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8
RAMBLES IN NEW ZEALAND.

different villages. The place was just at the base of the great hill I have spoken of (Manganorie); and when I visited it, I saw all the native ovens (copper mowries, according to English pronunciation) in which the cooking had been performed, and a portion of the entrails, &c., were strewed about. My companion called me to see a head which was then half eaten by the dogs; but I had seen enough for that day, and did not follow him. This head was removed by the missionaries as soon as they heard of it, and buried; so that when I visited the place afterwards, every vestige of the late horrid tragedy had disappeared. There are two things well worthy of note in this occurrence, as being totally opposed to English ideas of the New Zealanders. The first is, that a whole tribe should suffer less than a hundred men to come into the heart of their country, where they—the invaders—were surrounded on all sides, and stay ten days or more, killing all the stragglers they could find, and confining the rest in their Pas, and even paddling about the harbour in their canoes in the middle of the day, without making the least show of resistance; and the second, that the natives who perpetrated this massacre and cannibalism in cold blood were not a wild, untutored race who had never had intercourse with Europeans, (or if with Europeans, with such as are a disgrace to the countries whence they spring, such as those by whom the natives of the Bay of Islands and other places to the northward have been contaminated), but, on the contrary, had enjoyed the advantage of the residence of missionaries among them for several years, and those missionaries, too, amongst the most active and zealous of any in New Zealand; indeed, there have been but few white men among them, with the exception of missionaries, more especially for the last two or three years, since the murder of the last trader who lived there, which has prevented others from supplying his place.