30 FRAUDULENT DEALINGS 
truly excellent timber flourishes on the Hoki- 
anga’s tributary streams; and has only to be 
cut down, and rolled a few yards to the water’s 
edge, when it is ready for exportation, or for 
building vessels on the banks of the river. Many 
of the settlers engaged in the timber-trade have 
been in New Zealand ten or twelve years ; and, in 
addition to their trade with the natives, have 
found employment as carpenters and house-join- 
ers. Others find a precarious subsistence for 
themselves and families by acting as ship-agents, 
and by supplying vessels with fresh provisions, 
which they have previously purchased from the 
natives, or have reared or cultivated with their 
own hands. The immense quantity of flax which 
has been exported from this country, and which 
fetched good prices, has brought the inhabi- 
tants into a way of barter, with which they 
were before unacquainted: and as roguery has 
been practised to a great extent on the part of 
Europeans, it has latterly been met with a cor- 
responding degree of knavery by the natives: 
each party seems to have striven to overreach 
the other. For example, the chief article of bar- 
ter, next to muskets, has been powder, which is 
commonly sold in casks. A native of New Zealand 
always requires to see and examine what he is 
purchasing : small holes are therefore bored at 
the top or bottom of the cask, that he may examine 
its contents : it appears very good ; and he goes 
home perfectly satisfied with his bargain : when, 
