Preface

Summary

The following Narrative was composed from a journal which the Author kept during his voyage to New Zealand; and for the sake of minutely particularizing the incidents in their proper order, he has still preserved an uninterrupted succession of dates up to the period of his departure from that island; avoiding, however, as much as it was practicable, that abrupt formality of statement which the journal form prescribes. Besides, the New Zealanders are a people so little known to Europeans, and at the same time so peculiarly interesting, that he conceived an account of the daily occurrences he met with during his short intercourse with them, would be more acceptable to the, reader than any general detail. But as this plan obliged him to conform to the order of time and circumstance, he was necessarily restricted from treating diffusely on particular subjects, however closely connected with the country and its inhabitants. To supply this defect, the Author has subjoined, under the head of Supplementary Observations, such topics as could not be introduced or dilated on in the Narrative, without too long a suspension of the train of events.

Aware that accuracy of narration must constitute the chief merit of a work like the present, the Author has been scrupulously exact with respect to it. The occurrences which came under his own observation are detailed with a strict regard to truth, nor has he admitted any statements on the authority of the natives, without examining the veracity and motives of the persons who made them.