er, closer spirals of dark blue
Were never seen than in his cheek's tattoo;
Fine as if engine turned those cheeks declared
No cost to fee the artist had been spared;
That many a basket of good maize had made
That craftsman careful how he tapped his blade,
And many a greenstone trinket had been given
To get his chisel-flint so deftly driven."

When, however, the slow and costly agony was over, the owner of an
unusually well-executed face became a superior person. He united in
himself the virtues and vices of a chieftain of high degree (shown by
the elaborateness of his face pattern), of a tribal dandy, of a brave
man able to endure pain, of the owner of a unique picture, and of an
acknowledged art critic. In the rigid-looking mask, moreover, which
had now taken the place of his natural face were certain lines by
which any one of his fellow-tribesmen could identify him living or
dead. In this way the heads of Maori chiefs have been recognised
even in the glass cases of museums. On some of the earlier deeds and
agreements between White and Maori, a chief would sign or make his
mark by means of a rough reproduction of his special Moko.

The Maori _pas_ or stockaded and intrenched villages, usually perched
on cliffs and jutting points overhanging river or sea, were defended
by a double palisade, the outer fence of stout stakes, the inner of
high solid trunks. Between them was a shallow ditch. Platforms as
much as forty feet high supplied coigns of vantage for the look-out.
Thence, too, darts and stones could be hurled at the besiegers. With
the help of a throwing-stick, or rather whip, wooden spears could
be thrown in the sieges more than a hundred yards. Ignorant of the
bow-and-arrow and the boomerang, the Maoris knew and used the sling.
With it red-hot stones would be hurled over the palisades, among the
rush-thatched huts of an assaulted village, a stratagem all the more
difficult to cope with as Maori _pas_ seldom contained wells or
springs of water. The courage and cunning developed in the almost
incessant tribal feuds were extraordinary. Competent observers thought
the Maoris of two generations ago the most warlike and ferocious race
on earth. Though not seldom guilty of wild cruelty to enemies, they
did not make a business of cold-blooded torture after the devilish
fashion of the North American Indians. Chivalrous on occasion, they
would sometimes send warning to the foe, naming the day of an intended