who immediately prostrated himself on the ground at his feet. "We stood
gazing in silence," says the manly sailor, "at this tender scene."

The house of the chief to which Rutherford and his comrades were taken
was the largest in the village, being both long and wide, although very
low, and having no other entrance than an aperture, which was shut by
means of a sliding door, and was so much lower even than the roof that
it was necessary to crawl upon the hands and knees to get through it.

Two large pigs and a quantity of potatoes were now cooked; and when they
were ready, a portion having been allotted to the slaves, who are never
permitted to eat along with the chiefs, the latter sat down to their
repast, the white men taking their places beside them.

The feast was not held within the house, but in the open air; and the
meat that was not consumed was hung up on posts for a future occasion.
One of the strongest prejudices of the New Zealanders is an aversion to
be where any article of food is suspended over their heads; and on this
account, they never permit anything eatable to be brought within their
huts, but take all their meals out of doors, in an open space adjoining
to the house, which has been called by some writers the kitchen, it
being there that the meal is cooked as well as eaten. Crozet says that
every one of these kitchens has in it a cooking hole, dug in the
ground, of about two feet in diameter, and between one and two feet
deep. Even when the natives are confined to their beds by sickness, and,
it may be, at the point of death, they must receive whatever food they
take in this outer room, which, however, is sometimes provided with a
shed, supported upon posts, although in no case does it appear to be
enclosed by walls. It is here, accordingly, that those who are in so
weak a state from illness as not to be able to bear removal from one