372 Essays. 



■whicli, however, was well known to and encouraged by their first visitors. 

 iProm their cMldliood they were incessantly prone to practise all manner of 

 deceit (inaminga, liangareha, Manga), from fun and joke, to imposition and 

 fraud, at which they were great adepts, ever glorying in beguiling and 

 terrifying. To this list must be added their superstition, or better, perhaps, 

 credulity — ever ready to believe anything strange, new, or wonderful ; and 

 their excessive ostentation and desire of being talked of, which, though bad 

 in the abstract, was, it is reasonably believed, the main cause why several 

 apparently good actions were done by them. Perhaps not a little of their 

 old industry, and of their hospitality to strangers, is rightly to be attributed 

 to this characteristic trait, as well, in some instances at least, of their more 

 recent adopting the Christian religion, building chapels, &c. 



29. Their common and biggest vices, which have gained them such sad 

 notoriety, were the luxuriant unpruned growths or fruits of their natural 

 evil propensities. Their implacability and unmercifulness was but another 

 phase of their never-dying revenge ; from these came their cold-blooded 

 murders, and cruel retaliating on the innocent, which was closely followed 

 by cannibalism in all its horrors. 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. In considering, however, 

 their savage cannibalism, two things should never be forgotten — (1) that they, 

 in practising it, broke no known law, and as they did not think it wrong, 

 they never once thought of concealing it ; and (2) that as they (their tribe) 

 were doing to-day, they (their tribe) had been done by yesterday, and might 

 be again to-morrow. Neither should it be altogether lost sight of, that 

 commonly a bloody engagement — often the storming of a hill pa, or fort — 

 could only take place when both sides were well nigh doubly desperate with 

 starvation, and that after the fight was over there was really nothing to eat. 

 There can be little doubt but that at such times large bodies of men were 

 often in a nearly similar situation, as to want of food, to distressed ship- 

 wrecked mariners at sea; with this important addition, of having their worst 

 passions dreadfully excited from the smarting of their own wounds, and the 

 sight of their dead and dying friends and relatives around them. So much 

 may, perhaps, be allowed for their cannibal feasts under such circumstances 

 on the battle-field ; but those which often took place afterwards, although 

 on a much smaller scale, cannot be so palliated. At the same time it should 

 be remembered, that a race who ever thought so little of human life as 

 commonly to commit suicide at the death of a husband or favourite child, 

 could not estimate highly the life of a slave. At home they rarely killed a 



