The Long White Cloud Part 3

The brother seized the wrong one; it was loose, and he was swung away, whirled by the wind backwards and forwards from one horizon to the other. Tawhaki took the right ladder, and climbed successfully.[1] At the top he met with adventures, and had even to become a slave, and carry axes and firewood disguised as a little, ugly, old man. At last, however, he regained his wife, became a G.o.d, and still reigns above.

It is he who causes lightning to flash from heaven.

[Footnote 1: Another version describes his ladder as a thread from a spider's web; a third as the string of his kite, which he flew so skilfully that it mounted to the sky; then Tawhaki, climbing up the cord, disappeared in the blue vault.]

The man in the moon becomes, in Maori legend, a woman, one Rona by name. This lady, it seems, once had occasion to go by night for water to a stream. In her hand she carried an empty calabash. Stumbling in the dark over stones and the roots of trees she hurt her shoeless feet and began to abuse the moon, then hidden behind clouds, hurling at it some such epithet as "You old tattooed face, there!" But the moon-G.o.ddess heard, and reaching down caught up the insulting Rona, calabash and all, into the sky. In vain the frightened woman clutched, as she rose, the tops of a ngaio-tree. The roots gave way, and Rona with her calabash and her tree are placed in the front of the moon for ever, an awful warning to all who are tempted to mock at divinities in their haste.

All beings, G.o.ds, heroes and men, are sprung from the ancient union of Heaven and Earth, Rangi and Papa. Rangi was the father and Earth the great mother of all. Even now, in these days, the rain, the snow, the dew and the clouds are the creative powers which come down from Rangi to mother Earth and cause the trees, the shrubs and the plants to grow in spring and flourish in summer. It is the self-same process that is pictured in the sonorous hexameters:--

"Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribus Aether Coniugis in gremium laetae descendit, et omnes Magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore, fetus."

But in the beginning Heaven lay close to the Earth and all was dim and dark. There was life but not light. So their children, tired of groping about within narrow and gloomy limits, conspired together to force them asunder and let in the day. These were Tu, the scarlet-belted G.o.d of men and war, Tane, the forest G.o.d, and their brother, the sea-G.o.d. With them joined the G.o.d of cultivated food, such as the k.u.mara, and the G.o.d of food that grows wild--such as the fern-root. The conspirators cut great poles with which to prop up Heaven. But the father and mother were not to be easily separated.

They clung to each other despite the efforts of their unnatural sons.

Then Tane, the tree-G.o.d, standing on head and hands, placed his feet against Heaven and, pus.h.i.+ng hard, forced Rangi upwards. In that att.i.tude the trees, the children of Tane, remain to this day. Thus was the separation accomplished, and Rangi and Papa must for ever remain asunder. Yet the tears of Heaven still trickle down and fall as dew-drops upon the face of his spouse, and the mists that rise in the evening from her bosom are the sighs of regret which she sends up to her husband on high.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_.]

Vengeance, however, fell upon the conspirators. A sixth brother had had nothing to do with their plot. This was Tawhiri-Matea, the G.o.d of winds and storms. He loyally accompanied his father to the realms above, whence he descended on his rebel brothers in furious tempests.

The sea-G.o.d fled to the ocean, where he and his children dwell as fishes. The two G.o.ds of plant-food hid in the Earth, and she, forgiving mother that she was, sheltered them in her breast. Only Tu, the G.o.d of mankind, stayed erect and undaunted. So it is that the winds and storms make war to this day upon men, wrecking their canoes, tearing down their houses and fences and ruining all their handiwork.

