CoLEKSO. — On the Maori Saces of New Zealand. 401 



called emigrants were not many in number ; tliat they soon fell out among 

 themselves, went to war with each other, and slew several where they had 

 landed in the Bay of Plenty ; and that of the remainder many went inland, 

 and farther north in the North Island, and settled. Tet Tasman found the 

 inhospitable and colder latitudes of the South Island, near Cape Farewell, so 

 thickly peopled as to send thirty boats and canoes from one beach, well 

 manned, to the attach. Cook, who had long and repeated interviews with 

 them during his different voyages, and who was associated with scientific and 

 observing men, although, both from the nature of the country and character 

 of the people, he could only have seen those tribes who lived on the sea coast 

 and near to his anchorages, which anchorages were not many in the vastly 

 more populous Northern Island — Cook was of opinion that they were very 

 numerous ; so also were the two French navigators, D'Urville and Crozet, 

 who arrived in New Zealand shortly after Cook. But what has ever been of 

 great weight with the writer, as being highly corroborative of the correctness 

 of the opinion formed by the early navigators, is the statements they give, 

 especially Cook, of the innumerable number of canoes, of the number of 

 large seine nets which they everywhere found in houses erected purposely 

 for them, of the extent of the kumara or sweet potato cultivations, and of 

 the very many places on the immediate East Coast, particularly between 

 Capes Palliser and Kidnappers, and Capes Eodney and Brett, and Cape 

 Pococke and the North Cape, which then abounded with pas (forts and 

 villages), and swarmed with people, but which are now, and have been for 

 many years, wholly uninhabited. All which, it is believed, silently indicate 

 the ancient settlement of the race, especially when their warlike character 

 and habit are also considered. 



(4.) Sabits, customs, manufactures, ornaments, and tattooing. — Very many 

 of the habits and customs of the New Zealanders, indeed nearly all, are 

 widely difEerent from those of other Polynesian islanders, though belonging 

 to the same race. So also their manufactures, whether the more useful and 

 durable, as canoes, houses, implements of wood, &c., or the many varied 

 textile ones, for clothing and daily use ; all differed, and that greatly. And 

 when their immense variety, with their woven and dyed ornamental patterns, 

 and their skill in manufacturing, is also considered, how long a time would 

 it not require for them to lose all the old knowledge (which they had brought 

 with them) and to gain the 7iew, and also to use it successfully upon entirely 

 new materials ? For not only is the New Zealand flax plant {Phormiuni) 

 not found in the other islands, but also no like fibrous substitute. And that 

 by a people so prone to copy, and so exceedingly tenacious of innovation ; — 

 by a people, too, who, according to their own traditions and legends, and the 

 sad experience of the early navigators, were so prone to war and murder. 

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