Where the white man treads : selected from a series of articles contributed to 'The New Zealand Herald' and 'The Auckland Weekly News;' including others published for the first time

Baucke, William, Wilson & Horton, Auckland, N.Z., 1928

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The original publication details are as follows:

Title: Where the white man treads : selected from a series of articles contributed to The New Zealand Herald' and 'The Auckland Weekly News;' including others published for the first time

Author: Baucke, William

Edition: 2nd ed. Rev.

Published: Wilson & Horton, Auckland, N.Z., 1928

WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS

**. t^'frj.

To THE Munificent Donor of Cornwall Park,

SIR JOHN LOGAN CAMPBELL,

Imprimis, AND TO A GENEROUS AND APPRECIATIVE PUBLIC,

WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATEE

by the Author, W. 8., Otorohanga.

COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY WILSON & HORTON LTD., AUCKLAND, N.Z.

Where the White Man Treads

By W. 8., Otorohanga

Selected from a Series of Articles contributed to “The New Zealand Herald” and “The Auckland Weekly Newsincluding others now published for the first time

SECOND EDITION REVISED

Auckland: Wilson & Horton Ltd., "Herald” Works, Queen and Wyndham Sts.

1928.

FOREWORD

Ever since the first of these articles appeared in “ The New Zealand Herald ” and “ The Auckland Weekly News,” the public has been good to me; and, as time went on, demanded of me to collect them into that, dear reader, which you now hold in your hands. If their further perusal shall give you pleasure, and deepen the recognition that we owe duties to our brown companion, the Maori, the object which I set myself will have been abundantly attained. And that is why I offer no apology for casting this venture upon the waters of public approval, to sink or float as the measure of its merit shall ordain.

And just this more: To the many unknown friends who have comforted me with private letters of appreciation, and to whom because of their number it was impossible to reply, my grateful remembrance abideth for ever.

Yours faithfully

W. 8., Otorohanga

ADDITIONAL FOREWORD

My public has demanded a fresh issue of “Where'the White Man Treads.” This is complied with in the anticipation that it will meet the appreciation accorded to the first. It has been carefully revised, but none of its leading features have been touched.

Yours truly in grateful remembrance,

WM. BAUCKE (W. 8.).

CONTENTS

Page.

Introductory .. .. .. .. .. 1

The Maori and his Surroundings.. .. .. 7

His Foods .. .. .. .. .. 12

Meat Foods.. .. .. .. .. 17 His Language .. .. .. .. .. Some Maori Customs—Muru .. .. .. .. ..

His Language .. .. .. .. .. 22

Some Maori Customs —Muru .. .. .. .. 27

More Maori Customs —Tangi .. .. .. .. 32

Maori Superstitions .. .. .. .. 37

The Maori and his Superstitions .. .. .. .. 42

More Maori Superstitions—Makutu .. .. .. .. 47

The Maori as a Warrior .. .. .. .. 53

The Coming of the White Man .. .. .. .. 58

The New Era .. .. .. .. .. 72

The New Era that Failed .. .. .. .. 77

Another Era that Failed .. .. .. .. 82

The Maori Woman .. .. .. .. .. 86

Touching Maori Names .. .. .. .. 96

The Haangi—(Native Oven) .. .. .. .. 101

A Few Closing Words .. .. .. .. 105

The Treaty of Waitangi .. .. .. .. 109

The Waitara Blunder .. .. .. .. 115

Some Reasons for the Decline of the Maori .. .. 121

Where the White Man Treads? .. .. .. 135

A Quaint Friendship .. .. .. .. .. 142 The Maori as a Storyteller . . . . . . 153

The Maori as a Storyteller .. .. .. .. 153

A Bit of Diplomacy .. .. .. .. .. 158

Taranaki (Mount Egmont) .. .. .. .. 163

Where the White Man Treads—and a Story .. .. 168

A Trait and an Incident .. .. .. .. 174

As He Saw It .. .. .. .. .. 179

A Promise Redeemed .. .. .. .. 184

A Traveller's Musings .. .. .. .. .. 190 Some Native Traits .. .. .. .. .. 196

Some Native Traits .. .. .. .. 196

A Maori Philosopher .. .. .. .. 202

A Twentieth Century Tohunga .. .. .. 207

The Pathos of it All .. .. .. .. 212

His Simple Faith .. .. .. .. .. 216

Page.

Our First Steamboat .. .. .. .. 221

The Maori and Our Duty .. .. .. .. 227

Mistaken Endeavour .. .. .. .. 232

The Old, Old Plea .. .. .. .. 236

The White Man's Brain .. .. .. .. 240

Concerning Stone Axes .. .. .. .. 244

An Appeal .. .. .. .. .. 247

His First Romance .. .. .. .. .. 250

In Various Moods .. .. .. .. 255

A New Year’s Experience .. .. .. .. 261

A Final Word on Tohungaism .. .. .. 265

The Maori as a Tradesman .. .. .. .. 269

A Native Plea .. .. .. .. 275

The Maori Girls' School at Turakina .. .. .. 279

An Important Correction .. .. .. .. 285

Our Half-Caste Population .. .. .. .. 289

Cornwall Park and Its Donor.. .. .. .. 293

Some Outback Impressions .. .. .. .. 298

A Home in the Wilderness .. .. .. .. 302

A Plea for the Pioneer .. .. .. .. 306

A Last Word .. .. .. .. ..310

INTRODUCTORY

These articles are in nowise to be considered a history of the Maori. To be exact: having no written language of bis own, he cannot be said to have a history; it is only by sifting his legends, and deleting the improbable, that we have constructed one for him. This has been accomplished by abler hands than mine; yet even this does not satisfy the scientific historian. In fact, he treats it with very perfunctory courtesy indeed.

To form an accurate conception of an aboriginal people such as the Maori, many details must be acquired; an intimate knowledge of their country, their immediate surroundings, mode of life and thought, foods, language, customs, and further back, their traditions. To include all these and treat them in a comprehensive, reliable manner would demand that the compiler—specially prepared by education —should spend a long life in direct contact with them. Even then he must either devote undivided attention thereto, or leave his labours incomplete.

Many a large-hearted soul has adventured on the task, and because of the obstacles just mentioned, the result has been fragmentary; and the surprise is ever present, that they have done so much and done it so well.

Many, again, have lived and reared families among them, with unrivalled opportunities—both in the companionship of their native wives and a constant intercourse with their own and contiguous tribes—to study the innermost side of their lives. But these —if we except giants like Judge Manning—have either not possessed the literary skill, or were too occupied with the daily toil of life to concern themselves with the inquisitiveness of posterity; or record such items as would facilitate the work of the student and historian. This is greatly to be regretted, as we have had here an invaluable source of information closed to us. It is to be regretted, because a new era has begun; the Maori “ stands with trembling feet, where the brook and river meet.” Is he to be absorbed into and amalgamated with the mighty stream? Or is he to quarry out a meagre winter drain by its side, to presently evaporate, and then his course know him no more? I hope not; and to be able to direct his flow we must know the strength of his flood pulse.

It is the intention of the present writer to enter into the inner life of the Maori, and coincidently entertain his readers with a series of incidents, impressions, and word pictures, painted with such skill as an amateur may possess, and a lifelong intimacy with the Maori has given him command of. A

WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

2

Taking the headings in the order named. The country of the ancient Maori was not as we now see it. Looking at it from the ocean, our pilgrim fathers beheld a land in* a condition of wild and rugged nature: mountains staring with the sightless eyes of the Sphinx into the blue of space, ever since the internal shrinkage of the globe had forced them upwards into the snow-covered altitudes they now occupy; clad on their lower slopes with forests, grown from seeds, the labels of which time has long torn off, and which botanical science alone can replace.

Valleys, tinted in the haze of midsummer repose, with blues and purples, according to distance; with ochres and gildings, as the slant of the east or westering sun delighted to fancy. Teeming with a varied and wonderful plant life, in whose leafy retreats ebbed and welled a ceaseless clamour of bird joy. Or in winter formed conduits and flumes, to guide the tempests as they wrestled with giants, which bowed to the onset; but laughed large and derisive jeers at the failure to throw them!

Parklands, blurred and dotted with plantations of kumara. taro, and on the lower slopes hue —and later still, kaanga (Indian corn) in patchwork of all shapes and dimensions, which the Maori with his primitive ko (native wooden spade) had brought under tillage with much labour.

Bays and indents, contented and placid in the setting sun; here broken up with islets—some pensively burdened with thought; others, yonder, asleep, like leviathans taking their rest! But the open expanses, lovable greatest when the moon lays a pathway across, like a shimmering pavement of gold.

White seashore sandhills, representing the accumulated deaths of ages of pipi, pupu, kuku, and other molluscs, mingled with disintegrated mountain and volcanic quartz—which the sea, having no further use for, amused itself by grinding into grains, and casting shoreward, for its mate the wind to pick up and play with; to pile into hillocks, until the wily pingau (native sand grass), creeping snakelike along, took charge of, and bound into masses; behind which wind-tossed seeds found shelter and moisture, and thus continued the growth of the mainland.

Yonder, black sand, with the glaze of sporting powder, which the guileful white man later induced our friends, and one time rebels, to buy, until they detected deceit and squared accounts with the hatchet! Fine black grains of iron, the refuse of the Titanic furnaces of Vulcan, which also the sea. having no use for, laid in ridges, to be ground still finer at leisure.

Rivers, pellucid, thereby telling of a wide range of travel through rock gorges; rolling before them with herculean might, shapeless masses of stone —which the rains had undermined and dropped from vast heights on the mountain side. Or the sluggish glacier had borne on its bosom and cast off

INTRODUCTORY.

3

the edge of the moraine, for its offspring, the river below, to trundle along and round into boulders, and crush yet smaller, and sort* into acres of shingle, and filter the residuum pulp, as a bottom and compost for tussocks to spread on.

Or, turbid, where the river quarried through strata of argil and pipeclay, flowing drowsily on in the glory of summer—here lined with bosks of scrubwrack which loves much drink for its roots; there overhanging in clustering leafage, closer hugging the bank to peer into pools, and admire its reflection, till a twin world looms up from fathomless vistas of space! Yonder, spreading out into sedge-fringed shallows, bordered with flotsam, ere it enters its mother’s arms, the great ocean, where they play a last gambol as their lives commingle, at the mouth, on the sand bar!

Such was the land my father saw from the deck of the bluff-browed old sea tramp: a barnacle-bottomed ark, seeking a haven of rest for its bones! Yea, even rest from its travels! This was the country my father saw as the setting sun silvered and gilded the peaks of the Kaikouras- —the land he had read of in volumes of travel; the land of the future. This was the land my mother saw, half doubting her courage and faith! But hope is eternal! Brave heart, and true heart, long gone to thy rest! With other sainted heroines whose lives pass unnoted! Argosies of Empire! Mothers of nations!

And this was the land of the Maori.

This was the land where a brown, straight-limbed, haughty, and warlike race—the Maori—lived, loved, and fought —fought for fighting’s sake, for the love and the pride of it. According to his code of honour it was a disgrace to be old and decrepit. To die on the “ parekura ” (battlefield) with his feet to the foe, after a final and brilliant display of the prowess handed down from aeons of fighting forbears: this was his waking thought at night and the company of his noonday siesta! While yet an embryo, by an unexplained law in which Nature fashions and varies the work of her hands, he absorbed into his life-blood the ambitious hopes of his mother, the desire to present to her kinsmen and tribe a warrior of note —a hero!

One of my friends and instructors of Maori legend and custom lore was a fierce-visaged, deeply-tattooed old warrior, who had taken an unaccountable fancy to me. On every conceivable occasion, even when I should have been committing to memory my Sunday’s text psalm, I was to be found at the feet of my tutor, listening in silent adoration to the exploits of taniwha, sea-monster, and hero; wars in which he had distinguished himself, and the daring deeds of his companions. From him I heard of fairies and gnomes, of ghouls and creatures fearful to look upon; of customs and witchcraft, of songs and incantations, of vendettas and rites, and numberless—and to outsiders meaningless—ceremonial blessings and curses. Even to this day, when the glamour of youth dazzles no longer.

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4

his voice, and the awe which crept through my vitals, remains with me still. The memory of his vigorous personality still singles him out of the many as the champion of implacable ferocity on the one hand, and an almost childish kindliness and generosity on the other. He was an orator —as most natives of those days were. He could re-enact with painful realism the incidents of a battle: how defiance counterblasted defiance, how blow parried blow; yet according to ancient observance, he belittled not his adversary, and would be strictly just and exact in recording his valour. “ For,” he said, “his daring and skill were equal to mine; and had it not chanced, just at the critical instant, when it required the full width of all his faculties to guard my feint with the correct parry, that a sweat-drop trickled into his eye and blurred his sight, and thus placed him at my mercy, we might be fighting this day!” All this he told in crisp, but copious, narration, thigh slap, protruding of tongue, and other displays to embellish and vitalise his story.

What wonder then that the undeveloped savage in me—which regardeth neither race nor colour—found here excuse to loiter on my errands and neglect my duties! But Kaha (my hero) did not know of this, and when the day of exposure eventually dawned, I found that his friendship to me was not of sounding brass; for when the report of my delinquencies reached the proper quarter, and my father—having a great faith in training devices, now unhappily illegal and obsolete—arrived on the scene of disobedience, with a supplejack of tried efficacy, and began his career of retribution, without ambiguous preliminaries, in a couple of well-directed thwacks, my champion leaped to his feet, snatched up his bright-bladed tomahawk, and interposed in my defence. But the old dad merely desisted long enough to select a spot where a fresh descent of his redoubtable arm might hurt the most, and unfortunately smote the bare brown shoulders of my interceder. Oh! it was then he exalted himself and clinched our friendship for ever; for he rose in the majesty of his forbearance, and instead of, as I expected to see, the dear old dad instantly mutilated, he shot out a roar like a steam syren, clutched him by the chest, flourished his bright-bladed axe about his head with the errancy of forked lightning, hooked his heel behind my father’s thigh, and laid him prone, crying, “ Kiau te mataaika, hu-hukea-a ” (to me has fallen the first death, now remains the ending blow). Then, turning to me, he smiled, as who should say, “Behold, thy partisan!” and cried, “Now go home, and, if he strikes thee again, report the same to me.” Which I did not, but took the balance as a debt owing, but now paid. This incident is not to be understood as a reflection on my father, for we both have laughed at it in after years.

As I grew older, and my spare time became legally my own, our intimacy abated no jot of its constancy, and from

INTRODUCTORY.

5

him I learnt what now remains of those early lesson days. Brave old Kaha, here I still remember thee! And I give these old-time incidents in kindly gratitude and love for all thy patience taught mel

One evening he marched up to our house and said: “ My mouth waters for ‘ koiro ’ (conger eel); come, the tide and moon are rising, collect thy gear.” As we went down he as usual instructed me in what omens to observe, and what infelicitous remarks to avoid. “For,” he said, “where the koiro hunts the hungry hapuku is not far distant. Therefore, beware; when you feel an extra heavy tug on your line do not cry: ‘Ha, he hapuku.’ Be silent; he is a sacred fish; but train yourself to think of his delicate parts. Propitiate his attendant atua with the regret that he is food for man. Rather cry; ‘ Ha, he ika nui, he rarawai ’ ” (it is a large fish, maybe a rarawai—propitiatory name). Presently looking over our haul he said: “ The fish are biting slack; we will pull in shore and wait for the other turn of the tide.” So we built a fire of driftwood, and while a generous slab of hapuku was browning on a “ korapa ” (split stick, between which the meat is pinched) he continued a subject which we had discussed before we dropped our lines.

“And so,” he mused inquiringly, “the pakeha has also noticed that the first-born have peculiarities which distinguish them from those to follow. We have a proverb: ‘ Kia pai te whakahaere, he mata-amua ’ (train it cautiously; it is a firstborn). Why is it that they are so prone to grow up wilful and conceited! Ha! I never considered it thus. We look on our first-born as superior beings, as our first gift from the gods, and indulge them accordingly in everything they desire; we indulge them to their own unhappiness. Now, I myself was a first-born, and never so anxious to do a thing as when it was forbidden! I had a chum; so there were two of us ever obedient to the promptings of wickedness in the sure knowledge that we could do so with impunity. Is the child happy, think you? Does he not grow into a liar? Who did this evil? Ready is the lie at once: ‘Oh! my brother, or sister.’ There is much harm done, and we don’t recognise it! Shall I tell you the story of one of our evil deeds, which nearly cost us our lives? Put some more wood on the fire, and I will tell it.

“ In the bygone days the Maori discovered that a young tui may be tamed and trained to speak. He also discovered that to do so expeditiously, and with the greatest certainty of success, he must cage the bird beside a ‘ rere ’ or ‘ taheke ’ (waterfall), where all other sounds would be neutralised in the murmur of the water. There he would be tended with the utmost care, and taught whatever its master wished, such as the name of his lady love, and an endearing sentence. Or, maybe, a comic saying. It was never taught more than two syllables at a lesson, as thus: ‘E hine-tahuri-mai ’ (Hine,

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turn to me). As the training proceeded, its glottis would be carefully and gradually enlarged, with a finely polished, tapered plug, well greased, and gently inserted and left there a short time each day, until the timbre of its voice satisfied its master. This, my chum and I one day overheard, as the master sat in the shade teaching his bird. When he had departed, the ever devouring desire for the dangerous and evil entered our brain. This was to teach the bird words of our devising. Now, short of death, any punishment may be inflicted on the violater of this sacred labour, therefore we entered thereinto with the greater zest. And this is what we added to the sentence: ‘A, he ngore! paekau! kai rokel’ (Ah! toothless! a gummy! filth-eater!) One day to surprise his sweetheart he carried the bird to her house; there was company, and taking the cover off he gave it the signal, and the bird at once cheerfully warbled out: * Hine, turn to me— Ah! toothless! a gummy! filth-eater! 1 Now this taken by itself was a deadly insult, and its master would at once have destroyed it, but Hine, divining in her love that here was something unexplained, interfered, and begged the bird as a present. So she took it back to the rere and watched. Highly pleased with our success, we prepared to teach it other, and more obscene words; but while we were busily entranced in our villainous labour, a strong hand suddenly clutched each by the nape of the neck, shot us forward into the water, and held our heads under it until, had not her foot slipped, she would assuredly have drowned us! And thus we were rightly punished! Is the story to thy liking! Is there need to say that on well-directed thoughts we thereafter left that bird alone? Now, the tide is full, we will return.”

As the boat grounded on the beach, he threw out the remains of the bait, together with the heads of cod, which we had cut up for bait, crying as he did so: “ Ma maru " (for maru). “And who is maru?” I asked. “That,” he replied, “is the Atua a Mataitai (the god of sea foods). Never under any circumstances, if you wish for future luck, neglect (his sacred ceremony. You have your gods, and we have ours, but the god of sea foods is over all.”

THE MAORI AND HIS SURROUNDINGS.

I

THE MAORI AND HIS SURROUNDINGS.

From childhood up to the age when he had passed his examination, and had satisfied his tutors that his proficiency in the use of arms entitled him to a place in the ranks of fighting men, the Maori displayed all the characteristics of the genus man. His affections, desires, ambitions, hatreds, and revenges were all subservient to the same animo-human motive, and expanded with the growth of his physical and mental stature, until barred by the limits of his life surroundings. And what were those surroundings? Nature, vigorous and unyielding. A soil rich and prolific, which a bountiful Creator had covered with forests, which required exceptionally adequate tools to cope with and subdue. Tools of steel, finely tempered and sharp. The axe, saw, pick, shovel, explosives, powers of horse, ox, and steam, and others which the centuries have brought and taught the white man the use of.

