Chapter I: Introduction

The author of this account of New Zealand in the year 1827 was an artist by profession. "A love of roving and adventure," he states, tempted him, at an early age, to sea. In 1815 he procured a passage on board a storeship bound for Sicily and Malta, where he had a brother stationed who was a captain in the navy. He visited many parts of the Mediterranean, accompanying Lord Exmouth's fleet in his brother's gunboat on his Lordship's first expedition against the Barbary States. He afterwards visited the ruins of Carthage and the remains of the ancient city of Ptolomea, or Lepida, situated in ancient Libya. Returning to Malta, he passed through Sicily, and ascended Mount Etna. In 1818 he left England for the United States, and spent nearly two years in rambling through that country. Thence he proceeded to Brazil and Chile, returning to Rio de Janeiro, where he practised his art until the commencement of 1824. Having received letters of introduction to Lord Amherst, who had left England to undertake the government of India, Mr. Earle left Rio for the Cape of Good Hope, intending to take his passage thence to Calcutta. On the voyage to the Cape the vessel by which he was a passenger touched at Tristan d'Acunha, and was driven off that island in a gale while Mr. Earle was ashore, leaving him stranded in that desolate land, where he remained for six months, when he was rescued by a passing ship, the "Admiral Cockburn," bound for Van Diemen's Land, whence he visited New South Wales and New Zealand, returning again to Sydney. In pursuance of his original resolution to visit India, he left Sydney in "The Rainbow," touching at the Caroline Islands, Manilla, and Singapore. After spending some time in Madras, where he executed many original drawings, which were afterwards copied and exhibited in a panorama, he set out for England by a French vessel, which was compelled by stress of weather to put into Mauritius, where she was condemned. Mr. Earle ultimately reached England in a vessel named the "Resource," but, being still animated by the desire for travel, he accepted the situation of draughtsman on His Majesty's ship "Beagle," commanded by Captain Fitzroy, which in the year 1831 left on a voyage of discovery that has been made famous by the observations of Charles Darwin, who accompanied the expedition in the capacity of naturalist.

The notes which furnished the materials for this book were made by Mr. Earle during his first visit to New Zealand, in 1827. They are valuable as setting forth the impressions formed by an educated man, who came into the primitive community then existing at Hokianga and the Bay of Islands, without being personally connected either with the trading community, the missionaries, or the whalers. It should not be inferred from the reflections Mr. Earle casts upon the missionaries that he was himself an irreligious man, because the journal of his residence on Tristan d'Acunha shows that, while living there, he read the whole service of the Church of England to that little community every Sunday, and his diary in many places exhibits a reverence for Divine things. It may, however, be said in extenuation of the lack of hospitality on the part of the missionaries of which he complains, that many of the early residents and European visitors to New Zealand were of an undesirable class, and that they exercised a demoralising influence upon the Maoris. It was not easy for the missionaries to consort, upon terms of intimacy, with their fellow-countrymen whose relations with the Natives were such as they must strongly condemn. Earle's narrative is interesting because it conveys a realistic description of the Maoris before their national customs and habits had undergone any material change through association with white settlers. In dealing with Maori names, Mr. Earle, having at that period no standard of orthography to guide him, followed the example of Captain Cook in spelling words phonetically. Except in the case of certain well-known places the original spelling has been retained in the present edition of his book.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

VOYAGE FROM SYDNEY WRECKS AT HOKIANGA

CHAPTER II.

MAORI WELCOME NATIVE CHARACTERISTICS EUROPEANS AT HOKIANGA CANNIBALISM

CHAPTER III.

A MAORI VILLAGE THE TAPU ON CROPS MAORI ART

CHAPTER IV.

HOKIANGA RIVER MR. HOBBS' MISSION THE TIMBER INDUSTRY

CHAPTER V.

AN OVERLAND JOURNEY

CHAPTER VI.

THE CHIEF PATUONE

CHAPTER VII.

A PICTURESQUE SCENE

CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE DENSE FOREST

CHAPTER IX.

THE KERIKERI MISSION INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION

CHAPTER X.

