INTRODUCTION. 
5 
little sand and water; and all these works, it must be remem¬ 
bered, he could accomplish without the aid of iron, which was 
unknown before Cook’s time. It was not a single individual 
or a few that were adepts in these various arts, but every one. 
The implements they made, they also knew how to use ; they 
could hunt, they could fish, they could fight. In the battle¬ 
field they were warriors, in the council they were orators ; 
their skill in military tactics has elicited the wonder of our 
military men, and their late war with the government has 
done much to raise them in our estimation. It would be no 
easy matter, to find any European who, in so many respects, 
could equal the despised savage of New Zealand. 
Such general knowledge makes the native at home wherever 
he may be. I have often had opportunities of admiring this; 
when encamped with my little party in pouring rain, I have 
been surprised at the short time it took, to erect a comfortable 
shed impervious to the rain, to produce fire by friction, to 
find fuel and ignite it, to seek out food and sit down comfort¬ 
ably to enjoy it, and this before an European would have made 
up his mind what to do. An instance of this kind occurred some 
years ago, when the late Allan Cunningham, the well-known 
botanist of Australia and New Zealand, was accompanied by 
one of our missionaries on a journey through a New Zea¬ 
land forest: whilst busily employed in examining its varied 
productions, they allowed their natives to push on to a spot 
where they usually encamped, and carried away by their love 
of nature, they did not perceive the lapse of time, until they 
were suddenly overtaken by the shades of night; to make 
their uncomfortable position worse, it set in rainy; to overtake 
their companions was impossible, for such is the gloom of New 
Zealand forests, and the over-grown ill-defined tracks through 
them, that it is quite impossible to find the way along them in 
the dark ; but, instead of trying to erect a shed, or light a fire 
in the native style, what did they do ? Just what most Euro¬ 
peans would in similar circumstances—they did nothing at all ; 
they felt themselves perfectly helpless—they stood under a tree 
the whole of the night, without fire, without food, and with¬ 
out shelter. The effects of that night proved fatal to poor 