But the Maori had none of these. Neither did he know how to bring to his service the mineral treasures which lay in abundance to his hand, for at the white man’s advent he was yet in the stone age; and to shield himself from the inclemency of the night dews and winter storms, the timber for his whare had to be cut and fashioned laboriously with the toki panehe (stone axe), clumsy and slow of performance. Is it then to be wondered at that his house was of the simplest construction? That the walls were formed of posts sunk into the ground, covered with a network of rickers, overlaid with tongai (dry flax blades), toe-toe, or raupo, lined on the inside with the same, but neater and (as his tastes were highly artistic) blended in patterns to match designs taken from his thumb prints—of which scientists assure us that no two are alike? That to him the monstrosities which decorated his whare runanga (meeting-house) posts—carved with chips of obsidian —and the rafters painted with kokowai (iron-ore rust), for a ground colour in red, and adorned with intricate volutes in pipeclay for white, and sighed an adoring, admiring content at the sight of his highest standard in art? That he

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chose to add to his comfort only such articles of household use as could be wrought with tools of stone, and regulated his wants into line therewith? That his desires soared not beyond these simple necessaries, because they met his requirements in completest perfection? What to him meant the use of a fork, when he had no knife to mate it with’— and his fingers were surer and safer? What to him meant the use of knife, excepting to cut up the raw foods, when his teeth clove and measured at a snap of the jaw, and saved further bother of smithy and grindstone? These were some of his surroundings, and bravely he lived and endured in their midst.

I once asked my oracle, Kaha: “Tell me, how did your ancestors manufacture their stone axes?” He was nothing if not practical; so he picked up a water-worn cobble-stone, and drawing a line round it near one side with a piece of charcoal, said: “There, you see this line; now my ancestor would select an oval water-worn stone, the size of his intended axe (basalt, limestone, or jade, fine in the grain, and without flaws). Then he took a chip of flint and scored a light groove on the line where he wished the stone to split, and laid it beside a fire, with the flake side to the heat. Presently the piece would separate from the larger mass with great force. If the cleavage were successful, he would have two sides ready shaped, and marking off two lines the width of his intended axe, he would knap off the edges chip by chip up to his mark. When he reached this stage the greatest care and judgment would be exercised, so that none of the chipping went deeper than the finished surface should be. Then he took a round lump of flint, and by striking on the points of the rough projections, gradually bruised the whole surface to an even face, and of the correct outline. If in the first place his boulder had been of the right size and curve, the water-worn face would require no retouching, and there remained now only the finishing. For this he would procure a block of sandstone, slightly hollowed on the face, to hold the water and sharp quartz sand, and the grinding—a to-and-fro motion—would begin. This might take months to accomplish, but with the consolation that the longer it took the better would be the tool. When his axe was finished, it required a handle. So he sought out a thick sapling, which had a branch growing at right angles to the stem. This he would carefully cut bodily from the tree, leaving a solid block adhering. After

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24

having shaped and slightly hollowed the outside face to receive the axe, it was securely lashed thereto with a strong thong of plaited scraped flax sinnet, perfectly dry, so that when before use it was dipped in water the lashing would swell, and thus hold the tool the firmer.”

“And how was this axe used?” I asked. “By itself,” he explained, “ this tool was useless for felling trees, because being adze-shaped the blade lay the wrong way; therefore to fell trees we required another tool, long and narrow like a finger, which the pakeha miscalls a chisel. It was used as such to cut away wood from narrow spaces, but its true use in felling trees was to score a groove above and below the kerf, then the large axe removed the remaining wood easily by chipping with the grain. Ah! Yes, the labour was great! But what of it? That which stood unfinished to-day—why, the sun would rise on the morrow.”

By reason of the great changes which the white man’s coming has caused in the life of the Maori, and the years which have passed since then, the greatest care is requisite that the narrator should rigidly confine himself to that epoch. He must divest his thoughts and memories of distractions and side-lights, and determinedly closing his eyes see naught of the present, but all of the past; live again—aye, think in the Maori language of the past. He must repeople the space now holding tens, with hundreds and thousands. Listen to voices and laughter; to wails and dirges, and know of the joys and sorrows which caused them. He must travel on foot over mountains and valleys, on pathways narrow and guttered with ages of brown-padded feet. He must swim, ford, or ferry the torrents and rivers, on raft or canoe. When night overtakes him, he must camp by the wayside, a root for his pillow and the sky for his tent. His food must content him, be it nut, root, or fish, without spices or sauces, but the relish which hunger may add to his fare. When weary and thirsty he may call to his butler, who will point to the brooklet and bid him not stint, for its spring is eternal, cooling, and pure; a vintage which Bacchus might drink of and praise. Of such were the surroundings which the ancient Maori not only was circumscribed by, but revelled and throve in; yet he had only fire and stone tools to assist him in even attaining their comforts.

“ No,” said Kaha, in one of his retrospective moods; “we lived as our conditions suited us.” And laying his prized

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25

hatchet in front of him for occasional inspiration continued: “It took a family two months to build a small eel weir. The posts were cut, and the ends laid in the fire. As they burned they were turned, pushed in further, or drawn out as the length of the point required; then they were plunged into water, and when the charred wood was chipped away with our stone axe, the point was shapely and good. But, oh! the labour and time! With this” (taking up his hatchet), “I could do the work of five men in one day. Yet we are no happier?” For after the surprise of the Maori at the white man’s wonders had abated, it pleased him to compare and philosophise in the dawning conviction that novelties are evanescent, and will with familiarity presently become stale. He is simply an intelligent child which covets greedily, toys lovingly, but when the sawdust begins to trickle out of his doll’s legs, and the colouring is soiled on the face, he is frantically eager to cast it away and reach out for that other novelty—yonder, just within grasp. The only toys which never palled were his musket and hatchet, and, still more secretly adored, his large steel axe!

According to our grading the surroundings of the Maori were wretched and uncomfortable. Yet we dare not boast too vastly; are not our standards uncertain and variable Even in one city: a marble palace and hovel! What a span to bridge over! Yet who shall rail at the slum dweller who cries: “ Keep out the wind and rain and lam content?” There are thousands who prefer a tent to a mansion; who delight in the freedom and companionship of Nature. Who find the wisdom of books in brooks, sermons and litanies in stones; and the glory of health and contentment in all things where the push and the crush doth not worry.

A tattooed old chief once visited his pakeha friend, who, out of esteem and regard, invited him to stay over night. That he might realise that his distinction of chief was held in proper estimation, he was placed in the spare guest chamber, containing all the necessaries to civilised comfort, including, of course, while sheets to the bed. Having wonderingly inspected and admired the voluminous details which the pakeha finds requisite to his rest, he retired. During the night his host heard an unusual commotion in his visitor’s room, and on entering to investigate, this is the situation he found things in: The bed pulled off the bedstead, and made up beside the fender; the sheets neatly tucked outside the blankets, and the

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26

guest chuckling a happy murmur of satisfaction: “ Those white coverings were cold, and clung to my skin. The bedstead complained (creaked), so I could not sleep. But this is the style of the Maori. Now give me a light for my pipe.”

The studies of the Maori did not lie in the direction of improvement, but to extract the greatest comfort, coincident with the least labour, out of the conditions in which his life was cast. “For,” as another authority on Maori customs explained, “we had nothing to improve. A stone axe could only be shaped, consistent with strength, in one pattern; and could only perform a certain amount of work. Neither could it be used on any other material than perishable wood. So what was there to improve?”

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HIS FOODS.

It must not be forgotten that one of the aims of these articles is to place before my readers the human side of the Maori; not to invest him with impossible attributes, but to set him in such a position that those who wish may see him in all his aspects; to incidentally show that he is the creation of a set of conditions in the fashioning of which he had no control whatever; and that this fact ought to plead for him at the mercy seat of those who, in consequence of better opportunities, presume to sit in judgment on him, and who, following the habits of the unpigmented skin, are not particularly lenient to those whose skin differs from their own. In my last article I pointed out some of his surroundings. In now introducing his foods, the former must be taken in connection with the latter, because that which aided him in one set did not further his progress in the other.

That the Maori had no talent for original research is borne out by the fact that he improved but little on the conditions by which Nature had surrounded him. For this he is to be excused, when we remember that he possessed neither crucible nor forge to manufacture the tools and conveniences for progress. As I have said, such articles as he could fashion with the stone axe, and carve with chips of flint and obsidian, merely sufficed to satisfy his most pressing needs, hence his implements of agriculture were represented by a ko (simple wooden spade), and his cultivated plants were but little removed from the kinds which Nature had handed to him.

As the foods of a people are an important factor in its development, it is my intention to describe those of the Maori as minutely as I can, for the reason that previous writers (as far as I know) have contented themselves with a mere desultory enumeration. In doing so I shall omit the ceremonies which he thought it necessary to employ, not only in the procuring, but also the consumption of his foods, because these would take the subject beyond the scope of this article, and would interest but a very narrow circle of its readers, and be utterly out of place in a series of articles whose mission is not only to instruct but also to amuse.

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The staple cultivated foods of the ancient Maori, which could be preserved and stored until the next season's crop came in, were: Kumara, taro, and hue. The former claims precedence, because, besides being the most tasty and nourishing, it required the greatest care in its tillage, in which the stone axe manufactured wooden spade produced results in no way commensurate with the labour expended, and therefore induced the husbandman to select the richest soil of his open fern lands. This was to be found on the margin of the forests, and happy and flourishing were the tribes within whose boundaries the largest extent of such rich fern lands lay. Those whom adverse fortunes of war had forced to retreat into forest regions, were compelled to literally hew out their plantations with a stone axe and superhuman exertion. Yet this brought its own compensation, as they could grow two successive crops where the others could only depend on one.

Nature invariably works on lines of least exertion, and the ancient Maori, being but one of her creatures, eventually discovered the means to assist himself on those lines. And so, instead of felling these forest giants, he simply selected those parts where the underscrub was lightest, ring-barked the trees, and when they were dead and dry, awaited a favourable wind, and burnt out a farm from the stubborn wilderness of forest around him. As this cleared away the lighter growths only, the first crop—by reason of the standing trees—would give a very small return. But in the course of time the trees would decay and fall until the whole land was cleared, and whatever shrubs and weeds grew in the interval—experience had taught them the land must lie fallow—were easily pulled up by hand and burnt. And thus what at first sight would appear insurmountable obstacles to stone axe and wooden spade successful farming, were overcome by shrewdness and patience.

Those whose patrimony lay on open fern lands and along river flats, had their labours lessened In the first stages of clearing; but the tenacious bracken is not an easy foe to cope with, for its roots strike deep and intricate, and loving light and air to vitalise its body as it crept unseen below, demanded many a weeding ere the husbandwife could ease her back and say: “After labour cometh rest.”

As the Maori lived in a constant state of armed preparation against invasion, he adopted communism as that form of society in which safety lay with the greatest number. This

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extended to the holding of land, and participation in its products. Hence, when the planting season arrived, the whole tribe sallied forth to share in the labour. Here the skulker and sluggard had to lay aside their pet vices. Here the logs were lifted and stacked into heaps to be burnt, to the cheering of jollity, laughter, and noise. Here the young men ogled the maidens. The matrons discarded their worries, and the old men looked on indulgent while they built them quavering structures-—memory bridges to span the chasm of lime to the days when they, too, felt the vigour which the scent of newly-turned earth inspires with ardour to move; in the springtime when the earth calls and man answers; I am here!

When the land was weeded and prepared, and the seed sorted and stacked ready in baskets, the tohunga—that imposter without whose blatant necromancy the Maori groped helpless—having consulted his omens, offered up invocations to the manes of the season, and deciding the time propitious, rose at daylight and strode through the village with a bundle of fernstalks, and stopping at every house, speared a stalk at the doorway and cried: “Arise, come forth to the planting.” The inmates, expecting the signal, would at once come out, the man grasping his ko, and the woman her basket of food, and shouldering her basket of seed from the stack they formed up in Indian file, and the procession marched out to the field. Here the men, guided by stakes, drove their ko into the soil on the spot where the plant was to grow, loosened the earth, and went on; while the women followed and placed the seed carefully-—sprout end upwards—in the centre of the hillock, All this went on with the utmost regularity and order, so that from whatever side the field was viewed the rows were straight and in line. Thus, with much state and cryptic observance, was the seedling laid in the womb of the earth, to bring forth in due season a multiplied store of that which the Maori declared with much pride to be his permanent food staff of life.

X have cut out a great deal of what seemed to me superfluous to a plain description of how the ancient Maori pursued his style of agriculture; but there is one observance which I must note for its peculiarity. This was a stringent debarring of all strangers from the field at the planting of the seed. Whether it was intended to prevent the bewitching of the crop, or getting an idea of the probable yield, is doubtful. My old friend Kaha distinctly asserted the former, while the late

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Judge Butler, in a conversation with me some years ago, seemed equally positive of the latter. But whichever the reason, any stranger lurking in the vicinity of a planting did so at the risk of instant death if discovered. One instance of this was very pathetic: An old man and his wife—strangers to the district —-went on a journey to the death-bed of a daughter, who had married into a distant tribe. On the way they were directed to leave the beaten road and thus shorten their walk. Had their directors known that this operation was in progress on the way, they would have instructed them to pass without touching. As the couple emerged from the bush into the midst of these labours they would have retreated, but they were seen, and two whacks from a hatchet sent them where their dying daughter would soon follow!

Taro, being a root neither as palatable nor prolific as the kumara, nevertheless, with the hue, held a strong position of its own. Besides being a succulent delicacy when young, the matured vegetable hue, with its strong, horny rind, could be put to the uses of many utensils, as drinking cups, bowls, etc., and, most important of all, water and oil flasks.

For a water flask the fully ripe hue, or gourd; a hole was cut near the top of its bottle-shaped neck, and the pulp scooped out as far as a bent spatula-ended stick would reach, and then pebbles being introduced, and the gourd violently shaken—like cleaning a bottle with shot—eventually, with labour and patience, the pulp would be removed. Another way was to keep it until the pulp had perished with age, and the process of pebbles, w-ater, and shaking, also gone through.

But the Maori had yet another foodstuff which has not been mentioned: the abundant and easily-preserved fern root. With this his fortified pa was stored fully and completely ready always; dug in the summer and dried in its heat, the labour was comparatively trifling. Besides, other crops might fail; a rainless season may bleach and parch the earth, and burn out the living heart of creation, but the unconquerable aruhe heeded neither drought nor season, for its roots strike deep, and like a thing of life, follow the moisture downwards—everywhere.

Such is a plain description of the three vegetables which fhe Maori cultivated. They were simple, but they met his wants; he throve and multiplied on them, augmented by other food which Nature in her seasons offered for his use. And as

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she oft whiles restricted his variety in tasty food bits, she compensated him with a palate which refused nothing, not acrid or poisonous—aye, a wonderfully accommodating palate. The only requisite he sought for was: Kia makona, hei aha te aha! (If it satisfies, what about the rest?) For in their season he could supplement his dry fare with berries and nuts, with the tender bulbous shots of the tii (cabbage tree), at heart white and delicate, baked in a haangi; the tender leaves of the nikau—(hat part between the last ring and where the leaf stems separate, below which there is a huge bulge, clasped firmly, clasp on clasp, with the grip of steel bands. Split that open and lay bare its contents! Many a weary traveller, besides the Maori, has halted and tasted, and gone on rejoicing!

Aye, and kie kie also, with its two kinds of sweetmeats, both on the same vine—the first at, and before Christmas, when the plant distils its nectar juices, and collects them in that bunch of tender succulence of fleshy leaflets the Maori called tawhara—the very name is maddening to think of!—and later, in winter, when its fruits, shaped like a corncob studded with heads of translucent amber! Ah me!

And of nuts—the karaka, with its coating of soft yellow pulp, sweet and satisfying, whose kernel, baked in a haangi, and steeped in water to extract its bitter alkaloid poison, was eagerly gathered and stored as a food, for the warpath. Then the tawa, also much sought for, though it tasted strongly of terebin, until baked, soaked, and dried; to be stored just overhead in baskets; whence each warrior took his dole in siege time; and steeped the hard shrivelled nut in water, until it swelled to its original size, ready for use and nutritious, with a flavour made pleasant by hunger. But I have forgotten “ mamaku” (the tree fern) —fanning itself in the mid-heat of summer, as a windlet crept upward to waken its langour, whose outer flinty bark was chipped in the spring time with axes of basalt, till its juice ran in runnels, like the blood tears of martyrs! They are hurting it surely! Ah, but the Maori knew that those juices were bitter, and that later the pith flesh remaining, when cooked in the haangi, is—well, I ate it in boyhood, and its taste! It abideth!

MEAT FOODS.

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MEAT FOODS.

Although kumara, taro, hue, fernroot, treefern pith, and nuts were his standard foods, the palate would often hanker for meat, and cry: “ E-eh kua para taku waha i te hiakai kinaki ” (my mouth rusts of a longing for relish). But he had no domestic animals wherewithal to satisfy his craving; so he took what he required from Nature’s bountiful store—from the sea: molluscs, crustacean and fish; from the rivers, eels, lamprey, and while bait; from the forest, pigeon, kaka, kiwi, tui, huia, and komako; from the decayed timber, grubs and fungus; from the earth its “ toke ” earthworm—hence one of his terms for winter, hotoke, the toke-digging season (only resorted to in direst distress), each with its own particular flavour, but not rejected because of its taste, and enjoyed above all things when hunger bit keenest. “ For,” said Kaha, “who dare despise the gifts of the gods?”

The Maori, with few exceptions, was no glutton; in fact, a voracious feeder invited the opprobium of “ Puku taniwha ” (shark’s bowels). This abstinence, although marking a high standard of will control, cannot be dignified into a virtue, but rather as indicating that his foods had to be husbanded with the care due to an object difficult of attainment. And unless the occasion demanded it, such as that of a visitor, he had no stated hours for meals, and he only ate when hunger compelled him.

If the foods were various, so were also the means of procuring them. If his kinaki (relish) were fish, his predatory instincts invented the means to catch them. A sample of his hooks lies before me as I write. It is cut from the flange of a sperm whale’s jaw into the shape of a plain capital U. It has no barb, and no cant to its limb. And there were others equally marvellous of construction and doubtful efficacy. For instance this: A plain cylinder of hardwood 4iin. long, and iin. thick, notched at the upper end for the line and recessed at the lower to an angle of 45 degrees, into which was neatly bedded a splinter of bone, and firmly lashed with fine sinnet, like an anchor with one fluke. And proud was the fisher if that splinter were fashioned from an enemy’s thighbone!

B

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At the expense of trenching on the subject of a future article, in which I shall deal with his superstitions, I may state here a fact not recorded before: that when a cooked flsh was eaten by a stranger guest, and he discovered blood on the backbone, it was at once rejected in the belief that the fish had been caught with a hook made from a splinter of either an ancestor or relative’s thighbone, and, to ward off any impending evil therefrom, immediately went to a tohunga to have it exorcised!

But there were smaller fish, having no mouth capacity for the rude hook of bone or wood, yet withal desirable for kinaki, and they were caught with nets so well known that they require no special description. The same applies to his capture of eels. And as he had no knowledge of refrigerating, dry salting, or pickling, these had to be eaten fresh, or dried in the sun. For casual consumption, and to enrich the flavour of his kumara, he asked no other favour from his gods than a continuance of their benevolence, and thus he lived in sumptuous plenty to-day, and complacently left doubts to the future. It was the inland dweller who felt constrained to preserve his relish, because birds have their season. The pigeon is migratory, and the kaka only fat when the embryo insect world lies bedded in decayed timber, ungainly larvae, waiting to exchange their estate in the genial heat of summer. Then the kaka is busy, and his strong beak rips and rends, and scatters the chips, and calls to his mates in a voice raucous and strident: Come to the banquet. The kiwi also stalks in grave solitude, probing here and there in the soil with head canted sideways, listening for the movements of the earthworm, whom the moisture of winter tempts to the surface. And who shall tell of the tui, huia, and komako, covered in a warm thick layer of adipose, awaiting the wily snares of the Maori—to be presently packed in their fat ready for winter, when the animal world is scraggy, fleshless, and tough?

Somewhere, in the archives of science, and in books devoted to bird, beast, and fish, the mysteries of bird life are fully described. But it is my business here to tell how he caught and preserved it for food. First in his catalogue, for flavour and bulk, the plentiful kereru, or kuku (pigeon) headed the list. And when the kahikatea, matai, hinau, and

MEAT FOODS.

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miro beckoned it to settle and fatten, the Maori stood beneath the tree, studied its habits, and laid his plans accordingly. If it were kahikatea or matai on which it had settled, he had no other alternative but to climb it, and with his tao or pere (rod from 14ft. to 18ft. long, pointed with a barbed splinter of bone) to spear them, which he could easily do, for the pigeon is unsuspecting and guileless, and the enemy hidden by branches could watch where the bird sat feeding, and silently pushing his spear close to the bird, give it a quiet, deadly thrust, and so on to the next. But later, when the red miro berries were ripe, and the fruit—though so enticing and good to its taste—tormented it with a merciless thirst, it was then that the Maori smiled, and thought of his profit.