Not only does man hold out against these attacks, but, in revenge for the cowardly desertion of Tu by his weaker brethren, men, his people, prey upon the fish and upon the plants that give food whether wild or cultivated.

s.p.a.ce will scarcely permit even a reference to other Maori myths--to the tale, for instance, of the great flood which came in answer to the prayers of two faithful priests as punishment for the unbelief, the discords and the wickedness of mankind; then all were drowned save a little handful of men and women who floated about on a raft for eight moons and so reached Hawaiki. Of the creation of man suffice it to say that he was made by Tiki, who formed him out of red clay, or, as some say, out of clay reddened by his own blood. Woman's origin was more ethereal and poetic; her sire was a noonday sunbeam, her mother a sylvan echo. Many are the legends of the hero, Maui. He la.s.sooed the sun with ropes and beat him till he had to go slower, and so the day grew longer. The first ropes thus used were of flax, which burned and snapped in the sun's heat. Then Maui twisted a cord of the tresses of his sister, Ina, and this stayed unconsumed. It was Maui who went to fetch for man's use the fire which streamed from the finger-nails of the fire G.o.ddess, and who fished up the North Island of New Zealand, still called by the Maoris _Te Ika a Maui_, the fish of Maui. He first taught tattooing and the art of catching fish with bait, and died in the endeavour to gain immortality for men. Death would have been done away with had Maui successfully accomplished the feat of creeping through the body of a certain gigantic G.o.ddess. But that flippant and restless little bird, the fan-tail, was so tickled at the sight of the hero crawling down the monster's throat that it t.i.ttered and burst into laughter. So the goblin awoke, and Maui died for man in vain.

Such are some of the sacred myths of the Maori. They vary very greatly in different tribes and are loaded with ma.s.ses of detail largely genealogical. The religious myths form but one portion of an immense body of traditional lore, made up of songs and chants, genealogies, tribal histories, fables, fairy-tales and romantic stories. Utterly ignorant as the Maoris were of any kind of writing or picture-drawing, the volume of their lore is amazing, and is an example of the power of the human memory when a.s.siduously cultivated. Very great care was, of course, taken to hand it down from father to son in the priestly families. In certain places in New Zealand, notably at w.a.n.ganui, sacred colleges stood called Whare-kura (Red-house). These halls had to be built by priestly hands, stood turned to the east, and could only be approached by the purified. They were dedicated by sacrifice, sometimes of a dog, sometimes of a human being. The pupils, who were boys of high rank, went, at the time of admission, through a form of baptism. The term of instruction lasted through the autumns and winters of five years. The hours were from sunset to midnight. Only one woman, an aged priestess, was admitted into the hall, and she only to perform certain incantations. No one might eat or sleep there, and any pupil who fell asleep during instruction was at once thrust forth, was expected to go home and die, and doubtless usually did so.

Infinite pains were taken to impress on the pupils' memories the exact wording of traditions. As much as a month would be devoted to constant repet.i.tions of a single myth. They were taught the tricks of the priestly wizard's trade, and became expert physiognomists, ventriloquists, and possibly, in some cases, hypnotists. Public exhibitions afterwards tested the accuracy of their memories and their skill in witchcraft. On this their fate depended. A successful _Tohunga_, or wizard, lived on the fat of the land; a few failures, and he was treated with discredit and contempt.

Though so undoubted an authority as Mr. William Colenso sums up the old-time Maori as a secularist, it is not easy entirely to agree with him. Not only had the Maori, as already indicated, an elaborate--too elaborate--mythology, but he had a code of equally wide and minute observances which he actually did observe. Not only had he many G.o.ds both of light and evil, but the Rev. James Stack, a most experienced student, says that he conceived of his G.o.ds as something more than embodiments of power--as beings "interested in human affairs and able to see and hear from the highest of the heavens what took place on earth." Mr. Colenso himself dwells upon the Maori faith in dreams, omens, and charms, and on the universal dread felt for _kehuas_ or ghosts, and _atuas_ or demon spirits. Moreover, the code of observances aforesaid was no mere secular law. It was the celebrated system of _tapu_ (taboo), and was not only one of the most extraordinary and vigorous sets of ordinances ever devised by barbarous man, but depended for its influence and prestige not mainly upon the secular arm or even public opinion, but upon the injunction and support of unseen and spiritual powers. If a man broke the _tapu_ law, his punishment was not merely to be shunned by his fellows or--in some cases--plundered of his goods. Divine vengeance in one or other form would swiftly fall upon him--probably in the practical shape of the entry into his body of an evil spirit to gnaw him to death with cruel teeth. Men whose terror of such punishment as this, and whose vivid faith in the imminence thereof, were strong enough to kill them were much more, or less, than secularists.

