4 
INTRODUCTION. 
recorded of convicts, who have made their escape and fled to 
the woods, with the idea that they could reach China overland ; 
many of them, being utterly unable to procure food, have 
returned and given themselves up to the authorities, and 
others have killed one another, to eke out their miserable 
existence ; and, after all, been compelled to surrender them¬ 
selves up from extreme want. 
If, under such circumstances, the native has been enabled to 
find support, where the European could not—and the preser¬ 
vation of life is the first principle implanted in the human 
mind—we may safely conclude he is not deficient in mind. 
But how much more is this the case with the New Zealander. 
Some few years ago, the Governor caused a Settlers’ Journey 
along the west coast of the Middle Island to be published in 
the Government Gazette: this settler, accompanied by several 
natives, was absent nearly two years; during that period 
all his own stock failed, and for many weeks he was entirely 
dependent on the natives for the supply of his commissariat: 
had they not known where and how to procure food in that 
uninhabited part, the entire party must have perished.* 
But to return to the subject of civilization. With us 
society is divided to an indefinite extent; one is brought up 
in one useful art, and another in another ; with few exceptions 
there are none who can turn their hands to any other, than their 
own peculiar calling. The New Zealander, on the contrary, 
is acquainted with every department of knowledge, common 
to his race : he can build his house, he can make his canoe, 
his nets, his hooks, his lines; he can manufacture snares to 
suit every bird; he can form his traps for the rat; he can 
fabricate his garments, and every tool and implement he 
requires, whether for agriculture or war ; he can make orna¬ 
ments of ivory or of the hardest stone, and these too with the 
most simple and apparently unsuitable instruments, sawing his 
ivory without loss, with a muscle-shell, and his hard green 
jade stone one piece with another, with only the addition of a 
* See Brenner's Journal of Expedition along the West Coast of the Middle 
Island of New Zealand. 
