LITMIR.BIZ

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voices muttered questions which no one could answer.

      One thing, however, had become clear in that time of fear and hesitancy. So at length:

      "They are men like ourselves," the chief said reassuringly. "There is no doubt about it, for I have been watching them from my matapihi.[52] Their faces are white and their canoes differ from ours, but they have no desire to quarrel. On the other hand, they continually signal, inviting us to visit them. I believe them to be friendly. My children, let us take a nearer look at these Pakeha. Fear nought. Atua fights for the Maori. Come!"

      Accustomed to obey the word of their chief, the Maori manned a couple of canoes and paddled out towards the ships.

      

      But the chief was aware that, for all their calm exterior, fear—that worst fear of all, fear of the unknown—tugged at his children's hearts, and he had no intention of trying them too far. So at his word the huge tetere brayed, "in sound," says Tasman, "like a Moorish trumpet," the Maori shouted, splashing the water with their paddles, but giving no hostile challenge, and the sailors crowded their bulwarks, making signs of amity and displaying attractive articles to the brown men.

      But twilight was fading now, and the chief hastened ashore to see his hapu safely housed, and to set a guard, lest these queer white fellows should land during the night. The tetere brayed again an unmusical "Lights out!" and with a great clamour of tongues the Maori withdrew behind their stockade to discuss the most surprising event of their lives.

      Then the day died and the curtain of night came heavily down, to rise upon the tragedy of the morning.

      IV

      The day was not far advanced when a single, small canoe rapidly approached the ships, where officers and men ran eagerly to the rail to observe the oncoming Maori.

      But Abel Tasman knew nothing of the addiction of the Sons of Maui to forms and ceremonies, nor did the latter allow for their visitor's ignorance. Consequently, there arose at the very outset a misunderstanding, which was to bring about fatal consequences.

      

      One of the thirteen occupants of the canoe must have been the herald,[53] come to announce that his chief would immediately visit the strangers. The rowers lay on their oars within easy distance of the Heemskirk, while the envoy delivered his message.

      Making no attempt to discover the Maori's meaning, the Dutchmen rather stupidly "kept up a great shouting throughout his oration," while they displayed food, drink and trinkets to the admiring eyes of the rowers, who were sorely tempted to take risks and clamber aboard. But loyalty to their chief restrained them, and with dignified gestures and in musical speech they signified their regret at being obliged to decline the Pakeha's invitation. Then, conceiving their message understood, they paddled back to the shore, much to the disappointment of the Dutchmen.

      No sooner did the solitary canoe swing away from the ship than seven others put off from the shore. As they drew near, six of them slackened speed, while one came on confidently to the Heemskirk.

      After a momentary hesitation, half-a-dozen Maori clambered up the side with, according to Tasman, "fear writ upon their faces." This is probable; for here was a clear case of omne ignotum pro magnifico; but that these were brave men is proved by the fact that, "with fear writ upon their faces," they showed a bold front to the cause of that fear, and boarded the Heemskirk.

      Scarcely had the feet of the brown men touched the deck than Tasman seems to have taken fright and, as far as one may judge, lost his head and committed a deplorable error.

      The fight in Massacre Bay

      He was, he says, aboard the Sea-hen when the Maori boarded the Heemskirk and, without awaiting developments, he manned a boat with seven men, whom he sent off to the yacht with a warning to guard against treachery.

      Fatal mistake! The kettle of misunderstanding was full to the spout, and it now boiled over. Tasman feared that the six attendant canoes meant to attack; the Maori, observing the hurrying boat, instantly imagined that their comrades were to be detained on board the yacht as hostages.

      Stirred to action by the cries of their alarmed friends, who had also observed Tasman's action with apprehension, those in the canoes dashed to intercept the boat.

      Whether by accident or design, the boat crashed into one of the canoes, and the Maori, their worst fears confirmed, struck to kill, and did kill outright three Dutchmen, mortally wounding a fourth. One poor corpse they carried off, and the Maori on the ship leapt without delay into their own canoe and raced for the shore.

      "We shall get neither wood nor water from this accursed spot," said Tasman, "for the savages be too adventurous and bloody-minded." So he pricked off the place upon his chart, naming it "Murderers' Bay,"[54] weighed anchor, and made off in disgust.

      While he was yet in the bay, a fleet of two-and-twenty canoes, crowded with men, put out after him, with what intention is not known. Tasman does not appear to have feared an attack, for he tells us that a man in the leading canoe carried a flag of truce. The Maori really held in his hand a spear with a pennon of bleached flax; but, if Tasman believed this to be a flag of truce, his action was the more reprehensible.

      For he stopped the pursuit, if pursuit it were, by delivering a broadside which probably equalised the loss he had sustained. At all events, the man with the flag went down, and the Maori, terrified by the noise of the discharge and its deadly effect, turned and sped to the shore.

      So began and ended in bloodshed the first authentic meeting of Maori and Pakeha. Had Tasman not been so quick to take alarm, had he allowed his visitors time to realise his friendly intentions, it is highly probable that New Zealand would to-day have been a Dutch colony instead of a Dominion of the Empire.

      Away went the Dutchman, nursing his wrath and jotting down in his journal all sorts of uncomplimentary remarks about the "bloodthirsty aborigines," and in due course rounded the north of the North Island, naming one of its prominent headlands "Cape Maria Van Diemen," in compliment to the daughter of his patron, Anthony Van Diemen, governor of the Dutch East Indies.

      A little farther north he made the islands which he charted under the name of "The Three Kings," since he discovered them upon the Epiphany, and he again endeavoured to obtain "rest and refreshment." But he was disappointed once more, for the same cautiousness which had led him so precipitately to launch the boat on that unhappy day in Massacre Bay, now caused him to sheer off from The Three Kings. Small wonder, though, that he did not stop there to investigate.

      "For we did see," he records in his journal, "thirty-five natives of immense size, who advanced with prodigious long strides, bearing great clubs in their hands."

      "Valentine," "Jack," or any other historic destroyer of the race of giants might well have been excused for showing a clean pair of heels in face of such odds. Thirty-five of them! It was too much for Tasman, who, without more ado, bore away for Cocos, where he obtained the "rest and refreshment" of which he stood so much in need.

      So Abel Tasman never set foot in New Zealand. Having mistaken the southern extremity of Tasmania for that of Australia, he now fell into the error of believing the land at which he had touched to be part of the polar continent, or Staaten Land. Months later, the mistake was corrected, and Tasman's newest discovery received the name by which it has ever since been known—New Zealand.

      In this manner came the first Pakeha to the country of the Maori, and fled in fear, learning nought of the land or of its people. The Children of Maui watched for the return of the men with the strange white faces; but they came not, neither Tasman nor any other. So the visit of the Pakeha became a memory ever

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