The well-known principle that there is no potent, respected, and lasting inst.i.tution, however strange, but has its roots in practical usefulness, is amply verified in the case of _tapu_. By it authority was ensured, dignity hedged about with respect, and property and public health protected. Any person, place or thing laid under _tapu_ might not be touched, and sometimes not even approached. A betrothed maiden defended by _tapu_ was as sacred as a vestal virgin of Rome; a shrine became a Holy Place; the head of a chief something which it was sacrilege to lay hands on. The back of a man of n.o.ble birth could not be degraded by bearing burdens--an awkward prohibition in moments when no slave or woman happened to be in attendance on these lordly beings.

Anything cooked for a chief was forbidden food to an inferior. The author of _Old New Zealand_ tells of an unlucky slave who unwittingly ate the remains of a chiefs dinner. When the knowledge of this frightful crime was flashed upon him, he was seized with internal cramps and pains and, though a strong man, died in a few hours. The weapons and personal effects of a chief were, of course, sacred even in the opinion of a thief, but _tapu_ went further. Even the fire a chief had lit might not be used by commoners. As for priests, after the performance of certain ceremonies they for a time had perforce to become too sacred to feed themselves with their hands. Food would be laid down before them and kneeling, or on all-fours like dogs, they had to pick it up with their teeth. Perhaps their lot might be so far mitigated that a maiden would be permitted to convey food to their mouths on the end of a fern-stalk--a much less disagreeable process for the eater. Growing fields of the sweet potato were sacred for obvious reasons, as were those who were working therein. So were burial-places and the bones of the dead. The author above-mentioned chancing one day on a journey to pick up a human skull which had been left exposed by a land-slide, immediately became an outcast shunned by acquaintances, friends and his own household, as though he were a very leper. Before he could be officially cleansed and readmitted into decent Maori society, his clothing and furniture had to be destroyed, and his kitchen abandoned. By such means did this--to us--ridiculous superst.i.tion secure reverence for the dead and some avoidance of infection. To this end the professional grave-digger and corpse-bearer of a Maori village was _tapu_, and lived loathed and utterly apart.

Sick persons were often treated in the same way, and inasmuch as the unlucky might be supposed to have offended the G.o.ds, the victims of sudden and striking misfortune were treated as law-breakers and subjected to the punishment of _Muru_ described in the last chapter.

Death in Maori eyes was not the Great Leveller, as with us. Just as the destiny of the chief's soul was different from that of the commoner or slave, so was the treatment of his body.

A slave's death was proverbially that of a dog, no man regarded it.

Even the ordinary free man was simply buried in the ground in a sitting posture and forgotten. But the departure of a chief of rank and fame, of great _mana_ or prestige, was the signal for national mourning. With wreaths of green leaves on their heads, friends sat round the body wailing the long-drawn cry, _Aue! Aue!_ or listening to some funeral chant recited in his praise. Women cut themselves with sharp sea-sh.e.l.ls or flakes of volcanic gla.s.s till the blood ran down.

The corpse sat in state adorned with flowers and red ochre and clad in the finest of mantles. Albatross feathers were in the warrior's hair, his weapons were laid beside him. The onlookers joined in the lamenting, and shed actual tears--a feat any well-bred Maori could perform at will. Probably a huge banquet took place; then it was held to be a truly great _tangi_. Often the wives of the departed killed themselves in their grief, or a slave was sacrificed in his honour.

His soul was believed to mount aloft, and perhaps some star was henceforth pointed out as his eye s.h.i.+ning down and watching over his tribe. The tattooed head of the dead man was usually reverently preserved--stored away in some secret recess and brought out by the priest to be gazed upon on high occasions. The body, placed in a canoe-shaped coffin, was left for a time to dry on a stage or moulder in a hollow tree. After an appointed period the bones were sc.r.a.ped clean and laid away in a cavern or cleft known only to a sacred few.

