Notwithstanding the divided and hostile state in which the New Zealanders live, travelling strangers, who come with no ill design, are well received and entertained during their stay; which, however, it is expected will be no longer than is requisite to transact the business they come upon.  Thus it is that a trade for poenammoo, or green talc, is carried on throughout the whole northern island.  For they tell us, that there is none of this stone to be found but at a place which bears its name, somewhere about the head of Queen Charlotte’s Sound, and not above one or two days journey, at most, from the station of our ships.  I regretted much that I could not spare time sufficient for paying a visit to the place; as we were told a hundred fabulous stories about this stone, not one of which carried with it the least probability of truth, though some of their most sensible men would have us believe them.  One of these stories is, that this stone is originally a fish, which they strike with a gig in the water, tie a rope to it, and drag it to the shore, to which they fasten it, and it afterwards becomes stone.  As they all agree that it is fished out of a large lake, or collection of waters, the most probable conjecture is, that it is brought from the mountains, and deposited in the water by the torrents.  This lake is called by the natives Tavai Poenammoo, that is, the Water of Green Talc; and it is only the adjoining part of the country, and not the whole southern island of New Zealand, that is known to them by the name which hath been given to it on my chart.

Polygamy is allowed amongst these people; and it is not uncommon for a man to have two or three wives.  The women are marriageable at a very early age; and it should seem, that one who is unmarried, is but in a forlorn state.  She can with difficulty get a subsistence; at least she is, in a great measure, without a protector, though in constant want of a powerful one.

The New Zealanders seem to be a people perfectly satisfied with the little knowledge they are masters of, without attempting, in the least, to improve it.  Nor are they remarkably curious, either in their observations or their enquiries.  New objects do not strike them with such a degree of surprise as one would naturally expect; nor do they even fix their attention for a moment.  Omai, indeed, who was a great favourite with them, would sometimes attract a circle about him; but they seemed to listen to his speeches like persons who neither understood, nor wished to understand, what they heard.

One day, on our enquiring of Taweiharooa, how many ships, such as ours, had ever arrived in Queen Charlotte’s Sound, or in any part of its neighbourhood? he began with giving an account of one absolutely unknown to us.  This, he said, had put into a port on the N.W. coast of Teerawitte, but a very few years before I arrived in the Sound in the Endeavour, which the New Zealanders distinguish by calling it Tupia’s