420 NEW ZEALAND. 



They returned by the same route, and by noon reached Wy caddie 

 Pa. It contains about two hundred houses, and is situated between 

 two small fresh-water streams. This is the most cleanly and exten- 

 sive town in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands. Mr. Baker, 

 of the Episcopal Mission, has settled here : he has many acres of land, 

 and comfortable dwellings, farms extensively, and has about twenty 

 head of cattle, with good pasture for them. The natives also possess 

 some cattle. By night they reached their lodgings. 



One who has long known the New Zealanders, and on whose 

 judgment reliance may be placed, gives them credit for intelligence 

 and generosity, and says that they are hospitable and confiding to 

 strangers, persevering where the object concerns themselves, strongly 

 attached to their children, and extremely jealous of their connubial 

 rights. A violation of the latter is punished with death, not only to 

 the parties themselves, but sometimes extended to the near relatives 

 of the offenders. They are crafty but not overreaching in their deal- 

 ings, covetous for the possession of novelties, although trustworthy 

 when any thing is placed under their immediate charge, but not 

 otherwise over-honest. 



A transient visiter would hardly give them so high a character, 

 and would, I think, have an unfavourable opinion of the race. He 

 might, however, award to them intelligence; but they appear vindic- 

 tive, and, from a number of facts, must be treacherous. One cannot 

 be long among them, without discovering that they are adepts in 

 trickery, and suspicious in their dealings. These bad qualities they 

 may have acquired from the number of low whites that are among 

 them. They seem destitute of any of the higher feelings, such as 

 gratitude, tenderness, honour, delicacy, &c. They are extremely 

 indolent and dirty, disgusting in their habits, and carry on the infa- 

 mous practice of traffic in women, which even the highest chiefs are 

 said to be engaged in, openly and without shame. The vice of 

 drunkenness does not exist among them to any degree, and it is not 

 a little astonishing that the bad example set them should not have 

 been more followed. They are extremely proud and resentful of any 

 insult, to avenge which the whole tribe usually unites. As an 

 instance of this, we may cite the conduct of Ko-towatowa, whose 

 hospitality to one of our parties has been recorded. At the invitation 

 of the gentlemen who had been indebted to him for attentions, he 

 visited them at Tibbey's, when an untoward circumstance occurred, 

 which had well-nigh ended in an open affront. As they were seated 