They might be thrown down some dark mountain abyss or _torere_. Such inaccessible resting-places of famous chiefs--deep well-like pits or tree-fringed chasms--are still pointed out to the traveller who climbs certain New Zealand summits. But, wherever the warrior's bones were laid, they were guarded by secrecy, by the dreaded _tapu_, and by the jealous zeal of his people. Even now no Maori tribe will sell such spots, and the greedy or inquisitive _Pakeha_ who profanely explores or meddles with them does so at no small risk.

Far different was the fate of those unlucky leaders who fell in battle, or were captured and slaughtered and devoured thereafter.

Their heads stuck upon the posts of the victor's _pa_ were targets for ribaldry, or, in later days, might be sold to the _Pakeha_ and carried away to be stared at as oddities. Their bones might be used for flutes and fis.h.i.+ng-hooks, for no fisherman was so lucky as he whose hook was thus made; their souls were doomed to successive stages of deepening darkness below, and at length, after reaching the lowest gulf, pa.s.sed as earth-worms to annihilation.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter IV

THE NAVIGATORS

"A s.h.i.+p is floating on the harbour now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow.

There is a path on the sea's azure floor, No keel hath ever ploughed that path before."

Nearly at the end of 1642, Tasman, a sea captain in the service of the Dutch East India Company, sighted the western ranges of the Southern Alps. He was four months out from Java, investigating the extent of New Holland, and in particular its possible continuation southward as a great Antarctic continent. He had just discovered Tasmania, and was destined, ere returning home, to light upon Fiji and the Friendly Islands. So true is it that the most striking discoveries are made by men who are searching for what they never find. In clear weather the coast of Westland is a grand spectacle, and even through the dry, matter-of-fact entries of Tasman's log we can see that it impressed him. He notes that the mountains seemed lifted aloft in the air. With his two s.h.i.+ps, the small _Heemskirk_ and tiny _Zeehan_, he began to coast cautiously northward, looking for an opening eastward, and noting the high, cloud-clapped, double range of mountains, and the emptiness of the steep desolate coast, where neither smoke nor men, s.h.i.+ps nor boats, were to be seen. He could not guess that hidden in this wilderness was a wealth of coal and gold as valuable as the riches of Java. He seems to have regarded New Zealand simply as a lofty barrier across his path, to be pa.s.sed at the first chance.

Groping along, he actually turned into the wide opening which, narrowing further east into Cook's Strait, divides the North and South Islands. He anch.o.r.ed in Golden Bay; but luck was against him. First of all the natives of the bay paddled out to view his s.h.i.+ps, and, falling on a boat's crew, clubbed four out of seven of the men. Tasman's account--which I take leave to doubt--makes the attack senselessly wanton and unprovoked.

He tells how a fleet of canoes, each carrying from thirteen to seventeen men, hung about his vessels, and how the strongly-built, gruff-voiced natives, with yellowish-brown skins, and with white feathers stuck in their clubbed hair, refused all offers of intercourse. Their attack on his boat as it was being pulled from the _Zeehan_ to the _Heemskirk_ was furious and sudden, and the crew seem to have been either unarmed or too panic-stricken to use their weapons. Both s.h.i.+ps at once opened a hot fire on the canoes, but hit n.o.body. It was not until next day, when twenty-two canoes put out to attack them, that the Dutch marksmen after much more firing succeeded in hitting a native. On his fall the canoes retired. Satisfied with this Tasman took no vengeance and sailed away further into the strait.

Fierce north-westerly gales checked for days his northward progress.

The strait, it may be mentioned, is still playfully termed "the windpipe of the Pacific." One night Tasman held a council on board the _Heemskirk_, and suggested to the officers that the tide showed that an opening must exist to the east, for which they had better search.

But he did not persevere. When next evening the north wind died away there came an easterly breeze, followed by a stiff southerly gale, which made him change his mind again. So are discoveries missed.

