1830 - Craik, George L. The New Zealanders - Chapter III

       
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  1830 - Craik, George L. The New Zealanders - Chapter III
 
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CHAPTER III

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CHAPTER III.

Visits of different navigators to New Zealand.--Account of the voyage of M. de Surville, and of his transactions at New Zealand.--Voyage of M. Marion du Fresne.--Massacre of himself and part of his crew.

Cook's ship, as we have already hinted, was not the only European vessel which the year 1769 brought to the shores of New Zealand, notwithstanding that, in so far as is distinctly known, they had remained unvisited till then, from the time of Tasman. On the 8th of December, the great English navigator passed an opening not far from the northern extremity of the east coast of Eaheinomauwe, on which he has bestowed the name of Doubtless Bay;and he kept plying to the north of this bay till the evening of the 12th. On this very day, singularly enough, a French vessel, the Saint Jean Baptiste,under the command of M. de Surville, also first came in sight of the very same part of New Zealand.

A short narrative of M. de Surville's voyage is to be found annexed to the Abbe Rochon's account of that of M. Marion; 1 and from this it appears, that de Surville had left the port of Engely in the Ganges on the 3d of March, 1769, on an expedition in quest of an island, said to have been some time before dis-

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covered by the English, about seven hundred leagues to the west of the coast of Peru, abounding both in the precious metals and every other description of wealth. De Surville was an able and intrepid seaman, and if any captain could have conducted the ship to the fabled isle of gold, of which it was sent in search, he was certainly as likely to be successful as any other. 2 He commenced his voyage by visiting some of the more northern islands of the great Indian Archipelago, through which he afterwards steered his course in a south-easterly direction; but we must pass over the adventures he met with during the first nine months he was at sea. We find him, on the 30th of November, at an island to the east of New Guinea, which he named the Island of Contrariety, but which was, in all probability, one of the Solomon Isles. From this he proceeded towards the south, and on the 12th of December, as we have already mentioned, arrived in sight of the north-east coast of New Zealand. He was prevented, however, for some days, by contrary winds, from making the land; but at last, on the 17th, he succeeded in effecting his entrance into an inlet, to which he gave the name of Lauriston Bay,in honour of the governor-general, and which was the same that Cook had called Doubtless Bay.At this time, Cook was still beating about, not a great way

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DE SURVILLE.

to the north. 3 Having come to an anchor, De Surville, the day following, went on shore, and was very hospitably received by the natives. Next day he landed again, when he found a considerable body of them assembled to meet him, one of whom, who appeared to be a chief, advanced from among the rest, and, having come up to him, demanded his musket. Upon his refusing to part with it, he was next asked to let them have his sword; and with this request he thought proper to comply. As soon as the chief had received the sword, he marched off with it to his countrymen, and addressed them for some time in a loud voice, after which he brought back the weapon, and restored it to its owner. It would appear, that the evidence De Surville had thus given of the confidence he placed in them had completely won the hearts of these people; for after this, they shewed every disposition to treat their visiters as friends, and supplied them abundantly with such refreshments as they wanted. On the 22d, De Surville left his first anchorage, and proceeded to another in a cove at the head of the bay, which he named Cove Chevalier.Soon after he had dropped anchor in this second harbour, a terrible tempest arose, and swept the coast with such fury, as to tear the ship from her moorings, and to expose her for some time to the most imminent hazard of destruction. This was the same storm by which Captain Cook, it will be remembered, was attacked on the 27th, at which time, however, he was to the south-west of Cape Maria Van Diemen, and consequently on the opposite side of the island to that on which the French vessel lay.

During the gale, a boat, in which were the invalids of De Surville's crew, in attempting to make

