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1770. March.

may really be the cafe with respect to the country behind Poverty Bay, and the Bay of Plenty, where the inhabitants appeared to be more numerous than in other places. But we had reafon to believe, that, in general, no part of the country but the fea coaft is inhabited; and even there we found the people but thinly fcattered, all the western coaft from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Mount Egmont being totally defolate; fo that upon the whole the number of inhabitants bears no proportion to the extent of country.

CHA P. IX.

A Defcription of the Inhabitants, their Habitations,
Apparel, Ornaments, Food, Cookery, and Manner of
Life.

THE

HE ftature of the men in general is equal to the largest of thofe in Europe: they are ftout, well limbed, and fleshy; but not fat, like the lazy and luxurious inhabitants of the islands in the South Seas : they are alfo exceedingly vigorous and active, and have an adroitnefs, and manual dexterity in an uncommon degree, which are discovered in whatever they do. I have feen the strokes of fifteen paddles on a fide in one of their canoes made with incredible quickness, and yet with fuch minute exactness of time, that all the rowers feemed to be actuated by one common foul. Their colour in general is brown; but in few deeper than that of a Spaniard, who has been expofed to the fun; in many not fo deep. The women have not a feminine delicacy in their appearance, but their voice is remarkably foft; and by that, the drefs of both fexes being the fame, they are principally diftinguished: they have, however, like the women of other countries, more airy cheerfulness, and a greater flow of animal fpirits, than the other fex. Their hair, both of the head and beard, is black: and their teeth extremely regular, and as white as ivory: the features of both fexes are good; they feem to enjoy high health, and we faw many who appeared to be of a great age. The difpofitions both of the men and the

women

March.

women feemed to be mild and gentle; they treat each 1770. other with the tendereft affection, but are implacable, towards their enemies, to whom, as I have before obferved, they never give quarter. It may perhaps, at firft, feem strange, that where there is fo little to be got by victory, there fhould fo often be war; and that every little district of a country inhabited by people fo mild and placid, fhould be at enmity with all the reff. But poffibly more is to be gained by victory among thefe people than at first appears, and they may be prompted to mutual hoftilities by motives which no degree of friendship or affection is able to refift. It appears, by the account that has already been given of them, that their principal food is fifh, which can only be procured upon the fea-coaft; and there, in fufficient quantities, only at certain times; the tribes, therefore, who live inland, if any fuch there are, and even thofe upon the coaft, must be frequently in danger of perishing by famine. Their country produces neither sheep, nor goats, nor hogs, nor cattle; tame fowls they have none, nor any art by which those that are wild can be caught in fufficient plenty to ferve as provifion. If there are any whofe fituation cuts them off from a fupply of fish, the only fuccedaneum of all other animal food, except dogs, they have nothing to fupport life, but the vegetables that have already been mentioned, of which the chief are fern root, yams, clams, and potatoes; when by accident thefe fail, the diftrefs must be dreadful; and even among the inhabitants of the coaft, many tribes muft frequently be reduced to nearly the fame fituation, either by the failure of their plantations, or the deficiency of their dry ftock, during the feafon when but few fish are to be caught. Thefe confiderations will enable us to account, not only for the perpetual danger in which the people who inhabit this country appear to live, by the care which they take to fortify every village, but for the horrid practice of eating those who are killed in battle; for the hunger of him who is preffed by famine to fight, will abforb every feeling, and every fentiment. which would reftrain him from allaying it with the body of his adverfary. It may however be remarked, that, if this account of the origin of fo horrid a prac

1770.

March.

tice is true, the mischief does by no means end with the neceffity that produced it: after the practice has been once begun on one fide by hunger, it will naturally be adopted on the other by revenge. Nor is this all, for though it may be pretended, by fome who wish to appear fpeculative and philofophical, that whether the dead body of an enemy be eaten or buried, is in itself a matter perfectly indifferent; as it is, whether the breafts and thighs of a woman fhould be covered or naked; and that prejudice and habit only make us fhudder at the violation of cuftom in one inftance, and blush at it in the other: yet, leaving this as a point of doubtful difputation, to be difcuffed at leifure, it may fafely be affirmed, that the practice of eating human flesh, whatever it may be in itself, is relatively and in its confequences, moft pernicious: tending manifeftly to eradicate a principle which is the chief fecurity of human life, and more frequently restrains the hand of murder than the fenfe of duty, or even the fear of punishment.

Among those who are accustomed to eat the dead, death must have lost much of its horror; and where there is little horror at the fight of death, there will not be much repugnance to kill. A fenfe of duty, and fear of punishment, may be more easily furmounted than the feelings of Nature, or those which have been engrafted by Nature by early prejudice and uninterrupted cuftom. The horror of the murderer arifes lefs from the guilt of the fact, than its natural effect; and he who has familiarifed the effect, will confequently lofe much of the horror. By our laws, and our religion, murder and theft incur the fame punishment, both in this world and the next; yet, of the multitude who would deliberately fteal, there are but very few who would deliberately kill, even to procure much greater advantage. But there is the frongeft reafon to believe, that those who have been fo accustomed to prepare a human body for a meal, that they can with as little feeling cut up a dead man, as our cook-maids divide a dead rabbi for a fricaffee, would feel as little horror in committing a murder as in picking a pocket, and confequently would take away life with as little compunction as property; fo that men, under thefe circumstances,

circumstances, would be made murderers by the flight temptations that now make them thieves. If any man doubts whether this reafoning is conclufive, let him ask himself whether, in his own opinion, he fhould not be safer with a man in whom the horror of deftroying life is ftrong, whether, in confequence of natural inftinct unfubdued, or of early prejudice, which has nearly an equal influence, than in the power of a man who under any temptation to murder him would be restrained only by confiderations of intereft; for to these all motives of duty may be reduced, as they must terminate either in hope of good, or fear of evil.

The fituation and circumstances, however, of these poor people, as well as their temper, are favourable to thofe who fhall fettle as a colony among them. Their fituation fets them in need of protection, and their temper renders it easy to attach them by kindnefs; and whatever may be faid in favour of a favage life, among people who live in luxurious idlenefs upon the bounty of Nature, civilization would certainly be a bleffing to those whom her parfimony scarcely furnishes with the bread of life, and who are perpetually deftroying each other by violence, as the only alternative of perishing by hunger.

But thefe people, from whatever cause, being inured to war, and by habit confidering every stranger as an enemy, were always difpofed to attack us when they were not intimidated by our manifeft fuperiority. At first, they had no notion of any fuperiority but numbers; and when this was on their fide, they confidered all our expreffions of kindnefs as the artifices of fear and cunning, to circumvent them, and preferve ourfelves: but when we are once convinced of our power, after having provoked us to the ufe of our fire-arms, though loaded only with fmall fhot, and of our clemency, by our forbearing to make use of weapons fo dreadful except in our defence, they became at once friendly, and even affectionate, placing in us the most unbounded confidence, and doing every thing which could incite us to put equal confidence in them. It is alfo remarkable, that when an intereourse was once established between us, they were

1770.

March.

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