CHAPTER I.
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NEW ZEALAND.
CHAPTER I.
Remarkable peculiarities of the country--Discovery by Tasman --Capt. Cook's visit --The first encounter with the natives-- Opinions of the natives as to Capt. Cook's vessel--Manners and customs of the natives.
NEW ZEALAND--although we hear much less of it than we do of Australia, and although emigration has not perhaps at any time been so popular to that colony as it has to some other quarters--is far from being the least desirable or the least remarkable of the dependencies of the British Crown; and it possesses a climate and a soil admirably adapted to agricultural pursuits. There "barley and beans become perennial; the wheat stalk grows so strong that no wind can lay it; and fifty bushels to the acre have been obtained." There "the myrtle and fuchsia grow to timber-trees, and radishes swell out to the size of a man's leg." There "all possible facilities for the breeding of sheep exist;" and there "sheep give forth a fine and long wool," adapted to all the purposes of manufacture. There "coal, copper, manganese are all abundant." In fact, there "is everything that is required for the development of a magnificent people but the men and women themselves;" for at present the population is very inadequate to the extent of country, and quite unable to make the most of the resources and fertility of the soil.
The territory of New Zealand is situated in the Southern Ocean, at the antipodes of the mother country. Under that general name three islands are comprised, one of which
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is of very small dimensions. They extend, in a curved line from north to south, between the 34th and the 48th degrees of south latitude, and from the 166th to the 178th degrees of east longitude. The island that lies farthest to the north is called New Ulster, and is about one-sixth smaller than England and Wales. To the south, separated from New Ulster by a strait called Cook's Strait, is New Munster, the area of which is about one-fourth larger than that of the northern island; and still further to the south, separated from New Munster by the Strait of Foveaux, lies New Leinster--a speck on the ocean, scarcely so large as an English county. These islands are situated between 1,100 and 1,200 miles from Australia; they extend from north to south about 800 miles, having nearly 3,000 miles of coast line; the breadth is extremely variable, particularly in New Ulster, which, in its extreme breadth, extends from east to west near 200 miles--whilst it diminishes to less than five. The area of the three islands contains 78,000,000 acres; of which New Ulster comprises 31,000,000; New Munster, 46,000,000; and New Leinster, 1,000,000.
These islands were discovered by Abel Janssen Tasman, a Dutch navigator, who, in the 17th century, was employed on voyages of discovery by Van Diemen, the Dutch governor in the East. He first saw them on the 13th of December, 1642; and he traversed the coast from lat. 34 deg. to 43 deg. He entered the straits between the northern and the middle islands, but being attacked by the natives soon after he came to an anchor, and three of his men killed, he gave the place the name of the Murderers' Bay, and did not land. The islands he called Staaten Land, or the Land of the States, in honour of the States General; but they are now generally distinguished in maps and charts by the name of New Zealand. The islands were not visited again till Captain Cook made Poverty Bay, on the south-east coast of the northern island, on the 6th of October, 1769. This part of the island was then inhabited by a native tribe, who came from the southward, and made war on the inhabitants of that locality, destroyed them, and planted themselves in their places. A chief named Te Ratu was one of the principal warriors. When these savages first saw the Endeavour (Captain Cook's ship), they imagined it was a bird; and
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LANDING OF CAPTAIN COOK.
"many remarks passed amongst them," says Mr. Polack, in his "Travels in New Zealand," deriving his information from Manutai, a grandson of Te Ratu, "as to the beauty and size of its wings, as the sails of this novel specimen of ornithology were supposed to be. But on seeing a smaller bird, unfledged [the boat, without sails], descending into the water, and a number of parti-coloured beings, but apparently in the human shape, also descending, the bird was regarded as a houseful of divinities;" and "nothing could exceed the astonishment of the natives" at this phenomenon. On the 7th of October, Captain Cook left his ship, with some men in his yawl and pinnace, to effect a landing. The pinnace was left at the entrance of the bay, and the party from the yawl landed, leaving four boys in charge of her. The sailors on shore had got some distance, when four natives, headed by Te Ratu, and armed with lances, were seen from the pinnace advancing to the boat, which they would have cut off had not the people in the pinnace hailed the boys to drop down the stream. This they did, closely pursued by the natives. The coxswain of the pinnace discharged a musket over the heads of the latter to deter them; and this caused them to pause and look round. Seeing nothing, they brandished their lances, and renewed their pursuit. A second musket was discharged over their heads, but still they advanced; and Te Ratu was in the act of lifting his lance to dart it at the boat, when a third musket was discharged, and he was shot dead. This startled them: they at first seemed petrified with astonishment; but, soon recovering themselves, they went to the body, and began to drag it away. Finding that it impeded their flight, they soon left it, and disappeared. The manner of the chief's death, says Mr. Polack, "was ascribed to a thunderbolt from the new gods; and the noise made by the discharge of the muskets was represented as the watitiri, or thunder, which accompanies that sublime phenomenon. To revenge themselves was the dearest wish of the tribe; but how to accomplish it, with divinities who could kill them at a distance, without even approaching to them, was difficult to determine. Many of these natives observed that they felt themselves taken ill by only being particularly looked upon by these Atuas. It was therefore agreed, that, as these new comers could bewitch with a single look, the sooner their
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society was dismissed the better it would be for the general welfare."
