The first white men came to them in the form of whaling skippers, who initiated them into the use of fire-arms, and sold such weapons as they could spare to one or two chiefs. The remaining tribes soon discovered that, if they were to escape extermination, they must obtain fire-arms also; and thus there grew up a large trade in arms and ammunition for which the Maoris paid in native flax--_phormium tenax_--laboriously scraped with shells till only the tough fibre was left, and of supreme excellence from this careful method of curing. Two-barrelled fowling pieces--_tuparas_ as they called them--were the favourite weapon, and the Maoris soon became expert in their use; adding thereupon rifle-pits and covered trenches to their fortifications to meet attack with the new weapon. Incidentally this natural craze for fire-arms materially injured the race, for, in order to scrape flax enough to pay for them, the whole tribe was obliged to come down from the hill-tops and live by the swamps where the _phormium tenax_ grows and abounds. How we came into collision with the Maoris, who had frequently received white men--deserting sailors and such like--into their tribes with much friendliness, is not a pretty story; being only one of the many variations on the old theme of the white man's greed for the black man's property. Of course it was necessary to send troops out; and our commanders, hearing of the fortifications or _pas_ erected by the Maoris, thought that such works could not have been thrown up except to defend something, and that it would be desirable to capture them. They therefore brought up a gun or two with infinite labour, and after firing a certain number of rounds, let loose their assaulting columns to the attack. Now as a matter of fact the Maoris built their _pas_ upon no such principle; and the loss of a _pa_ was nothing to them so long as no life was lost with it. They therefore continued to build _pas_ in the hope that the white men would ram their heads against them; and they did so with considerate cunning, erecting their first _pa_ close to the edge of the forest, retiring from that to a second further within the woods, so as to lure the English deeper and deeper into disadvantageous ground, and from that in turn to a third. By the time the third was reached the English were unable to bring their food any further, and, having lost heavily in their assaults, were fain to retire and await reinforcements.