16 
THE TWO RACES WHICH PEOPLED POLYNESIA. 
It is highly probable that the ancient black race not only 
dwelt in tree- houses, but likewise in lake-houses, for safety. 
Yfhen the author first visited the Horo Whenua Lake, he 
was much struck with the picturesque appearance of a 
number of food stores constructed on poles in the water, the 
remnants, perhaps, of more extensive buildings, which in 
ancient times were used as places of refuge and permanent 
habitations by the Moa Upoko, to prevent surprise ; but 
when that tribe was entirely destroyed by Te Rauparaha, 
those lake-houses disappeared as well as their owners, and 
now the food stores have likewise passed away. Lake-houses 
are still to be seen in Borneo and Papua. 
Though numerous traces of this race are to be seen 
amongst the Maori, they are not to be found now in a 
stones of considerable height on that side of the village where the rock is less 
precipitous, with one narrow entrance, approached only by a smooth slippery 
trank of a tree, laid at a somewhat steep inclination over a hollow below ; but 
the tree-houses, with which we made acquaintance of old at this island, are at- 
this place on a scale almost incredible. Tall trees rising out of the steep, 
slippery sides of the hill, are chosen for these great bamboo nests, of which 
there are six at this one village. From the wall of the fort, for so the village 
may be fairly called, or from the base, ladders are carried up to these tree- 
houses. It is surprising to see men, women, and children, passing up and 
down these ladders. The Bishop confessed that he was afraid to make the 
attempt in the dark of the evening. It was his intention to sleep in one of 
these curious houses, but he says that he had no idea of their real character at 
this particular place. A day or two afterwards, however, he went up into the 
highest tree-house, and, with Mr. Atkin, made careful measurements. The 
house in which the people wished him to sleep, is built on the top of a tree, 
which rises up from the hollow before mentioned, near the fort. The top of 
the stone wall is on a level with the trunk, at a height of thirty-four feet from 
the ground. The ladder reaching from the fort to the tree-house had forty-two 
rowels, at an average distance of eighteen inches from one to the other. The 
whole height of the house from the ground is ninety-four feet ; its length is 
eighteen feet ; breadth ten feet ; height eight feet ; — all being inside measure- 
ment. Some of the trees were at a much greater distance from the fort, and 
the ladders at a proportionately greater angle. One woman, carrying a load, 
walked up one of these ladders without touching anything with her hand, with 
no balancing pole, after the fashion of our civilized performers ; and without 
exciting the least remark or notice from the people standing about. On the 
naked branches of these trees one man was walking about, hanging out his net, 
without grasping anything with his hand, when one slip would have sent him 
down on to stones and stumps of trees ninety or one hundred feet below. 
Accustomed from childhood to these feats, they were wholly unconscious of any 
