W. T. L. Travers.—The Life and Times of Te Rauparaha. 33 
landed for the first time, taking Tupia and Tayeto with them. Here they had 
their first close view of the houses and mode of life of the people. They 
entered some of the huts, and saw them at their meals. These huts are 
described as being very slight, and generally placed ten or fifteen together. 
The chief food appeared to be fish and fern-root, the fibres of which were 
spit out, like quids of tobacco, into baskets set beside them for the purpose. 
This was in October, and Cook learnt that, in the more advanced season, the 
natives had plenty of excellent vegetables, but no animals except dogs, which 
they ate like the South Sea Islanders. They visited the native gardens, 
-which consisted of from one acre to ten, and altogether, in the bay, amounted 
to 150 or 200 acres in extent, These gardens are described as being planted 
with sweet potatoes, coccos or eddas (such as are used in the East and West 
Indies), yams, and gourds ; but few of them were then above ground, and the 
plantations were carefully fenced in with reeds. They found both men and 
women painted with red ochre and oil, but the women much the most so; 
and that, like the South Sea Islanders, they saluted by touching noses. They 
wore garments of native cloth, made from the fibre of New Zealand flax, and 
a sort of cloak or mantle of a much coarser kind. The women are described 
as being more modest in manner, and more cleanly in their homes, than the 
Otaheiteans. They willingly bartered their cloth and war weapons for 
European cloth, but they set no value on nails, having then no knowledge of 
iron or its uses. What astonished the visitors greatly was to find boys 
- whipping tops exactly like those of Europe. Cook then visited a pa, and 
learned that these enclosures were used for purposes of defence against 
invasion, the houses, within the enclosure, being larger and more strongly built 
than those on the shore. He describes the men as having their faces 
wonderfully tattoed, and their cheeks cut in spiral lines of great regularity ; 
and states that many of them had their garments bordered with strips of dog 
and rat skins, which animals, however, were said to have become very scarce, 
They measured one canoe, made out of the boles of three trees, which was 
sixty-eight and a half feet long, five wide, and three high, These, as well as 
the houses, were much adorned with carvings, in which spiral lines and 
distorted faces formed the main points, but the work was so well done, that 
Cook could scarcely believe that it was executed with any of the tools he saw. 
He then followed the south-east coast as far as Mercury Bay, and from 
thence to the Bay of Islands, everywhere observing villages full of people, who 
. constantly came off in their canoes to utter defiance to the ship, displaying, on 
all occasions, the same reckless daring and unreflecting courage, which were so 
conspicuous during the late war. It was surprising, indeed, that halfa-dozen 
naked men, in a crazy canoe, should defy a large ship with all its cannon and 
musketry, even after they had seen its destructive effects. Sometimes they 
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