The traveller found it not easy to dwell on the dignity, poetry and bravery of a race which contemned washing, and lived, for the most part, in noisome hovels.

A chief might be an orator and skilled captain, but, squatting on the ground, smeared with oil, daubed with red ochre and grimly tattooed, he probably impressed the white visitor chiefly as an example of dirt and covetousness.

The traveller might be hospitably entertained in a _pa_ the gate of which was decorated with the smoke-dried heads of slain enemies by a host whose dress might include a necklace of human teeth,[1] the owner of which he had helped to eat.

Though a cannibal feast was a rare orgie, putrid food was a common dainty.

Without the cringing manner of the Oriental, the Maori had his full share of deceitfulness.