compelled by
necessity, was not too heavy. In the morning, but not early, they
descended from the hill pa to the cultivations in the low ground; they
went in a body, armed like men going to battle, the spear or club in
one hand, and the agricultural instrument in the other. The women
followed. Long before night (it was counted unlucky to work till dark)
they returned to the hill in a reversed order; the women, slaves, and
lads, bearing fuel and water for the night, in front: these also bore
probably heavy loads of _kumera_ or other provisions. In the time of
year when the crops, being planted and growing, did not call for their
attention, the whole tribe would remove to some fortified hill, at the
side of some river, or on the coast, where they would pass months in
fishing and making nets, clubs, spears, and implements of various
descriptions; the women, in all spare time, making mats for clothing,
or baskets to carry the crop of _kumera_ in, when fit to dig. There was
very little idleness; and to be called "lazy" was a great reproach. It
is to be observed that for several months the crops could be left thus
unguarded with perfect safety, for the Maori, as a general rule, never
destroyed growing crops, or attacked their owners in a regular manner
until the crops were nearly at full perfection, so that they might
afford subsistence to the invaders; and consequently the end of the
summer all over the country was a time of universal preparation for
battle, either offensive or defensive, the crops then being near
maturity.

Now when the natives became generally armed with the musket they at
once abandoned the hills, and, to save themselves the great labour and
inconvenience occasioned by the necessity of continually carrying
provisions, fuel, and water to these precipitous hill-castles--which
would be also, as a matter of necessity, at some inconvenient distance
from at least some part of the extensive cultivations--descended to the
low lands, and there, in the centre of the cultivations, erected a new
kind of fortification adapted to the capabilities of the new weapon.
_This_ was their destruction. For they built their oven-like houses in
mere swamps, where the water, even in summer, sprang with the pressure
of the foot, and where in winter the houses were often completely
flooded. There, lying on the spongy soil, on beds of rushes which
rotted under them--in little low dens of houses, or kennels, heated
like ovens at ni