ships that anchored in their rivers and harbours. This led to
misunderstandings and fights with their officers and crews, who had
no knowledge of the sea god, Taniwa. It was found necessary to put
netting all round the vessels as high as the tops to prevent
surprise, and when trade began it was the rule to admit no more than
five Maoris on board at once.

The flax was found growing spontaneously in fields of inexhaustible
extent along the more southerly shores of the islands. The fibre was
separated by the females, who held the top of the leaf between their
toes, and drew a shell through the whole length of the leaf. It took
a good cleaner to scrape fifteen pounds weight of it in a day; the
average was about ten pounds, for which the traders gave a fig of
tobacco and a pipe, two sheets of cartridge paper, or one pound of
lead. The price at which the flax was sold in Sydney varied from 20
pounds to 45 pounds per ton, according to quality, so there was a
large margin of profit to the trader. In 1828 sixty tons of flax
valued at 2,600 pounds, were exported from Sydney to England.

The results of trading with the foreigners were fatal to the natives.
At first the trade was in axes, knives, and other edge-tools,
beads, and ornaments, but in 1832 the Maoris would scarcely take
anything but arms and ammunition, red woollen shirts, and tobacco.
Every man in a native hapu had to procure a musket, or die. If the
warriors of the hapu had no guns they would soon be all killed by
some tribe that had them. The price of one gun, together with the
requisite powder, was one ton of cleaned flax, prepared by the women
and slaves in the sickly swamps. In the meantime the food crops were
neglected, hunger and hard labour killed many, some fell victims to
diseases introduced by the white men, and the children nearly all