CoLENSO. — On the Ilaori Baces of New Zealand. * 415 



perished ; while, to crown the whole, or to accelerate " the evil day" for their 

 race, they have largely consented to abandon Christianity, and again to take 

 lip with a disgusting heathenish fanaticism in its stead ! 



62. It has been stated in this essay that the natives were formerly in 

 greab numbers. This is true, but it may need explanation. They were 

 formerly in great numbers, (1) considering the area which they inhabited ; 

 and (2) comparing their former with their present sparse population. 

 "Whether they were numerically more when Tasman discovered them (1642) 

 than they were when Cook first saw them (1769), is perhaps beyond our re- 

 search. The writer, however, is inclined to believe they were many more in 

 number at the time of Tasman's visit than they were at the time of Cook's, 

 at least in the South Island. This, he thinks, may reasonably be inferred 

 from the two following facts : — (1.) The natives coming of£ to attack Tas- 

 man's ships " in eight canoes," and immediately after, on seeing him under 

 sail, to follow him "with twenty-two more boats put off from the shore ;" 

 these latter were double canoes. And (2) the men in them, Tasman says, 

 " wore their hair tied up on the crown of the head, like the Japanese, 

 each having a large white feather stucJc uponght in it," a sure sign they 

 were chiefs or free men. Although Cook was subsequently several 

 times at anchor in that very neighbourhood, he never saw there any- 

 thing like such a number of natives, canoes, or "boats," nor could he 

 obtain any traditionary information respecting Tasman's visit, a highly 

 pregnant fact. Dr. Forster, who accompanied Cook on his second voyage, 

 supposed the population to be 100,000, although he never saw any of 

 the populous parts of the North Island ; since when, down to 1840, it 

 has been variously estimated at from 150,000 (by Nicholas in 1814) 

 to 80,000. Torster's estimate is believed, by the writer, to have been 

 too low, because Cook himself, in all his voyages, only saw the natives 

 who were inhabiting a portion of the sea-coast, and in particular those spots 

 where he anchored. He saw none on the whole west coast of the ISTorth 

 Isla,nd, which he therefore believed to be uninhabited, and, of course, none 

 of the numerous tribes inhabiting the interior. In 1834 the missionaries 

 had very good data for believing that from the Bay of Islands northwards 

 there were 7,000 fighting men ; — are there more than one-seventh of that 

 number to be found there now belonging to those tribes ? In 1847-8 the 

 writer of this essay collected, with much pains and care, an exact census of 

 the natives living between "Wairarapa and Ahuriri (Hawke Bay) inclusive ; 

 going to every village, and seeing every individual native himself (and this 

 two or three times) ; their number then amounted to 3,704 persons, divided 

 among forty-five ascertained tribes and sub-tribes. At present (leaving out 

 the immigrant natives since arrived from Manawatu, "Waikato, Taupo, and 



