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 Zealand ers 

 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 II. 

 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 Zealanders, 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 remained in the bay for several days, and on the 

 1 9th 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 



