CHAPTER IX

CLOUDS AT DAWN

As Captain Cook sailed from Doubtless Bay in the North Island to pursue his survey of the coast, Admiral de Surville, of the French navy, cast anchor therein. Unlike his great rival, De Surville remained only long enough to quarrel with the natives and to kidnap the chief who had hospitably entertained him.

Three years later, in 1772, Captain Marion du Fresne, with Captain Crozet as his second in command, anchored in the Bay of Islands. Du Fresne, or Marion, as he is usually styled, was received with great friendliness, and for a month Maori and Pakeha excelled one another in politeness and generosity. Then, quite unexpectedly occurred a shocking tragedy.

Marion landed one morning with sixteen officers and men, intent upon pleasure, and with no foreboding of evil. Night fell, morning broke again, and found them still absent. Yet Crozet felt no suspicion, for there had been no quarrel. But there had been a clear sign that something was gravely wrong; only neither Marion nor Crozet was familiar enough with the Maori mind to perceive it.

The light brightened and, ere the day was many hours old, twelve men went ashore for wood and water. There was no appearance of unrest; everything seemed at peace. So the day wore on.

Suddenly all was violently changed. The restful quiet vanished in a whirl of wild commotion. What had happened? Who was the terrified creature who, dripping wet, with torn clothes and blood-streaked face, wearily dragged himself over the rail and dropped exhausted upon the deck?

He was the sole survivor of the twelve who had gone so confidently ashore; and he told a dreadful tale.

The natives on the beach, he said, received the boat's crew with their usual kindliness, chatting and laughing till the sailormen dispersed and got to work. Then the blow fell. The wretched Frenchmen had scarce time to become aware of their murderers ere club and spear had done their work, and all but one lay dead.

This one hid himself, but could not hide from his sight the horrid sequel; and he told with shaking voice how the Maori had dismembered his unhappy comrades, taken each his load of human flesh and hurried from the scene.

Incredible all this sounded in face of that pleasant month of dalliance; yet the proof was there in that terrified wretch, and incredulity gave way to wrath and sentiments of vengeance. The prolonged absence of the commander now took on a sinister aspect, and Crozet, too, with sixty men, was gone inland to procure a _kauri_-pine. With such a force he could defy attack; but he must be advised of what had happened.

A boat crowded with armed men was pulled ashore, and the march began to the spot where Crozet was making a road for the hauling of the giant pine. One can imagine his feelings when his comrades arrived with their intelligence--the ghastly certainty, the terrible hypothesis.

Sorrowful, but grim, the company marched back to the boats, unmolested by the mob of natives who shouted the dreadful news that Marion du Fresne and his escort of sixteen had all been killed and eaten.

Not a word said Crozet until he reached the beach. Then, as the dusky crowd surged forward, he drew a line upon the sand with the butt of a musket. "Cross that and die!" he cried. No Maori dared to brave the dreaded "fire-tubes," and the Frenchmen embarked and pulled out from the beach.

Then began Crozet's revenge. Safe now from attack, he poured volley after volley into the mob of Islanders, until the last of them had fled, shrieking, beyond range. This was not enough. Day followed day and Maori were shot and villages burned, until Crozet, his vengeance only partially satisfied, turned in wrath and disgust from the land he had begun to love.

It all sounds very dreadful. It seems an act of atrocious treachery on the part of the Maori to have masked their hideous design under an appearance of friendship; and this was Crozet's view. But was it the correct view?

The sign which he and his unfortunate commander had failed to read was this: the Maori, after a month of uninterrupted intercourse, _suddenly ceased to visit the ships_. It was equivalent to the withdrawal of an ambassador before the declaration of war. Captain Cook, if he had not understood, would at least have noticed the sign and been on his guard.

Crozet professed to know of no cause of quarrel, yet the Maori had found one, though not until many years later did the truth come out. The French, both officers and men, had carelessly--in some cases wantonly--intruded upon sacred places, destroyed sacred objects, treated with disrespect certain sacred persons. In other words, they had violated _tapu_, and the Maori of that day viewed such behaviour as unpardonable and only to be atoned for by death. Bad as the horrid business was at the best, it is well to remember the old advice, "Hear the other side."

Crozet's utterances against the Maori were charged with such bitter execration, that for decades no French ship ventured near the island homes of those fierce and terrible cannibals. More, the lurid story spread across the Channel, effectually checking any desire on the part of the British for closer acquaintance with the wild men of the south. The reputation of the Maori still had power nearly ten years later to scare off all but the boldest intruders. Even the worst of criminals were held undeserving of so outrageous a fate as exposure to the chance of being devoured by cannibals; and a motion to establish convict settlements in New Zealand was strongly denounced in the House of Commons and defeated.

