manner in which
these savages are wont to act on such occasions, although there
certainly never has before appeared so minute and complete a detail of
any similar transaction. The gathering of the inland population by fires
lighted on the hills, the previous crowding and almost complete
occupation of the vessel, the sly and patient watching for the moment of
opportunity, the instant seizure of it when it came, the management of
the whole with such precision and skill, as in the case of the
"Boyd,"[I] and indeed in every other known instance, while the success
of the movement was perfect--this result was obtained without the
expense of so much as a drop of blood on the part of the assailants--all
these things are the uniform accompaniments of New Zealand treachery
when displayed in such enterprises.

The rule of military tactics among this people is, in the first place,
if possible, to surprise their enemies; and, in the second, to endeavour
to alarm and confound them. This latter is doubtless partly the purpose
of the song and dance, which form with them the constant prelude to the
assault, although these vehement expressions of passion operate also
powerfully as excitements to their own sanguinary valour and contempt
of death.

Rutherford's description of the violence with which they danced on board
the ship in the present case, immediately before commencing their attack
on the crew, reminds us strikingly, even by its expression, of the
account Crozet gives us, in his narrative of the voyage of M. Marion, of
their exhibitions of a similar sort even when they were only in sport.
"They would often dance," says he "with such fury when on board the ship
that we feared they would drive in our deck."

The alleged cannibalism of the New Zealanders is a subject that has
given rise to a good deal of controversy; and it has been even very
recently contended that the imputation, if not altogether unfounded, is
very nearly so, and that the horrid practice in question, if it does
exist among these people at all, has certainly never been carried beyond
the mere act of tasting human flesh, in obedience to some feeling of
superstition or frantic revenge, and even that perpetrated only rarely
and with repugnance.

Without attempting to theorise as to such a matter on the ground of such
narrow views as ordinary experience would suggest, we may here state
what the evidence is which we really have for the cannibalism of the New
Zeala