On the ranges of the interior there are certain waterless districts, where the miro is abundant. These have been known for ages. When the berries are ripe he visits them, and fakes thither shallow water troughs, and fixes them where the sheen of the water will attract the thirsty birds’ notice. Then he sets snares around their edges, pours about an inch of water from his tahaa (gourd) into them. It often happens that he has barely left it, when a bird swoops down to drink; but it was one of his superstitions never to slop and secure it; that would be an aitua (omen of disaster), so his omens advised him to set all his troughs, and then go back to the first, and releasing his strangled birds in proper rotation, reset his snares, and so continue day after day, to the end of the season.

To catch the shy and wily kaka he had to study its peculiarities also, for it is noisy and inquisitive. It loves the lone of its voice to distraction, and is jealous when another also shrieks and copies its neighbour. Presently these two take up defiant attitudes, and besmirch each other’s characters with undisguised relish, which disturbance is sure to attract an interested audience, who cheer them on to further excess of riot. All this the Maori has witnessed with mueh satisfaction, so he forthwith builds him a hut of fern leaves, shaped like a beehive, from which he projects a ricker at an angle, one end resting against an adjacent tree, and the other planted in the earth just within his ambush. Now, if he be a good mimic, he will imitate the noise of an angry kaka. Presently one will hop on to his ricker, and, deciding that the unseen scoffer must be interviewed, haled forth, and punished.

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he travels carefully down the rod, and calling to his mates to assist him, he creeps nearer, and just as he places an inquiring eye to a crevice for a last convincing inspection, a brown hand suddenly grasps him by the neck, and fastens a string to his foot, and allows him to flutter and scream to his heart’s content; and when he gets weary a smart tug at his foot refreshes his terror, until the whole covey collects on his rod; and as each one comes near enough, the brown hand reaches out and draws it in to its destruction. To the Maori, kaka-taking was keen sport, and to be successful Remanded first-class mimicry, spring-trap agility of fingers, certitude of aim, and constant vigilance—for once let him miss his grasp, and in five seconds the whole forest will be alive with the cry; “Trust him not, he is fooling thee.” Often they are caught and trained to act as decoy, and the lucky possessors are assured that their sport will be great. The tui and huia were also snared, but without diagrams these are difficult to describe. The kiwi, being a solitary hermit, and very cautious, was not so eagerly hunted, and those only who knew its haunts ventured to spare the time to snare it, but its flesh being coarse and tough it was not much sought for.

But that which proclaimed the prudence of the Maori was the care with which he preserved his meats. Thus, when, after a successful birding, the “ hua hua ” (preserving) began, the whole community presented a scene of life and activity. Firewood was collected. Great slabs of hinau or miro bark were stripped to make “ paatua ” (preserving cases) of. Some plucked the birds, others tied them in pairs by the necks; others, again, built huge fires, and when the wood was burnt into embers, these were quenched with water, and stored into baskets to feed the roasting fires, for there must be no smoke to contaminate the future delicacy. Others, again, made “ arawhata hua hua” (roasting frames), to suspend the birds from during the cooking. These were simply slender posts, notched on one side into steps about 14in. apart, and driven into the ground at such an angle over the fire that when the rickers, on which the birds were hung, were laid into them, the fat dripping from the upper tier missed the one below, and fell on to a slab of bark, from which it flowed into the paatua. To make the paatua. the bark of a hinau or miro was selected free from flaws. At the corners of each end a square piece was cut out, and the

21

MEAT FOODS.

sheet laid on a fire. When it was heated, the sides and ends were bent up until it took the shape of an oblong box. Each corner was then ingeniously sewn together, further strengthened with straps and bindings, and the inner angle luted with tine clay; a lid shaped to tit the top, and there you were.

I have taken some pains to describe the process, because it shows that the Maori, having no other than the most exasperating inadequate tools, could help himself according to his surrounding and needs. When the birds were roasted they were packed as neatly and closely as possible into the paatua, and the fat, heated with stones, poured over them until they were soaked, and when the fat congealed, firmly imbedded and hermetically sealed in it, to be preserved for many months. These were the principal foods of the Maori. In times of scarcity there were others to keep body and soul together, but too unimportant to mention in detail.

Some time ago I had an interesting conversation with the most well-informed middle-aged native I have met for years. We were exchanging thoughts on the past, present, and future of the Maoris. Presently he said:—“ While you were enumerating our past foods, the thought occurred to me to question if the surprise we now feel at the strength of our ancestors be justified. Was it as great as we imagine? Would they have been able to labour continuously from day to day, as your navvy or woodman, smith, or wharf lumper, on such foods as they had? Have we not in admiring pride overstated the case? Consider, now, the other side; Their lives were rude and rough; exposed, in constant contact with the earth, yet we have no name for rheumatism, small-pox, plague, decimating fevers. Tell me, wherein lay their strength, then? ”

But it opened such a wide scope of argument, in which so many factors for conjecture entered, that we have postponed the decision for a future meeting, and I only mention it here because of the intelligent interest some take in the inquiry for their betterment, and it shows that the Maori is not the shallow mass of animation I heard him described some time ago. I have also promised to include our finding in the contents of a future article, that it may, as he put if, “ educate the people.”

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WHERE THE WHITE MAM TREADS.

HIS LANGUAGE.

In reviewing the life history of a people, next in importance to its foods is its language; how it expresses its thoughts and emotions, what these are, and their extent. By its language we can judge of the range of subjects it can deal with. Studying it with the aim of extracting this information, I find that the same rule which subordinated his requirements to his surroundings applied also to his language. It is concise, comprehensive, and expresses just what he wanted, and no more. My reason for arriving at this conclusion is the painful elaborate explanation it is necessary to make before he can understand the most rudimentary elements of science. These were subjects which he had the capacity but not the means to investigate, therefore he had no words to represent them. To him thunder was watitiri, and lightning uira. To us the controlling factor of these manifestations is electricity. To him smoke was pawa, to us it is gas and carbon; steam was mamaoa, to us it is water in a gaseous state-—with a bewildering variation of nomenclature. To him oil was hinu, to us it is a hydrocarbon, and their scientific applications to daily use these concerned him not. He discovered that heating stones in a haangi, and the steam arising therefrom, softened his foods, and that animal fats preserved the meats immersed therein, and there the matter ended. His curiosity and capacity to satisfy it were there, but the appliances necessary to assist his researches were wanting, and thus he lived contentedly without them.

That is why, according to our standard, his language is incomplete—for the matter of that, so is ours. To define our scientific discoveries we have adopted those of nations whose terms for them are most suitable; so, what one lacked another supplied, and hence our text-books contain specimens of nearly every language under the sun. It is only our humble Maori who has not enriched our vocabulary by a single word, and why? Because his language contains nothing which we require. And we cry: “Bah, call that a language? You have only one term— * rongo ’ (hear) —for taste, feeling, and sound! You ‘rongo mamae ’ (hear pain), ‘rongo

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reka ’ (hear sweetness), and you ‘rongo korero ’ (hear speech). Neither can you define mercy, pity, or affection else than by the verb ‘ aroha ’ (love). Fancy taking pity like this: ‘ i arohatia eau,’ or, ‘to aroha ki to mokai' (your mercy to your slave—an expression of the most abject servility from an inferior to his lord), ‘he mea aroha mai kiau ' (given to me as a token of affection), ‘ taku aroha kia koe ’ (my love to you).”

But we are examining him from our standpoint. Let us cross over to his and familiarise ourselves with the construction of his sentences—and lo! these discrepancies disappear. In the way he expresses himself these terms are not required; the wording may seem dwarfed and unornamental, but the intention, in conjunction with the occasion, and gesticulated intonation, with many a quaint trick of inflection, supply all deficiencies, and sound to the Maori ear euphoniously and triumphantly complete.

Its simplicity invites our further admiration; it prevents faulty grammar. I cannot remember—through the many years of my acquaintance with them —to have ever heard a single instance of incorrect grammar. No matter whether it be child, idiot, or stutterer, the sentence will be scrupulously correct in syntax and quantity. He never confounds: “ I saw,” or “ I did,” with “ I seen,” and “ I done,” or “ I'll learn you,” with “ I’ll teach you.” Neither does he surcharge his sentences with unnecessary negatives as does his illiterate white brother, in: “I don’t know nothing about it.” And why? Because the construction of his language is simple, and because he learns by rote. He is a perfect imitator. His ear is so finely tuned that false quantities jar on it, hence he never slurs a syllable in the metre of a song, and where a vowel occurs, instead of a word, he rests on the interval until the vacancy is filled.

I cannot dismiss his songs without drawing attention to the beauty of his phrasing. On them he lavishes the full wealth of his word lore. Here you find terms and words not met with in common usage. For instance, “ pawa ” (smoke) is here auahi (fire vapour); “kata” (laughter), is koa ngakau (gladness); “ hemo ” or “mate” (death), is rere po (leaping into darkness); “ watitiri ” (thunder) becomes haruru ote rangi (disturbance of the sky), and so on. His poetry was dear to him. It was his recreation. In the long winter evenings, he asked his friends to join the family

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circle to sing the old songs once again, and in the late autumn, when the sky takes its tints and compares them with the duns and greys of Nature, when the air is restless, and whistles to its companions, and the red of the setting sun blends with the sheen of the forest and deepens its green, then the mood of the Maori took up with weird humours, and fell into step with the long, slow procession marching—homewards! Then he would sit for an hour without motion, gazing at a past of dead faces! listening to voices long silent! calling, may be, in tones which he recalled in his songs!

But, ah me! his language, like his people, is on the decline 1 To the ear accustomed to the pure sonorous diction of past generations, his present speech sounds vimless and inadequate. When the spirit moved the old-time orator to “ whakataaki,” or “ kauhau ” (make a speech) he leapt to his feet, a vibrating bundle of finely tempered springs, surveyed his audience, strode to and fro to rivet attention, stood still, proudly erect, like a statue graven in bronze; and yelling a stentorian “ Whakaronga mai ” (listen), raised his arm, cut a firm diagonal line through the air with a gradual declension to his feet and cried: “No te timatanga ah-ah-ah, tae, noa mai ki tenei takiwha ” (from the beginning down to this era). But his present-day plagiarist rises with the lethargy of a tired labourer, shambles haltering to the front! Glowers with lack-lustre eyes along the line of upturned faces, shores up his body with both hands clasped on the knob of a Varnished rattan or umbrella, leans vaguely forward, like a camera-stand on a hillside, and barks out a husky, “no te taatitanga, tae mai ki tenei taima.” Note the degeneracy of “ taatitanga.” (Eng., “ starting!”) and ‘‘taima” (Eng. “time!”) No declamatory pose; no snap of the eye; no suggestive chin-jerk; nothing to proclaim descent from orator and man of war! And this I heard from the mouth of a Maori Royalty; and turned away in mournful remembrance of the Jewish wail: “How are the mighty fallen! ” I had prepared my senses for an oratorical bout of the olden days, and was smitten on the ear by a hand of clay! Go to, ye cigarette-ansemiated haunter of billiard-roomS! Ye tempt me to violent belabourings, which I love ye too well to bestow!

A particular feature of the Maori language is that every word ends with a vowel; to this there is no exception whatever, and when you hear it omitted, take it as a prompt in-

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timalion that the pakeha has been busy with bis gracious improvements. He positively thrills with benevolence when he has distorted the simplest native name, and we require no surer proof of his degeneracy than when the Maori in grateful abasement copies him! It is truly horrible to hear the beautiful clarion Tongaporutu—so easy of pronunciation—degraded into a ghoulish Tongga-proot; or the soft, gentle Manuka (Onehunga Heads) gashed beyond recognition into “ the Manni-cow;” or our own simple Te Kuiti used to coax an imbecile to “ Goo-eat!” These are widely distant selections, yet the name of the rest is legion, and the trail of the white man’s serpent is over all. And the Maori, instead of instantly killing the desecrator, stands listlessly by and condones the atrocity by imitating it!

The Maori language, as I have said, is concise. It was the nature of its inventor to be so. He was no diplomat. His proclivities were natural, and he used the least circumlocutory means of satisfying them; therefore, the names by which he defined them were terse and to the point. A child did not hesitate to say to its parents: “ E tito nau ” (you are lying); or “ kaua koe e tito ” (don’t tell lies). He dallied not with such equivocations as: “That’s a story,” “You are romancing,” etc. “ Tito ” meant “ lie ” whether told by chief, slave, freeman, woman or child, and the utterer felt justly rebuked and took no offence. Another instance of his contempt of superfluous amenities was that the child permitted itself, in common with its elders, to use any current abbreviations of its parents’ names without set of bounds. This liberty was not confined to children and tribesmen alone; the very slave could address his master by it; even the present “King” Mahuta is undisturbed in his serenity when his humblest “ subject ” calls, “ E huta e tito nau ” (huta, you are lying).

Once upon a time that ferocious Ngatitoa warrior, Te Rauparaha, was benighted in a supposedly friendly chief’s fishing pa. By some means his slave got a hint that treachery was intended, and in consequence kept on the alert. About midnight he crept up to his master and whispered: “E raha (abbreviation for Rauparaha) kei to peru to ihu ” (Raha, thy nose is roaring), “cease, and listen. There, do you hear them coming?” So his lord leapt to his feet, rushed outside, yelled to his slave to jump on to his back, slashed his way through the encircling enemy, and escaped! Just imagine a sentry daring to address his general as; “I say, ‘Bobs,’ thou snorest!”

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That from age to age the Maori language underwent changes is to be gathered from the fact that many of their ancient songs contain words the meaning of which the later generations could, and did only guess at, and some were so totally obscure that they were repeated because they formed part of that which they did understand; and that they handed them down in the purity they did, commands our highest admiration. “ For,” said Kaha one day when I proudly showed him some illustrated “ Harpers,” which a kindly American whaling captain had given me, “We had to acquire the history of our nation orally. Our tohungas kept the records in their memories. They had to rehearse them to the scholars until the whole could be repeated without a mistake. He would at once lose his status who was tripped up in a lapse of memory. And that was one reason the expert tohunga was a prize above price. He was the depository of our lore, ceremonies, genealogy, and medicines. When any dispute arose implying doubt of ancestry, he had to unravel the tangle; and his solutions had to be corroborated by experts from adjacent tribes. Nothing was taken for granted until it had been tested.”

And there was truth in my old friend’s contention, for even he, having the ambition to fill the coveted honour, and failed at the usual examination, simply won my bated reverence at the unending flow of his recital; and when he had stunned and dazed me, and I asked him to repeat some exciting passage slower, he merely protruded his tongue, and patting me affectionately on the back with his four-foot promenading stick, would cry: “E—eh, but pass that by; those are matters for a memory such as thou wilt never attain to. Now, those are excellent pictures; one can read them without the words underneath. E —eh, but we also drew figures on the walls of caves and cliff faces, such as we of the present day may never know the inwardness of, for the artists were the famil-iarly-beloved of the gods.”

And ah I me, Kaha, even so! But the curiosity of this creature —man —is insatiable in his wanting to know! Even this day he is digging with one hand, and holding collateral Rosetta stone revelations in the other, obstinately determined to—know! Of a nation’s rise, and a people’s decline, a past ’twere better perchance to forget. Who knows? Shall we be happier when we know? Who knows?

SOME MAORI CUSTOMS—MURU.

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SOME MAORI CUSTOMS—MURU.

Looking over my notes for this article, I am appalled at the magnitude of the task I had set myself, for to include them all would mean to detail the life of the Maori—and the history of a people is that of its customs. No matter whether it be African bushman, Australian black, or the ancient Moriori of the Chathams, from savagedom to civilisation, up to the selfsufficient life-guide manufacturess, Mrs. Grundy, each unit, the instant it is born, becomes the creature of inexorable custom. When after a birth the ancient Moriori mother scooped a shallow hole in the earth, and warmed it with embers, and lined it with dry grass and well-scorched “ kohu kohu ” (moss), to nestle her new-born child in, and smiled down on it with eyes of fathomless affection, and beckoning the ear of the future nearer, whispered into it a tale of such hopes as lay within her narrow life, the Maori mother did likewise, only substituting may be “ muka ” (scraped flax) for moss, and a “ kona ” (coarse basket of split flax blades) for the hole in the earth in which to cuddle and carry her young. But beshrew me, if either were less proud of their customs than their white sister is of her bewildering bandages of red flannel, lace festooned bassinet, hired nurse, and cradle superstitions, as her customs.

As I have intimated, the subject is beyond the range of an article, but there are some which for their prominence ■deserve mention, and I have selected the custom of “ Muru ” as one of them. Before explaining these, however, and that the reader may grasp the full significance of what is to follow, I must digress here to describe that which all, who have been in intimate contact with the Maori, have found to be one of his leading character phases, viz., his extreme sensitiveness to ridicule. His conception of his dignity is majestic; it may not be affronted; it is his fetish, and he worships it with the intensity of a devotee. He will endure hardship and privation rather than expose himself to the contumely of his fellows; and to his ancestral proverb, “Ko nga take whawhai, he

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whenua he wahine ” (the causes of war are land and women), he should have added; The infringement of insensate points of honour!

Before the advent of the pakeha, with his properly codified regulations and legal processes for the adjustment of disputes, the Maori was a law unto himself, and any infraction of it he at once interpreted as a crime committed with malice aforethought against his own personal dignity, and demanded instant retaliation. His code admitted of no extenuating surroundings; the act had been done, therefore equity demanded “utu” (pay). Voluntary restriction could not be accepted; that would bring the matter within the region of practical politics, a procedure which, when his passions were aroused, he simply abhorred! His injured pride required exaction of payment by force, in which a spirit of revenge must be distinctly apparent. As the tribe represented a collection of related units, what affected the unit affected the tribe, and therefore must be avenged on the tribe of which the delinquent is a member. For instance, one man has a spite against another, and kills him; if he be a person of no importance, he will probably fly beyond the reach of immediate vengeance. But that does not end the matter. Each and every member of the murderer’s relations becomes liable for the offence. Be it man, woman, child, or slave, each is regarded as an available sin offering, only awaiting the pleasure of the murdered man’s next-of-kin when he shall see fit to lay it on the altar of propitiation. And what applied to murder, applied also to minor offences, for the atoning of which he instituted the less drastic, but nevertheless profound absurdity, “ muru ” (obliterating by violent friction, destroying, cleansing, and in this case, exacting retribution by force). The offences for which the ordeal of muru might be enforced were so many, various, and ridiculous, that it would require a volume to merely enumerate them. A neighbour’s child may fall into my fire, or mine into his, or mine into my own; my brother may fall out of a, tree, or the tree on to him; my wife might prove unfaithful, or myself depart from the straight path of virtue —whatever the mischance may be, if it reflects disgrace or ridicule on the tribe, the reproach must be removed by the agency of muru, for, according to their logic, proper precaution must have been neglected; and whatever the occasion might have been, I could look on my mats, pigs, Ashing tackle, canoe, etc., as as good as confiscated, and if I at all

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some uw obiwb maws.

valued my standing. I should first sneak away set* infinMtl as I could conveniently tide, and . dly a* a > ;hr r. party, console my dejection wit* the cwatort find t*e Mn had not forgotten me, end hei singled me—emefiy me—out for the distinguished honour of n —re raid! And as A spreads over my premises, appropriating the chert ahofi treasures of much labour. I mns: offer no res .star, or No blows must be exchanged. I must look on like a monument of patience smiling at grief, and live in the hope that my persecutors may also soon fall in, when my ;um will come to be happy!

“ But," I hear someone ask. " what is a - mum raid' Now listen. I have disgraced myself in this tribe- My relations in another tribe will meet and say: “W.B, has degraded our standing: this must be atoned for.' So they collect all the able-bodied brigands in the vicinity and these are not difficult to find) and march in a compact body up to our village. When they are within hailing distance, they herald their coming with a yell meant for sorrow at my lapse but in reality of joy as their noses scent the prospect of plunder, and. rushing up, lay their unholy hands on everything they can find and carry it off. And I must sit by in my mat and look pleasant! That is a mum raid.

