Chap. XI. IMPROVEMENT AMONG NATIVES. 9SS 
native lads; — and those who have employed them 
speak well of the experiment. It may be supposed that, 
in consequence of this custom, and that of having native 
wives, tiie whalers had effected a considerable change 
among the natives before the arrival of the Tory. We 
found many who dressed constantly in European 
clothes, and spoke a good deal of English ; — some few 
had acquired a considerable knowledge of carpentering; 
the canoes were most of them sailed with duck sails 
instead of ^ flax ones, and steered with a steer-oar, in 
imitation of the boats. Two boats were fitted out from 
the native village of ff^ekanui, close to Te-awa-iti, 
entirely by natives ; who, though they never succeeded 
in killing a whale, often made fast, and received 20/. 
for each one from the boat which profited by their ex- 
ertions. Hiko always travels in a whale-boat, and has 
been known to fasten on a whale. The natives to the 
south are said to be still more forward in their imi- 
tation of the industry and skill of the whalers and 
sealers. The Ngahitau tribe are reported to own 
thirty large sealing-boats. Some of these I have seen 
at Kapiti, during a visit made by some chiefs of that 
tribe to Rauperaha. They are exceedingly fine sea- 
boats, managed with a steer-oar, round at both ends, 
and rigged with two lug-sails. " Bloody Jack," their 
principal chief, is said to manage his boat with the 
courage and skill of an Englishman, and to keep out 
at sea in harder weather than any of his countrymen 
during their expeditions along the coast to collect 
whalebone. 
But the bad points of the whaler's character have 
also passed, with the very worst effiBct, into the dispo- 
sition of some of the natives. They have acquired, in 
some few cases, the habits of drinking ; in many, 
boastful and insolent behaviour, and callousness to 
