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ship would probably be at a great distance from where she was then, the next morning: They persisted, however, in their resolution, and as I found it impossible to get rid of them without turning them by force out of the ship, I complied: As a proper precaution, however, I proposed to take their servants also on board, and hoist their canoe into the ship; they made no objection, and this was accordingly done. The countenance of one of these chiefs was the most open and ingenuous of all I have ever seen, and I very soon gave up every suspicion of his having any sinister design: They both examined every thing they saw with great curiosity and attention, and received very thankfully such little presents as we made them; neither of them, however, could be persuaded either to eat or drink, but their servants devoured every thing they could get with great voracity. We found that these men had heard of our kindness and liberality to the natives who had been on board before, yet we thought the confidence they placed in us an extraordinary instance of their fortitude. At night I brought-to till day-light, and then made sail; at seven in the morning, I brought-to again under Cape Table, and sent away our guests with their canoe, who expressed some surprise at seeing themselves so far from home, but landed a-breast of the ship. At this time I saw other canoes putting off from the shore, but I stood away to the northward without waiting for their coming up.

About three, I passed a remarkable head-land, which I called Gable-End-Foreland, from the very great likeness of the white cliff at the point to the gable-end of a house: It is not more remarkable for its figure, than for a rock which rises like a spire at a little distance. It lies from Cape Table N. 24 E. distant about twelve leagues. The shore between them forms a bay, within which lies Poverty bay, at the distance of four leagues from the head-land, and eight from the Cape. At this place three canoes came off to us, and one man came on board; we gave him some trifles, and he soon returned to his boat, which, with all the rest, dropped a-stern.

In the morning I made sail in shore, in order to look into two bays, which appeared about two leagues to the northward of the Foreland; the southermost I could not fetch, but I anchored in the other about eleven o'clock.

Into this bay we were invited by the people on board

many

many canoes, who pointed to a place where they said there was plenty of fresh water: I did not find so good a shelter from the sea as I expected, but the natives who came about us appearing to be of a friendly disposition, I was determined to try whether I could not get some knowledge of the country here before I proceeded farther to the northward.

In one of the canoes that came about us as soon as we anchored, we saw two men, who by their habits appeared to be chiefs: One of them was dressed in a jacket, which was ornamented after their manner, with dog's skin; the jacket of the other was almost covered with small tufts of red feathers. These men I invited on board, and they entered the ship with very little hesitation: I gave each of them about four yards of linen, and a spike nail; with the linen they were much pleased, but seemed to set no value upon the nail. We perceived that they knew what had happened in Poverty Bay, and we had therefore no reason. to doubt but they would behave peaceably; however, for further security, Tupia was ordered to tell them for what purpose we came thither, and to assure them that we would offer them no injury, if they offered none to us. In the mean time those who remained in the canoes traded with our people very fairly for what they happened to have with them: The chiefs, who were old men, staid with us till we had dined, and about two o'clock I put off with the boats, manned and armed, in order to go on shore in search of water, and the two chiefs went into the boat with me. The afternoon was tempestuous, with much rain, and the surf every where ran so high, that although we rowed almost round the bay, we found no place where we could land: I determined therefore to return to the ship, which being intimated to the chiefs, they called to the people on shore, and ordered a canoe to be sent off for themselves; this was accordingly done, and they left us, promising to come on board again in the morning, and bring us some fish and sweet potatoes.

In the evening, the weather having become fair and moderate, the boats were again ordered out, and I landed, accompanied by Mr Banks and Dr Solander. We were received with great expressions of friendship by the natives, who behaved with a scrupulous attention not to give offence. In particular, they took care not to appear in great bodies: One family, o the inhabitants of two or three

houses

houses only, were generally placed together, to the number of fifteen or twenty, consisting of men, women, and children. These little companies sat upon the ground, not ad-. vancing towards us, but inviting us to them, by a kind of beckon, moving one hand towards the breast. We made them several little presents; and in our walk round the bay found two small streams of fresh water. This convenience, and the friendly behaviour of the people, determined me to stay at least a day, that I might fill some of my empty. casks, and give Mr Banks an opportunity of examining the natural produce of the country.

In the morning of the 21st, I sent Lieutenant Gore on shore, to superintend the watering, with a strong party of men; and they were soon followed by Mr Banks and Dr. Solander, with Tupia, Tayeto, and four others.

