“Without a chart of the coast, certainly not. The coast is very dangerous. It is a series of shallow fiords as irregular and capricious as the fiords of Norway. There are many reefs, and it requires great experience to avoid them. The strongest ship would be lost if her keel struck one of those rocks that are submerged but a few feet below the water.”
“In that case those on board would have to take refuge on the coast.”
“If there was time.”
“A terrible extremity,” said Paganel, “for they are not hospitable shores, and the dangers of the land are not less appalling than the dangers of the sea.”
“You refer to the Maories, Monsieur Paganel?” asked John Mangles.
“Yes, my friend. They have a bad name in these waters. It is not a matter of timid or brutish Australians, but of an intelligent and sanguinary race, cannibals greedy of human flesh, man-eaters to whom we should look in vain for pity.”
“Well, then,” exclaimed the Major, “if Captain Grant had been wrecked on the coast of New Zealand, you would dissuade us from looking for him.”
“Oh, you might search on the coasts,” replied the geographer, “because you might find traces of the BRITANNIA, but not in the interior, for it would be perfectly useless. Every European who ventures into these fatal districts falls into the hands of the Maories, and a prisoner in the hands of the Maories is a lost man. I have urged my friends to cross the Pampas, to toil over the plains of Australia, but I will never lure them into the mazes of the New Zealand forest. May heaven be our guide, and keep us from ever being thrown within the power of those fierce natives!”