In order to further Illustrate Maori customs, and mum in particular, I will close this subject with u incident, just as it was narrated to me by one of the actors ix what uhornately ended in a small tribal war, I tare pared and eliminated, revised, and made it presentable without a Itering the main facts, and as it still may appear rough and I would ask my readers to be merciful at d remember of wi>om the episode treats. I have entitled it; “Takutai - D.errace.' and thus my friend began:—

“The origin of the c r'.urhanee as usual a woman; thereby verifying our fweii: The causes of »sr are .and and women.’ Takutai, following the |>ri»Th(,i of to of distinction to take as many wive* as "ney w, c prov.ce for, took Huia as bis second wife, so Ikst their cmusm rtgfct* |q certain lands might be oulgaontod hs thor sad thus retained in the family. So she agreed, and gave op tne lover of her youth—with many a tearful look over her shoulder towards her home, and ma';y a »eeret j,a ■ g >;•,<- parted from all that might t husband, was old and given to much jealous <:>; or ag» a*

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befits those of appetites beyond their capacities. And it followed that their quarrels were frequent and vigorous—degrading to their station, and a scandal to the tribe. At last he said to himself, ‘ This must end! E-eh, she will flout one, will she? But I will exalt my authority. After chastisement, the unruly child becometh meek. No more shall the scoffer of low degree be able to cry, ‘ Ha! they are at it again, and she is beating him! ’ So he strode up to her in the centre of the ‘ marae ’ (village square), and cried loudly, that all might hear, ‘ Huia, why have you not fed my piglings from the remains of my private basket? Speak, and let your answer be decorous.’ Now, as bluster, this was middling, but as a knowledge of Huia, and a hope, of expectations to be fulfilled, it was worthless; for she looked him over, and turning away in unspeakable contempt, said: ‘Karangatia to mokai ’ (Call your slave). ‘Then this is how I punish my slave’s neglect,’ he yelled, and seizing her by the hair, dashed her to the ground, and was raising his foot to stamp on her, when she caught it by the ankle, pulled him down, and before he could get up, fastened her teeth in the calf of his leg. There was a short scuffle, from which she rose the victor, spat in his face and cried, ‘And this is how a slave avenges her insults! Listen to me, all you people; from this day forth, let no man call me wife of that thing there,’ pointing a contemptuous finger, with uttermost loathing. ‘ Ha, not satisfied yet? Then let this also be added thereto,’ and she clutched at his ears with such violence that his greenstone eardrops remained in her hands—torn from the living flesh—and casting them in his face, turned on her heel, and went home to her own people. But ho! she was powerful, handsome, and quick. E-eh, but the making of women like her have passed to the things that were!

“ According to ancient law, when a husband and wife thus part in anger, and she returns to her people, he stilt has rights; but he must protect them by at once sending them word that on a certain day he will follow. If after this she yet refuses to receive or go back to him, her reasons must be valid and above suspicion, to entitle her to walk abroad unsullied as to fame.

“ Knowing this, Takutai sent his message, but as she had gone on to relations living in another district, it did not reach her until she had met her former lover and married him. For what would you? Had she not cast off Takutai

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with curses, and therefore thought herself free? When he heard this, Takutai collected his party, and said, * Behold, I am become as filth of the midden heap; my standing cannot sleep while this is upon me! Forward, my kindred, to the gathering of atonement! ’ When they arrived at her people’s village, he strode into the centre of the marae, and called, ‘ Huia, come forth, that we may return in peace.’ Then her brother arose and said, ‘ Takutai, we have heard your challenge. Huia is not here, as well you know. She hath married elsewhere. The matter is beyond our keeping. Return from whence you came.’ Then Takutai yelled, * Good; so it is even as report hath published; ’ and turning to his following cried, ‘ Murua !’ (Ravish them).

“ Now Huia’s brother, Hiakai, was the proud owner of a beautiful gun, a tupara, ngutu parera (double-barrelled duck’s bill—so called from the: steel igniter on the old flint gyn’s resemblance to a duck’s bill), and when the muru party spread from house to house in the village he rushed inside and, reaching down his gun, hid it under his mat; but an incoming marauder caught him in the act, and in snatching at, and pulling it out, the flint scraped against and cut Hiakai’s naked leg. This, and the agony of losing his prized gun, overcame his prudence, and instead of releasing his hold, he jabbed the muzzle upward into the other’s eye. This was regrettable, for now the blood of both being out of control, they closed, and Hiakai getting the worst of the struggle, reached for the tomahawk (patiti) at his hip, and, forgetting the rules of muru, crashed it into his enemy’s skull. E-eh, but this was contrary to all precedent of behaviour! At once the cry went forth, ‘ Kia mohio; he toki; ko Tume kua hinga ’ (beware of axes, Tume has fallen—-out down). Hearing this, Takutai drew his men off with their corpse, and the departing defiance, ‘ Good; now the cause is fully ripe; presently we will return and gather in the fruit.’ ”

Here my informant paused; and, laying a large ember on his lorori, indicated thereby that the story was ended. But it was not; for after several minutes’ ecstacy, he laid a heavy hand on my foot, and, pointing to a hideous scar on his cheek, whispered hoarsely, “I was there; and the gathering of that fruit lasted one year, and filled many baskets! ”

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MORE MAORI CUSTOMS—TANGI.

Are the griefs we display at the obsequies of our beloved dead to be classed as customs, or merely the manner of that display? If the latter —and I think so—the Maori, and our own Irish, have established a record in the loudness of their lamentations as depicted in the “ wake ” and the tangi. This is not said in levity-—mourning is no matter for jest. I merely wish to intimate that those who have witnessed a wake can have a fair conception of a tangi; and further to imply that that which is no disgraceful procedure in a white race, forming some of our bravest and most valuable compatriots, cannot in decency be scoffed at in a brown. If the manifestation of Irish grief has by long usage established itself as a national custom, the Maori may legitimately be permitted to practise his institution of tangi without leer and indulgent disgust. But this is only opinion.

There is yet another investigation which it is profitable to make. Is this loud demonstration real, or is it, as has been suggested, merely a disguise to cover the wish to be over with it at one operation, and then to forget? That it is to him merely a season of feasting and debauchery; that he hears the tidings of death with the anticipation of sampling his neighbour’s larder; that grief and gluttony run a neck-and-neck race as to who shall get there first; that this custom is brutish, filthy, and unthinkable—all this has been suggested with the confidence born of prejudice and ignorance —and more or less truth. These eminent judges forget that in passing sentence we must take into consideration the offender’s condition, and if we find mitigating circumstances, to remember that justice may be tempered with mercy—and so temper it. Now, my knowledge of the Maori authorises me to say a word in his defence. And firstly, I would point to the fact that he is above all things emotional; emotion prompts nearly every act of his life. He loves and hates, laughs and mourns, above the average of men. And why? Because he is swayed by his emotions, even as the raupo blade bends to the breeze. He is superstitiously imaginative His kindred and friends of the past are constantly with him,

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and if by unhappy chance he should forget: a familiar expression, a name, a peculiar tint of the sky, the wind as it pipes its flute notes shrilly—what time of the year it tunes up its orchestral concert—and memory’s train is restored. And lest he should forget, he hands on the beloved name from generation to generation, and carves effigies of his tribe-founders and heroes on the memorial posts of his runanga house, that when the elders meet to discuss matters of state, the presence of his dear dead may preside, and guide (he thoughts of the council—dead as to body may be, but living in the deeds that they wrought, and the friendships of long ago!

But what has this to do with tangi customs? Much. Everything. His mortuary dirges are the shrines in which the memory of his loved dead lie embalmed. It is on the langi occasion that he lifts them out and takes 6ff their cerements, fold after fold, and takes another look at the loved faces, and reverently lays them aside until he has cut a fresh niche for the one stretched now in his presence, and embellished it also with phrases appropriate to its life—that the future may remember.

There are few people who have not at some time witnessed a Maori langi, so it will not be necessary for me to describe it here, and I will proceed to enlighten my readers on that part of it which all have heard, but few understood, and that is, what the words mean which they hear wailed. When the visiting mourners approach the house of death, the house party calls its invitation thus:—

“Come! come! and enter the presence of the dead; enter the home of the bereaved; enter kinsmen, strangers, visitors, enter. Come and behold the face of the departed!”

To which the leading visitor, addressing the dead, will reply:—

“Depart on the journey appointed for all! Tread in the footsteps of those who have gone before—your ancestors, your parents, your relations, and friends! Reflect, it is the way of death; the leap into darkness; the region unknown! What do we say? We mourn: for the pain of the parting is keen; would it were otherwise! On the morrow—who knows The turn of the next! Go to the home appointed for all! ”

And drawing round in a semi-circle opposite the uncovered face, surrounded with either the insignia of chieftainship, or such other mementos of the dead as will bring to c

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mind some particular incident in its life, wail a family chant, or adopt one to suit the present occasion; and when the theme is exhausted a touching of noses concludes the ceremony. It is all very tender and pathetic. The tears are real. The wail is keen, poignant grief, expressed in language suited to move the sympathies of the company in which they all join. It is no longer a custom; it is a moving mass of lamentation, which carries everything before it, and thick must indeed be the crust of ice which the hot tears fail to melt! I have attended many, and seen the outpourings of heart depths; and each time the hand has furtively crept to the pocket, for the white man’s manhood is ashamed of his tears; he feels it incumbent to hide that which the Maori parades as the visible symbol of sorrow!

One particular tangi scene to which I had been invited, impressed and affected me so much that I made notes of it while yet fresh in my mind. The occasion was the death of a woman. When I entered I was directed to a seat beside her son. Before the visitors (of which I was one) had finished their wail, a stalwart woman walked slowly forward, clasped her arm around the young man’s neck, and seating herself beside him, threw her shawl over both their heads and chanted the following monody:—

“ Weep, orphan, weep, not that tears bring back our dead, but they bring the loved one nearer to our hearts, never so near as now, when in death so far away! Orphan, my orphan, the bitter south wind blows (it was winter) ; who will shelter you now? Who will look for your home-coming? Who will ask when you are absent; ‘ Where is he now? ’ Who will think of your comfort? A wife maybe—when the time comes. A sister maybe, but not for long! Does she see us? Does not all that remains of her yearn for us? Does not all that lies there bring back to us all she was, in the past?—more now a mother than ever; for now we can see it. Now she is gone we see things more clearly. We have angered her often; grieved her, flouted her wisdom; slighted her wishes; thought ourselves clever when we deceived her! But she hath recompensed all with the love of a mother. Think of it, orphan! The love of a mother! ”

This dirge was so unusually clear and distinct, that I heard and understood every word, and what made it more impressive still was that it seemed so appropriate, for he had been anything but an affectionate son.

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Much has been said of those other tears, which do not issue from the eyes, and the unpleasantness thereof to the beholder, and I confess that I cannot find anything to urge in their extenuation, but that of sacred custom; for be it known, that, according to ancient etiquette, it was a distinct breach of respect to the dead, to blow the nose in its presence, and especially during! the tangi ceremony; and thus, this to us objectionable feature, became a part of the rite. But I have noticed that of later years it has—probably in deference to pakeha prejudice—fallen into abeyance-

Much gratuitous nonsense has also been aired over Maori gluttony at his funeral feasts. The plain truth as usual lies midway, and is this; The foods of his forbears, as I have said elsewhere, were arduous of acquirement, and being a person of prudence, he so moderated his appetite in private life, that his demand and supply proportions tallied when the new foods came in. The only disturbing element to his calculations would be the visitors to his funeral functions; for when a member of his household died, the respect for the dead, common to all humanity, drew together an extra number of mouths, and these had to be entertained in keeping with the rank of the departed. It was for these accidentals that the stores of hua hua were broken into with a freedom which would travel—to their credit —through the length and breadth of the land, as at Mateora’s huhunga (funeral) there were opened by section A, so many paatua; B, so many mangoo (dried sharks); C, so many baskets of kumara, etc. when the tangi was over, and the feast spread, the master of ceremonies stepped to the front, and called:

“Welcome, visitors, welcome; you are all here to do honour to our dead; it is good. Now refresh yourselves. Again welcome; the food is before you.”

Now, considering that the majority have come from a distance, and that the tangi has lasted some hours, what wonder, then, that they sat down with their sacks empty, and their mills in excellent grinding order, and that many, not used to the delicacies before them, should give way to their hunger, and show symptoms of a wolfishness which they will regret in the days to come, for they will carry away with them a stigma in the name of “ iwi tai pakoko ” (people of neap tide bowels), or “ puku kai kai ” (food bowels), or “ rua ngata ” (food burrows) —all epithets of derisive contempt. (I have reason

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to believe that many tribes thus acquired impolite names, by which they are known still).

Although visitors from near by would collect in one spot, and travel in a compact body, others whom the tidings might reach later often extended the tangi until the local people were positively destitute. But here again the intuitive kindliness of the sensible Maori became apparent, for though he might not bring food with him, and thereby degrade the relatives of the dead, after the most important ceremonies were over he would pack himself off, J,o make room for those yet to come, and those not being blood relations who still lingered, on the chance of an unconsumed morsel, did so with the certain consequence that their names would be remembered to their discredit.

Again, much has been said of this function as a scene of debauch and immorality. This was not true of olden days—not until the Maori had noticed how the skin-bleached newcomer, the lawless pakeha bay-whaler, conducted his festivities with limitless rum, that he copied him, and when the early missionary came on the scene he over-hastily concluded that what he saw of the immoral orgies before him were a part of and consequence of his custom of tangi, and recorded it as such. Not that the Maori was a sainted Simon Stylites. He was human; which Simon Stylites was not. And it is with real pleasure that I rise to refute the calumny. It is a matter for the proper understanding of which I have spared no inquiry. And my old tutor, Kaha, was exceptionally stern and explicit in relating the details of their ceremonies, and where their purity had been defiled by the vices of the pakeha—and I believed him. Of this I shall have more to say in its proper place—“ The coming of the white man.”

The Maori is a tenacious adherent of his national observances. He lingers at their footstool with a devotional servility, and that is why it is painful to him, after ages of use, to desert them now that the pakeha has introduced his, many of which are as abominable to him as his are to us. My aim has been to explain to my race, without bias, the why and wherefore of his seeming absurdities, and my firm belief is that if the race can be preserved another generation or two, and is allowed even chances, his crudities will wear off, for at heart the old-time savage was a gentleman and heredity is so strong that if we nurture the quality we cannot but find him so still.

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MAORI SUPERSTITIONS.

I have no dictionary by me, but I think I am correct when I interpret superstition to mean a belief in the impossible; and when the Maori invented his gods Rangi, Tane, and Papa, and investing each with a portfolio, believed that they created the universe—see John White’s Maori Mythology—l am within my interpretation when I claim that the Maori was superstitious. It is not my intention to delve into the depths of his world-building; my wish is to investigate why he was superstitious, and what leniency we can afford him for his belief in his impossible creations.

In the first place I must accept the theory that they were necessary to him, that they meet his wants; and the more I study his case the more I am convinced that a benevolent scheme would not have stood the test of two generations. All life has to submit to the law of the survival of the fittest; this implies a struggle for existence and in that struggle, assisted only by a stone axe, he could not afford to go glove-handed; it required a savagery verging on that of the brutes. It brought him into contact with the earth, and kept him there until his whole system was saturated with it; hence when he invented a cosmogony, it of necessity was cast in the mould of that striving, killing, nature, of which he was the highest developed member. Therefore he shared, in common with all primitive races, the want of words to express veneration, benevolence, and worshipful adoration. A loving, patriarchal creator was utterly beyond his comprehension. He could conceive nothing benedictory in the conditions of his surroundings, and therefore the creations of his gods coincided with his appetites. His surroundings were not favourable to a civilisation which would act as a buffer between himself and that stern striving and killing which he had grown to revel and thrive in. His “ karakia ” (incantations) were invocations to his gods to preserve him from the Unknown; of placation, of propitiation. To express these he had many words, as “ Whakaporepore,” “ Whakamarimari,” “ Petipeti,” etc. When his investigations met with a

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rebuff that which lay in the unexplored beyond, he promptly dismissed with the solution, “ Na mea ” (by someone), whom he designated as the most likely to have done it, and whom his fancy at the moment dictated. Many of the occult or little-understood forces, as ventriloquism and hypnotism (of which he had some acquaintance) were to him the voices of spirits spoken through mediums, living evidences of a dreaded power, which he called “ Makutu ” (witchcraft), and had to be either exorcised by the tohunga or instantly destroyed, lo fend off evils which he could not guard against, and which the possessor might further propagate. Besides these, his existence was burdened with the knowledge of huge reptilian monsters, ngarara on land, and taniwha in the water, who could speak, and roar, and hurl imprecations, or take mysterious forms, and beguile with inhuman craft, and decoy with satanic duplicity! Oh! life, when the frenzy of fear dislocated his mental mechanism, was a torture beyond endurance. When a man was sucked into a maelstrom and disappeared, where had he gone but down the gullet of a taniwha? He knew nothing of vortexes and underground streams, and when water suddenly disappeared, where else could it go but to quench the thirst of the reptile?

Once in the misty long ago, a woman misbehaved herself, so her husband in vindictive retaliation went to a tohunga and said: “ My wife has proved herself unworthy of my faith; lay me a curse upon her.” When her brothers heard this they went to a more powerful tohunga to, if possible, procure an antidote. The tohunga said: “When you go fishing, take your sister with you, and seat her in the bow; do this three separate times; if on neither excursion anything happens, the curse will be innocuous; but if any untoward event should occur, let her clasp the sides of the canoe and do that which I will whisper in your ear, and my mana will prevail.” Twice they went fishing and nothing broke the spell; but on the third, 10, a taniwha arose beside the canoe where the woman sat. This monster had long, black arms, and its body was covered with countless eyes; it churned up the water with terrific force, and, reaching an arm into the canoe, clasped the woman round the waist to pull her out, but remembering her instructions she clutched the sides of the canoe and did that other thing which was whispered, and when the two brothers had bemauled it with their “ tuki ” (fish clubs) it relinquished its hold and sank into the sea—“ This,” said

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Kaha, triumphantly, “ proves that our creed was true and potent! ” Of course my readers have guessed that this was that combination of circumstances known as a coincidence, and that the taniwha was a giant octopus—of which the Maori probably knew nothing because he had no name for it but taniwha.

None of our geologists have yet discovered the remains of reptiles which would agree with Maori legendary ngarara (land monster), so this was either a priestly invention, or a tradition of other lands, which they brought with them and applied in fear to every strange disappearance of one of the tribe, as devoured by a ngarara. It is certain that the tohunga employed its fame largely to terrorise the over-imaginative, as thus:—“ Pounamu ” (greenstone) was only to be found in the creeks of the inland ranges of the Middle; Island, and hence called “Te wai pounamu.” As this was a valuable but scarce commodity to him, he kept its locality a secret, and to further scare away strangers the spot was proclaimed to be the haunt of a terrible ngarara, and when necessity compelled him to mine some, a tohunga had to go in advance *with' karakia and ostentatious ceremony to induce it to forbear its ferocity, and smuggle it out of sight before the common herd could approach. (Wily tohunga; this was one of his perquisites, and meant a new mat at the least!)

Whether he believed his own humbug or not, this rascally fraud was a power in the land, which even a crooked smile dare not defy! He was a complete multum in uno. For instance, he was a scientific locksmith. When I had accasion to be absent from my raupo weather-boarded house I drew the flax-blade mat door to, and went off with a basket of kumara, or string of eels, to the tohunga and said: “Give me a token.” After fumbling about in his tidy-basket he might draw forth a short piece of barkless white stick, or a few feathers, or maybe a shrivelled hawk’s claw, which I then hung in a conspicuous place on my door, and walked away with a faith a mover of mountains might envy that I would find everything as I had left it, for word would presently creep from house to house:—“ Kia mohio ki to whatitoka o Puke ” (Beware of Puki’s door). That was sufficient. When I returned I took it off, and in handing the key back to the tohunga, might vainly search his face with a microscope for a diabolical smile, which was there nevertheless! He might

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trick and swindle others, but even a tohunga dreaded the potency of tapu if administered by one of repute greater than his own.

Everything connected with burial rites was tapu. All who handled the dead became tapu, so tapu that he must not be touched or even place food in his mouth with his own hands; he must be fed, or pick up his food like an animal. Scientifically viewed he became a Leyden jar with a charge which the contact of a bare knuckle might absorb and dissipate. Therefore the laying out and other last services to the dead were generally performed by the immune tohunga himself, and in certain cases even he had to undergo a rite of purification. The head was especially sacred; hair must not be thrown on the fire or it instantly became tapu. Its ramification could only be summed up in the substantive, infinity, and its cause and effect in fear—the dread of the powers unknown.

