair long, and almost as thick as that of the 
Japanese, combed up and fixed on the top of their heads with a quill or some 
such thing, that was thickest in the middle, in the very same manner the 
Japanese fastened their hair behind their heads. Some of them covered the 
middle of their bodies with a kind of mat, and others with what Tasman 
took to be a sort of woollen cloth; but their upper and lower parts were 
altogether naked. Tasman CNOA in the bay for several days, and on the 
19th of December the savages, who had previously been shy of close inter- 
course, grew bolder and more familiar, insomuch that they at last ventured on 
board the “ Heemskirk ” (one of his ships) to trade. As soon as he observed 
this, he sent his shallop, with seven men in it, to put the people in the 
* 
