In 1809 Robert Murray witnessed the cultivation of potatoes in the Foveaux Strait area, and when Captain Fowler anchored at Otago Harbour the locals already grew potatoes – which they wanted to exchange for iron. The pattern of Māori settlement may have changed over time to take advantage of the "Tongata Bulla" — people of the boats – and the new goods. In 1810 the "Sydney Gazette" described the Māori of Foveaux Strait as "particularly friendly" and anxious to swap potatoes for iron tools. The Ngāi Tahu lived around Otago and wanted to trade, but in their inexperience of the Tongata Bulla remained too truculent. Fowler never discovered this. Before coming to Otago Harbour he had visited the west coast, where six of his Lascar seamen deserted. Later, at Stewart Island, he sent an open boat under Robert Brown to search for them. Brown cruised up the east coast, touched at Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula before continuing north to a point north of Moeraki. There a group of Māori, incensed by an earlier incident on Otago Harbour in 1810, set upon and eventually killed Brown's whole party.