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More recently, however, the River Thames, and the coasts to the south of it, have also been a good deal resorted to by vessels navigating those seas; and a great many muskets have in consequence also found their way into the hands of the inhabitants of that part of the island. When Rutherford speaks of the two parties whom he saw engaged having had about two thousand stand of arms between them, it may be thought that his estimate is probably an exaggerated one; but it is completely borne out by other authorities. Thus, for example, Davis, one of the missionaries, writes, in 1827: “They have at this time many thousand stand of arms among them, both in the Bay and at the River Thames.” The method of fighting, which is described as being in use among the New Zealanders, in which, after the first onset, every man chooses his individual antagonist, and the field of battle presents merely the spectacle of a multitude of single combats, is the same which has, perhaps, everywhere prevailed, not only in the primitive wars of men, but up to a period of considerable refinement in the history of the military art. The Greeks and Trojans, at the time of the siege of Troy, used both chariots and missiles; and yet it is evident from Homer that their battles and skirmishes usually resolved them selves in a great measure into a number of duels between heroes who seem to have sometimes paused by mutual consent to hold parley