And yet another decimating tool in the hands of spite and revenge was makutu (witchcraft), faith in which rested on no more solid base than fear—abject, craven fear; fear, which once it got its talons in the vitals was as certain in its action as poison! Let one fear that a makutu spell had been laid upon him, neither bravery, strength, nor health would avail to avert the decree; he would go to bed forthwith and —die! Not even the ministrations of a superior tohunga might intervene with an antidote. It was a dangerous weapon in the hands of the vindictive and unscrupulous. A tohunga makutu might stride about with the airs of an autocrat, yet he nevertheless carried his life in a very unsafe satchel, as the following incident of which I had personal knowledge will show:—

On the outskirts of the village lived a solitary old man reputed to possess the virus of witchcraft. One day as I went past his whare he was sunnmg himself in his doorway. While we were chatting, a young fellow, whom I regarded with much friendship, who had in coming home from a shearing Job called at a public-house and taken enough to make him reckless of consequences, crossed over when he saw me, and having lit his pipe dropped the still burning match on the old man’s bald head—a head so unpleasantly bald that it had invited many a ribald joke from the flippant and thoughtless. Suddenly he snatched it off, spat on it, and throwing it against

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his tormentor's chest yelled; “ Ina taku tohu, kainga to manawa e te ngarara!” (Behold my token, may your heart be consumed by cancer.) This sobered the young fellow instantly, and with an ashen-grey face he half ran to his house, told his people, and went to bed. And in three days he was dead! On the funeral night a shot was heard in the direction of the old man’s whare, and from that day to this his murderer has gone undiscovered, for though many guessed, none would tell!

And thus I sum up my investigations:—There is a kinship in all the emotions, whether brutal, human, or fiendish. What matters the hue of the skin? What meaneth altruistic caste? Where the brown man clove him a passage with the yell of the savage and stone axe and wrought spear, the other dissembles in the fear of Almighty, and smites at a distance with a hundred-ton gun! Where the one roamed the forests in contact with Nature, groping and probing in darkness and doubt, pondering deeply its mysterious wherefore; sorting, rejecting, by the light of a glow-worm; listening to voices of a language unknown—voices of waterfall, tempest, and thunder, of ocean, of cave draughts, of echo; all of them heard, but none understood.

And this leads me to the conclusion that the Maori was a simple, foolish, merry, soulless creation of Nature, “ Kahore i ko atu, kahore i ko mai ” (Nothing further, and nothing hither). And I forgive him his shortcomings, his mental aberrations, his brown skin, and hope for his future. And let him, or her, that is without sin cast the first stone!

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THE MAORI AND HIS SUPERSTITIONS

In an article elsewhere I touched on the importance a Maori attaches to his dreams and apparitions. Since then I have been through my notes, with the view of expanding what the article then in hand could merely skim over. I have also been asked for my opinions, in a manner which made it plain to me that this matter is of more than a fleeting interest —aye, to both races. What they wished particularly to be enlightened on was: Why should dreams and apparitions not be evidence of the separate existence of a body and spirit?

The subject has an absorbing fascination for the Maori mind, whose emotional and imaginative nature delights to explore its speculative mazes, with a sort of terrible pleasure.

Some time ago, by invitation, I attended a tangi. When the visiting mourners had wailed their parting dirge to the dead, a woman suddenly started up, and, pointing a trembling finger over the heads of the assemblage, cried: “ Inana te haere ra ko Te Rangi Ahui.” (There, he, she, it, goes. It is Te Rangi Ahui—the name of the deceased.)

“Where?” asked the rest. “What have you seen?” “ I saw Te Rangi Ahui glide over your heads, and disappear into the brushwood yonder.”

In the high-strung state that most of their nerves were in, it was not to be wondered at that their whole attention centred around this temporarily insane creature’s hallucination. There were some who by silently pursuing their avocations ignored the new distraction. But the majority, and among them some inhumanly superstitious monsters, at once formed themselves into a sacred conclave, to investigate this vision. By this the sun had set, and they retired into (he house set apart for visitors. Presently my friend and host said: “Perhaps our pakeha guest has an opinion to offer. Friend, in what light do you view this matter? My desire is (hat your speech be without fear or shame, therefore speak.”

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“ In the first place, my friends,” I said, “ to believe in this vision, we must accept as an ascertained fact that a spirit is of the exact shape of the body which held it. Say, like what the cast-off shell of the crayfish is to the body which discarded it. Is this a proved fact? If so, where are the records? We must also believe that it wears clothes, and consequently that these clothes are necessary to its comfort. Then, again, we must assume that it cannot leave its habitat without them.”

This simple illustration completely staggered the faithful. They stared at me in a silence which made their hard breathing distinctly audible. “ But,” said one, “ granting that your inquiry be based on common-sense, and that there is no answer to it, what becomes of those many witnesses who have seen them? Shall we say that they lied? ”

“ Unquestionably,” I replied. “In ninety-seven cases out of a hundred, we can safely do that, and will not call them liars only, but criminal sensation-mongers; and the other three-hundredths—during a cessation of their normal brain functions—merely repeat a semblance of what they at some time have heard. This—as most sane people see it—is common sense.”

This sacrilegious confession made them speechless. Their breathing became stertorous. “ Remember,” I continued, “ I speak without shame or fear; even as you asked me to do. Do not feel hurt or angry.”

“ No,” said my host, “we are not angry; only stupefied at the thought that any man, looking at the accumulated pile of evidence, should be brave enough to ignore it. But answer me: Why should spirits not appear? Why should it be impossible to see them?”

“ I will answer your questions by others equally telling,” I replied. “Why should they appear? Where is the necessity? What use do they fill? Can you tell me of a truthful instance where they have caused amelioration of evil? Where they have taught a useful maxim? Where—instead of the ridiculous mutterings reported of them—they have—being in the great Presence—spoken a message of soothing, of healing, of help, of kindliness? Give an indication of the right way lo avoid this shoal, that quicksand, this pitfall, yonder temptation? Any token of truth? This, I ask of you, to answer me.”

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But they stared with the protuding eyes of stupid vacuity. This was a presentment of the matter which had never occurred to them. So they replied not; and only stared the harder.

“ As for the impossibility of seeing them,” I continued, “ that can be also satisfactorily dealt with. Stand outside on a clear night, and look up: What do you see?” “Stars,” one muttered. “And why do you see stars? ” “Because they are there, I suppose.” “ Your supposition is correct. Because they are there, and shut off the black beyond, you see them. As a common-sense corollary you will have to prove that your apparition is solid, and can shut off what is in the space beyond it. And this implies, that being solid, it must come to rest on this earth, where others can also see it. And further, because others cannot see it, it is not there. And, in short, the whole business has—as the pakeha says—not a leg to stand on. Why should a spirit appear with clothes on when they are not necessary? And how can they be necessary, when it has no use for them? Bah!”

“ But,” interposed one, whose writhing body showed the impending birth of an idea. “What about glass? It doesn’t shut off light, because you can see through it; and yet it is there.”

“ It does shut off light,” I said, “ or you couldn’t see it. If you are going to compare a spirit to glass I have you at once. Glass is solid. You can’t put a pane of glass through the wall of a house without leaving a hole to show where it passed through. So that won’t compare.”

“ Then you maintain that the woman just now didn’t see anything?”

“ Distinctly so. But I will charitably add, she is ill. She doesn’t know what she says, she is over-excited; her nervefunctions are disarranged. She ought to go home and take a soothing draught, and have a good night’s sleep. And, no doubt, if you don’t remind her of it, she will go through the remainder of her life and not remember a thing about it. These abominable deceptions have been handed down through the ages. They have been—among the pakehas—the foundation of a variegated assortment of religions. They have been the cause of most diabolical cruelties. They have been the parents of enough distress and horror to completely obliterate any good which may be laid to their credit.”

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Here they glared, transfigured with indignant surprise, and I expected some rough rejoinders. But they controlled their feelings, for a Maori has a strict sense of justice. They had invited me to speak fearlessly. They had delivered their hostages without demur at the conditions, so they now patiently endured the surrender. After a while their spokesman asked: “Does this sweeping condemnation apply to dreams also?” “Utterly, and completely,” I replied.

“Then what do make of this incident?” he asked. “It was when the Duke of Cornwall and his wife visited Rotorua, that I, and a great number of Maoris, also went to see what was to be seen. Now warnings were posted up: ‘Don’t go here, don’t go there.’ And I dreamt one night that in wandering about, I came to a spot which had no notice over it. Presently, the crust broke, and I fell through up to my armpits, into the hot mud, and woke up. The next day, as I and a companion went about to see the sights, we came to the place of my dream. So I called to my companion, who was in front of me: ‘Stop! that spot is dangerous,’ but he walked right on, and suddenly sank up to his armpits into the hot mud and scalding water. I helped him out with great difficulty, for the place was a scalding quagmire.”

Then he sat back, and regarded me with annihilating triumph. “ There, what do you say to that? ”

I looked round at the crowd, and asked: “ Has anyone else a premonitory dream to relate?” One said: “Yes, I know of one, and this is as it was told me,” But I held up my hand. “ I don’t want hearsay testimony.” And, turning to (he first speaker, asked: “Is that the only remarkable evidence?” “Yes,” he replied, “truly spoken, yes.” And I continued, “ You are a middle-aged man, and have dreamed hundreds of dreams, and only one came true? And there are millions of people in the world, and their dreams don’t come true. There is something wrong here. Why don’t they speak plainer when the chance comes? They are poor warders of their trust, to let the world go all wrong when they have those untold millions of opportunities to set things right. Has it never occurred to you, that there is a possibility of coincidence in these sparse chance contacts. And when they do occur how pitifully the glib lies flit about the tongue, to piece in the fragments to fit! And don’t bring in the Bible, or the Koran, or the Vedas, or any other authority.”

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Presently my host asked: “What, then, are dreams? If they are not manifestations and premonitions, what are they? ”

“ If you will have patience I will, to the best of my ability, explain to you what the present and only reliable authority— Science—tells us they are. Science tells us that the thoughts of all created beings having brains are particles of that brain in motion. These, when the body is awake, are directed by the wants and desires of the body, as implanted by Nature, and controlled by the nerve force—will. When the body sleeps, its wants and desires are blunted. But the motions of the brain particles never rest, never sleep, until they sleep in death. When the body has rested and is awake again, the old wants and desires resume command, just at the point where the body went to rest. If in the meantime the activity of the brain particles have been more than the nerve strain could bear, they leave their imprint there, and these are dreams.”

“Have you understood me!” I asked my host. “If I said yes, I should lie,” he replied, “ but I have felt the drift of your tide. To understand it I must know more, and think over it.” “ That is all I ask of you: to think. Don’t take what I, or anyone else, says. Use your common sense, and think.”

Evidences of manifestation forsooth! Let whosever willeth bring these reliable witnesses before any one of our respected stipendiary magistrates to know the value of their testimony! He will come out into the open air—wondering what has hit him—a sadder and a wiser man!

Truly, the magistrate when he sitteth on the Bench is a fearsome autocrat; for he regardeth neither gods, nor creeds, nor superstitions: and thy life, and my life, brother (and sister), is the happier for it.

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MORE MAORI SUPERSTITIONS—MAKUTU.

In consequence of several unmistakably expressed wishes that I would extend the subject of Maori superstitions, I have decided to add another article, and if possible give a yet clearer view of how they affected his inner life, and I think I can best do so by letting him speak for himself.

The other day I accepted an invitation to spend the evening with a native friend, whose intense patriotism and clinging to the faith of his ancestors it has been instructive and interesting to me to listen to- His preparations to receive me were simple but hearty, and the cheerful fire, of which he insisted my taking a generous share, contrasted with the raw, premonitory winter’s air outside; which sought and found convenient crevices and knot-holes to wail its eerie dirges in, gradually expanded an existing well-understood camaraderie into yet closer contact of comfortable friendship. Presently we drifted into a review of various national superstitions. Under the superficial impression that I spoke to one, who, like myself, regarded them as stupid relics of a dark and bygone age, I freely exposed their many-sided fallacies. He listened very patiently until I said: “ Otira hei aha i korerotia ai, kua taka ki muri?” (But why speak of them? They have fallen behind, or into disuse—of course among Europeans.)

At this he looked at me intently, and asked: “Are you sure of that? Do you speak from knowledge, or is this merely an opinion? For know,” he said with startling distinctness, pointing at himself, “ I believe in makutu. Why shouldn’t I? I have had personal evidences which it would be absolute madness to ignore, and which are of more value to me than the most eloquent refutations that could be brought before me. Listen: Three years ago a stranger entered at that gate outside, and inquired if a person, whom he named, lived near these parts. I said, ‘Yes; but come in, we are about to sit down; partake with us.’ While my wife was hurrying matters we filled in the interim with commonplace conversation. Presently he asked, ‘ Are you not the son of

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? ’ Wondering at this positive question, I answered cautiously, ‘ Yes. And who might you be that seem to be intimate with my name? ’ To which he replied, ‘lf you are, there is a debt extant, which is still unpaid, and I will take this opportunity to settle it.’ I was on the point of asking an explanation of this astounding announcement when my wife interrupted us with the word that the food was set out, and awaited consumption. Instead, however, of eating, he merely touched the meat and then the potatoes; and surreptitiously snipping a portion off each, he suddenly rose and went outside. Fearing I knew not what, I after a while followed on tip-toe; and, listening, heard snatches of an ancient witch karakia being muttered round the corner, wherein a ruru (morepork—athene Novae Zealandia) is the medium of destruction. So I tip-toed back, and whispered to my wife: ‘Beware, we are undone! the ruru has been invoked!’ Just then he returned, and, excusing himself on the score of no appetite, without greeting walked away. He was still visible, striding with hastening footsteps, when my wife suddenly fell over and screamed: ‘The ruru is tearing at my vitals! Oh, man, beside whom I have lain these many years, I am destroyed!’ I glanced up where my gun used to hang, but saw and remembered that I had lent it. Then I looked for my axe, when my wife, struggling in convulsions, rolled to my feet! Then the horror of our calamity grew upon me, and rushing out I called across the swamp to yonder village: ‘ If the man of skill (the tohunga) is with you, entreat him to come at once —a curse is ravaging my wife! ’ So we laid her in the creek, our tohunga chanting his invocations loudly the while. Suddenly she gasped and regaining her voice cried: ‘Oh, father of my children, the pain is leaving me; there, I am well again!’ ”

After a silence meant to permeate the density of my unbelief, he continued: "I note by the behaviour of your face that you see in me a liar, but friend l —am I correct in saying friend! —I lie not; there is my hand!”

Now I no more doubted him than I questioned his guileless, massive superstition. Which impression he confirmed when he continued: “O! the heart of revenge has no bowels of mercy! For four generations has the malignity of this feud lain impotent! For four generations has it sought a quiltancel All those years has the ruru sought its victim! Myself or those of my blood kin it could not touch. From the

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beginning of the feud we were protected by a charm of immunity which the tribal tohunga had pronounced on our lineal blood kin. So to appease the virulence of unsatisfied revenge it attacked the only vulnerable point—-my wife. Why did it not seek retaliation on the wives of other members of our kin? That forms part of the mystery which none dare explain! You say: ‘Simple fright, acting on a system predisposed to faith in the obscure?’ That neither is an answer. Listen:

“ In my younger days I was a soldier of the Queen, fighting for the white man, and because of my strength, knowledge of the country, and fidelity, I was selected to lead a company of while comrades into a wild district, where a brutal murderer had taken refuge. In a skirmish with the enemy, it was my fortune to be credited with the killing of a Maori noted for his rank and personal bravery. When the war was over, and we were disbanded, on my way home, night overtook me at an outlying public-house. During the evening a party of three natives (complete strangers to me) entered. After salutations and general small talk, one of them came near me and said: ‘Your name is . You are the person that shot my relative, . Therefore, I invoke the spirit of my ancestors to avenge this death,’ and plucking a hair from his head, and dropping it into the glass of beer which I was placing to my mouth, cried: ‘ This is my token; drink to thy death!’ Before I had realised what he had said and done, I had drunk the beer; but immediately vomited it up again; for remember that I am protected.

“ Now, I ask you, how did that man know that I was the person that shot his relative? Tell me that! For the same reason that the man with the ruru curse had identified me—they were both tohunga makutu!

“Again listen: When I arrived home, after the usual meeting again of long-absent friends, tangi was over, the tohunga of our tribe arose and said: ‘Hearken; I see a bush public-house; a traveller of our tribe sits in a room with a glass of beer before him on the table. Three strange Maoris enter. They greet and converse. One plucks a hair from his head and drops it into our tribesman’s glass, and says, “ This is my token, drink to thy death!” Our tribesman drinks and goes to the door and vomits it forth again. Friend, have I spoken truly?’ And I answered ‘Yes.’ ”

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Here my host paused, and, having thrown his hat at a cat peering into a saucepan of milk, demanded: “Explain to me these mysteries!” Had I replied: “These have but one translation —makutu,” he would have cried, “ Ina koia tera!” (Even so it is.) And our friendship would have been eternal! But as I love truth for its own sake, I regarded his fatuity with kindly and generous silence; which he presently broke in upon by leaning forward with closed eyes and saying dreamily; “These are gifts which the gods delivered to our ancestors, and with their death the inwardness of them has been lost. In those far-off days the life of the Maori was in constant and intimate correspondence with that which we can now only conceive of by severe introspection—and then not. Think of it —when the thunder rumbled in the sky it proclaimed that the gods were disputing, and the matter of that dispute could only be interpreted by the manner of the voices, varied by the condition of the hearer. For instance, the fishing party understood by it a violent altercation whether Maru, the sea-god, should not avenge some neglect of ceremony due to his dignity, which the protecting spell of the tohunga insisted must not be enforced. While the land party, watching for the appearance of Puanga, the star of the new season, if it thundered and stormed, took it as an omen of disaster for the coming year; speaking in its own proper voice, like a herald demanding the surrender of a fortified pa!”

“ How was it, my friend,” I asked, “ that these voices never spoke but of that which was repeilant and terrifying? Why did they not also advise how these threats might be avoided and rendered powerless, excepting by savage incantations, and an incomprehensible mass of impossible interventions? Teach a system of life behaviour which would neutralise these fearful imprecations?” “Because,” he answered, “the gods knew best. They made the Maori, his desires, his requirements, his fears, in fact, as he was: and beyond that we know nothing; and it is an impertinence to inquire. Is the pakeha a better man or woman because he is gratified with promises of repayment if he avoids evil and pursues that which is good? Not he! He acts as he is trained, modified by the desires of the moment; the same as the Maori. Why, Parliament is compelled to sit year after year to make laws to curb the intentions of the evil-doerl Were it not for this he would be infinitely worse than the Maori. But why follow these intricacies. They will not alter the fact that the pakeha with his system is no better than the Maori with his!”

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Yes, to him the traditions of his fathers are no mere legends, and no explanations, however practical, will persuade him that they are the emanation of a morbid imagination! He firmly believes that a noxious presence can be felt; that an actual molecular disturbance conveys a message through the intervening distance as between the pursuer and victim, and warns it of coming events; as when my friend’s visitor made the ambiguous declaration that a debt was still unpaid, instead of anticipating a benefit, “at once,” he said, “my thoughts apprehended the presence of danger, and my mind went back; Where have I or my forbears made ourselves liable for vengeance? And when he hesitated to join our meal, and acted in a strange, disconcerting manner, a foreboding whispered; ‘Beware of the stranger; his intentions are evill’ And when he went outside and I followed, I saw and heard what I undefinably expected: the air I breathed was laden with admonitions: ‘ Kia mohio; kia tupato, he tohunga makutul’ (Beware; be careful; he is a professor of witchcraft!) And, 10, when I examined the spot where he stood, my suspicions were justified; for there were the smears of the bits of pork and potatoes which he had carried out plastered against the house wall. And, to make doubly sure, he had, while coming into the house again, done the same to the door-posts at the entrance, so that none might escape of those who entered the house belonging to my kin! These were emblems inoculated with the virus of the ruru destruction; the avenging destroyer of his tribe, ever present in the ‘ takiwha ’ (space), to be invoked by those possessing the mana and requiring its assistance!”

