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 foun^d 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 w^as 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 ofi" 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 half-a-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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