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from the shore to the ship, was very nearly lost; but contrived at last to get into a small creek, which hence received the name of Refuge Cove.As soon as they had arrived here, the sick men were sent on shore; and nothing could exceed the kindness with which they were received and treated, during their stay, by Naginoui, the chief or lord of the adjoining village. They remained in his care, having his house for their home, and feeding upon his bounty (for he would accept of no remuneration for the refreshments with which he supplied them), till the storm was over; and then, on the 29th, they got back in safety to the ship. But this conduct of the humane and generous New Zealander was soon after cruelly requited by the French commander. Having missed one of his small boats during the storm, De Surville was induced from some circumstances to believe that the natives had stolen it; and he determined to be avenged for this supposed injury. Seeing, therefore, one of the chiefs walking on the shore, he made him a signal from the ship, and with many professions of friendship invited him to come on board--which, however, the unsuspecting savage had no sooner done than he found himself a prisoner. Not satisfied with this treachery, De Surville next gave orders that a village which he pointed out should be set on fire; and it was accordingly burned to the ground. It was the very village in which the sick seamen had a few days before been so liberally entertained; and the chief who had been ensnared on board the ship was their host Naginoui. Immediately after this infamous transaction, De Surville left New Zealand, carrying the chief with him. But Naginoui did not long survive his separation from his country; he died of a broken tort, on the 24th of March, 1770, when the ship was off the island of Juan Fernandez on

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DE SURVILLE.

her way to Peru. 4The conduct of the French captain in this instance was only of the same character with that which he had been accustomed to pursue in the course of his voyage. While he was lying at one of the islands which he had fell in with to the east of New Guinea, an incident very similar to that which occurred at New Zealand had embroiled him with the natives, and on his departure he had also carried one of them away with him. De Surville was a man of great ability and energy of character, but in an equal degree unfeeling and unscrupulous. The termination of his career was somewhat singular. He had been appointed to the command of this expedition after having held various offices of high dignity in India, both as being deemed the person of all others in the service best fitted to conduct it, and that he might be put in the way of what was imagined so favourable an opportunity of acquiring both riches and reputation. But after a vain cruise of little more than a twelvemonth, in search of the Eldorado which he had set out to discover, he was obliged, although the ship was victualled for a voyage of three years, to abandon his object, owing to the general ill health of his crew, and to bend his course towards the coast of South America. He arrived at Callao on the 5th of April, 1770; when, anxious to obtain as soon as possible an audience of the Viceroy of Peru, he immediately put off for that purpose from the ship in a

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small boat, although the tide was very unfavourable for landing, and perished in the surf. 5

The next visit that was paid to New Zealand was also by the French, and it is one of the most memorable in the early history of our acquaintance with this country and its inhabitants. It was on the 18th of October, 1771, that M. Marion du Fresne sailed from the Isle of France in the Mascarin, having on board a young1 native of Otaheite, whom Bougainville had a few years before brought with him to Europe, and whom it was now determined to send back to his own country. Marion's ship was accompanied by the Marquis de Castries,under the command of M. Duclesmeur; and it was intended from the first that the two vessels, after conveying home Aoutourou, 6 should proceed to explore the southern Pacific in quest of its hidden islands or continents; not forgetting the Island of Gold, the existence of which, however, now began to be very generally doubted--so that Marion was ordered to spend only a moderate time in searching for it. But he was especially directed to examine New Zealand-- an evidence of the interest that had already been excited by the accounts of De Surville and Cook. Aoutourou having been attacked by small pox, died at Madagascar; and Marion then pursued his voyage to the south-east. On the 10th of February, 1772, he touched at Van Diemen's Land; but here he could procure neither wood nor water, on which he continued his course eastward, till, on the 24th of

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MARION.

March, they came in sight of the west coast of New Zealand. The point of the country off which they arrived was the south-western extremity of the northern island, to which Cook had given the name of Cape Egmont. Marion called it Le Pic Mascarin. They then proceeded in a northerly direction, keeping all the way at the distance of from one to three leagues from shore, till on the 4th of April they came in sight of the Island of the Three Kings. They were detained in this neighbourhood a considerable time, without being able to find a landing-place at any part of the island--the inhabitants of which, however, appeared to them to be of unusual height, as they saw them from the distance of about a league. On the 10th they put in to the main land, near Cape Maria Van Diemen, but were soon after driven from their anchorage by a gale of wind; so that, after regaining it on the 26th, they determined to set out on the following day in search of a more secure shelter. Proceeding along the coast towards the south-east, they arrived, on the 3d of May, off Cape Brett, which they called Cap Quarre;and here they sent a boat ashore. Three canoes also came out to them from the coast, the natives in one of which were with some difficulty induced to come on board, but having been taken into the cabin, ate with great pleasure the bread which was set before them. It was with manifest repugnance, however, that they drank a little of some spirituous liquors. Some shirts, and other European attire, being given them, they immediately dressed themselves in these new habiliments, of which they seemed exceedingly vain. On being shewn several common iron tools, such as axes, scissors, and hatchets, they evinced the strongest anxiety to get possession of them, and instantly took up and handled each of them in such a way as to let it be seen that they completely understood its

