When first we came ashore we imagind the countrey to be much better peopled than we afterwards found it, concluding from the Smoaks that we saw that there were inhabitants very far inland, which indeed in Poverty bay and the Bay of Plenty, which are much the best peopled parts of the countrey that we have seen, may yet be the case. In all the other parts we have been in we have however found the sea coast only inhabited and that but sparingly, insomuch that the number of inhabitants seem to bear no kind of proportion to the size of the countrey which they possess, and this probably is owing to their frequent wars. Besides this the whole Coast from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Mount Egmont and seven eights of the Southern Island seems totaly without people.

The men are of the size of the larger Europaeans, Stout, Clean Limnd and active, fleshy but never fat as the lazy inhabitants of the South Sea Isles are, vigorous, nimble and at the same time Clever in all their excersizes. I have seen

Voyaging Accounts