So New Zealand, fortunately for herself, never knew the convict stain, and rogues were packed off to Australia with leave to reform if they could. Some, perhaps, did. Others, pestilential ruffians who could not be tamed even by five hundred lashes on the bare back, were weeded out and sent to Norfolk Island, another of Captain Cook's discoveries, lying some three days' sail to the north of New Zealand.

This charming island ought also to have escaped the convict infamy, for it was already occupied by honest settlers. Oddly enough, it was this very occupation, associated with the needs of commerce, which helped to overcome the shyness with which men regarded New Zealand, and eventually induced them to people her beautiful bays and fertile valleys.

The new product, the now famous _Phormium tenax_ or New Zealand flax, samples of which had aroused the greatest enthusiasm in England, set manufacturers longing for a substance which would lend itself to so many useful purposes.

The manufacturers had to go longing for many years; for the prospect of forming the _pièce de résistance_ at the dinner-table of a Maori chief failed to attract traders, who left New Zealand severely alone. Then came the settlement of Norfolk Island, and men of commerce were immensely cheered; for the much-desired _Phormium tenax_ was found growing there, wild and in profusion.

But the Norfolk Island people failed utterly to manipulate the fibre as cleverly as the brown men to the south of them, and there was little use in exporting the fibre in the rough. Besides, their failure rendered them uncertain whether they had the right plant.

Twenty years after the death of Marion the effect of his tragic story had not worn off; but instruction being absolutely necessary, and as only Maori could give it, a couple of them were coolly kidnapped and carried off to Norfolk Island.

But the biters were bit. One Maori is very like another in the eyes of the Pakeha, and the kidnapper ignorantly carried off an _ariki_ and a _rangatira_, men utterly unused to manual work. During the six months they spent among their abductors not a word had these two to say upon the all-important subject of cleansing flax-fibre.

"It is women's work," they declared with lofty contempt. "What should _we_ know of it?"

Governor King had some compunction at the manner in which things had been managed, and at last redressed the wrong. He had treated the chief and the gentleman with scrupulous courtesy and unvarying kindness during their enforced stay, and now, after heaping presents upon them--not the least of which were a bag of seed corn and a drove of pigs--he took them back with honour to the Bay of Islands.

Generous themselves, the Maori responded heartily to Captain King's advances, and their behaviour, together with his own perception of their unusual intellectuality, induced the Governor to write home glowing accounts of the New Zealanders, and warmly recommend the establishment of friendly relations with them. For this good man was far-seeing, and recognised the capacity for civilisation which lay beneath the crust of savagery. Therefore, in agreement with Benjamin Franklin's previously expressed opinion, he strongly advised that shiploads of useful iron articles be sent to induce the Maori to barter, and not beads and such gewgaws, which they most surely despised.

So "out of evil came forth good" and, as the news of the better disposition of Maori towards Pakeha spread, it was not long before it began to take effect. And here also Commerce had her say.

Ever since the days of Cook a few bold fellows had ventured upon an occasional visit to the Dangerous Land in search of whales; for the regular fishery had not come so far south. Others now began to follow these adventurers, feeling their way to the good graces of the coast tribes. There were no more massacres, whales were found in plenty, and word went forth presently that seals, too, abounded on the coast of this new and wondrous land.

The news brought more hardy fellows in pursuit of fortune, until, whereas in 1790 scarce a white man dared show his face off the coast, the earliest years of the nineteenth century saw a regular trade established between the whalers and the Maori. The whalers brought the delighted Islanders iron nails, fish-hooks, knives, axes, bracelets of metal and many other articles which pleased them well. The Maori in return brought pigs, fresh vegetables, flax and tall, straight trees for masts and spars.

Always brave and bold, delighting to ride the waves in their canoes, and in some cases taking a positive delight in danger, the coast Maori showed the keenest interest in whaling, regarding it as splendid sport, to enjoy which they readily shipped as harpooners.

There is no doubt about their aptitude; none about their enjoyment in the pursuit of the monstrous sea mammal. More than one tale is current of impatient Maori, fearing to miss the whale even at close quarters, hurling themselves astride the creature and driving the harpoon deep into the yielding blubber as the animal dived in a frenzy of terror. Then from the reddened foam that crested the tumbling waves the brown men would emerge, clamber aboard the boat and sit dripping, but happy, while the line ran out like lightning as the stricken whale raced to its death.

So there were bold fellows on either side, each compelling the other's respect and admiration by acts of high courage. In this way confidence grew and friendship followed; so that some of the whites took to themselves Maori women, and dwelt with the tribes to which their wives belonged.

