* • ' 
The Inhabitants of NEW ZEALAND. 23 
{exes are vo’od ; they feem to enjoy high health* and we faw 
mans vno appeared to be of a great age. The difpontions 
both of ■ rve men and women feemed to be mild and gentle ; 
they treat each other with the tendered affeftion, but are im- 
placable towards their enemies, to whom, as 1 have before ob- 
ferved, they never give quarter. It may perhaps, at firft, feem 
ftrange, that where there is fo little to be got by viftory, there 
fhoukc fo often be war ; and that every little diftrift of a country 
inhabited by people fo mild and placid, fhouid be at enmity 
with all the reft. But poflibly more is to be gained by victo- 
ry among thefe people than at firft appears, and they may be 
prompted to mutual hoftilities by motives which no degree of 
friendihip or affeftion is able to refill. It appears, by the ac- 
count that has alreadyfbeen given of them, that their princi- 
pal food is fiffi, which can only be procured upon the fea-coaft ; 
and there, in fufficient quantities, only at certain times : the 
tribes, therefore, who live inland, if any fuch there are, and 
even thofe upon the coaft, mull be frequently in danger of pe- 
riling by famine. Their country produces neither lheep, nor 
goats, nor hogs, nor cattle ; tame fowls they have none, nor 
any art by which thofe that are wild can be caught in fufHci- 
ent plenty to ferve as provifion, If there are any whofe fitua- 
tion cuts them off from a fupply of fifth, the only fuccedaneum 
of all other animal fo*d, except dogs, they have nothing to 
fiupport life, but the vegetables that have already been mention- 
ed, of which the chief are fern root, yams, clams, aod potatoes : 
when by any accident thefe fail , the diftrefs mull be dreadful ; 
and even among the inhabitants of rhe coaft, many tribes mull 
frequently be reduced to nearly the fame fttuation, either by 
the failure of their plantations, or the deficiency of their dry 
ftock, during the feafon when but few fiffi are to be caught. 
Thefe confiderations will enable us to account, not only for 
the perpetual danger in which the people who inhabit this 
country appear to live, by the care which they take to fortify 
every village, but for the horrid praftice of eating thofe who 
are killed in battle ; for the hunger of him who is preffed by 
famine to fight, will abforb every feeling, and every fenti- 
ment which would reftrain him from allaying it with the body 
of his adverfary. It may however be remarked, that if this 
account of the origin of fo horrid a praftice is true, the mif- 
chief does by no means end wdth the neceffity that produced 
it : after the praftice has been once begun on one fide by hum 
ger, it will naturally be adopted on the other by ."revenge. 
Nor is this all, for though it m3y be pretended, by fome wno 
• wiffi to appear fpeculative and philofophical, that whether the 
dead body of an enemy be eaten or buried, is in itfelf a mat- 
ter perfeftly indifferent ; as it is, whether the breafts and thighs 
of a wsman fhouid be covered or naked ; and that prejudice 
and 