I may here explain that Maori witchcraft was divided into three sections or systems—the national, represented by the ngarara; which as here applied, besides land monsters, meant cancer, horrible skin eruptions, scrofula, and wasting disease; and taniwha—sudden mysterious disappearance by, near, or in water—which might be invoked by anyone of the race having the mana; the antidote to which was known to all, but whose efficacy depended on special circumstances, too many to be enumerated here.

Secondly, the tribal—represented by either fish, worms, or birds; and, as in the case mentioned, by the rum, which remained the tribe’s special “ tohu ” (token), and to counteract the venom of which depended on the skill and mana of the victim’s tohunga.

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And, thirdly, the individual, which might be anything, from the glance of a malevolent eye to taking some earth out of the offender’s footprint and enclosing it in a quill, and plugging the open end, either burn it with a witch incantation, or take it to a waterfall, and, floating it down its cataract, send his victim to perdition! This could be practised by anyone, and might be operative or not as fate willed; and possessed the superlative charm of personal gratification of spite in secret! But woe betide him should that egregious ass the tohunga chance on him as the delinquent!

So I arrive at the conclusion, that, apart from the undeveloped gifts of hypnotism, animal magnetism, and undefined thought-transference, with which he was undoubtedly familiar; when his unscientific reasoning failed to penetrate these phenomena, he promptly relegated them to necromancy and withcraft; and instantly their obscurities vanished, and their interpretation thus established, what more was there to cavil at—and the Maori was happy!

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THE MAORI AS A WARRIOR.

I have attempted-—and, I think, within limits succeeded —to show that every act of this splendid sample of aboriginal races was the result of deep, though unconscious, emotions; in which vanity, pride, and curiosity, stood out in prominent relief; but none of these accentuated the national character as a love of and distinction in war. I cannot stop now to analyse the reason why it was so, excepting shortly to say that in its pursuit he found an outlet for his extraordinary vitality, until it became the absorbing craze of his existence; and that there might be no obstacle to the furtherance of this desire, he hemmed himself in with a series of dignities and observances, until his history is a cross-hatching of rights invaded, prerogatives affronted, and tapu desecrated, involving a muddle of feuds and vengeances which no one but an accomplished “ Kai whakapapa ” (genealogy tracer) could make plain!

The Maori took what his gods had provided for him with freedom and joyousness. Care for the morrow merely meant whetted expectations. He could sing his old-time songs by the winter fireside in the company of his family and friends, and repeat the deeds of long dead ancestors—or even enemy—with the pride of a just appreciation. He could sit in the council house; go on his birding and fishing expeditions; ceremoniously cultivate his kumara and hue patch; could watch his children at play, and be amused at their antics; listen to the trivialities, jokes, and discomfitures of the village butt. But he never for an instant forgot that in all, and above all, he represented in his present person his forefathers' repute of a warrior! Everything had to be subordinated to this passion. When he went abroad he instinctively carried his tomahawk with the handle gripped in his right hand. When on a ramble, and in a narrow path he met a stranger, instinctively also he stepped to the right, and to the higher ground, and inquired: “ Kowhai koe?” (who are you?), and the other replied: “ Ko ” (I am ), and if his errand were lawful, at once proceeded to describe his name, tribe, wherefrom, whereto, and business, courteously, and unabashed; for the “ tangata whenua ” (resident) took precedence on his own soil; and so sharply were road manners

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and mutual obligations defined, that it was the stranger who had to place himself above suspicion, and as a matter of good faith give a minute account of himself. Nevertheless, his every motion was watched; casual intonation subjected to mental criticism; every sentence dissected for possible subterfuges; no proposition accepted until the mind had inventoried its value. And why? Because he is a warrior; and at any moment may cast off his mat and defend his privileges. He may smile at a jest—he has decided that it is a jest ere he smiles he may laugh at a witticism he also favours innuendo at the expense of others—but his facial muscles are under such absolute control, that on the suspicion—however remote l —of an intent to soil the lordship of a freeman, then that laugh can change to derision, sarcastic doubt, or freeze on the instant into menace of vengeance!

To the Maori, war meant not merely subjugating an adversary—a mere love of slaughter; it was his “ tohu rangatira ” (emblem of lordship). It was his patent of manhood. I feel it my duty to emphasise this point, because a twaddly lot of nonsense has been written by superficial babblers, who cover their ignorance and walk away, thanking God that they are not as other men, or even as that “ bloodthirsty savage!” He loved a fight, and to fight a strong man. Avast the paltry glory of having vanquished a cripple! That my assertion is correct many instances can be adduced to prove: as in the case of the enemy whose ammunition was spent: The attack seeing the vigour of the defence abating, and learning the reason, instead of pressing home its advantage, called a halt, and sent over supplies from its own store, and sheepishly excused the generous act with: “ Kahore ano i kitea te kaha ” (his strength hath not been tested). And in another instance, the attack threw down its guns and called to the defenders: “ Rukea nga pu, kia rangona te papaki o te patu ” (cast away your guns, that the smack of the club may be heard).

Unless the cause of war were an insult so deadly that reprisal meant extermination, the plan of campaign would be so laid out that ambush, cover, and strategy were secondary advantages; and a battlefield would be chosen where the final victory depended on skill in the use of weapons, endurance, and individual bravery. To attain this, a plain free from streams and other impediments to personal encounter was preferred; where the opposing hosts could meet in full panoply of war dance, feathered crest, loin mat, quivering spear, distorted face, and defiant yell. This was glory! To die here

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in fair duel, that is what he left his home ties for! Should the fates extend to him their gracious consideration, and in their kindness permit him to lay a foe face dustwards, ere a swinging “ mere” sweep, or thrust of spear, bade him his last quietus take—this his cult taught him was his birthright, and his epitaph will be: “I mate parekura, i hinga i te patu a ” (he died on the battlefield, he fell by the weapon of ). For it matters not how swift and thick the blows are dealt and warriors fall, those pressing forward from the rear note every trick of skill, and kill, of parry, thrust and feint, to take the tidings to his kin, and be remembered ever more!

Before a war expedition was decided upon, many formalities had to be observed. Firstly, a meeting of bloodrelated tribes would be held in the council house to consider the offence. When its various gravities had been investigated and commented upon, the sense of its members had to be arrived at. This would be accomplished by each delivering his opinion in plain words, chanting a song bearing on the matter, or simply quoting a proverb. If one—or more-—remains silent, and covers his face with his mat, this is taken as a sign that he is related to the offender, and is therefore without blame absolved from taking part in the proceedings; neither will his silence be regarded as treason; because, as I have shown elsewhere, the Maori has no secrets, he wants to fight a fair battle and find the enemy prepared.

If the majority declare for war, the next act opens with the entrance on the stage of that living outrage the tohunga, who will on being consulted forthwith “ see ” visions and divine by dreams; and having a slight acquaintance with ventriloquism, pretend to hear voices in water calabashes; and as prosperous jugglery induces swelled head, prognosticate by omens, and foretell success if during the night he has “ takiri ” (nervous twitching) in the right big toe, and disaster if in the left; and having now reduced his hearers’ nerves to mere flabby tissue, his undeveloped knowledge of hypnotism here assists the finale to his wickedness; and they will arise from that conclave demons, prepared to attack the stronghold of Sheitan, instead of living the lives of happy, careless children of Nature!

Before the main army takes up the march, it is divided into sections. The first to move are the scouting parties, who take up positions in front and flank, detaching runners as they go to report progress. These are the young men on their first warpath, and in an agony of importance, until a sharp

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reprimand, or stinging sarcasm, reminds them that their vanity has been detected. Next come the rank and file, led and kept in order by their own chiefs as section leaders. Then sedate and stately, in deep commune, walk the lordly chiefs of the expedition. Grave, as becomes their responsibility: frequently submitting some obscure omen to the accompanying tohungas for plainer revelation; who, jealous of each other’s prestige, give curt and morose explanations, or in rapt mood await inspiration. Last of all, straggling, laden with food and their masters’ spare weapons, comes an army of slaves trudging wearily on; broken in spirit—brooding in sorrow maybe, at the strange ways of fate! Of the day when they too were ambitious, full-blooded warriors, dreaming of fame! Of the beautiful maidens to be won by the spear! Of the captives—ah, the captives! “ Kia riri te haere!” (be gritty in your stepping!) cries the gangman; and the lagging dreamer hitches his load to an easier balance, hastily swallows the pleasant cud of retrospection, and bends his back to the incline!

When word is brought in that the enemy’s outposts are in sight, the column halts, and the leaders hasten to the front to take observations; readjust alignments; and after a final consultation the advance is resumed, and continued until the space between them is reduced to voice distance. (I am relating an episode as described to me before the introduction of firearms.) As they approach each other, defiances are exchanged, which cease when the side having the largest heart of bravado sends out a single man, armed with a white rod, about six feet long, who walks up to the opposing host until within 50 yards, when he suddenly stoops, runs swiftly up to the front ranks, throws his rod with a whirring hiss into their midst, and instantly turns and runs back. This man is called “Te whero whero ” (the spear thrower or piercer), and is selected for this post as the fleetest runner of his army. It is a position of as much honour as is the leadership of a forlorn hope with us, and therefore greatly coveted; and his safe return is looked upon as an omen of success. Directly the other party sees him coming, they know what it means, and at once bring forward their swiftest runner, who stands ready and watches every motion of the advancing athlete, and the instant the rod leaves the thrower’s hands he leaps forward in chase. While this race is in progress, both cohorts resume their war dance, and cheer the contestants

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with the frenzy of maddened demons, and rushing together the melee begins.

If Te whero whero is not caught, he slips through his own ranks, or joins in the fray. But should his pursuer overtake him, he leaps on to his back, and clutching his hair jerks his head sideways, and by a dexterous twist breaks his neck. But if the pursuer fails, or falls down, he is disgraced, and to purge himself of his failure rushes blindly on to the spears waiting for him.

In the foregoing sketch I have briefly outlined an old-time Maori war party. To me, personally, war, and all connected therewith, is a revolting horror. I grant that Nature by an inscrutable law has appointed it as an arbiter of disputes. Also that its apologists claim that present-day warfare is conducted on lines which minimise its brutality; but this I contest, the claim is mere Pharisaical casuistry; as is also the covert sneer of “ bloodthirsty savage.” Which, I ask, is preferable, to kill with club or spear in a simple loin mat, during a well-contested trial of skill; or, in a spick uniform and white gloves, at a distance of three miles, by a lyddite shell, which shreds and scatters poor humanity so that a fly can only find the remnants? Therefore, I forbear to describe what followed when the opposing hosts met in butchery and holocaust!

But my readers may remember that in the older series of these articles I promised to explain the meaning of watching an enemy’s toes, and as its description instances a feint which is little, if at all known, I will give it here. It is this; The Maori had as many tricks in his spear exercises as an expert swordsman among us, and none was more dangerous than retiring three leaps, striking the end of his “ taiaha,” or “tewha tewha” in the earth, dropping on one knee within arm’s reach behind it, and staring at the ground beyond. For the unwary, hot in pursuit, seeing his foe beaten, rushes up, to suddenly get a clip on the point of the chin, when “ the subsequent proceedings interest him no more!” The cunning deceiver tempts his pursuer into the fatuity that he yields to superior attack. Instead of which, just as the vacuous stare seems the abjectness of humility, it is merely measuring the spot where the foot ought to land, and by the crooking of the toe, judges when the blow is rising before it descends, when instantly the weapon is snatched out; the same movement strikes upward in guard, slides along the descending weapon, and lands neatly on his opponent’s chin, and the tale is told!

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THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN.

A pew years ago a friend writing from America, sent me his impressions of a visit to the famous Lick Observatory, on Mount Hamilton, in California—of its giant telescope planted 4,029 feet above the sea; of that devoted band of men. Professor Holden and his scientific staff, who, in that cloudless altitude, nightly watch like silent sentinels, what is done in further space, and report to those below. Of his look into that cyclopean tube, and how what he saw there, lifted him away from this paltry globe, its kingdoms and its royalties, its pageantry and pride, its arrogance of creeds and castes; and compared to the majestic infinitudes which lay beyond the borderland of sight, how mean and finite seemed the mightiest concepts of man!

It was described in language befitting its exalted subject, and therefore I preserved it. The other evening in looking over notes and memoranda, the collection of years, I came upon it, and reading it in connection with the matter of the present article, saw in these his impressions a powerful parallel with those of the Maori, when he first beheld that marvellous apparition, the white man, and his ships. This sudden meeting face to face of two races, diverse in skinpigments, language, and customs —eliminate accessories—yet in stature, brain power, everything that makes for success in the struggle of existence equal, has been to me from earliest youth a continuous feast of thought—its vivid contrasts, surprises, and probable might-have-beens had their estates been exchanged; this brown man creating and engaged in the white man’s craft, and the white man, living the life of the brown! And knowing as I do that all values are comparative: I claim that the Maori was within limits correct, when he assumed that his wars, loves, customs, ceremonies, duties, coarse food, and clothing, rude housing and quaint domestic life, were the greatest upon earth! What did he know of other lands, but by vague legends telling him that he emigrated from a country remembered as “Hawaiki?” And as he had no written records to keep his annals pure, these

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even the ages have left a mystifying confusion of myth and reality, and whatever the conditions he may have left behind him, they were of little importance to his new surroundings, to which, with his talent for accommodation, he adapted himself with a matchless success.

And lo! one unheard-of day, a shark’s fln cut the rim of the horizon, and changed into a bird, and from a bird into a nameless something, which quickened his heart beats; and when this spectral visitor, with a menacing splash and roar, suddenly folded its wings, and turning its head windwards, rested, speech sought umbrage behind tree-boles and boulders; and when it further disgorged its contents on the beach, two-legged, and in all but skin shade and clothing like unto himself, his palpitating courage returned, and he cried; “What ho! there, brothers, approach, but with caution, for these are strangers of whom tradition is wordless.”

Now, this invader was a kindly, harmless creature, having journeyed across uncharted waters to ease him of a malady; for he ailed of an insidious cark, to learn the mystery of the seas; to investigate that which the moon, the stars, and the wise diurnal sun alone possessed the secret of; and if peradventure an island—or may be, continent-—might impede his further quest, to cartograph the same.

It followed, then, that this pious devotee should be gifted with a broad benevolence to all the varied creatures he might meet with in his wanderings; and to that design had filled his ship with pigs, and fowls, and seeds, and wares of pots, and cutlery of axe, and knife, and spade, and mercery of woven cloths of wool, and cotton fabrics dyed and bleached; eke trinketings of coloured glass—as beads (beloved of dusky maidens from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strands . All these, and the large heart of God’s own rectitude, he laid before watchful, deeply tattooed warriors, and said: “Friends, choose, and give to me, in equity thereof, such fresh foods as you may have most in store.” And interpreting his desire by that melodious volapuk sign language—the Maori crushed humbly to the earth, in an abandon of stupefaction, whispered hoarsely: “Approach, brothers, but with awe, for these be gods!”

Examined cursorily, there was nothing dramatic or novel in the meeting of these dissimilarly coloured races. When Captain Cook’s explorations of these southern waters brought

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him into contact with a people whose kindred he had not long before parted from in islands which bear his name to-day; and like the loyal savant he was, hoisted the Union Jack over his discoveries to preserve them for his King, he merely acted as the explorers of other nations had before him. Spain had centuries before thus enlarged her boundaries. What exalts, and singles it out for especial attention, is the class of coloured race he met. It was no ape-man, with a canine face angle, neither was it an emaciated remnant of decay— Terra del Fuegean, Australian, Negro, negroid in feature or mental development. It was like nothing in a coloured skin, and like life conditions on the face of this earth. It was what I have—feebly—endeavoured to describe in these articles —my friend, the Maori.

When I say feebly, I feel my limitations as a historian keenly. With the lapse of years, also, memory refuses to part with its treasures. The earlier wares are with difficulty extracted from accumulations, which time has piled upon them, and many incidents very pertinent to a full understanding of this illustrious episode, are either forgotten, or recur when the space has been filled with other matter. And, to be of value, memory must not wander into the realms of imagination; Truth asks for irrefutable facts. Fortunately my labours do not trench on dates or data, but rather the collecting and recording of that which has been ignored—or may be, not understood—by writers who have undertaken to write of the Maori.

In sorting over a large mass of notes and memories, I am perplexed in the selection of the narrative which shall include the best and most interesting impressions, because I have heard the descendants of so many repeat, with all the seeming of truth, heirlooms of family history, in which the distinction of seeing the face, and hearing the voice of Captain Cook, of honoured memory, was paraded as a jewel of price. I have seen pots and axes produced as corroborative testimony, whose shape spoke of their age, and the ornamentation which Time’s artist. Rust, had engraved thereon, appealed to justice, not mercy. Even as late as the other day I was jealously shown a “ patiti ” (tomahawk) which my sarcastic sniff hurriedly retired as too sacred an idol for the rude ways of the jiber, but which I certainly believe to be one of the edgewares which Captain Cook’s heart of pity generously distributed when he saw their clumsy axes of stone, and little

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dreamt to what uses they instantly chose to put them; and that their handiness for this use so captivated their admiration, that they immediately devised a special drill to so use them!

Perhaps it is because I knew him so intimately, and because his particular style left durable imprints, that I have decided that Kaha shall tell his tale:—

“My people came from Tauranga. My great grandfather, Toko, saw the first white man there, and looking at him, pondered gravely. ‘ Varlet!’ he cried to his slave one morning early. ‘ Again hast thou neglected to gather up the canoe skids. I hear the surf bashing them against the rocks! Arise 1 A repetition of the offence, and I will harry thy bowels with hunger!’ Suddenly the slave stood in the doorway and cried, ‘ Toko, come forth. A monster, the like eyes have not yet seen!’ But his words were indistinct, for the teeth of him clattered like pebbles when a light wind bloweth shoreward. ‘A monster, slave?’ But Toko, having quicker grasp of mere than words, arose and went forth, and looking seaward, made a shade of his hands, thus—- And truly it was even so! like a toroa (albatross) swimming with wings extended, rising for flight! So he ran fo the centre of the marae and cried loudly to the people yet sleeping, E pa e-—e —, te ao maarama e—e —’ (a call when a Muru party is being organised. It at once collects a large crowd, and means—friends, the world is alight). For in those days wonderful things happened freely, and no man might at any time cry, ‘Friend, thou 1 iest! ’ At once fheir weapons were laid to hand. The women and children sent into the *pa taua ’ (fortified pa), and preparations were made to leave our men unhampered to observe what might be moving; also that no man thereafter might say, ‘Kaitoa’ (syn.—serve you right), should the untoward come to pass, for who can war with the gods? Closer then came this marvel, frothing at the breast —of ferocity neither could there be a doubt. Did it not have two eyes, red with neglected desire? (hawse pipes). Suddenly one cried, ‘E pa, he waka ’ (Say, it’s a canoe). And strange, such was its magic, on the instant we saw in it that which we had overlooked before; just as one after much spying sees a pigeon, in what he took to be the sky, through a formation of leaves. Especially was this grounded on the understanding when it dropped its anchor. Ha! were there not ropes! Ho! were there not sails! But oh! of what

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number and fashion? And the sail-poles whose tops bumped against the clouds! All these new sights gave tough food for much chewing, various suggestion, and much wise contradiction. Were those men creeping like wood-lice from end to end of their craft? And what meaneth that one peering with a pole at his eye? Magic again, for one by one the sail-cloths vanish, and before the brain can form conceptions, nothing remaineth but a few cross sticks bulged in the middle. Ha! a spider! 10, the strings of its web! Brothers in the rear there be abundantly cautious, it is labouring in birth-throes! Look, one of its young now floats by its side; who can foretell of how many more? A smaller canoe and men—or what are they?—crowding into it; some working strange paddles; others firm in their seats like “ korora ” (penguins) awaiting the tide, and each with a rod between his knees. Watch, brothers, they are nearing towards us. Men are they, truly-—or belike them, bearing canoe balers on their heads! Their face-hide smooth, but their bodies cased in a skin of many coarse wrinklings!”