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use. This was a lesson of civilization for which they had doubtless been indebted to the visits of Cook and De Surville; for in no part of the northern island, at least, does it appear that the former on his arrival found the people to have any acquaintance whatever with iron; and if it seemed to be held in higher estimation by some of those whom he met with in the neighbourhood of Queen Charlotte's Sound, unless they were indebted for their superior knowledge to the vessel by which we have supposed it likely that they may have been visited previous to Cook's arrival, they had probably only newly learned its value from their countrymen with whom the English had been some months before.

The New Zealanders left Marion's ship delighted, apparently, with the presents they had received; but as soon as they had got on shore they were observed to strip themselves of their new clothes, which they put away into some hiding-place, and to attire themselves again in their old ones. After they had taken their leave, their countrymen in the other two canoes came on board, and, being similarly treated, were equally well pleased with their reception. Five or six of them, indeed, remained in the ship all night, and both slept soundly and ate heartily, although they would neither taste wine nor spirits. Among them was a chief, named Tacouri, of whom we shall hear more presently.

Having thus begun an amicable intercourse with the natives, Marion determined to put in to the Bay of Islands, which lies immediately to the north of Cape Brett; and he cast anchor there, accordingly, on the 11th of May. On the following day he landed the sick part of his crew on one of the numerous islands within the bay, which was called by the natives Motouaro. Abundance of fish was now brought to them by the New Zealanders, who seemed by their

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LANGUAGE.

whole conduct disposed to regard them as friends; while their intercourse with each other was rendered much more agreeable, by the discovery, which was accidentally made, that the language of the country was nearly the same with that of Otaheite, of which the French had a vocabulary on board, and which they consequently found to be, if not quite a perfect, at least a very useful medium of communication. This important fact was found out, as he tells us himself, by M. Crozet, Marion's first lieutenant, from whose papers the Abbe Rochon has compiled his account of the voyage. 7 Crozet, in his anxiety to make himself understood, while conversing with one of the natives, bethought him of trying whether one or two of his Otaheite words might not assist him, when to his surprise he found his meaning apprehended at once. We have seen that Cook had discovered the same agreement between the languages of New Zealand and the Society Isles, when he put ashore at Poverty Bay, which is a considerable way to the south of the Bay of Islands.

Mr. Balbi, 8 a distinguished French writer on statistics, seems to think that the notion of the intimate affinity of the two dialects in question (which he allows, however, to belong to the same family of languages) has nothing else to support it except the circumstance of Tupia's being able to make himself intelligible to the New Zealanders. Tupia, he imagines, being one of the most learned of his countrymen, must have made use of the sacred language of Otaheite on this occasion, with which certain classes of

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the New Zealanders might probably be also acquainted. Other natives of the Society Islands, he adds, of lower rank, and less instructed than Tupia, could not succeed in making the New Zealanders understand them. But the fact is, that the only other two natives of the Society Islands, who are recorded to have tried this experiment, appear to have succeeded very nearly as well as Tupia. Both Oedidee and Omai, whom Cook brought away from Otaheite on his second visit to that island, very soon learned to converse easily with the people of New Zealand. Oedidee was a boy of only seventeen or eighteen, and Omai was merely one of the common people. Yet the latter, who came home in Captain Furneaux's ship, when he visited New Zealand with Cook nearly three years afterwards, was that navigator's chief medium of communication with the natives; 9 and the former, Cook tells us, also very soon learned to converse with them, "as I am persuaded," says he, "he would have done with the people of Amsterdam, (Tonga), had he been a little longer with them; for he did not understand the New Zealanders, at first, any more, or not so much as he understood the people of Amsterdam." 10 Of the language of these last, he had before remarked that it was found to be the same with that spoken at Otaheite and the Society Isles, "the difference not being greater than what we find betwixt the most northern and western parts of England." 11

In the succeeding portion of his narrative, M. Crozet gives us a long and interesting account of what he observed in relation to the character and manners of the New Zealanders, during his residence among them. In the course of this account, he men-

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MARION.

tions several particulars not noticed by others who have visited the country; and we shall have occasion to refer to some of his statements in a subsequent part of our volume. But in the mean time it will be more convenient to confine ourselves to his details in regard to the melancholy termination of the intercourse with these islanders, which had been seemingly so auspiciously begun.

