"I took," says he, "my wife Epecka with me, and we were attended by about twenty slave-women to carry our provisions, every one of whom bore on her back, besides a supply for her own consumption, about thirty pounds of potatoes, and drove before her at the same time a pig, which she held by a string tied to its fore-leg.
"The men never travel without being armed. Our journey was made sometimes by water and sometimes by land; and, proceeding in this manner, we arrived, in about a month, at a place called Taranake,[[BC]] on the coast of Cook Strait, where we were received by Otago,[[BD]] a great chief, who had come from near the South Cape. On meeting we saluted each other in the customary manner by touching noses, and there was also a great deal of crying, as usual.
"Here I saw an Englishman, named James Mowry, who told me that he had formerly been a boy belonging to a ship called the 'Sydney Cove,' which had put in near the South Cape, when a boat's crew, of which he was one, had been sent on shore for the purpose of trading with the natives. They were attacked, however, and every man of them killed except himself, he having been indebted for his preservation to his youth and the protection of Otago's daughter: this lady he had since married. He had now been eight years in the country, and had become so completely reconciled to the manners and way of life of the natives, that he had resolved never to leave it. He was twenty-four years of age, handsome, and of middle size, and had been well tattooed. He had also been made a chief, and had often accompanied the natives to their wars. He spoke their language, and had forgotten a great deal of his own. He told me he had heard of the capture of our ship, and gave me an account of the deaths of Smith and Watson, two of my unfortunate shipmates. I, in turn, related to him my story, and what I had gone through.[[BE]]
"The village of Taranake stands by the sea-side, and the manners and customs of the inhabitants are the same as prevail in other parts of the island.
"We remained here six weeks; and during this time I employed myself in looking out for a ship passing through the Straits, by which I might make my escape, but was never fortunate enough to see one. I kept my intention, however, a secret from Mowry, for he was too much attached to the natives for me to trust him.
"On leaving Taranake we took our way along the coast, and after a journey of six weeks arrived at the East Cape, where we met with a great chief, named Bomurry, belonging to the Bay of Islands. He told us that he resided in the neighbourhood of Kendal,[[BF]] the missionary. He had about five hundred warriors with him, and several war-canoes, in one of which I observed a trunk, having on it the name of Captain Brin, of the 'Asp,' South Seaman. These people had also with them a number of muskets, with polished barrels, and a few small kegs of powder, as well as a great quantity of potatoes and flax mats. They had plundered and murdered nearly every person that lived between the East Cape and the river Thames; and the whole country dreaded the name of Bomurry.
"This great warrior showed us several of the heads of chiefs whom he had killed on this expedition, and these, he said, he intended to carry back with him to the Bay of Islands, to sell for gunpowder to the ships that touched there. He and his followers having taken leave of us, and set sail in their canoes, we also left the East Cape the day following, and proceeded on our journey homewards, travelling during the day, and encamping at night in the woods, where we slept around large fires under the branches of the trees. In this way we arrived in four days at our own village, where I was received by Eshou, my eldest wife, with great joy. I was much fatigued by my journey, as was also my other wife, Epecka, who had accompanied me."
The person whom Rutherford here calls Bomurry is doubtless the chief described in most of the other recent accounts of New Zealand under the name of Pomaree, or Pomarree[[BG]], one of the most extraordinary characters in that country. He had taken this name instead of another by which he used to be called, Nicholas informs us, a short time before he first saw him in 1815, because he had heard that it was that of the king of Otaheite, according to the practice which prevails among his countrymen of frequently changing their names, and calling themselves after persons of whose power or rank they have conceived a high idea.
Pomaree is described by this gentleman as having been looked upon, even in his own country, as a monster of rapacity and cruelty, always involved in quarrels with his neighbours, and in the habit of stealing their property whenever he had an opportunity. Duaterra asserted that on a recent occasion he had made an incursion into his territory, and, without any provocation, murdered six of his people, the bodies of all of whom he afterwards devoured, not even their heads having escaped his gluttony, after he had stuck them upon a stick and roasted them at the fire.
The New Zealand chiefs, however, not excepting the most respectable among them, were found to be sadly given to calumniate one another by all sorts of fictions; and even Pomaree, bad as he really was, seems sometimes to have been worse reported of by the others than he deserved.