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enclosure. The only road to the strong-hold is by a single narrow and steep passage. Cruise describes a fort at Wangarooa as situated on an insulated rock, about three hun dred feet high, and presenting the most imposing appearance. These elevated palings were a subject of much speculation to those on board of Cook’s vessel, when that navigator first approached the coast of New Zealand. Some, he tells us, supposed them to be inclosures for sheep and oxen, while others maintained they were parks of deer. The New Zealanders may, in some degree, be considered as a warlike people upon the sea. We have no distinct account of any maritime engagements between one tribe and another carried on in their vessels of war; but as these belong to the state, if it may be so termed—that is, as the war canoes are the property of a particular community inhabiting a village or district, as distinguished from the fishing-boats of individuals—it is probable that their hostile encounters may occasionally be carried on upon the element with which a nation of islanders are generally familiar. Rutherford has given a minute description of a war-canoe, which accords with the represen tation of such a large vessel in the plates to Cook’s “Voyages”:— “Their canoes are made of the largest sized pine-trees, which generally run from 40 to 50