Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand

Portada
Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1823 - 321 páginas

Dentro del libro

Páginas seleccionadas

Otras ediciones - Ver todas

Términos y frases comunes

Pasajes populares

Página 20 - ... laid aside, and every appearance of joy vanished. It is customary with these extraordinary people to go through the same ceremony upon meeting as upon taking leave of their friends. They join their noses together, and remain in this position for at least half an hour ; during which time they sob and howl in the most doleful manner. If there be many friends gathered around the person who has returned, the nearest relation takes possession of his nose, while the others hang upon his arms, shoulders,...
Página 39 - When asked why he did not try to turn the minds of his people to agriculture, he said it was impossible; "that if you told a New Zealander to work, he fell asleep ; but if you spoke of fighting, he opened his eyes as wide as a teacup ; that the whole bent of his mind was war, and that he looked upon fighting as fun.
Página 43 - ... remained. She first began by cutting her arms, then her breasts, and latterly her face. Every incision was so deep as to cause a gush of .blood ; but she seemed quite insensible to pain, and performed the operation with heroic resolution. ' He whose cruelty had caused this frightful exhibition, was evidently amused at the horror with which we viewed it; and, laying hold of the head by the hair, which was long and black, offered to sell it to us for an axe, turned it in various ways to show it...
Página 7 - Jetoro, a man, one would imagine, in his forty-fifth year ; he was six feet two inches high, and was perfectly handsome, both as to features and figure; though very much tattooed ; the benignity and even beauty of his countenance were not destroyed by this frightful operation.
Página 315 - ... and filling the pan of the piece, snapped it directly over the cask, the explosion of which killed five native women, and eight or nine men, and set part of the ship on fire.
Página 9 - ... Jackson, along with Captain Cruise, in the Dromedary. It was thought necessary, during the passage, to take from this chief a box containing some gunpowder, which he had got with him, and to lodge it in the magazine until the ship arrived at New Zealand. " Though every exertion," says Captain Cruise, " was used, to explain the reason why he was requested to give it up, and the strongest assurances made that it should be restored hereafter, he either could not or would not understand what was...
Página 312 - Captain was thereby prevailed on to leave the vessel, accompanied by his chief officer, with three boats manned, to get the spars on board, the natives who had arrived in the ship being of the party, which was accompanied by a number of others in their canoes. The boats were conducted to a river, on entering which they were out of sight of the ship ; and, after proceeding some distance up, Captain Thompson was invited to land, and mark the spars he wanted. The boats landed accordingly, the tide being...
Página 42 - Here was the interesting young slave in a situation that ought to have softened the heart of the most unfeeling. " The man who had slain her father, having cut off his head, and preserved it by a process peculiar to these islanders, took it out of a basket where it had hitherto been concealed, and threw it into the lap of the unhappy daughter. At once she seized it with a degree of frenzy not to be described, pressed its inanimate nose to her own, and held it in this position until her tears ran...
Página 50 - When the head has been separated from the body, and the whole of the interior of it extracted, it is rolled up in leaves, and put into a kind of oven, made of heated stones laid in a hole in the ground, and covered over with earth. The temperature is very moderate, and the head is baked or steamed until all the moisture, which is frequently wiped away, has exuded ; after which it is left in a current of air until perfectly dry.
Página 270 - ... departure with much reluctance. From the time the unfortunate man had been put in confinement till the present moment she had scarcely left his side or ceased to cry; and having been told that he must inevitably be hanged, she purchased some flax from the natives...

Información bibliográfica