Feeling that I was not likely now to be called upon to act offensively, I considered myself at liberty to make numerous excursions round our fortress, not only to admire this fertile and beautiful country, but to visit some of my old friends. I was very much astonished and shocked at seeing several very beautiful young women, whom I left only a few months back in perfect health and strength, now reduced to mere “living skeletons,” and also to hear of the death of others by consumption. This disease seems to be the scourge of the young; and when they are once seized with its symptoms, they are very speedily brought to the grave. The natives say, “It is Atua, the Great Spirit, coming into them, and eating up their inside; for the patient can feel those parts gradually go away, and then they become weaker and weaker till no more is left; after which the Spirit sends them to the happy island.” They never attempt any means of curing or of alleviating the pains caused by this cruel complaint; and all those under its influence are tabooed. I procured from the brig all my remaining stores of tapioca, sago, arrowroot, and sugar, and distributed them in the best way I could amongst my sick friends. They were anxious for wine; but that portion of my sea-stock, as well as spirits, had been long since expended.

It seems unaccountable that the natives of an atmosphere so dry as this is a country in which there are no marshy bogs, and where, though there is an abundance of water, it is generally seen in clear and sparkling rills rushing down from the mountains into the rivers should be subject to so fatal a disease as galloping consumption. The only cause to which I can attribute such an affliction is, their indifference to lying out all night exposed to every change of weather to cold and rain which, in young and tender constitutions, must produce the most pernicious consequences. If some few are rendered hardy and robust by this process, many, no doubt, are killed by it. I endeavoured to impress on the minds of all my female friends the great danger of thus exposing themselves to cold; but they only laughed at my precautions, and said, “If Atua wished it, so it must be; they could not strive with the Great Spirit.”

I have heard so much said about the great impropriety of the white settlers admitting the native females into their society, so much of the scandalous conduct of captains of ships suffering their men to have sweethearts during their stay in port, and so much urged in justification of the indignation shown by the missionaries when this subject is touched on by them, that I feel it necessary to state one decided benefit which has resulted from that intercourse, and which, in my opinion, far more than counterbalances the evil against which there has been raised so loud an outcry.

Before our intercourse took place with the New Zealanders, a universal and unnatural custom existed amongst them, which was that of destroying most of their female children in infancy, their excuse being that they were quite as much trouble to rear, and consumed just as much food, as a male child, and yet, when grown up, they were not fit to go to war as their boys were. The strength and pride of a chief then consisted in the number of his sons; while the few females who had been suffered to live were invariably looked down upon by all with the utmost contempt. They led a life of misery and degradation. The difference now is most remarkable. The natives, seeing with what admiration strangers beheld their fine young women, and what handsome presents were made to them, by which their families were benefited, feeling also that their influence was so powerful over the white men, have been latterly as anxious to cherish and protect their infant girls as they were formerly cruelly bent on destroying them. Therefore, if one sin has been, to a certain degree, encouraged, a much greater one has been annihilated. Infanticide, the former curse of this country, and the cause of its scanty population, a crime every way calculated to make men bloody-minded and ferocious, and to stifle every benevolent and tender feeling, has totally disappeared wherever an intercourse has taken place between the natives and the crews of European vessels.

The New Zealand method of “courtship and matrimony” is a most extraordinary one; so much so, that an observer could never imagine any affection existed between the parties. A man sees a woman whom he fancies he should like for a wife; he asks the consent of her father, or, if an orphan, of her nearest relation, which, if he obtains, he carries his “intended” off by force, she resisting with all her strength; and, as the New Zealand girls are generally pretty robust, sometimes a dreadful struggle takes place; both are soon stripped to the skin, and it is sometimes the work of hours to remove the fair prize a hundred yards. If she breaks away, she instantly flies from her antagonist, and he has his labour to commence again. We may suppose that if the lady feels any wish to be united to her would-be spouse, she will not make too violent an opposition; but it sometimes happens that she secures her retreat into her father’s house, and the lover loses all chance of ever obtaining her; whereas, if he can manage to carry her in triumph into his own, she immediately, becomes his wife. The women have a decided aversion to marriage, which can scarcely be wondered at, when we consider how they are circumstanced. While they remain single, they enjoy all the privileges of the other sex; they may rove where they please, and bestow their favours on whom they choose, and are entirely beyond control or restraint; but when married their freedom is at an end; they become mere slaves, and sink gradually into domestic drudges to those who have the power of life and death over them; and whether their conduct be criminal or exemplary, they are equally likely to receive a blow, in a moment of passion, of sufficient force to end life and slavery together! There are many exceptions to this frightful picture; and I saw several old couples, who had been united in youth, who had always lived in happiness together, and whose kind and friendly manner towards each other set an example well worthy of imitation in many English families.