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sidered in all cases as a protection. The chiefs agreed to
confiscate the land of the aggressor to the King of England.
The whole proceeding, however, iu thus trying and punishing
a chief was entirely without precedent. The aggressor,
moreover, lost cast iu the estimation of his equals ; and tins
was considered by the British as of more consequence, than
the confiscation of his land.
As the boat was shoving off, a second chief stepped itito her,
who only wanted the amusement of the passage up and down
the creek. I never saw a more horrid and ferocious expression,
than this man had. It immediately struck me, I had
somewhere seen his likeness: it will be found in Retzsch’s
outlines to Schiller’s ballad of Fridolin, where two men are
pushing Robert into the burning iron furnace. It is the
man who has his arm on Robert’s breast. Physiognomy
here spoke the truth ; this chief had been a notorious murderer,
and was to boot an arrant coward. At the point
where the boat landed, Mr. Bushby accompanied me a few
hundred yards on the road: I could not help admiring the
cool impudence of the hoary old villain, whom we left lying
in the boat, when he shouted to Mr. Bushby, “ Do not you
stay long, I shall be tired of waiting here.”
We now commenced our walk. The road lay along a well-
beaten path, bordered on each side by the tall fern, which
covers the whole country. After travelling some miles, we
came to a little country village, where a few hovels were collected
together, and some patches of ground cultivated for
potato crops. The introduction of the potato, has been
the most essential benefit to the island; it is now much more
used, than any native vegetable. New Zealand is favoured
by one great natural advantage; namely, that the inhabitants
can never perish from famine. The whole country abounds
with fern; and the roots of this plant, if not very palatable,
yet contain much nutriment. A native can always subsist
on these, and on the shells which are abundant on all parts
of the sea-coast. The villages are chiefly conspicuous, by
the platforms which are raised on four posts ten or twelve
feet above the ground, and on which the produce of tho
fields is kept secure from all accidents.
On coming near one of the huts, I was much amused Iiy
seeing in due form the ceremony of rubbing, or as it should
more properly be called, pressing noses. The women, on
our first approach, began uttering something in a most
dolorous v o ice ; they then squatted themselves down and
held up their faces; my companions standing over them,
placed the bridge of their own noses at right angles to
theirs, and commenced pressing. This lasted rather longer
than a cordial shake of the hand would with u s ; and as we
vary the force of the grasp of the hand in shaking, so do they
in pressing. During the process they uttered comfortable
little grunts, very much in the same manner as two pigs do,
when rubbing against each other. I noticed, that the slave
would press noses with any one he met, indifferently either
before or after his master the chief. Although among
savages the chief has absolute power of life and death over
his slave, yet there is an entire absence of ceremony between
them. Mr. Burchell has remarked the same thing in
Southern Africa with respect to the rude Bachapins. Where
civilization has arrived at a certain point, as among the
Tahitians, complex formalities are soon instituted between
the different grades of society. For instance, in the above
island, formerly all were obliged to uncover themselves as
low as the waist in presence of the king.
The ceremony of pressing noses having been completed
with all present, we seated ourselves in a circle in the front
of one of the houses, and rested there half-an-hour. All the
native hovels which I have seen, have nearly the same form
and dimensions, and all agree in being filthily dirty. . They
resemble a cow-shed with one end open, but having a partition
a little way within, with a square hole in it, whioh
thus cuts off a part, and makes a small gloomy chamber. In
this the inhabitants keep all their property, and when the
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