The natives sat by our people, and seemed pleased to observe them; but did not intermix with them: They traded, however, chiefly for cloth, and after a short time applied to their ordinary occupations, as if no stranger had been among them. In the forenoon, several of their boats went out a-fishing, and at dinner time every one repaired, to his respective dwelling; from which, after a certain time, he returned. These fair appearances encouraged Mr Banks and Dr Solander to range the bay with very little precaution, where they found many plants, and shot some birds of exquisite beauty. In their walk, they visited several houses of the natives, and saw something of their man-. ner of life; for they showed, without any reserve, every thing which the gentlemen desired to see. They were sometimes found at their meals, which the approach of the strangers never interrupted. Their food at this season consisted of fish, with which, instead of bread, they eat the root of a kind of fern, very like that which grows upon our commons in England. These roots they scorch over the fire, and then beat with a stick, till the bark and dry outside fall off; what remains is a soft substance, somewhat clammy and sweet, not unpleasing to the taste, but mixed with three or four times its quantity of strings and fibres, which are very disagreeable; these were swallowed by some, but spit out by the far greater number, who had baskets under them to receive the rejected part of what had been chewed, which had an appearance very like that of tobacco in the same state. In other seasons they have cer

tainly

tainly plenty of excellent vegetables; but no tame animals were seen among them except dogs, which were very small and ugly. Mr Banks saw some of their plantations, where the ground was as well broken down and tilled as even in the gardens of the most curious people among us: In these spots were sweet potatoes, coccos or eddas, which are well known and much esteemed both in the East and West Indies, and some gourds: The sweet potatoes were planted in small hills, some ranged in rows, and others in quincunx, all laid by a line with the greatest regularity: The coccos were planted upon flat land, but none of them yet appeared above ground; and the gourds were set in small hollows, or dishes, much as in England. These plantations were of different extent, from one or two acres to ten: Taken together, there appeared to be from 150 to 200 acres in cultivation in the whole bay, though we never saw an hundred people. Each district was fenced in, generally with reeds, which were placed so close together that there was scarcely room for a mouse to creep between.

The women were plain, and made themselves more so by painting their faces with red ochre and oil, which being generally fresh and wet upon their cheeks and foreheads, was easily transferred to the noses of those who thought fit to salute them; and that they were not wholly averse to such familiarity, the noses of several of our people strongly testified: They were, however, as great coquets as any of the most fashionable ladies in Europe, and the young ones as skittish as an unbroken filly: Each of them wore a petticoat, under which there was a girdle, made of the blades of grass highly perfumed, and to the girdle was fastened a small bunch of the leaves of some fragrant plant, which served their modesty as its innermost veil. The faces of the

It is elsewhere said of these women, that, contrary to the custom of the sex in general, they affected dress rather less than the men. As to their modesty, let one fact related in the same place, be allowed its legal influence. Their innermost veil, as our author will have it, was always bound fast round them, except when they went into the water to catch lobsters, and then great care was taken that they should not be seen by the other sex. "Some of us happening one day to land upon a small island in Tolaga Bay, we surprised several of them at this employment; and the chaste Diana, with her nymphs, could not have discovered more confusion and distress at the sight of Acteon, than these women expressed on our approach. Some of them hid themselves among the rocks, and the rest crouched down in the sea till they had made themselves a girdle

the men were not so generally painted, yet we saw one whose whole body, and even his garments, were rubbed over with dry ochre, of which he kept a piece constantly in his hand, and was every minute renewing the decoration in one part or another, where he supposed it was become deficient. In personal delicacy they were not equal to our friends at Otaheite, for the coldness of the climate did not invite them so often to bathe; but we saw among them one instance of cleanliness in which they exceeded them, and of which perhaps there is no example in any other Indian nation. Every house, or every little cluster of three or four houses, was furnished with a privy, so that the ground was every where clean. The offals of their food, and other litter, were also piled up in regular dunghills, which probably they made use of at a proper time for manure.

In this decent article of civil economy they were beforehand with one of the most considerable nations of Europe, for I am credibly informed, that, till the year 1760, there was no such thing as a privy in Madrid, the metropolis of Spain, though it is plentifully supplied with water. Before that time it was the universal practice to throw the ordure out of the windows, during the night, into the street, where numbers of men were employed to remove it, with shovels, from the upper parts of the city to the lower, where it lay till it was dry, and was then carried away in carts, and deposited without the gates. His catholic majesty, having determined to free his capital from so gross a nuisance, ordered, by proclamation, that the proprietor of every house should build a privy, and that sinks, drains, and commonsewers should be made at the public expence. The Spaniards, though long accustomed to an arbitrary government, resented this proclamation with great spirit, as an infringement of the common rights of mankind, and made a vigorous

and apron of such weeds as they could find, and when they came out, even with this veil, we could perceive that their modesty suffered much pain by our presence!" One fact of this kind speaks volumes. The reader may glance over them at his leisure.-E.

9 It is elsewhere remarked, that the bodies of both sexes are marked with the black stains called Amoco, like the tattowing of the Otaheitans, but that the women are not so lavish in the decoration as the men, and that whereas at Otaheite the breech is the choice spot for the display of their beautifying ingenuity, in New Zealand, on the contrary, it is almost entirely neglected as unworthy of embellishment. So much for the capricious partiality of dame Fashion.-E.

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