Coarse though this particular variety often was, there is no doubt that these adventurous Pakeha-Maori (or Strangers turned into Maori) sowed the earliest seeds of civilisation among the Maori, though it was long before the plant became acclimatised and brought forth good fruit.

It is often the fate of a new country to receive at first the very worst elements, and this was the experience of New Zealand. As soon as it became known that a man might enter her gates without thereby qualifying for the cooking-pot, an eager crowd of depraved humanity rushed jostling through. The sealers and whalers were rough, but not a few were honest fellows, while, as a class, they were refined gentlemen beside the mob of escaped murderers, thieves, and panderers to moral filth, which overflowed from the convict-swamped shores of New South Wales. Had not the Maori, despite their grave faults, been capable of much better things, they could never have shaken free from the garments of impurity in which some of the earliest settlers endeavoured to clothe them. But there was good stuff in the Maori, and, though they fell often, they continually rose again. One innate virtue they possessed--that of sobriety. It was rarely that the Pakeha could induce them to indulge in the "fire-water"--"stink-water" was their name for it--which has been the ruin of more than one coloured race.

But many years were yet to elapse before the Maori threw off the worst of their own bad manners, much less improved upon those of their white instructors, and scenes of violence and bloodshed were to be enacted before the sons of Maui should dwell together in peace among themselves, or bend their stubborn necks beneath the yoke of the Pakeha. From time to time there were terrible outbreaks, and one of the worst of these was that which is evilly remembered as "The Massacre of the _Boyd_."

As early as 1805 an English gentleman had induced an adventurous Maori to accompany him to London, and not a few chiefs had since then paid visits to Sydney, while others of lower rank had embarked under the masters of vessels which touched at the Islands. These last were, of course, subject to the same discipline as the sailors; but, free and independent as they had always been, this seems to have been a hard lesson for them to learn. Hence arose misunderstandings, and from one such was developed the tragedy of the _Boyd_.

On her voyage from Sydney to London in 1809 the ship was to call at Whangaroa, near the Bay of Islands, to load wood for masts and spars. Consequently, several Maori who were stranded in Sydney embraced the opportunity to work their passage back to their own country.

Among these was Tarra, a chief's son, and he, too proud or, as he averred, too ill to work, refused to do his duty. Starvation was tried as a means of cure; but this failing, young Tarra was twice tied up and soundly flogged.

Boadicea, bleeding from the rods of the Romans, had not more indignation than had Tarra when he showed his scars and called upon his tribe to avenge him upon those who had inflicted them.

Ready enough was the response, for the law of the Maori required them to take revenge for every injury. The lure was spread, the master of the _Boyd_ went ashore at Whangaroa with part of his crew, and every man of them was slain and eaten.

Even then Tarra's vengeance was not glutted. With his tribe at his back he boarded the _Boyd_ and killed every person on the ship with the exception of four. A woman and two children hid themselves, and Tarra spared the cabin-boy because of some kindness the youngster had once done him.

Singular contrast! The savage, who could go to the most appalling extremes to satisfy his hate, was, even at the very height of his murderous wrath, capable of gratitude.

This awful massacre set back for years the clock which had seemed about to strike the hour for beginning Maori civilisation, while the resentment of the whites led to a slaughter as wholesale as that which it was intended to revenge.

On hearing of the massacre of the _Boyd_ a chief named Te Pahi, whose daughter was wedded to an English sailor, hurried to Whangaroa, and was instrumental in saving the lives of the woman and two children. His good deed done, Te Pahi returned to the Bay of Islands, where he lived.

Terrible danger menaced him. In some unexplained way he had got the credit of having engineered the _Boyd_ affair, and the crews of five whaling ships, accepting the rumour for truth, condemned the unfortunate chief unheard, and took bitter vengeance upon him.

Their task was easy, for the village was unfortified and the Maori wholly unsuspicious. Fully armed, the whalers fell upon the innocent people, sorely wounded the chief, and slew some two-score persons without regard to age or sex. Te Pahi himself escaped in the confusion, only to be killed not long afterwards by some of his own race because of the help he had given to the survivors of the _Boyd_. Doubly unfortunate was poor Te Pahi.

Thus bad began and worse remained behind. During the next decade numbers of tribesmen fell beneath the weapons of casual white visitors, while the Maori, on their side, smote with club and spear, and gathered as deadly a toll.

The country seemed drifting back into that state of savagery whence it had promised a short time before to emerge. It might have done so, but that at this juncture occurred an event which laid the true foundations of civilisation, and heralded that peace which, though long in coming, came at last.