So intimate did the French soon become with their new acquaintances, and such was the state of harmony and mutual confidence in which they lived together, that while on the one hand the New Zealanders were wont to come at all times freely on board the ships, and often to remain there all night, the crew and officers, on the other, moved about on shore almost as if they had been in their own country, and would even occasionally make excursions in small parties into the interior, traversing the villages of the natives, entering their houses, sharing their meals, and, in fact, putting themselves, in every respect in their power. Almost every officer had his favourite young friend, to whose attachment he was indebted for a thousand little attentions, and whose constant and cheerful service was purchased by the most trivial rewards. Marion himself, in particular, whose authority over the others they were not slow in remarking, seemed to be the object of universal regard; and he felt on his part a corresponding degree of affection for this apparently warm-hearted race, which almost prevented him from setting any bounds to the extent to which he trusted himself to their honour. Crozet asserts, that he himself was almost the only one of the officers who did not quite permit himself to forget all suspicion and precaution in his intercourse with these people. He frequently, he tells us, took the liberty of pointing out to the captain the imprudence of his conduct, and of endea-

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vouring to put him a little more upon his guard, but without effect.

And in this way matters went on till the 8th of June, on which day Marion, having gone on shore, was received with even more than the usual honours and enthusiasm. As soon as the islanders had got him in the midst of them, they bestowed upon him the high distinction of decorating his hair with the four white, feathers which form among them the insignia of chieftainship; and when he returned on board in the evening, he seemed more delighted than ever with his new friends. It was remarked, however, that from this day the New Zealanders discontinued their visits to the ship; even the officers' attendants, who had been wont to be most frequently on board, no longer making their appearance. The young person who had attached himself to Crozet had come on board in the morning, but wearing an air of melancholy, which was quite unusual; and would neither accept of any remuneration for some small presents which he brought with him, nor even eat any of the food that was offered him. As he took leave in the evening, it was evident, Crozet says, that there was some weight upon his spirits.

Four days after this, namely, on the morning of the 12th, Marion went again on shore, taking with him this time sixteen other persons in the boat, among whom were four of the superior officers. As evening approached it excited some surprise that he did not return on board; but it was known that the party had gone to spend the day in fishing, near a village belonging to Tacouri, the chief we have already mentioned, by this time the familiar acquaintance of all of them; and it was supposed that they might have been prevailed upon, at his hospitable invitation, to remain with him for the night. No suspicion was entertained for a moment that any misfortune

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MASSACRE OF MARION.

had befallen them. But early next morning a boat was sent on shore from the Marquis de Castries,for the purpose of procuring wood and water; and it had been absent for about four hours, when, to the surprise of those in the ship, one of the men who had gone in it was perceived swimming towards them from the shore. On being taken up and brought on board, this man told them a fearful narrative. He and his eleven companions had been received, on reaching the shore, with every show of affection --the natives even proffering to carry them from the boat to the land on their shoulders, that they might not wet themselves in stepping through the water. When they had got ou shore they dispersed, as they had been accustomed to do, to short distances from each other, to gather the wood; and they were very soon completely separated, every one engaged with his work, and unarmed, or at least so entirely off his guard as to make what arms he might have about him useless. While thus employed, and with numbers of the islanders mixed with them, in one moment each was fallen upon by six or eight of these barbarians, who, in almost every case, instantly overpowered whatever resistance was attempted, bearing down their victims to the earth, or hanging upon them so that they could not move a limb, and then beating out their brains with a single stroke of their short stone war-clubs. In this manner eleven of them were speedily despatched; one only, the man who now related the bloody transaction, had escaped the fate of his companions, having been by chance attacked by a smaller number of assailants, from whom, but not without being wounded, he had contrived to extricate himself in the confusion, on which he immediately plunged into a thicket of underwood hard by, where he lay concealed. From this hiding-place he saw the dead bodies of his messmates cut

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open and divided among their murderers; who soon after left the spot, each carrying with him the portion he had received, and gave the man an opportunity of making his escape to the water.

