Page:Pounamu, notes on New Zealand greenstone (IA pounamunotesonne00robl).djvu/31

 Mr. Polack, writing in 1835, speaks of the war-adze as an uncommon weapon, and tells of the difficulty that he had found in getting a specimen from an aged tohunga, or priest.

John Rutherford, a sailor who had been for nearly ten years

a captive in the hands of the Maori, was sent by the natives, 9th January, 1826, to decoy an English ship to land in order that they might plunder it. “I was then dressed,” he says, “in a feathered cloak, belt and turban, and armed with a battle-axe, the head of which was formed of a stone which resembled green glass, but was so hard as to turn the heaviest blow of the hardest