The pigment used in tattooing is made from the resin of the kauri pine, and the greater part of it is made at one spot, where the tree grows plentifully. There is a rocky precipice, and a little distance from its edge a deep and narrow pit is sunk. A channel is cut through the face of the cliff into the pit, and the apparatus is complete. When a native wishes to make a supply of tattooing pigment, he cuts a quantity of kauri wood, places it in the pit, and sets fire to it, thus causing the burnt resin to fall to the bottom of the pit, whence it is scraped out through the channel. Scarlet paint is much employed by the natives, especially when they decorate themselves for battle. It is obtained from an ochreous substance which is deposited in many places where water has been allowed to become stagnant. Some spots are celebrated for the excellence of the ochre, and the natives come from great distances to procure it. When they wish to make their scarlet paint, they first carefully dry and then burn the ochre; the result of which operation is, that a really fine vermilion is obtained. This paint is used for many purposes, and before being used it is mixed with oil obtained from the shark. The natives are fond of decorating their houses with it, and by means of the scarlet lines increase, according to their own ideas, the beauty of the carved work with which every available point is adorned. Even their household goods are painted after a similar manner, the fashionable mode being to paint all the hollows scarlet, and the projecting portions black. Their canoes and wooden ornaments are profusely adorned with red paint. But the most valued use of this pigment is the part which it plays in the decoration of a warrior when he goes to battle. In such cases paint constitutes the whole of his costume, the mats in which he takes so great a pride in time of peace being laid aside, many warriors being perfectly naked, and with the others the only covering of any kind being a belt made of plaited leaves. One of these belts in my collection is seven feet in length, and only three and a half inches wide in the broadest part; while at either end it diminishes to a mere plaited thong. It is folded fourfold, and on opening it the mode of construction is plainly seen; all the loose ends being tucked inside. The material is phormium leaf cut into strips an inch in width, each alternate strip being dyed black. Each strip is then divided into eight little strips or thongs, and they are so plaited as to produce an artistic checkered pattern of black and white. The ingenuity in forming so elaborate a pattern with so simple a material is extreme; and, as if to add to the difficulty of his task, the dusky artist has entirely changed the pattern at either end of the belt, making it run at right angles to the rest of the fabric. The belt is also used in lieu of clothing when the men are engaged in paddling a canoe.