The natives breed pigs, and cultivate some maize, yams and potatoes; and there is a species of very strong flax, which serves not only for clothing, but fishing-lines, and various other purposes. The mountains are clothed with a profusion of fir trees, of a variety of species unknown in other countries, and rising to a magnificent height, which the tallest pines of Norway cannot rival. The natives are of a different race from those of New Holland, belonging to that Malay race which predominates in the South Sea Islands. They are tall and well formed, with large black eyes; they are intelligent, have made some progress in the arts of life, and are united into a certain form of political society. These circumstances, however, have only tended to develop in a still more frightful degree those furious passions which agitate the breast of the savage. Each little society is actuated by the deepest enmity against all their neighbors; their daily and nightly thought is to surprise, to attack, to exterminate them; and when they have gained that guilty triumph, it is followed by devouring their victims. Yet to the members of their own tribe, or those whom they regard as friends, they are not only mild and courteous, but display the fondest attachment and most tender sensibility. Families live together in great harmony, and are seen assembled in pleasing and harmonious groups. On the death of their relations, they exhibit the most impassioned and affecting symptoms of grief, cutting their faces with pieces of shell or bone, till the blood flows and mixes with their tears. They have a great turn for oratory, the chiefs making speeches of two or three hours, accompanied with vehement gestures, to which those of the audience correspond. Their war-canoes are very large, adorned with much curious and elaborate carving. Great diligence is also exercised, and great pain endured, in bestowing upon their skins the ornament of tattooing; and the visages of the chiefs are often entirely covered over with various regular figures. This, however, is not effected without severe pain, causing even attacks of fever; but to shrink in any degree from the operation is considered as altogether derogatory to a manly spirit. They have also a horrid art, by which the heads of their enemies, being dried in an oven, and exposed to a stream of fresh air, are maintained in a state of perfect preservation. Their houses are by no means spacious; that of Korra-korra, a powerful chief, measured only nine feet long, six feet wide, and four feet high. They are placed in hippahs, or fortified villages, seated on high and steep hills, ascended by pathways, narrow, winding, and often perpendicular, so as to be most perilous to an European; but the New Zealander leaps up as if it were level ground.