notion of what he conceives to be his right is
to retaliate for an offence with blood, must
naturally form a cruel and vindictive character.
Such these islanders seemed to us on
our first visiting them. The sight of beings
so extraordinary (for thus we Europeans
must have appeared to them) excited in
their savage minds the greatest wonder; and
they thought we were sent as a scourge and
an enemy: and though Cook, one of their
earliest visiters, adopted every method his ingenuity
could devise to conciliate them, yet,
as they never could thoroughly understand his
intentions, they were always on the alert to
attack him. Hence arose the horror and disgust
expressed formerly at the mere mention
of the name of “ a New Zealander.”
I have often tried, in vain, to account for
there being such a decided dissimilarity between
the natives of New Holland and New
Zealand. So trifling is the difference in their
situation on the globe, and so similar their climates,
— both having remained so long unknown
to the great continents, and so devoid
of intercourse with the rest of the world, —
that one would be led to imagine a great resemblance
must be the result. But the natives
of the former seem of the lowest grade — the
last link in the great chain of existence which
unites man with the monkey. Their limbs are
long, thin, and flat, with large bony knees and
elbows ; a projecting forehead, and pot-belly.
The mind, too, seems adapted to this mean
configuration: they have neither energy, enterprise,
nor industry; and their curiosity can
scarcely be excited. A few exceptions may
be met with ; but these are their general characteristics.
While the natives of the latter
island are “ cast in beauty’s perfect mould : ”
the children are so fine and powerfully made,
that each might serve as a model for a statue
of “ the Infant Hercules : ” nothing can exceed
the graceful and athletic forms of the
men, or the rounded limbs of their young
women. These possess eyes beautiful and
eloquent, and a profusion of long, silky, curling
hair: while the intellects of both sexes
seem of a superior order; all appear eager for
improvement, full of energy, and indefatigably
industrious, and possessing amongst them-
s 2