The existence of the Maoris and the very position of the country they inhabited remained unknown to Europeans until 1642, when Tasman, the great Dutch navigator, sighted the Land of the Long White Cloud. His government kept the information to themselves; and Captain Cook, a British explorer even more celebrated than his Dutch forerunner, rediscovered New Zealand in 1769, established friendly relations with the natives, and took formal possession of the country for his sovereign, George III. But neither at that time nor for many years later was England in the mood to develop her new acquisition. Her conflict with the American colonists, her struggle with the European coalition which supported their rebellion, and her gigantic efforts to save the Continent of Europe from the domination of Napoleon, had taxed her resources to the utmost; and it was not until seventy years after Cook had annexed the country that definite official steps were taken to assert British authority in New Zealand. But long before our Government decided to occupy the islands, adventurous Britons had established themselves among the Maoris. The penal settlement, formed towards the close of the eighteenth century at Sydney, provided a port from which New Zealand became accessible from the mainland of Australia, and a brisk trade gradually sprang up between the natives and ship’s captains in timber, potatoes, and native flax. Nor were these the only articles of commerce. Collectors of curiosities in Europe were eager to possess specimens of the tattooing or face ornamentation for which the Maoris were celebrated, and the heads of warriors, defeated and slain in battle and preserved as trophies in the villages of the victors, were eagerly exchanged for the muskets with which the white strangers were armed. By degrees little settlements of Europeans grew up at various points along the coast--each an Alsatia to which escaped convicts, deserters from the garrison of Sydney, run-away sailors, riff-raff of every kind, sought a refuge from the trammels of civilisation. Many of these wanderers threw in their lot with the natives: some perished miserably; others were well treated and lived with the Maoris for many years. A few of the survivors were men of some education, and from their reminiscences, and those of the missionaries and pioneers who arrived from England in the early “forties,” it is possible to form an idea of the Maoris before they became tamed by British influence. Their character as a nation was very complex. Though cannibals, and bloodthirsty to a degree, their sense of honour was high, and their word once pledged was considered inviolable. They were by no means devoid of chivalry; their language was full of poetry; their manners were dignified; their laws were well defined, and the tenure of land and the ownership of movable property were regulated by customs, enforced by the power of the whole clan.