On hearing this horrible account, it was impossible that the greatest alarm should not have been felt by all on board for the safety of the captain and those who were with him. The Mascarin's long-boat was immediately sent off, with a strong party, well armed, on board, to ascertain what had become of them, although there was now but little room for doubt as to what had been their fate. On approaching the shore the first object that presented itself to the men charged with this duty, was the boat that had conveyed Marion and his companions the day before, lying on the strand, and filled and surrounded by a tumultuous crowd of the natives. It was thought best, however, not to stop for the present here, but to hasten as fast as possible to a party of the men who had been for some time employed on shore in cutting down trees at a little distance from this place, in order, if not too late, to inform them of what had happened, and to warn them to save themselves from destruction by quitting the island with all possible expedition. This party were at present under the command of Crozet, and consisted of about sixty individuals. Immediately on receiving the intelligence of what had taken place, that officer collected his men, and ordered them instantly to make ready for proceeding on board, but without informing them of any part of what he had heard, lest they might in their exasperation have sacrificed even their own safety to the phrenzy of a rash and unseasonable revenge. From the plan that was adopted, all the tools they had been using were gathered together, and packed up in an orderly manner, before the command was given to march. On their way down to

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MASSACRE OF MARION.

the water, however, they were followed by multitudes of the natives, who continued saluting them every moment by cries of wild triumph, intimating that Tacouri had killed Marion, and that he was dead and eaten. They did not, however, venture to attack them. But when they had got to the water side, and had halted in order to prepare for embarking, the fury of the savage mob, by whom they were encompassed, seemed to be about to break from the partial control by which it had been till now kept down, and, pressing closer and closer around them, they began to shew every symptom of an intention to commence an attack upon them by a general rush. At this moment Crozet, seizing his musket, called to them with a commanding voice to stand back; and, drawing a line on the ground between them and the spot where his party stood, threatened that he would kill the first man who should dare to overstep it. Cook had resorted with success to this expedient in a similar extremity, when about to be attacked by the inhabitants on one of the islands of this very bay. The expedient was attended with the same success now as it was on that occasion. Not one of the savages ventured to cross the barrier. Nay, when Crozet, addressing them a second time, ordered them to sit down, the command was mildly repeated to the throng by their chiefs, and instantly the whole multitude, to the number of fully a thousand men, seated themselves on the ground. And thus they remained during all the time, which was considerable, that was occupied in the embarkation both of the men and their baggage; but as soon as the last man had stepped into the boat, they rose all at once with a loud shout, as if released from a spell, and hurled a shower of stones and javelins after the fugitive French. These missiles, however, did not do much harm, any more than their vociferous outcries and hideous gesticulations, when

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they found their anticipated prey thus, as it were owing to their own infatuation, escaped from them.

New Zealander in the expression of defiance--from a drawing in the British Museum.

They then proceeded to wreak their vengeance on the huts the French had lately tenanted, setting them on fire, and otherwise demolishing them. Some of them, at the same time, entered the water, with the intention of pursuing the boat; but now was come the time when the French could, without risk, render requital for the blood of their butchered countrymen, and they rendered it fully. Shower after shower of musketry was poured in upon the miserable rabble, who, stupified with consternation as they felt their ranks mowed down, actually stood still to be shot at. Crozet says they could have been all killed, and takes

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MARION.

some merit to himself for restraining his men at last from the further prosecution of their murderous work, on an occasion which, it must be confessed, was inflaming enough to the passions of rude natures.

It was eleven o'clock at night before the invalids were got on board from the small island where their establishment had been fixed; but they were all removed in safety. These lamentable events, however, had completely put a stop to the preparations that were making to obtain a supply of wood and water for the ships; and as it was impossible that they could proceed on their voyage without being provided with these articles, a party was sent on shore next day to secure what was wanted, at all hazards. In the performance of this duty, they found it necessary to attack a village on the island of Motouaro, containing about three hundred inhabitants, who evidenced something like a disposition to interrupt them. In this affair also a great many of the natives were killed. Such, indeed, was the terror with which the fire-arms, of the effect of which they had seen so much the preceding day, had inspired them, that the chiefs were utterly unable to prevail upon their warriors even to face their formidable assailants. Yet with such determined obstinacy did they resist every attempt to capture them, that no prisoners could be secured. All their women and children, however, had been previously removed, in the anticipation of this conflict.