Before I continue Kaha’s tale of the consternation with which his race looked upon the irruption into his quaint and narrow life, of the white man and his ships, I wish to say that I did, and do still, believe those handed-down impressions to be perfectly reliable, for two reasons: The Maori as a narrator is a weaver, and be the threads of his weft and woof coarse or smooth, they will form part of the web as they are; he will neither clip nor snip, and every filament, no matter how fine, will be nimbly tucked in as he weaves to add to the ultimate strength of his cloth. But he likes not to weave while the customer waits. He is an artist who loves his work for the art he employs in its finish; and as highclass goods take time and much labour, he is happiest when he can weave at his leisure—by the fireside, when the distractions of daylight cease to worry. With an audience, then he expands and takes pride in his craft; for he knows that every eye is upon him, every ear a portal to limitless storerooms, where each ware will be avidly labelled and treasured. That, also, from thence they will be sacredly taken, as an exhibit to others, intact, neither augmented, diminished, nor damaged.

But this applies only to matters outside of the supernatural; directly he enters the domain of witchcraft, “ tipua ” (ghouls), “ patupaiarahe ” (fairy demons), dreams, or

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lohunga imbecilities, he becomes a fear-haunted, helpless perverter of truth! I know him, and my grief is that lam able to record this blemish to his discredit!

The other reason is that soon after Captain Cook came other strangers, identical with the first, who afforded valuable opportunities to correct false impressions, yet they did not so correct them, neither did the later comers’ guns, and rum, and nameless vices and horrors wane the brightness of “Kapene Kuki’s ” apparition; but it passed on to their descendants, and each generation repeated it word for word, with the same affectionate pride in the heart of the teller! And Kaha, being the last of his line, loyal and true to the trade of the Saga, shall here continue his tale:—

“ Now, our people were drunk with this day’s miraculous behaviour, but they were brave; may be the spirit was not as boastful as it was yesterday, yet while the vitals quaked the hand was sure of its grip; and suddenly one cried, ‘Me whakaoho ’ (startle them). So they ranged up and cried in a body, ‘Tu ke tawhitil’ (syn., Stand your distance). But when, unheeding, they drew yet closer, what can brave men do but retire for the better onrush? And when, furthermore, the man with pole at his eye waved a hand and cried ‘ Alofa outou ’ (kanaka greeting—love to you—which he had probably learnt in his cruise among their islands), at once the cry went up, ‘E tama ma he reo ’ —(Brothers, they speak!) And, when he leaped on to the dry land, and walking over to them, held out an empty hand for their inspection, our chief also stepped to the front, and their hands closed, and, as is our custom, presented his nose for the ‘ hongi ’ which the stranger, not understanding, ignored, and they whispered, ‘ Lo, verily these are strangers.’ When also—as is our beholden custom—our chief asked them their names, and where they came from, Kapene Kuki shook his head, and called in his own language to the people of his boat, whereupon two brought up a square block of wood and set it down at his feet, and now began a series of magic unheard of since the world was made; for, before one could moisten the lips, the block of wood lay open, and 10, it was hollow! Then, thrusting in his hand, he took therefrom a bright thing with a handle, and walking up to a sapling, with one blow laid it prone on the earth! Again he thrust in his hands, and brought forth a dazzling bright blade, which hurt the eyes

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to look upon, and when, with a sweep of the hand, three flaxblades fell, enough was acted to remove our presence to a safer distance.” (Here, for easier transcription, I shall follow his example, and instead of “ them ” say “ us ’’ and “ we.”) “ And yet again his hand brought forth a string of beads, which he hung around the neck of our chief, whose name was Toia, and laughed; whereupon we also laughed that thereby we might propitiate the goodwill of these strangers, whose intentions were visibly peaceful; but to the Maori, suspicion is a first line of defence, and elbow space an absolute necessity, therefore we stood aside speechless, for were not our eyes beholding that which not one of us had seen before? Then followed other treasures—blankets, red, blue, and grey, soft to the touch like the fluff of unfledged birds. All these were laid in a row, that the longing might be tempted, and when he beckoned to those which his understanding lit upon as chief men, and pointed from them to the goods, we moved yet further back, too deeply unworthy to receive gifts, in which-—who knew?—might lie germs of witchcraft and unknown possible evils; but when his roving eye saw a basket of kumara, and he laid his hands upon it, and again pointed to the goods, our blindness was fain to forsake us, and our custom of hospitality returning, the order was given: ‘ tahuna te haangi ’ (fire the oven). Even gods must be nourished!

“ But what shall be said of the ship? For truly nothing would satisfy his pleasure until he had selected five of our foremost men, in which my ancestor Toko had the honour of joining, to visit his terrible ship. At first fear whispered at one ear: ‘ Don’t! Beware!’ But curiosity beseeched into the other: ‘Be brave! Unravel this mystery! They carry no weapons, therefore trust them.’ Thus it is handed down to us that those who were left behind uttered the ‘ poroporo-aki ’ (farewell chant) and cried: ‘Go, go to the unknown deaths which await the intrepid explorers of the leap into darkness! Beware of enchantment!’ Now that we know, we laugh! but our people of those days saw, and many inward questionings bumped against their ribs. Thus is it handed down also that when they climbed the side of this wonderful canoe they felt like men scaling the face of a cliff; the which labour forbids spying beneathward. And as they walked hither and yonder on the firm white planks of the gently-swaying ship they

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forgot their fears, and burst forth into chants as: ‘ Oh! matchless art thou, stranger. Oh! satisfying are these beholdings, but the questions remaineth: From whence came you? Born in the waters? But no man may expect enlightenment! No human hands fashioned such marvels unaided!’

“So it was, wherever the eye rested; whatever hands touched; the brain sought in vain for plain words which would allay the continual thirst for an answer! Strange faces, strange voices, and those fearsome creations fastened up in pens; now we know them as pigs, but they, never tiring of watching these massive ‘ kiore ’ (native rats), only tailless, with snouts cut square off, called them grunters! Presently one biteth the other; even as a spear entering the brain pierceth the wail of the bitten!

“ When our friends returned to land unharmed, and told of all they had seen, that these were peaceable visitors, and that kumara, hue, and water could be exchanged for those magical goods,” said Kaha, “ at once our people became as those stricken with a sudden madness. Especially was the clamancy of our women beyond mortal endurance! The kumara stores were entered without ceremonial; canoes were launched, tardy slaves smacked with paddle blades, calls and orders flung to and fro, expectations discussed, caution advised by the trepidant, reassuring answers demanded of those who had seen and touched. Oh! the turmoil was indecent, and abated not until throats were hoarse, and runnels of sweat trickled from tireless hides! Presently the allseeing eye of Toia, the chief, detected some men strapping a mere to their hips, the which he instantly ordered to be laid aside, crying; ‘ Madmen! what avail will those be against the descendants of gods? There shall be neither threatening nor killing, lest we be utterly destroyed. Take heed!’ And truly was the wisdom of this warning made manifest by the consequent behaviour of the stranger; for when we came to the side of the ship the faces which peered at us exuded goodwill and pleasure; even several hands extended assistance to our women, who, like their sex, forthwith began to ogle and smirk at the men. Oh! the women!

“ Now, when all the baskets were inboard, and each man’s and woman’s neatly stacked apart in a row, Kapene Kuki again went round and offered his hand to show that it was empty of danger; then, bringing out his wares, he laid upon each

E

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basket either a knife, a string of beads, a hatchet, or three fish-hooks, each according to its size. On some stacks he laid a blanket; if it were the women’s, a shawl; but on every stack he laid an axe, a spade, and a pot. All went on orderly and in view of mutual esteem. Of talk there was none, for our eyes were domineered with the brilliancy and splendour of all things. The strangers stood in squads of three and four, stiff and upright, like watchful sentinels. From every hip there hung a scabbard, in which rested a long blade with a yellow handle, which one of our young men, impelled by a curiosity beyond control, slyly drew half-way out, but promptly replaced, being instantly struck blind with the deadly brightness thereof!

“ When these several matters had ended, and each party more than satisfied with the bounty which this generous man had bestowed upon us, all went to their goods and reverently examined each article; and here began a series of happenings which had nearly brought this glorious day to a disastrous close; and it arose in this wise: One man, remembering the sequence of the axe-swing as exhibited on shore, and impatient to try its effects likewise, went close to the mast and delivered a stroke at it! Barely had he rejoiced at the result than four powerful hands were laid upon him, and in great anger pointed to the damage he had wrought, which the misbegotten, taking as an assault on his person, turned on his assailants with the axe, which, missing its mark, came down on a bolthead, and parlously gashed the cutting edge. Just then Toia leaped into the fray, and prevented further disaster by rebuking his tribesman, and pointing to the broken axe edge, cried: ‘What did I warn you? These men are immune; 10, the act of thy folly. Now, silence, and listen: We have come in peace, let us depart in peace. Take heed!' When all had smoothed down again, the cook, —for report hath it that his clothes were unspeakably filthy—grew enraptured with the handsome face of one of our maidens, and coming softly up beside her, suddenly held a shining object (looking-glass) in front of her face, whereupon she screamed, and before a hand could intervene, leaped into the sea! which Kapene Kuki seeing, he strode up and smote the varlet in the face. This again might have enlarged into serious trouble, but with the smiles of the strangers, together with the fishing out of our maiden, the episode went by, and happiness was restored. And so we wandered to and fro, admiring this, and

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laboriously communing on that, as thus—pots, spades, axes, knives, blankets—a new world! Halt there, thou of insecure opinions, man made not these things; how could he? Tell me that?”

If Captain Cook’s discovery of these islands, their inhabitants, and the adding another volume to the literature of travel, flooded that brave navigator’s heart with enthusiastic delight, what feelings must the unexpected revelation that there were other life systems, of a higher standard than his own, have aroused in that of the Maori? For, as I have shown elsewhere, his sociology had, with passing of ages, crystallised into a block, whose surroundings were the mould from which it took its shape. And Captain Cook, with his attendants, being the first of the new races, everything they brought, and did, was subjected to that caustic and critical admiration in which the Maori triumphantly excels.

Said Kaha: “ The chief was as simple and curious as the ordinary tribesman. The master jostled with the slave. The chieftainess of high degree joined in the universal scramble to get the first and better view! And presently, when the first great dread had waned, and we saw that, though present knowledge failed of its reward, these people were kindlyminded, and that closer contact resulted in no injury, it was the fulness of happiness to stand near and look on. And the misgiving clamoured incessantly: Is this real? Presently we wondered; Are these men? Are they fashioned as we are? So, when they came ashore to fill their water-casks, it was suggested that, should one become detached from his party, to rush him into the bush, strip off his clothes, and examine him! But this our chief absolutely forbade. These strangers have trusted us; they have in all their behaviour dealt justly by us; therefore do not molest them. Who knoweth their power for vengeance? They offer no indignities to our women. Why, then, be they fashioned as we are, or not; leave them alone! And there was wisdom in this, as after events will prove. So they came and went in our midst at their pleasure.

“ Among their party was one who prowled about like a simpleton, picking up shells, and collecting flowers and shrubs. This, we said, is a tohunga; he is searching for herbs to make ‘ wairakau ” (herb water—medicine), and one of our people offered to show him the plants and barks we

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use to that end. Presently he came rushing back crying: ‘ Beware! he is a tohunga of no ordinary degree! Not flowers, and plants, and shells alone, but also stones! for he chippeth here, and he chippeth there, and examineth them with a movable eye, until his satchel is laden. What manner of medicine will this become?

“Not a moment of the day but had its surprises! First it was this, then that, and we followed them as the faithful dog followeth his master, and when they placed tubes in their mouths and smoke issued therefrom, we scampered to a safer distance; this our chief seeing, it became not his dignity to flee likewise, so he bravely drew up for closer inspection; but when the smoke issued also from the nose in two streaks, he stopped as one stricken by lightning! And when, further, one built up a mound of grass and sticks, and stooping over it with nothing apparently in his hands (convex lens?), and forthwith it crackled and blazed, he fled in terror to our tohunga, and cried: ‘Now, go thou and do likewise, for verily they are beshaming thy skill!”

“Presently the tidings spread: ‘Toia and his tribe have visitors from the gods! Oversea they came; no one knoweth from whence.’ Then began our tribulations; for our visiting kindred, hearing also that the strangers had presented our tribe with goods, such as eye had never seen before, that also they were peaceable and lavish with gifts, forthwith our village became a concourse of ravaging turbulence. And when Toia, as became the lord of his own district, clamoured for patience and order, and striding to and fro, warned and persuaded, saying: * They have come. Look seaward; there floateth their ship. They have traded with us, and where we gave one they repaid two and three. Nothing have they touched but the value was adjudged and laid before us! It were shame that they return and tell of this outrage!’ (It had been proposed to lake the ship and compel the white strangers to live among them.) ‘Beware! we have seen their white side, but even white hath a shadow of black! And who knoweth what a “ kiriwera ” (a person driven to extremities) will do to avenge his dishonour? We know not their means of defence! Go as sightseers, but take food in your hands, as an offering of peace; go and sate your bowels, but if you go I will go, too. And, listen: Leave your weapons behind.’

“ Thus spake Toia; and calling a secret council he and his men girded a mere beneath their mats; for they decided

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that come what may their pakeha friends should be protected, because now our hearts were swelled with an unbounded love for these strangers! Strangers! Nay, they had become in three days as the affectionate kin of a lifetime. Did they not pay an axe apiece for three long, straight saplings wherewithal to mend their sail poles? And did we not carry them down to the shore on our shoulders—an army under each—out of goodwill? What were those trees to us? Valueless! Nothing.

“Now, the curiosity of our kinsfolk was good. All curiosity is good; it showeth a yearning to be instructed. The greater the desire to unravel the intricate, the greater the wisdom to follow. So they launched the canoes; but Toia and Toko, and all our foremost men, were careful to be, and keep, in advance, that thereby they might get the ear of their white friends to be on their guard. This they did with laborious sign language; so when our kinsfolk drew near, each while man had shifted his scabbard to be within handier grip range; besides holding a spear with a blade whose brightness flickered like forked lightning (boarding pikes), and by Toia’s advice not more than one canoe load was to climb on board until the others had glutted their bowels and departed. Toia now took command, and gave orders as from Kuki—lies they were; what did he know of the white man’s language? He ordered here, and interpreted there; and all the while Kuki understood and smiled his approval. Then the jealousbegotten in their canoes demanded to know by what right Toia claimed ownership of precedence; so he whipped out his mere, and flashing it in their sight with a shrewd menace of deeds to come, answered: *By this!’ Then came the wheedling voice of entreaty, but he abated not the width of a nail paring —one canoe at a time and no morel Presently they all struck their paddles into the water for a defiant onrush; and Toia mutely asked of Kuki for a sign of his craft, which he instantly understood; for he took up a gun lying ready to hand, and pointing it at a passing seagull, suddenly a spit of fire, smoke, and a crash of thunder threw even Toia and his men down upon the deck; because Kuki did not wish to frighten his friends, therefore even we did not know of this terrible token. Suddenly Toia leaped to his feet, and waving a trembling hand towards the dead seagull, cried: ‘What did I warn you?’ But he spoke to the rear-parts of people now madly paddling shorewards, with cries most painfully urging undignified

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haste! Thus, it is reported that the fugitives stayed not to draw up their canoes; but with the roar of the white man’s destruction in their ears, incontinently took to the bush! Oh, the proceedings were masterful—delightful to have seen and afterwards boast of! And what before were mere strangers, then friends, were now beloved as blood-kin and brothers. For, it is said, had Kuki been so minded his skill could have fleetly destroyed us and not left a memory behind!

“ But the time drew near that these strangers must depart. And the desolate cry grew in our hearts: ‘They go, will they return?’ Truly little did we previse that these were the harbingers of decimation and sorrow; that they would darken the land like a ‘ pokai kuaka ’ (covey of snipe), that they would ask and receive; then, without asking, take. For we were deluded into thinking that they would live in our midst—not we in theirs—and disclose to us the secret of their magic, to delight us and our descendants for ever! This we thought, and were deceived; else we had done that which lielh at every man’s hand for self-defence! But who could strive against a benevolence like unto Kuki’s? Had those who came after him been like blooded and hearted, decimation and sorrow had never been dreamt of. For with our friends nothing went amiss! Never a cause for complaint! Each hour we knew each other better; and the growth of mutual esteem met like the waves of a cross tide, which embrace and pass on without apparent loss of momentum. They walked in our village; they sat at our hearths, and talked in a language which tickled the ears; and we answered them, neither knowing what the other said; yet the eyes left no sentence in doubt! So it became that the one we had jeered at for a gatherer of simples was indeed of unheard wisdom and skill, which we detected in this wise: A slave whom we had sent with him to carry his garbage fell from a tree, on which grew a plant which his companion’s fancy had coveted. Now, the fall was grievous, for in his descent he struck an outstanding branch, which staved in a rib. According to ancient and privileged custom, this entailed utu (payment). But by common consent it was waived; yet the pitying soul of this wandering stranger said with his eyes what his speech left obscure; so he patted, and probed, and painted, and bandaged; God knows where his multitudinous actions had ended, had the slave not ceased groaning, and at last slept in peace, of a powerful potion which this wonderful man had

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poured down his throat! But this was not all; he gave him two bags joined at their upper ends to sheathe his legs in—like unto those which he wore himself (trousers?) —which his master promptly estreated when the strangers had left; he was only a slave!

“ On one point only was Kuki deaf to all entreaty; he would not part with his guns; the which he made plainly understood, that unending sorrow would accrue to the community should one part become possessed of this deathdealing tool. Even of those hairy rascals shut up in pens he presented a male and female to our tribe, saying in sign language, by laying a row of pebbles beside her, that so many would they increase by careful nurture. Of seeds also he gave us abundance, which, when they grew, we did not know how to eat! And the last day of all he gave Toia another pot, and speaking vehemently, with much pointing at it, said: ‘Now go ashore.’ So we took that to be its name; for do we not call it at this distant day a ‘kohua?’ (corruption of ‘go ashore’). And thus it is handed down that before they stepped over the side they chanted this farewell song:—

“ ‘ From out of the sea came the white-featured strangers. From out of the sun strange faces, strange voices, and bewildering wonders. Return to the sea; behind the horizon, where the world has its ending. Go back to your kindred. Our thoughts and affections be in your keeping until you return!’ ”

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THE NEW ERA.

This was heralded by the arrival of Captain Cook, who, tradition says, comforted the natives, with whom he had established friendly intercourse, with the promise that either he or others of his race would return. On turning over the next page of the coming of the white man, what is the picture that meets the eye! Let us inspect it: Ever since the discovery that the Southern Pacific was the home of the whale tribe in all its variety, and that these islands lay in the route of their periodical migrations, ships flocking hither in pursuit found in our many bays and inlets a safe harbourage to provision and refit. For the whaleman’s life is severe and hazardous, and where further south—on the borders of the blustering south-westerly trades—the sperm whale wallows in search of his favourite squid, an abundant supply of fresh and nourishing food became an absolute necessity to the watchers for the “ there she blows,” zenith piercing, spume of the mighty cachalot I

It soon became apparent to the Maori that it was to his profit to encourage the pakeha, because here he could exchange his potatoes, kumara, and pigs for the coveted axe and blanket, and when he had acquired the taste, rum and tobacco; and found the prestige it conferred on the possessor •—muskets. In short, the general assortment of merchandise which became known as “ trade goods." To obtain these he laboured diligently. The ordinary house plot was enlarged; new lands cleared and cultivated. Greater care was expended to make his produce tempting. His pigs were fattened on “ kita kita ” (tubers too small for sale), for many captains were fastidious. He sought to harmonise his behaviour with the likings of his patrons, whose property aboard or ashore was held sacred, in so far as the detected thief was rebuked, and if possible the goods restored, or paid for. All these gratifying concomitants betokened a new era of mutual comfort to all; incomprehensible to argument may be, but present when the necessity arose to act.

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The whaleman might be lax in his morals, and give way to the traditional delights of the sailor on shore; but —and here I speak of the American—he sinned in moderation; for he came of Puritan stock—Boston, New Bedford, etc., whose sons took to this life for its adventure and hazard. Whose captains were often deeply religious, and filled the pulpit of some quiet Bethel when at home. Some even brought their wives with them, and left them ashore, until they returned from distant southern “ grounds.” It also happened that there were two-—maybe three—ships in port together, when an esprit de corps demanded of each to preserve the pride of their caste. This, together with the jeopardisation of their “ shore leave,” influenced their men to behave likewise.

