34 Transactions. 
assumed a more friendly aspect, and began to trade ; but as soon as they had 
obtained what they wanted, they refused to give up the equivalent, and 
laughed at all menace of consequences, till they suffered wounds or death as a 
punishment, and then the survivors paddled off for a time. These accounts 
are confirmed, in all particulars, by other voyagers who visited New Zealand 
during the latter part of the last, and the earlier part of the present century, 
and lead to the conclusion that, prior to the year 1818, the native population 
was very large ; and although we know, as I have before observed, that 
neighbouring tribes had been for ages constantly engaged in war with one 
another, it would also seem thai the general results of their conflicts had not, 
until after the introduction of firearms, been such as materially to interfere 
with the maintenance of their numbers. 
Mr. Manning, one of the judges of the Native Lands Court, a gentleman 
whose opporiuniiies of acquiring knowledge on this subject have been 
unrivalled, also bears testimony to the former large numbers of the native 
people. “The natives,” he says, “are unanimous in affirming that they were 
much more numerous in former times than oe are now, and I am convinced 
that such was the case for many reasons.” In support of this opinion, he 
refers to the existence, in most parts of the North Island, of numerous hill- 
forts or pas, many of them so large as to have required immense labour to 
trench, terrace, and fence. As he points out, the absence of iron tools must 
have greatly increased the difficulty of constructing these fortresses 3 whilst, even 
with the aid of such tools, the present population of the surrounding districts 
would, in most cases, be insuflicient to erect them within any reasonable time. 
He also mentions that many of these forts were of such an extent that, taking 
into consideration the system of attack and defence necessarily used before the 
introduction of fire-arms, they would have been utterly nntenable, unless held 
by at least ten times the number of men which the whole neighbourhood, for 
a distance of two or three days’ journey, can now produce ; and as, in those 
times of constant war, the natives, as a rule, slept in their hill-forts with 
closed gates, the bridges over the trenches removed, and the ladders of the 
terraces drawn up, it is evident that the inhabitants of each fort, though 
numerous, consisted only of the population of the country in its close : 
vicinity. ; 
“ From the top of one of these pointed, trenched, and terraced hills,” says 
Mr. Manning, “ I have counted twenty others, all of equally large dimensions, 
and all within a distance, in every direction, of fifteen to twenty miles ; and 
native tradition affirms, that each of these hills was the stronghold of a iain 
hapu, or clan, bearing its distinctive name.” We have, moreover, evidence 
that vast tracts of land which are now wild, and have been so for time 
out of mind, were once fully and carefully cultivated. The ditches for 
