most all who have described their manners.

Tetoro, one of the chiefs who returned from Port Jackson in the
"Dromedary," was sometimes admitted, during the passage, into the cabin,
and asked by the officers to take a glass of wine, when he always tasted
it, with perfect politeness, though his countenance strongly indicated
how much he disliked it. George of Wangaroa, the chief who headed the
attack on the "Boyd," was the only New Zealander that Cruise met with
who could be induced to taste grog without reluctance; and he really
liked it, though a very small quantity made him drunk, in which state he
was quite outrageous. His natural habits had been vitiated by having
served for some time in an English ship.

It is probable, however, that the sobriety of this people has been
hitherto principally preserved by their ignorance of the mode of
manufacturing any intoxicating beverage. Even the females, it would
appear, have some of them of late years learned the habit of drinking
grog from the English sailors; and Captain Dillon gives an account of a
priestess, who visited him on board the "Besearch," and who, having
among several other somewhat indecorous requests, demanded a tumbler of
rum, quaffed off the whole at a draught as soon as it was set before
her.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote K: Probably Rangatai, although no chief of that name is
known.]

[Footnote L: The Rev. Samuel Marsden, who was appointed chaplain to the
convict settlement of New South Wales in 1793, and who held the first
divine service in New Zealand, on Christmas Day, 1814.]

[Footnote M: Koro-koro.]

[Footnote N: Ruatara, a close friend of Mr. Marsden.]

[Footnote O: Hongi.]

[Footnote P: This is exaggerated.]

[Footnote Q: Tui, in the accepted orthography.]

[Footnote R: The ancient Maoris were one of the very few races that had
no intoxicating drinks.]

CHAPTER III.

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 warm the house,
being now put out, we retired to rest in the usual manner