which grows all over the country.

Rutherford's account of the method of preparing it, which we have
already transcribed, corresponds exactly with that given by Cook,
Nicholas, and others. This root, sometimes swallowed entirely, and
sometimes only masticated, and the fibres rejected after the juice has
been extracted, serves the New Zealanders not only for bread, but even
occasionally for a meal by itself. When fish are used, they do not
appear, as in many other countries, to be eaten raw, but are always
cooked, either by being fixed upon a stick stuck in the ground, and so
exposed to the fire, or by being folded in green leaves, and then placed
between heated stones to bake. But little of any other animal food is
consumed, birds being killed chiefly for their feathers, and pigs being
only produced on days of special festivity.

The first pigs were left in New Zealand by Cook, who made many attempts
to stock the country both with this and other useful animals, most of
whom, however, were so much neglected that they soon disappeared. Cook,
likewise, introduced the potato into New Zealand; and that valuable root
appears to be now pretty generally cultivated throughout the northern
island.

The only agricultural implements, however, which the natives possess are
of the rudest description; that with which they dig their potatoes being
merely a wooden pole, with a cross-bar of the same material fixed to it
about three feet from the ground. Marsden saw the wives of several of
the chiefs toiling hard in the fields with no better spade than this;
among others the head wife of the great Shungie, who, though quite
blind, appeared to dig the ground, he says, as fast as those who had
their sight, and as well, first pulling up the weeds as she went along