THE BAY OF ISLANDS

CHAPTER XI.

MASSACRE OF THE BOYD

CHAPTER XII.

KORORAREKA A MIXED COMMUNITY SHULITEA (KING GEORGE)

CHAPTER XIII.

MAORI CONSERVATISM

CHAPTER XIV.

A MISSION SETTLEMENT THE MECHANIC MISSIONARY

CHAPTER XV.

VISIT FROM HONGI HONGI'S COAT OF MAIL

CHAPTER XVI.

INTERVIEW WITH HONGI

CHAPTER XVII.

A MAORI WELCOME

CHAPTER XVIII.

INLAND EXCURSIONS

CHAPTER XIX.

MAORI WOMEN'S CAMP

CHAPTER XX.

LOADING SPARS, HOKIANGA

CHAPTER XXI.

DEATH OF A CHIEF TRADING WITH MAORIS

CHAPTER XXII.

BRUTAL MURDER OF A WIFE

CHAPTER XXIII.

ANOTHER JOURNEY INTERIOR OF THE COUNTRY

CHAPTER XXIV.

A WAR PARTY

CHAPTER XXV.

HOSTILE DISPLAY THE LAW OF MURU

CHAPTER XXVI.

A SEDUCTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

CHAPTER XXVII.

LAW OF RETALIATION

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A WAR EXPEDITION CANNIBALISM

CHAPTER XXIX.

MAORI SLAVERY

CHAPTER XXX.

PIRACY BY CONVICTS

CHAPTER XXXI.

N.Z. CLIMATE THE STARVATION CURE

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE ART OF TATTOOING

CHAPTER XXXIII.

TRIBAL GOVERNMENT MAORI BELIEFS THE CUSTOM OF TAPU SUNDAY OBSERVANCE MASSACRE OF FRENCH NAVIGATOR MARION AND PARTY

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE MAORIS' VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY

CHAPTER XXXV.

HONGI'S THREATS PREPARING FOR WAR

CHAPTER XXXVI.

ARRIVAL OF A WARSHIP

CHAPTER XXXVII.

WHALERS AND MISSIONARIES

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THREATENED WAR

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CONSTRUCTION OF A PA

CHAPTER XL.

A SHAM FIGHT

CHAPTER XLI.

AN EXCITING INCIDENT VISIT OF A GREAT TOHUNGA

CHAPTER XLII.

VICTORIOUS WARRIORS TREATMENT OF PRISONERS BAKED HEADS

CHAPTER XLIII.

VISITS OF WHALERS

CHAPTER XLIV.

SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS

CHAPTER XLV.

DEATH OF HONGI

CHAPTER XLVI.

A TRIBAL CONFLICT SHULITEA (KING GEORGE) KILLED

CHAPTER XLVII.

EXCITEMENT AT KORORAREKA

CHAPTER XLVIII.

EARLE'S FAREWELL MISSIONARIES ALARMED

CHAPTER XLIX.

JOURNEY TO HOKIANGA

CHAPTER L.

EUROPEAN DEFENCES MR. HOBBS' MESSAGE OF PEACE

CHAPTER LI.

MAORI SOCIAL CUSTOMS EUROPEAN LIAISONS WITH MAORIS MAORI MARRIAGES

CHAPTER LII.

A MAORI TANGI

CHAPTER LIII.

MAORI CHARACTERISTICS ORIGIN OF OUTRAGES FAMILY AFFECTION

CHAPTER LIV.

TRADE OF HOKIANGA

CHAPTER LV.

A CREW MASSACRED

CHAPTER LVI.

FAREWELL TO NEW ZEALAND MAORIS IN SYDNEY

APPENDIX I.

MASSACRE OF FURNEAUX'S BOAT'S CREW CANNIBALISM

APPENDIX II.

A TRIBAL FIGHT

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A Maori War Speech (Frontispiece) Patuone, a Hokianga Chief Mission Station, Kerikeri Scene of Boyd Massacre Maori War Expedition Maori Method of Tattooing Specimens of Tattooing Whalers at Bay of Islands