But this is one side of the medallion; let us inspect the other. And here I beg my reader of his courtesy to pardon these digressions, and if he—or more exalted she—will kindly follow me, their necessity will become amazingly apparent.

Sydney and Hobart Town were the pioneers of the whaling and sealing industry in these waters; and so long as legitimate whalemen were procurable, a systematised, though rough, order prevailed. But the trade grew; more ships and capital were embarked in its prosecution, and more ships meant more men; the demand exceeded the supply. At that time Australia required all her young men to develop and build up new homes. Where were the men to come from? The Van Dieman’s Land of those days was a convict colony, the cover of whose inner life has been lifted by Marcus Clarke and others.

It followed then that here the door stood ajar, so that the ticket-of-leave man might evade an irksome police supervision; and the shipowner connived at his flight to make up the tale of his men! But this was not all. By deep byways and machinations, he aided the escape of those still in bondage. The pickpocket, the forger, the filthy-lived blasphemous blackguard, to whom decency was a football of ridicule, hereditytainted, crime-hardened outcasts. These were assisted to fly and man empty ships! Just imagine this flotsam of sheol let loose among a primitive race on the borderland of better days, a sharp people ever watching the incoming white man, with the legends of Kuki in their memory, who knew not of these newcomers’ past; to whom a pakeha was desirable, and welcome as such, and no prophet need rise to predict the result!

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It is obvious that the fact of their being escapees precluded a return to their or any port where a description of their person would be placarded. Therefore when they arrived here on their way to the whaling grounds, and saw the possibility of a life of freedom, even though it were among “savages” (more than savages themselves), such as could “ ran away.” And if he were a man of ability, and of passably presentable exterior, he had little difficulty in gaining the affections of some comely native maiden for a wife. But captains on the outward-bound trip took many precautions to prevent desertion; generally by anchoring far out in the stream, and keeping a double deck watch over the boats at night. On their return, however, especially when they had met with “ luck,” it required but little persuasion on the part of those desiring to land for the masters to see the wisdom of yielding, as it frequently meant their forfeiting half their “ lay,” or share, and was accompanied with the promise to join the ship when she returned on her next outward-bound shorthanded cruise.

Presently shipowners discovered that a double venture could be plied, by establishing what came to be known as “ bay whalers,” and utilising these self-expatriated escapees to work them; and as they were owned by the same firm, should one of their ships be only partially successful, she could fill up with the oil secured during her absence by the bay whaler. As these were the greatest—if not primary—factors in the demoralisation of the Maori, I will devote the remainder of this article to describe a bay whaling station, and how their demoralising influence came into action.

An old-time bay whaling station consisted—after a suitable locality had been decided upon.—of at least two boats, with their crews of six men each: The headsman, or mate, four ordinary oarsmen, and the harpooner, or “ boat-steerer,” who pulled the bow oar, and drove in the harpoon, and who, when the whale had been struck and “ fastened on,” went aft and steered the boat, while the mate took his place, and by repeated lance thrusts killed it. The shore equipment consisted principally of 11 trying out ” gear—two large try-pots of about 200 gallons capacity, in which the blubber was rendered down; a quantity of casks, mostly in staves; a rough “ caboose ” for the men, and a “ slop store,” which could be locked up securely, and contained all movable articles, as spare harpoons, whale-line (rope), paint, tools, rum, tobacco, and

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the all-important “ slop chest,” which was generally a row of shelving on which were stacked clothes and boots, from which the men drew their necessities, to be deducted from their “lay” at the end of the season. When the boats were “ out,” the whole paraphernalia was under the charge of the cooper, who, with the cook, represented the station, and were responsible for its safe guarding. The cooper’s duties lay not only in setting up casks, he was the handy-man of the party; he saw to the repairing of stove-in boats and other breakages—that is, where the regulation “ chips ” was not to be had. On the highest point of land, looking seaward, a “ lookout ” was stationed to signal that whales were in sight; and when the welcome call was heard or signalled, “ There she blows,” the usually lethargic loiterer was galvanised into action. And now the air is rent with blasphemous imprecations to hasten! The water keg is aboard; two bottles of rum, and the biscuit bag stowed in its locker, the signalman frantically semaphoring directions; and away they pull. (I could tell of the events to follow, because I have witnessed them, but they do not concern this article.) If the killing has been successful, and the laborious “ tow in ” accomplished, a thanksgiving orgy is begun which defies description. The rum keg is brought outside, the faucet turned on, and rum dispensed by the pannikin full. This will continue for a day and a night, at the end of which the keg disappears, and only a sobering-up nip is doled out to shaky hands and parched throats. Then the “cutting in” is begun; the huge slabs of fat are sliced and allowed to “ ripen ” in casks, with one head removed. When the last cask is full, the first is emptied into the try-pot, and the rendering down is commenced amid a pandemonium of language, interspersed with liquor and song. When the oil is safely headed up a “ harvest home ” debauch is inaugurated, which, compared to what has gone on before, is as light unto darkness, for here every decent instinct is spurned with an oath.

Near the station, probably not a mile away, stands the Maori pa; from which whenever a fish is being operated upon he will wander down to sate a curiosity which is his birthright; to hutch on his heels and watch, and comment; and when the orgy begins, to stare and think; and when the madness is at its zenith to wonder: “ Is this the creature I yearned for when Kuki sailed away? When he comforted me with the promise that some of his race would return, to teach us the

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secret of his magic.’ Presently his wife and children and sister also come along, to investigate this noise, and note the inscrutable customs of the white man! Just then a drunken madman staggers up to the staring audience, and in obscene jollity offers them his pannikin, which they smell at and refuse, then fearing unpleasantness, accept, and drink. The women also drink, even the children lick out the pannikin for the clinging remains. Presently they are all drunk; white men, brown men, wives, sisters, children, frenzied and senseless; yea, the very dogs add their quota of howls, in disgust; and only human flesh is needed to complete the ghoulish abhorrence. Shall I tell further of the bestial orgy? When the human is human no more; but unspeakably lower than the brute which sateth its instincts and departeth? I have decided not to. I will draw a cloth over the carrion, lest it offend the eye of the tender and pure.

Ohl ye whose cry is ever savage! savage! Who is the savage here? Who taught the Maori these horrible vices and customs? And the noble navigator’s promise, what of it? And the last handshake; the sob in the throat, and the brokenly uttered promise: My race shall come and teach you its magic!

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THE NEW ERA THAT FAILED.

From the hearty appreciation which my previous article has elicited, I am encouraged to further prove that it was the bay whaler’s reprobate life which first disturbed the faith of the Maori in the immaculacy of the white man; and that the reader may be entertained as well as instructed, I will describe a few incidents of how that faith was disturbed. But right here I must exempt from my denomination the head men, or “officers. ’ These were often respectable, experienced whalemen, w T ho lived apart from the men with their native wives, if they had any, and, provided the crew fulfilled their engagements, could not, from their peculiar position, exercise any further control over their private behaviour.

Although a lookout was constantly at his post, it might be weeks before a signal went up. The intervening time was either filled in with debauchery, or that mischief which Satan finds for idle hands to do. The standard rations supplied by the employing firm consisted of salt beef, biscuits, and rum. Often this stock was insufficient until the next came in; probably it would be varied with fish; but fish soon palls, and they sought to supplement the deficiency with pork. But as the pigs were owned by the Maoris, and had to be paid for, their hereditary instincts suggested “steal them!” And much of their off-time was spent in illicit pig-hunts, until the Maori discovered and stopped it. But the talent of the professional thief was not to be thwarted. And as the habit of the pig is to roam in the evening, he wandered down to investigate the scents which the sea breeze is wafting to the uplands, from the whale offal strewed along the shore. So he grunts happily along the narrow path which winds through (he scrub. Presently he stops, and sniffs. Hal someone has dropped a potato! A few steps further on another! and his appetite being now in a state of frantic anticipation, and without stopping to reason what this generosity may portend, he follows the tempting lead up to the pakeha gate. Ho! the gate is open! and just within it—what? Another? So he warily enters. Suddenly a lance with a 14ft. pole, snugly poised in a rest the height of his heart, is thrust through his

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body. A numbness creeps along his spine, and his muffled dying squeal scatters his followers in dismay.

Or, the meat barrel—buried in the corner of the cookhouse, flush with its earthen floor, and further hidden by a rough packing-case cupboard stood upon it—is depleted. So the previous decoy potato is again artfully sown along the path, only, the pig being now doubtful of that open gate, will not enter, but forages around with one eye on the danger zone, and finds what he is after. Suddenly there is a jerk at his jaw; the barb of a strong fish-hook grits into the roof of his mouth, and before he can decide to squeal, a two-legged phantom flits up, and the familiar lance stabs through his vitals, and all is still! No yelping of dogs, no prolonged outcry of pain, nor gunshot, to betray the iniquitous deed. And the Maori, missing his pigs one by one, disconsolately wanders the district with his feed basket, and calls, “ Po, po, po but its echo is all that returns.

At last he reflects and suspects, and grimly clutching his long-handled tomahawk, walks down to dissipate or verify his misgivings. Then he enters and says: “Brothers, of pigs I had so many (erecting his digits). Fly they cannot. Went they seawards the waves would return them. Where are they? If so be they lie in your bowels, deal fairly and tell me. If you do not, why, then I shall search!” Instantly willing assistance is rendered; doors are thrown ajar, chests unlocked, casks are overturned and tapped; yea, the very cupboard beneath which the stolen pork lies salted is open, for a bootless inspection! For the pigs have been flayed, and the skin carefully burned! Or they have been scalded in a sack, and scraped in it, and that also burned! Then a row of poorly-concealed winks look reproach. But to show that no ill-will lingers, the rum bottle is uncorked, and a libation of emollient poured out, which he hesitates to accept, for he has noted the winks. But rum is rum! and as he tilts back his head to drink, his glance falls on a lance hanging overhead, smeared with blood streaks, and hair clinging thereto, which the thieves have neglected to wipe. So he puts down the pannikin untasted, and with an accusing finger pointing at the testimony cried: “Brothers, you have deceived me; behold your guilt!” But there is no evidence to confirm it. The explanation lacks nothing of plausibility; so he murmurs and departs, confirmed in the knowledge that the white man can thieve, and cover his guilt with a lie!

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Every word of this is true, and happened just as I have told it. To the Maori in the early dawn, when the eyes blinked at the strange sunrise, this was a ruthless awakening! And it hurt, because he felt a protective affection for the pakeha who dwelt on his land; to acquire whom had been his pride and delight, and to retain him, he asked a mere trifle for rental. It was his fishing harbour and dry-curing ground which the pakeha had defiled with whale offal and lumbered with his outfit. Yet he bore his expulsion with no sign of impatience. He might have minor faults, but his own discounted their importance, until he doubted his honesty. Then the cry spread over the land: “Beware of the white man’s bay whaler; he is a sot, a thief, and a liar!”

Before the disfiguring miasma of deterioration left its indelible traces, everywhere handsome native women were common; and to the colour-blind in brown, whose tastes lay not in ant-waisted distortion of fashion, but health, strength, and a splendid physique, they represented a type to be admired and desired. Thus it came to pass that many a solitary pakeha, seeing these pleasant smiling maidens, cast his pride of race aside, and took one to his heart to cheer his lonely life. And she? Listen to her happy laugh. Watch her stately stride among her kin, conscious of her prize! Is she not a white man’s wife? Is he not her lawful lord? And she takes abundant care that he remains so! For, let her guess that other lips and other eyes are being mistaken for her own, no tigress doing battle for her young could exceed the terror of her wrath—on those other lips and eyes!

And who knows, when these social bans came among this rough, though pliant people, if not in some the light still glimmered? And seeing here maidens to their liking, and in wedding one began their lives anew, and thus redeemed a wasted past! But why ask? Are not their descendants with us this day, telling by their blameless lives that their sires had made atonement? And, pray, who is to be the first to cast a stone? And would that in every case the light had glimmered, then the following tragedy had never been written.

But first read this prelude:—There were many stations, 10 and 20 miles distant from native settlements, where the wiving problem presented difficulties not easy of solution, because the proprietary refused to recognise the necessity for temporary wives, or to allow extras for them; not because it involved a point of morality, but merely that of expense. And

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in a slack season the men could not provide for them out of their earnings. However, a pressure of circumstances might make it imperative that they should yield, as in the case with which I will close the present article.

It was a remote whaling and sealing station, consisting of a manager and the usual collection of fugitive rascaldom. Among which, a fish-blooded miscreant, known as “The Parson,” stood facile princeps, and who refused to stay unless he were supplied with a wife. An ordinary hand would have had the back of the boss for a reply. But this was no ordinary hand; he was the mechanic and necessary handyman of the outfit. He came of respectable parents, and had been educated for the Church; but his collegiate career ended by a prompt ejection for a disgraceful offence. From thence he fled to an uncle, who apprenticed him to his flourishing boatbuilding trade. Here, being a genius gone mad, his proficiency in the wood, iron, and sail-fitting departments, long before his indentures were cancelled, so delighted his uncle that the past was forgotten, and he proposed to make him a partner. But this was not to be, for, before the articles were prepared, he brutally assaulted and robbed his kindly old relative!

The next that we knew of him he was working in a Hobart Town chain gang, from which, with the assistance of the firm in whose employ we now find him, he escaped. The land on which the station stood belonged to a tribe which had recently been conquered by another, and many of the remnants were living in hiding. Among these were Tatai and Tenei, a young man and his wife and their three months’ old child, whose retreat lay a few miles distant from the station, to which they frequently came down to work, and be paid with such trifles as the rough generosity of the manager thought a fair quittance. It was on one of these visits that “The Parson’s” evil eye of desire fell on Tenei’s handsome face; coinoidently, also, he blasphemously threatened that if a wife were not promptly forthcoming he would leave, and at the same time suggested to the worried manager that as Tatai and Tenei were fugitives, it would be no impossible matter to kill Tatai and the child, and compel the wife to live with him. Such a soulless atrocity at first staggered the manager, but those were lawless days; might was right, if it could be exacted in secret. So the manager, rather than part with his boat-mender, whom he could not

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replace, replied; “ Oh! do as you like, only don’t bother me!” Now, it was Talai’s labour of love to rise in the morning, and while his wife yet slept to light the fire outside—for their breakwind hut was small. This the ghoul had discovered when he went to locate their hiding-place.

It was an early misty morning when the eye of a stealthy human tiger peered from his ambush, and parting the bushes gently laid his musket so that its aim covered the flax mat door of the hut, and waited! Presently it was pushed aside, and someone came out, looming largely in the low-lying fog, and stooped to dig out last night’s embers. Just then the mist tears fell from the leaves, and the tui and komako ceased from their song; for a deafening roar shook the earth, and a dagger of flame stabbed at space! And a huddle of brown lay face downwards, as in abject abasement of prayer! And the tiger, leaping in blood lust, paused not to glance, but rushed onward. Then he suddenly stopped as one struck in the face with a club, for there stood Tatai in the doorway with the bewildered stare of one just startled from his sleep! And the tiger baying the howl of his kindred fled into the bush! But Tatai, not yet understanding, wondered at the brown huddle and why it lay so still! Then he went to it and touched it, crying softly; “ Tenei, arise, be not afraid: it is I, Tatai, they husband!” Yet it moved not! Then he saw a red snake creeping along the ground, and as one smitten with an unknowable fear, he lifted her gently, when she seemed to fall apart! But it was only their child, shot through the heart, where she held it to her breast while she probed among the ashes, and that she might not grieve the merciful bullet had passed through its heart into her own!

And Tatai, forgetting that his people were vanquished and scattered, reverently covered up his dead, and fled to those who were even now hunting his kindred; and when he neared their outposts he called: “I surrender; but come ye and follow, that your eyes may rest on the deeds of the white man; then do as ye will with this body, for life is now worthless to me!”

The sequel is very interesting, but my space allows me only to add that in fleeing from Maori vengeance he and his mates took to a boat, and as they were hurrying to their doom—they were caught in a tide rip and drowned—the Maori stood on the shore and cried after them: “ There flieth the pakeha sot, the thief, the liar, and the slayer of women and children.” f

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ANOTHER ERA THAT FAILED.

I am nearing the end of my Journey, but there are yet a few wayside stations to be inspected, of which the arrival of the missionary is the next in order, and deserves more than a perfunctory notice. Before I proceed, however, I will pause to add my humble tribute of admiration to these followers of the Nazarene carpenter who, taking His command to carry neither scrip nor wallet literally, and looking up the vast bleak distance to be traversed—with its probable mischances of defeat and retreat—only gripped their staves the firmer, and cheerfully bent their backs to the toil, seeking no reward but this: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!”

But they failed! And why? The reasons are many; to explain them all would insist that hard truths should be spoken; and those which come within the pale of these articles must be told, or this writer would be remiss in his duty. That efforts to disturb a faith of ages should meet with opposition is to be expected; and when the Maori was suddenly taught a doctrine of peace and goodwill, his fundamental instinct, war, rose in rebellion. It passed his understanding. What! Let this and that raw sore heal without exacting utu for the wound! Pusillanimous proposal! To tell him further that slaying for pleasure conferred neither distinction nor honour, and that its proper name was murder, merely filled his soul with an indulgent contempt for the utterer of such palpable nonsense! Now, he had a so-called religion of his own. His gods, Papa, Rangi, Tane, and their creations, were entities which his limited grasp of the forces around him could comprehend and appreciate. But the preacher was a pakeha, and not to hurt the feelings of the strange hopeful enthusiast who dinned with a never-ceasing clamour at his ears, and in the intervals doctored his sick and comforted his ailing, he listened, and smiled, and departed to his fireside and friends, restocked with a store of excellent jokes! And when he yet further was told that through the disobedience of our common

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ancestors, Adam and Eve, sin came into the world, and their descendants inherited the curse of this sin, that in the sight of the Creator the desire was as culpable as the act, and that man thus born incurred eternal punishment unless he obtained a remission by faith in the propitiation of the Creator’s Son, he listened, amazed at such fatuous intricacies; and, after a vain enravelment, rose, and cried genially; “Ana pea,” and reflectively: “ Ko wai ka mohio!” (possibly, but who knows?)

Of these disquisitions, and memories of the early mission days, and what the Maori thought of them, I am indebted to a very intimate native friend, in whom the ancient beliefs still wrangled with the recent. He has gone to solve them, and I am at liberty to take his name. Said Hao: “In the beginning, when the apostles of the new theology told us, ‘ Lo, we bring you tidings of great joy,’ we expected great things, greater than any we knew of, and we gasped and said, * Ha, more novelties.’ Then came tales of inborn sin, and propitiation, which sounded as the babbling of infants which no one understands but their mothers. But we waited, and watched the preachers. Will their deeds coincide with their words? They did. Then the poor and weak-minded among us who had all to gain, and nothing to lose, joined in the new ‘karakia’ (ceremony). They were baptised, their names were entered in the books of the sect, they helped to build a house wherein the new God might be prayed to; they learnt to read books teeming with questions and answers. But to those who had tasted the happiness which cometh of rum and guns, the recent innovations were detestable, because these interfered with their pleasure. For this reason also they stood aside and exclaimed: ‘ Mawai e matakite te mutunga ’ (who shall foresee the end!)

“Of themselves, the preachers were noble men and women. To the weak and sorrowful they ministered without looking into the pig-yard. On the contrary, they paid for their wants, giving full measure in coin or barter. Even the scorner lifted a hastening foot to the mission gate when his child screamed of the colic, and was ashamed of his jeers until it was recovered. But when they essayed to condemn beliefs which had proved efficacious for ages, it hurt. When they said: ‘This is the truth; our book says so. Thou shall not steal, etc.,’ was it wrong to smile behind the hand and

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reply: ‘ Prevent it. You put a padlock on your door; it is merely a sign, which I can smash off with one blow. I, on the contrary, place a tapu upon mine, which can only be tampered with on pain of a horrible death. Your goods are safe so long as the coveter is barred by personal friendship, or the fear of a suffering in a hereafter which no one has yet seen. The effect of my tapu is instantly seen, and feared, whether I am present or away on a journey. Yet you condemn my tapu as a superstition. Now, which is the more reliable?’

“ Presently, came other doctrinemen, in strange garbs, and asked to be allowed a hearing. A hearing? ‘Why, certainly; speak your thoughts.’ And we cried: ‘Brothers, collect; here be more novelties.’ Now, these preachers said: ