CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. John Rutherford A Maori's shoulder mat Short striking weapons (clubs) used by the Maoris Kororareka Beach, in the Bay of Islands, where some of Rutherford's adventures are supposed to have taken place A door-lintel, showing Maori carving "Moko" on a man's face and on a woman's lips and chin T

Eighty years ago, when the story told in these pages was first published, "forecastle yarns" were more thrilling than they are now. In these days we look for information in regard to a new land's capabilities for pastoral, agricultural, and commercial pursuits; in those days it was customary, with a large portion of the British public, at any rate, to expect sailors to tell stories Of the cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders, and t

John Rutherford, according to his own account, was born at Manchester about the year 1796. He went to sea, he states, when he was hardly more than ten years of age, having up to that time been employed as a piecer in a cotton factory in his native town; and after that he appears to have been but little in England, or even on shore, for many years. He served for a considerable time on board a man-of-war off the coast of Brazil; and was afterwards at the storming of San Sebastian, in August, 1813.

Rutherford and his comrades spent another night in the same manner as they had done the previous one; and on the following morning set out, in company with the five chiefs, on a journey into the interior. When they left the coast, the ship was still burning. They were attended by about fifty natives, who were loaded with the plunder of the unfortunate vessel. That day, he calculates, they travelled only about ten miles, the journey being very fatiguing from the want of any regular roads, and the

Dinner being finished, Rutherford and his companions spent the evening seated around a large fire, while several of the women, whose countenances he describes as pleasing, amused themselves by playing with the fingers of the strangers, sometimes opening their shirts at the breasts, and at other times feeling the calves of their legs, "which made us think," says Rutherford, "that they were examining us to see if we were fat enough for eating. "The large fire," he continues, "that had been made to

Rutherford remained at the village for about six months, together with the others who had been taken prisoners with him and who had not been put to death, all except one, John Watson, who, soon after their arrival there, was carried away by a chief named Nainy. [AD] A house was assigned for them to live in, and the natives gave them also an iron pot they had taken from the ship, in which to cook their victuals. This they found a very useful article. It was "tabooed," so that no slave was allowed

Taken altogether, New Zealand presents a great variety of landscape, although, even where the scenery is most subdued, it partakes of a bold and irregular character, derived not more from the aspect of undisturbed Nature, which still obtrudes itself everywhere among the traces of commencing cultivation, than from the confusion of hill and valley which marks the face of the soil, and the precipitous eminences, with their sides covered by forests, and their summits barren of all vegetation, or ter

The native land animals of New Zealand are not numerous. The most common is said to be one resembling our fox-dog, which is sometimes eaten for food. It runs wild in the woods, and is described by Savage as usually of a black and white skin, with pricked up ears, and the hair rather long. But it may perhaps be doubted if even this quadruped is a native of the country. [AO] According to Rutherford the pigs run wild in the woods, and are hunted by dogs. He also mentions that there are a few horned

The details we have thus given will enable the reader to form a conception of the state of society in the country in which Rutherford now found himself imprisoned. The spot in the northern island of New Zealand, in which the village lay where his residence was eventually fixed, cannot be exactly ascertained, from the account which he gives of his journey to it from the coast. It is evident, however, from the narrative, that it was too far in the interior to permit the sea to be seen from it. "Fo

With regard to many of the other habits of the New Zealanders, Rutherford in general corroborates the testimony of other travellers. He mentions particularly their extreme inattention to personal cleanliness, a circumstance which very much surprised Nicholas, as it seemed to present an unaccountable contrast to the neatness and order which were usually to be found both in their plantations and huts. All the natives, Rutherford states, are overrun with vermin, which lodge not only in their heads,

The New Zealanders, according to Rutherford, have neither priests, nor places of worship, nor any religion except their superstitious dread of the Atua. To an uneducated man, coming from a Christian country, the entire absence of all regular religious observances among these savages would very naturally give such an impression. Cook ascertained that they had no "morais" [BJ] or temples, like some of the other tribes of the South Seas; but he met with persons who evidently bore what we should cal

It is very remarkable that the New Zealanders attribute the creation of man to their three principal deities acting together; thus exhibiting in their barbarous theology something like a shadow of the Christian Trinity. What is still more extraordinary is their tradition respecting the formation of the first woman, who, they say, was made of one of the man's ribs; and their general term for bone is hevee, or, as Professor Lee gives it, iwi [BL] a sound bearing a singular resemblance to the Hebre

For some time after his return from Cook Strait, Rutherford's life appears to have been unvaried by any incident of moment. "At length," says he, "one day a messenger arrived from a neighbouring village, with the news that all the chiefs for miles round were about to set out, in three days, for a place called Kipara, [BY] near the source of the river Thames, and distant about two hundred miles from our village. The messenger brought also a request from the other chiefs to Aimy to join them along

This is, we believe, the most complete account, and, at the same time, the one most to be depended on, which has yet been given to the public, of a New Zealand battle. None of the other persons who have described to us the manners of these savages have seen them engaged with each other, except in a sham fight; although Nicholas, on one occasion, was very near being afforded an opportunity of witnessing a real combat. That gentleman and Marsden, however, have given us some very interesting detail

We have noticed all the adventures which Rutherford records to have befallen him during his residence in New Zealand, and have now only to relate the manner in which he at last effected his escape from the country, which we shall do in his own words. "A few days," says he, "after our return home from Showrackee, we were alarmed by observing smoke ascending in large quantities from several of the mountains, and by the natives running about the village in all directions, and singing out Kipoke, [C