central spot, and whatever they decided on, either for attack or
defence, the young men endeavoured implicitly to carry out. Their
weapons were clubs, spears, and slings. Subsequently, as iron was
introduced, they got hatchets, and with these they made their most
deadly weapon, viz. a sharp tomahawk, with a handle the length of a
walking-stick. After that again they had the _civilised_ additions of
swords, pistols, guns, and bayonets. Around the village where the war
party assembled they threw a rough stockade, formed by any kind of
sticks or trees cut into eight feet lengths, and put close to each
other, upright, with their ends buried two feet in the ground. The
hostile parties might be each fortified in this way not more than a
mile from each other, and now and then venture out to fight in the
intervening space, or to take each other by surprise at weak or
unguarded points. In their war canoes they had some distinguishing
badge of their district hoisted on a pole, a bird it might be, or a
dog, or a bunch of leaves. And, for the bush-ranging land forces, they
had certain marks on the body by which they knew their own party, and
which served as a temporary watchword. One day the distinguishing
mark might be blackened cheeks; the next, two strokes on the breast;
the next, a white shell suspended from a strip of white cloth round
the neck, and so on. Before any formal fight, they had a day of
feasting, reviewing, and merriment. In action they never stood up in
orderly ranks to rush at each other. According to their notions that
would be the height of folly. Their favourite tactics were rather of
the surprise and bush-skirmishing order. In some of their fights in
recent times I have known of from two to fifty killed on each side in
a battle, never more. Prisoners, if men, were generally killed; if
women, distributed among the conquerors. In a battle which was fought
in 1830 a fire was kindled and many of the prisoners were burned.