Captain Cook did not leave New Zealand till the 31st of March 1770; taking his departure from Cape Farewell, the north-east point of New Munster. He had surveyed the coasts with great accuracy; passed through the straits between New Ulster and New Munster, which bear his name; and circumnavigated both islands, of which he took possession in the name of Great Britain. During his coasting voyage, and his excursions into the interior, he made himself acquainted with the climate, and the productions of the islands, and with the character of the natives. He found the men, in stature equal to the largest of those in Europe, stout, well-limbed, and fleshy -- exceedingly vigorous and active, adroit and dexterous in an uncommon degree. Their colour was in general brown, but in few deeper than that of a Spaniard who had been exposed to the sun. The women wanted feminine delicacy in their appearance; and, the dress of both sexes being the same, they were distinguished from the men, chiefly by their soft voice. They had also more airy cheerfulness, and a greater flow of animal spirits, than the other sex. The hair, both of the head and beard, was black; the teeth regular and as white as ivory; the features of both sexes good; and they appeared very healthy. The dispositions of both men and women seemed to be mild and gentle; they treated each other with the tenderest affection, but were implacable towards their enemies, to whom they never gave quarter. Their principal food was fish, as the island did not produce sheep, goats, hogs, or cattle; nor had they any tame fowl. When unable to procure fish, they lived chiefly on fern-root, yams, clams, and potatoes. They were, however, guilty of cannibalism, eating the bodies of those who were slain in battle. There was more modesty, reserve, and decorum in their behaviour, than was observed in most other inhabitants of the South Sea islands; they were not quite so clean in their persons as those of Otaheite; and the oil or fat which they rubbed over their hair had a most offensive smell. Their bodies were tattoed--the women's much less than those of the men; and they were smeared with red ochre, which some rubbed on dry, and others applied it mixed with oil, in large patches that were always wet, and would rub off with the least trouble.
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THE NATIVES.
Their ordinary dress was formed of the leaves of one of their vegetables, which were made into a sort of stuff between netting and cloth. One piece of this cloth was tied over their shoulders with a, string, and reached to the knees; and the other was wrapped round the waist, and reached nearly to the ground. They also manufactured two other sorts of cloth, which had an even surface, and were very ingeniously made. One was as coarse as our coarsest canvas, but ten times as strong; the other was formed by many threads lying close together one way, and a few crossing them the other. This was composed of the fibres of a plant, prepared so as to shine like silk; it was frequently striped, and was made in a species of frame, generally about five feet long and four broad, the size of the cloth. To both kinds of cloth they worked borders of different colours. They adorned their dresses with feathers, and the fur of their dogs; Captain Cook saw one entirely covered with the red feathers of the parrot. The men generally wore their beards short, and their hair tied on the crown of their heads in a bunch. The hair of the women was generally cropped short; when long it flowed about their shoulders. They had combs of bone and wood, which they sometimes wore stuck upright in the hair as an ornament.
The habitations of these people were formed of wood frames, the walls and roof consisting of dried grass and clay, very closely put together, and the interior was sometimes lined with the bark of trees. They were generally eighteen or twenty feet long, eight or ten broad, and five or six high. The roof was sloping, and the door at one end was just high enough to admit a man creeping upon his hands and knees. The fire-place was enclosed in a hollow square, either of wood or stone; and the floor, along the walls, was thickly covered with straw, on which the family slept. Their cookery consisted of baking or roasting; and their provision baskets, the gourds to hold their fresh water, the hammers to beat their fern-root, some rude tools (axes and adzes of stone, and chisels of bone), their clothes, arms, and a few feathers to stick in their hair, formed the chief of their possessions. They had canoes, long and narrow, but ingeniously constructed, which they impelled by paddles, with oval-shaped blades, small, light, and neatly made; or with sails of netting or mat, suspended between two upright
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poles fixed on the gunwale of each boat: the canoes were steered by two men sitting in the stern, with each a paddle in his hand for that purpose. They had fishing nets of enormous size, one of which seemed to be the workmanship and the joint property of the whole town, -- their hooks were of bone or shell, and generally ill-made. To receive the fish, when caught, they had baskets of various kinds and dimensions, very neatly made of wicker-work. They are said, by Captain Cook, to have excelled in tillage, though "the implement which served them for both spade and plough, was nothing more than a long narrow stake, sharpened to an edge at one end, with a short piece fastened transversely at a little distance above it, for the convenience of pressing it down with the foot. With this they turned up pieces of ground, six or seven acres in extent, though it was not more than three inches broad." "Tillage, weaving, and the other arts of peace, seemed to be best known, and most practised, in the northern part of the country." Their weapons were spears, darts, battle-axes, and the patoo-patoo, or club. Their war-dance consisted of a great variety of violent motions, and hideous contortions of the limbs. It was always accompanied with a song; and in its motions, however horrid, there was a strength, firmness, and agility, which could not be beheld without admiration. In their song they kept time with great exactness; and they sometimes sang without the dance, as a peaceable amusement. Other songs were sung by the women, whose mellow and soft voices had a pleasing and tender effect; the time was slow, and the cadence mournful, but they sang with more taste than could be expected. They had instruments of sound which could scarcely be called musical; one was a shell, the other a small wooden pipe, resembling a child's ninepin, only much smaller, and in this there was no more music than in a pea-whistle. Their towns or hippahs were all fortified; for the tribes appeared to live at great enmity with each other.
Of their religion it was impossible to learn much. They acknowledged the influence of superior beings, one of whom they thought held supreme power; and they had nearly the same idea of the origin of the world, and the production of mankind, as the Otaheitans; viz., that all was produced by the conjunction of two persons, whose generations they
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VOLCANIC ORIGIN.
described in a manner as unintelligible as the mysteries of the classical mythology of Greece or Rome.
Such were the people of New Zealand when first visited by Europeans. They are now becoming more civilized; and form an interesting part of that large and varied family which constitute the subjects of the Queen of Great Britain.