Some days after this, while the French were still employed in taking in their wood and water, a number of the natives having been seen dressed in the clothes of the murdered sailors, were pursued, and a good many of them shot. During the whole of the time the French remained, the New Zealanders continued to keep strict watch in all directions, guards being stationed on the tops of all the neighbouring

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hills, and fires kept blazing on the same eminences at night. At last everything being in readiness, the former determined to leave the island; but before setting sail, an armed party was once more sent on shore to make the last inquiries after the fate of Marion and his companions, and to inflict yet another chastisement on their destroyers. They proceeded on landing to the village belonging to Tacouri; but on their arrival here they found all the inhabitants had fled, except a few old men, whom it is to be hoped they did not injure. They were just in time, however, to see Tacouri himself running off, having the unfortunate Marion's mantle, which was recognized by the blue English cloth lined with red, of which it was made, hanging from his shoulders. On entering, too, this chief's deserted kitchen, they found in it several pieces of human flesh, some raw, and others roasted, the latter marked with the teeth that had already been tearing them. 12 In another house they picked up a part of a shirt with Marion's name on it, together with a variety of other evidences of the horrible tragedy, of which the place in which they now were had doubtless been the witness. They set fire both to this village, and to another at a little distance from it, the proprietor of which they had reason to believe had been a confederate in Tacouri's treachery--a supposition which was confirmed by the fact that its inhabitants had also deemed it prudent to take flight, as well as by the remnants of human flesh, and other traces of the recent barbarity, which they found in different parts of it. Having thus, as it was conceived, satisfied the manes of their lost comrades, the French left New Zealand on the 14th of July, having first, however, taken possession of the country, or at least of the northern isle,

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COOK S SECOND VISIT

which M. Marion had named France Australe,in the name of their royal master. To the inlet where they had lain (Cook's Bay of Islands), and of which M. Marion is somewhat incorrectly termed the discoverer, they gave the warning designation of The Bay of Treachery.

We are left by M. Crozet's narrative altogether in the dark as to any circumstances which could have led to the sudden and horrible catastrophe which we have just related. He asserts indeed repeatedly, that the French had given these islanders no cause of offence whatever during their residence among them; and that up to the fatal day when the cruel assassination of Marion and his companions was perpetrated, nothing could have exceeded the apparent cordiality and harmony in which the two parties lived together. "They treated us," is his expression, "with every show of friendship for thirty-three days, in the intention of eating us the thirty-fourth." Most people, however, will probably be of opinion that conduct apparently implying such transcendent perfidy must be capable of some explanation, if all the facts of the case were known.

The first European vessel that visited New Zealand after the departure of the Mascarin and the Castries, was the Resolution, in which Cook was then making his second voyage round the globe. The great navigator arrived again in sight of New Zealand on the 25th of March, 1773. The day following he entered Dusky Bay, lying in the southwest part of the southern island, immediately to the north of the West Cape; and here he remained till the 11th of May. A few inhabitants were found even in this spot, so remote from the quarters where the principal settlements seemed to be established. On leaving Dusky Bay, Cook proceeded along the coast towards the North, and, turning

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into the strait between the two islands, came to an anchor on the 18th, in a harbour, to which he gave the name of Ship Cove, situated in a large inlet called Queen Charlotte's Sound, on the coast of the Southern Island, in which he had lain for about three weeks on his former voyage. Here the Resolution found her consort the Adventure, commanded by Captain Furneaux, from which she had been separated in a storm on the passage from the Cape of Good Hope, more than three months before. The Adventure had reached the bay on the 7th of April, having also entered the Straits from the west. The two ships continued here till the 7th of June, when they set sail in company, and, bearing through the Strait towards the East, proceeded on their voyage to the Society Islands.

On the 21st of October, in the same year, the two English discovery ships again arrived at New Zealand, on their return from the Society Isles. When the ships were a few miles to the north of Cape Turnagain, some of the natives came to them in their canoes, from the shore, bringing a few fish which they exchanged for cloth and nails. "They were so fond of nails," says Cook, "as to seize on all they could find, and with such eagerness, as plainly shewed that they were the most valuable things we could give them." The first words which two of them spoke, who were prevailed upon to come on board, were, Mataou no ta pow pow(we are afraid of the guns). These two acquisitions--a knowledge of the value of iron, and a sense of the power of fire-arms--were, perhaps, all they had gained from their four years' intercourse with Europeans. The last they shared with the inferior animal races inhabiting their country. Crozet tells us, that although, on the first arrival of the French, the birds around the Bay of Islands were so entirely without

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COOK AND FURNEAUX.

fear, that they would perch even on the muskets, or stand still at their very muzzles when pointed at them, they afterwards took wing whenever they observed the sportsman approach. They still, however, he adds, suffered the natives to come near them without being at all disturbed. 13 The French navigator, Bougainville, mentions, in the same way, that when he landed in the Falkland Islands, all the animals came about him and his men, the fowls alighting upon their heads and shoulders.

