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aborigines of New Zealand, are called Maeros. In like manner the 
natives of South Island tell of the Ngatimamoes, as savages 
living in the mountains. However both the Maeros and Ngatima- 
moes are probably degenerated Maori tribes, which have been driven 
back into the mountains. 1 The first historical account of the nati- 
ves of Now Zealand we have from Tasman. He describes them 
as a brown-skinned race of gigantic stature, their jet-black hair 
tucked up in a bob behind, after the Japanese fashion, and in it a 
large white feather. They hailed Tasman with loud voices and 
when a boat was sent on shore, they furiously attacked the crew, 
killed three men and mortally wounded a fourth. This first hostility 
at once branded the New Zealanders as a most savage and bar- 
barous race ; and when subsequently other navigators disclosed 
their blood- thirsty cannibalism, the Maoris wore regarded in Europe 
as monsters of human beings with absolete abhorrence. The name 
“Massacre Bay,” by which Tasman cursed the spot where he had 
anchored, was the first European name on the coasts of New 
Zealand ! 
In how different a light does all that appear now- a -days! 
European towns and settlements are to be seen thriving and flour- 
ishing on the distant coasts of New Zealand; “Massacre Bay” is 
changed into “Golden Bay”, and for many years European settlers 
have lived in peace with the cannibals of old. We know now 
their language, tlieir manners and customs, and we have found 
them to be a people, whose qualities remind us of the ancient 
Germans, as Tacitus describes them; whose dauntless courage in 
tlieir struggles against European immigration and civilization excites 
our admiration , and in whose fate we take a lively interest. 
The European settlers found the New Zealanders in a state 
of civilization, scarcely to be expected from so-called savages. 
The Maoris lived together in villages; their huts, constructed of 
wood and reed-work , were ornamented with ingenious wood-carv- 
ings and painted with gay-coloured arabesques, and we are justly 
astonished on reflecting, that those wood- works were executed only 
1 See Appendix to Ch. X. 