He ran on northward, merely catching glimpses, through scud and cloud, of the North Island. Finally, at what is now North Cape, he discerned to his joy a free pa.s.sage to the east. He made one attempt to land, in search of water, on a little group of islands hard by, which, as it was Epiphany, he called Three Kings, after Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. But the surf was rough and a throng of natives, striding along, shaking spears and shouting with hoa.r.s.e voices, terrified his boat's crew. He gave up the attempt and sailed away, glad, no doubt, to leave this vague realm of storm and savages. It says something for his judgment that amid such surroundings he saw and noted in his log-book that the country was good. He had called it Staaten Land, on the wild guess that it extended to the island of that name off the coast of Terra del Fuego. Afterwards he altered the name to New Zealand. The secretive commercial policy of the Dutch authorities made them shroud Tasman's discoveries in mystery. It is said that his discoveries were engraved on the map of the world which in 1648 was cut on the stone floor of the Amsterdam Town Hall. The full text of his log has only been quite recently published. His curt entries dealing with the appearance of the New Zealand coast and its natives seem usually truthful enough. The tribe which attacked his boat was afterwards nearly exterminated by invaders from the North Island.

This would account for the almost utter absence among the Maoris of tradition concerning his visit. It is noteworthy that he describes the natives of Golden--or, as he named it, Murderers'--Bay as having double-canoes. When the country was annexed, two hundred years afterwards, the New Zealanders had forgotten how to build them.

The Dutch made no use of their Australian discoveries. They were repelled by the heat, the drought, and the barrenness of the north-western coasts of New Holland. For a century and a quarter after Tasman's flying visit, New Zealand remained virtually unknown. Then the veil was lifted once and for all. Captain James Cook, in the _Endeavour_, sighted New Zealand in 1769. He had the time to study the country, and the ability too. On his first voyage alone nearly six months were devoted to it. In five visits he surveyed the coast, described the aspect and products of the islands, and noted down a ma.s.s of invaluable details concerning the native tribes. Every one may not be able to perceive the literary charm which certain eulogists have been privileged to find in Cook's admirable record of interesting facts. But he may well seem great enough as a discoverer and observer, to be easily able to survive a worse style--say Hawkesworth's. He found New Zealand a line on the map, and left it an Archipelago, a feat which many generations of her colonists will value above the shaping of sentences. The feature of his experiences which most strikes the reader now, is the extraordinary courage and pugnacity of the natives. They took the _Endeavour_ for a gigantic white-winged sea-bird, and her pinnace for a young bird. They thought the sailors G.o.ds, and the discharge of their muskets divine thunderbolts. Yet, when Cook and a boat's crew landed, a defiant war-chief at once threatened the boat, and persisted until he was shot dead. Almost all Cook's attempts to trade and converse with the Maoris ended in the same way--a scuffle and a musket-shot. Yet the savages were never cowed, and came again. They were shot for the smallest thefts. Once Cook fired on the crew of a canoe merely for refusing to stop and answer questions about their habits and customs, and killed four of them--an act of which he calmly notes that he himself could not, on reflection, approve. On the other hand he insisted on discipline, and flogged his sailors for robbing native plantations. For that age he was singularly humane, and so prudent that he did not lose a man on his first and most troubled visit to New Zealand. During this voyage he killed ten Maoris. Later intercourse was much more peaceful, though Captain Furneaux, of Cook's consort, the _Adventure_, less lucky, or less cautious, lost an entire boat's crew, killed and eaten.

Cook himself was always able to get wood and water for his s.h.i.+ps, and to carry on his surveys with such accuracy and deliberation that they remained the standard authority on the outlines of the islands for some seventy years. He took possession of the country in the name of George the Third. Some of its coast-names still recall incidents of his patient voyaging. "Young Nick's Head" is the point which the boy Nicholas Young sighted on the 6th of October, 1769--the first bit of New Zealand seen by English eyes. At Cape Runaway the Maoris, after threatening an attack, ran away from a discharge of firearms. At Cape Kidnappers they tried to carry off Cook's Tahitian boy in one of their canoes. A volley, which killed a Maori, made them let go their captive, who dived into the sea and swam back to the _Endeavour_ half crazed with excitement at his narrow escape from a New Zealand oven.

