floor so that a man could just stand upright.

These houses were gathered in little villages, often pleasantly situated
beside a stream, or on the sea-shore; but sometimes for defence they
were placed on a hill and surrounded by high fences with ditches and
earthen walls so as to make a great stronghold of the kind they called
a "pah". The trenches were sometimes twenty or thirty feet deep; but
generally the pah was built so that a rapid river or high precipices
would defend two or three sides of it, while only the sides not so
guarded by nature were secured by ditches and a double row of palisades.
Within these enclosures stages were erected behind the palisades so that
the fighting men could hurl stones and spears and defy an attacking
party.

[Illustration: A MAORI DWELLING.]

#2. Maori Customs.#--Round their villages and pahs they dug up the soil
and planted the sweet potato, and the taro, which is the root of a kind
of arum lily; they also grew the gourd called calabash, from whose hard
rind they made pots and bowls and dishes. When the crops of sweet potato
and taro were over they went out into the forest and gathered the roots
of certain sorts of ferns, which they dried and kept for their winter
food. They netted fish and eels; they caught sharks with hook and line
and dried their flesh in the sun. To enjoy these meals in comfort they
had a broad verandah round their houses which formed an open and
generally pleasant dining-room, where they gathered in family circles
bound by much affection for one another. The girls especially were sweet
and pretty; their mild manners, their soft and musical voices, the long
lashes of their drooping eyes, with the gloss of their olive-tinted
skins made them perfect types of dusky beauty. Grown a little older they
were by no means so attractive, and then when married they deeply scored
their faces by the process of tattooing.

The men had their faces, hips, and thighs tattooed, that is, all carved
in wavy lines which were arranged in intricate patterns. The women
tattooed only their lips, chins, and eyelids, but often smeared their
faces with red ochre, and soaked their hair with oil. Men and women wore
round the waist a kilt of beautifully woven flax, and over the shoulders
a mat of the same material. They were expert sailors, and built
themselves large canoes which thirty or forty men would drive forward,
keeping time with their paddles. Their large war canoes were sixty