In continuing their course along the coast towards the south, the two ships were attacked by a violent gale of wind, during which they again parted company. Cook in a day or two regained his old station on the south side of the straits; and here he remained for about three weeks; after which he bore away towards the south-east. Meanwhile the Adventure had been detained on the east coast from the time she lost sight of her consort, and it was the beginning of December before she arrived in Ship Cove, where her consort had been. On going ashore, however, they found the place where Cook's people had erected their tents, and observed cut out on an old stump of a tree in the garden the words, "Look underneath." This enabled them to find Cook's directions for their course, which he had written, and buried in a bottle.

On the 17th they had got every thing ready for setting sail, and intended to weigh anchor next morning, when Captain Furneaux sent off one of the midshipmen, and a boat's crew, to the land, to gather a few wild greens, with orders to return in the evening. As the boat, however, did not make her appearance either that night or the next morning, Captain Furneaux became very uneasy about her, and

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hoisting out the launch, sent her with his second-lieutenant, Mr. Burney, 14 manned with a boat's crew and ten marines in search of her. The result was, that another horrible massacre had taken place. The boat's crew had been attacked by the natives, and the. whole of the unfortunate men put to death and eaten. The persons who perished in this massacre, ten in number, were the best hands of the ship. Mr. Burney's narrative of this fearful transaction is exceedingly interesting. 15 The Adventure left New Zealand four days afterwards.

On the 19th of October, 1774, Cook's vessel was again moored at her old anchorage in Ship Cove; and she remained here till the 10th of the following month. None of the natives made their appearance till the 24th, when two canoes were seen, which, however as soon as they perceived the ship, retired behind a point of land. In the course of the day some more of the natives were discovered on shore, and even hallooed to a boat they saw approaching, in which Cook was; but as the boat drew nearer to the land, they all took flight to the woods, except two or three men, who remained stationed on a rising ground with their arms in their hands. "The moment we landed," continues Cook, "they knew us. Joy then took place of fear; and the rest of the natives hurried out of the woods, and embraced us over and over again; leaping and skipping about like madmen." Cook did not succeed during his present visit to New Zealand in ascertaining anything as to the misfortune that had befallen the Adventure, notwithstanding all his inquiries, which were particularly called forth by the mysterious conversation of the natives. Captain Cook paid his fifth and last visit to New Zealand in

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COOK.

the course of his third voyage round the world, having, after leaving Van Diemen's Land, come in sight of Rock's Point on the west coast of the southern island on the 10th of February, 1777. On the morning of the 12th he was at anchor in his old station in Ship Cove, where he had not lain long, before several canoes filled with natives came alongside. Very few of them, however, would at first venture on board; and Cook attributes their shyness, with every probability, to their apprehension that he had come to revenge the massacre of Captain Furneaux's men, with which they must have known that he was now acquainted, as they saw he had brought with him the native of the Society Islands, Omai, who had been on board the Adventure when the melancholy affair happened. But they very soon laid aside their fears on Cook assuring them that he had no hostile intentions; and the English having formed an encampment on shore, a great number of families soon came from different parts of the coast and took up their residence close to them. They were even visited occasionally by a chief named Kahoora, who was stated to have headed the party that cut off Captain Furneaux's people, and to have himself killed Mr. Rowe, the officer who commanded. This personage seemed to be an object of general terror and dislike among his countrymen, many of whom importuned Cook to kill him, and appeared not a little surprised when the English captain declined complying with their request. "But if I had followed," says Cook, "the advice of all our pretended friends, I might have extirpated the whole race; for the people of each hamlet or village, by turns, applied to me to destroy the other."

