The Book of the Bush | Page 6

seizing the first ships that
anchored in their rivers and harbours. This led to misunderstandings
and fights with their officers and crews, who had no knowledge of the
sea god, Taniwa. It was found necessary to put netting all round the
vessels as high as the tops to prevent surprise, and when trade began it
was the rule to admit no more than five Maoris on board at once.

The flax was found growing spontaneously in fields of inexhaustible
extent along the more southerly shores of the islands. The fibre was
separated by the females, who held the top of the leaf between their
toes, and drew a shell through the whole length of the leaf. It took a
good cleaner to scrape fifteen pounds weight of it in a day; the average
was about ten pounds, for which the traders gave a fig of tobacco and a
pipe, two sheets of cartridge paper, or one pound of lead. The price at
which the flax was sold in Sydney varied from 20 pounds to 45 pounds
per ton, according to quality, so there was a large margin of profit to
the trader. In 1828 sixty tons of flax valued at 2,600 pounds, were
exported from Sydney to England.
The results of trading with the foreigners were fatal to the natives. At
first the trade was in axes, knives, and other edge-tools, beads, and
ornaments, but in 1832 the Maoris would scarcely take anything but
arms and ammunition, red woollen shirts, and tobacco. Every man in a
native hapu had to procure a musket, or die. If the warriors of the hapu
had no guns they would soon be all killed by some tribe that had them.
The price of one gun, together with the requisite powder, was one ton
of cleaned flax, prepared by the women and slaves in the sickly
swamps. In the meantime the food crops were neglected, hunger and
hard labour killed many, some fell victims to diseases introduced by the
white men, and the children nearly all died.
And the Maoris are still dying out of the land, blighted by our
civilization. They were willing to learn and to be taught, and they
began to work with the white men. In 1853 I saw nearly one hundred of
them, naked to the waist, sinking shafts for gold on Bendigo, and no
Cousin Jacks worked harder. We could not, of course, make them
Englishmen--the true Briton is born, not made; but could we not have
kept them alive if we had used reasonable means to do so? Or is it true
that in our inmost souls we wanted them to die, that we might possess
their land in peace?
Besides flax, it was found that New Zealand produced most excellent
timber--the kauri pine. The first visitors saw sea-going canoes
beautifully carved by rude tools of stone, which had been hollowed out,

each from a single tree, and so large that they were manned by one
hundred warriors. The gum trees of New Holland are extremely hard,
and their wood is so heavy that it sinks in water like iron. But the kauri,
with a leaf like that of the gum tree, is the toughest of pines, though
soft and easily worked--suitable for shipbuilding, and for masts and
spars. In 1830 twenty-eight vessels made fifty-six voyages from
Sydney to New Zealand, chiefly for flax; but they also left parties of
men to prosecute the whale and seal fisheries, and to cut kauri pine logs.
Two vessels were built by English mechanics, one of 140 tons, and the
other of 370 tons burden, and the natives began to assist the
new-comers in all their labours.
At this time most of the villages had at least one European resident
called a Pakeha Maori, under the protection of a chief of rank and
influence, and married to a relative of his, either legally or by native
custom. It was through the resident that all the trading of the tribe was
carried on. He bought and paid for the flax, and employed men to cut
the pine logs and float them down the rivers to the ships.
Every whaling and trading vessel that returned to Sydney or Van
Diemen's Land brought back accounts of the wonderful prospects
which the islands afforded to men of enterprise, and New Zealand
became the favourite refuge for criminals, runaway prisoners, and other
lovers of freedom. When, therefore the crew of the schooner 'Industry'
threw Captain Blogg overboard, it was a great comfort to them to know
that they were going to an island in which there was no Government.
Captain Blogg had arrived from England with a bad character. He had
been tried for murder. He had been ordered to pay five hundred pounds
as damages to his