The odd name of the very fertile district of Poverty Bay reminds us that Cook failed to get there the supplies he obtained at the Bay of Plenty. At Goose Cove he turned five geese ash.o.r.e; at Mercury Bay he did astronomical work. On the other hand, Capes North, South, East, and West, and Capes Brett, Saunders, Stephens, and Jackson, Rock's Point, and Black Head are neither quaint nor romantic names. Cascade Point and the Bay of Islands justify themselves, and Banks' Peninsula may be accepted for Sir Joseph's sake. But it could be wished that the great sailor had spared a certain charming haven from the name of Hicks's Bay, and had not rechristened the majestic cone of Taranaki as a compliment to the Earl of Egmont.

He gave the natives seed potatoes and the seeds of cabbages and turnips. The potatoes were cultivated with care and success. One tribe had sufficient self-control not to eat any for three years; then they had abundance. Gradually the potato superseded amongst them the taro and fern-root, and even to some extent the k.u.mara. The cabbages and turnips were allowed to run wild, and in that state were still found flouris.h.i.+ng fifty years afterwards. The Maoris of Poverty Bay had a story that Cook gave to one of their chiefs a musket with a supply of powder and lead. The fate of the musket was that the first man to fire it was so frightened by the report and recoil that he flung it away into the sea. The powder the natives sowed in the ground believing it to be cabbage seed. Of the lead they made an axe, and when the axe bent at the first blow they put it in the fire to harden it. When it then ran about like water they tried to guide it out of the fire with sticks. But it broke in pieces, and they gave up the attempt. With better results Cook turned fowls and pigs loose to furnish the islanders with flesh-meat. To this day the wild pigs which the settlers shoot and spear in the forests and mountain valleys, are called after Captain Cook, and furnish many a solitary shepherd and farmer with a much more wholesome meal than they would get from "tame"

pork. The Maoris who boarded Cook's s.h.i.+ps thought at first that pork was whale's flesh. They said the salt meat nipped their throats, which need not surprise us when we remember what the salt junk of an eighteenth century man-of-war was like. They ate s.h.i.+p's biscuit greedily, though at first sight they took it for an uncanny kind of pumice-stone. But in those days they turned with loathing from wine and spirits--as least Crozet says so.

What Captain Cook thought of the Maori is a common-place of New Zealand literature. Every maker of books gives a version of his notes.

What the Maori thought of Captain Cook is not so widely known. Yet it is just as interesting, and happily the picture of the great navigator as he appeared to the savages has been preserved for us. Among the tribe living at Mercury Bay when the _Endeavour_ put in there was a boy--a little fellow of about eight years old, but possessing the name of h.o.r.eta Taniwha (Red-smeared Dragon)--no less. The child lived through all the changes and chances of Maori life and warfare to more than ninety years of age. In his extreme old age he would still tell of how he saw Kapene Kuku--Captain Cook. Once he told his story to Governor Wynyard, who had it promptly taken down. Another version is also printed in one of Mr. John White's volumes.[1] The two do not differ in any important particular. The amazing apparition of the huge white-winged s.h.i.+p with its crew of goblins, and what they said, and what they did, and how they looked, had remained clearly photographed upon the retina of Taniwha's mind's-eye for three-quarters of a century. From his youth up he had, of course, proudly repeated the story. A more delightful child's narrative it would be hard to find.

[Footnote 1: _Ancient History of the Maori_, vol. v., p. 128.]

The people at Mercury Bay knew at once, says Taniwha, that the English were goblins, because a boat's crew pulled ash.o.r.e, rowing with their backs to the land. Only goblins have eyes in the backs of their heads.

When these creatures stepped on to the beach all the natives retreated and the children ran into the bush. But seeing that the wondrous beings walked peaceably about picking up stones and gra.s.ses and finally eating oysters, they said to each other, "Perhaps these goblins are not like our Maori goblins," and, taking courage, offered them sweet potatoes, and even lit a fire and roasted c.o.c.kles for them.

When one of the strangers pointed a walking-staff he had in his hand at a cormorant sitting on a dead tree, and there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, followed by the cormorant's fall there was another stampede into the bush. But the goblins laughed so good-humouredly that the children took heart to return and look at the fallen bird. Yes, it was dead; but what had killed it? and still the wonder grew!