Kahoora himself came afterwards to the ship in a canoe. "This was the third time," says Cook, "he had visited us, without betraying the smallest

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appearance of fear. I was ashore when he now arrived, but had got on board just as he was going away. Omai, 16 who had returned with me, presently pointed him out, and solicited me to shoot him. Not satisfied with this, he addressed himself to Kahoora, threatening to be his executioner if ever he presumed to visit us again. The New Zealander paid so little regard to these threats, that he returned the next morning with his whole family, men, women and children, to the number of twenty and upwards. Omai was the first who acquainted me with his being alongside the ship, and desired to know if he should ask him to come on board. I told him he might; and accordingly he introduced the chief into the cabin, saying, 'There is Kahoora, kill him!' But, as if he had forgot his former threats, or were afraid that I should call upon him to perform them, he immediately retired. In a short time, however, he returned; and seeing the chief unhurt, he expostulated with me very earnestly, saying, 'Why do you not kill him? You tell me if a man kills another in England that he is hanged for it. This man has killed ten, and yet you will not kill him, though many of his countrymen desire it, and it would be very good.' Omai's arguments, though specious enough, having no weight with me, I desired him to ask the chief why he had killed Captain Furneaux's people? At this question Kahoora folded his arms, hung down his head, and looked like one caught in a trap; and I firmly believe he expected instant death. But no sooner was he assured of his safety than he became cheerful. He did not, however, seem willing to give me an answer to the question that had been put to him,

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COOK.

till I had, again and again, repeated my promise that he should not be hurt. Then he ventured to tell us, 'that one of his countrymen, having brought a stone hatchet to barter, the man to whom it was offered took it, and would neither return it nor give anything for it; on which the owner of it snatched up the bread as an equivalent, and then the quarrel began.'" 17

New Zealand War Clubs, &c.
1   Published at Paris, in one volume 8vo., in 1783. In 1791, the Abbe Rochon published another volume, containing an account of his own voyages to Madagascar and the East Indies, which was reprinted in 1802, with the addition of two other volumes, in the last of which appears a second narrative of the voyages of De Surville and Marion, in most respects copied from the former, but with a few new remarks interspersed. Our notice is derived from a collation of both publications, as well as from other sources. In his last-mentioned work, Rochon refers to the journals of M. Monneron, supercargo on board the Saint Jean Baptiste, and M. Potier de l'Orme, another of the officers, as his authorities for the account of De Surville's voyage. The latter, however, he had not seen at the time of his first publication.
2   The Abbe Rochon tells us (Voyages aux Indes Orientales, tom. iii. p. 233), that he was himself at Pondicherry, in August, 1769, when the report was spread about the discovery by the English of this marvellous isle. Among other strange stories that were told of it, it was said to be inhabited by a colony of Jews.
3   The facts as to the relative position of the two vessels are not quite correctly stated in the Abbe Rochon's book.
4   See a more extended account of Naginoui (there called Naginouni) in Rochon's Voyages aux Indes Orientales, tom. iii. pp. 388, 389, from the Journal of P. de l'Orme. While on ship-board, although he ate with great voracity whatever came in his way, he still appeared, it is stated, to regret the want of his primitive food, the fern-root. It was remarked, that his teeth were very small, and that he experienced great difficulty in pronouncing the letter l.
5   In the Admiralty Charts, sec. 14, there is a plan of the Bay of Lauriston, which is stated to be copied from a French manuscript dated December, 1769, that had been communicated by M. d'Apres (the eminent hydrographer, and author of the Neptune Oriental). This plan must have been taken by De Surville or some of his officers.
6   So called in Bougainville's Voyage, and elsewhere. But M. Crozet gives him the name of Mayoa.
7   Cook met with Crozet at the Cape of Good Hope, on his return from his second voyage in 1775. "He seemed," says Cook, "to be a man possessed of the true spirit of discovery, and to have abilities."
8   Introduction a l'Atlas Ethnographique, p. 255.
9   See Third Voyage, i.134, and elsewhere.
10   Second Voyage.
11   Id.
12   Voyage de Marion, p.121.
13   Voyage de Marion, pp.166, 167.
14   Afterwards Rear-Admiral Burney, the Author of The Chronological History of Discoveries in the South Sea.
15   Cook's Second Voyage, ii. 255, &c.
16   A notice of this interesting person will be found in a subsequent chapter.
17   Cook's Third Voyage, i.134.

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