Also from the Diary of M. Gaimard

On the 15th of March, after a visit to the mission station, Messrs. d'Urville, Lottin, and myself, accompanied by Mr. Williams junior, the brother of the leader of the missionaries in New Zealand, went up the Kawa-Kawa river by boat. We saw some good husbandry, fields of sweet potatoes, which are tabou or sacred (which means that it is absolutely forbidden to cross the fields); so by forcing us to make a great many detours, this prohibition added a great deal to the distance we had to walk. We had frequent cause to praise the helpfulness of the natives; if we came upon an arm of the river, they seized us immediately and either they carried us on their backs, or they gave us a ride on their shoulders and our clothes took the yellowish stain with which these New Zealanders paint their bodies. Often, as we approached, we saw half-naked girls who ran together holding hands and then sang love songs and with a charming gaiety gave themselves up to dances full of grace and passion. We delighted in walking through the fine forests that Marion^† found so useful. There we heard a few details about the murder of our unhappy fellow countryman. It seems that he was slain by the inhabitants of Oudoudou Bay, who had had so much cause of complaint against Surville^† and who came to the Bay of Islands expressly to commit this act of revenge. The Zealanders who live on the banks of the river Kawa-Kawa called us Marions too, which shows that they have not forgotten the visit and the sinister fate of that fine navigator. On the swampy banks of the river we gathered several hundreds of pretty shells, all of the same type, which the naturalists know under the name of Ampullaire aveline.

In the course of our visit to Pomare's village, with M. d'Urville, we page 220noticed that the various carvings which adorn the houses of the natives are in no way inferior in elegance of design and perfection of workmanship to those seen on the prows of their canoes. We shall make no attempt to describe them as we are convinced that to get a good idea of them it is much better to look at the careful drawings which have been made rather than read the most detailed description.