The _Endeavour_ lay in the bay for some time, and a brisk trade grew up between s.h.i.+p and sh.o.r.e. On one great, never-to-be-forgotten day little Taniwha and some of his play-fellows were taken out in a canoe and went on board the magic s.h.i.+p. Wrapped in their flax cloaks they sat close together on the deck, not daring to move about for fear they might be bewitched in some dark corner, and so might never be able to go away and get home again. But their sharp brown eyes noted everything. They easily made out the leader of the goblins. He was a _tino tangata_ (a very man--emphatically a man). Grave and dignified, he walked about saying few words, while the other goblins chatted freely. Presently the goblin-captain came up to the boys and, after patting their heads and stroking their cloaks, produced a large nail and held it up before them temptingly. The other youngsters sat motionless, awe-struck. But the bolder Taniwha laughed cheerfully and was at once presented with the prize. The children forthwith agreed amongst themselves that Cook was not only a _tino tangata_, but a _tino rangatira_--a combination of a great chief and a perfect gentleman. How otherwise could he be so kind to them, and so fond of children, argued these youthful sages?

Then they saw the captain draw black marks on the quarter-deck and make a speech to the natives, pointing towards the coast. "The goblins want to know the shape of the country," said a quick-witted old chief, and, rising up, he drew with charcoal a map of The Fish of Maui, from the Glittering Lake at the extreme south to Land's End in the far north. Then, seeing that the goblins did not understand that the Land's End was the spot from which the spirits of the dead slid down to the shades below, the old chief laid himself down stiffly on the deck and closed his eyes. But still the goblins did not comprehend; they only looked at each other and spoke in their hard, hissing speech. After this little Taniwha went on sh.o.r.e, bearing with him his precious nail. He kept it for years, using it in turns as a spear-head and an auger, or carrying it slung round his neck as a sacred charm.[1] But one day, when out in a canoe, he was capsized in the breakers off a certain islet and, to use his own words, "my G.o.d was lost to me, though I dived for it."

[Footnote 1: _Heitiki_.]

Taniwha describes how a thief was shot by Lieutenant Gore for stealing a piece of calico. The thief offered to sell a dog-skin cloak, but when the calico was handed down over the bulwarks into his canoe which was alongside the _Endeavour_, he simply took it, gave nothing in return, and told his comrades to paddle to land.

"They paddled away. The goblin went down into the hold of the s.h.i.+p, but soon came up with a walking-stick in his hand, and pointed it at the canoe. Thunder pealed and lightning flashed, but those in the canoe paddled on. Then they landed; eight rose to leave the canoe, but the thief sat still with his dog-skin mat and the goblin's garment under his feet. His companions called him, but he did not answer. One of them shook him and the thief fell back into the hold of the canoe, and blood was seen on his clothing and a hole in his back."

What followed was a capital example of the Maori doctrine of _utu_, or compensation, the cause of so many wars and vendettas. The tribe decided that as the thief had stolen the calico, his death ought not to be avenged, but that as he had paid for it with his life _he_ should keep it. So it was buried with him.

The French were but a few months behind the English in the discovery of New Zealand. The s.h.i.+p of their captain, De Surville, just missed meeting Cook at the Bay of Islands. There the French made a fortnight's stay, and were well treated by the chief, Kinui, who acted with particular kindness to certain sick sailors put on sh.o.r.e to recover. Unfortunately one of De Surville's boats was stolen, and in return he not only burnt the nearest village and a number of canoes, but kidnapped the innocent Kinui, who pined away on s.h.i.+pboard and died off the South American coast a few days before De Surville himself was drowned in the surf in trying to land at Callao.

For this rough-handed and unjust act certain of De Surville's countrymen were destined to pay dearly. Between two and three years afterwards, two French exploring vessels under the command of Marion du Fresne entered the Bay of Islands. They were in want of masts and spars, of wood and water, and had many men down with sickness.

The expedition was on the look-out for that dream of so many geographers--the great south continent. Marion was a tried seaman, a man of wealth and education, and of an adventurous spirit. It is to Crozet, one of his officers, that we owe the story of his fate. Thanks probably to the Abbe Rochon, who edited Crozet's papers, the narrative is clear, pithy, and business-like: an agreeable contrast to the Hawkesworth-Cook-Banks motley, so much more familiar to most of us.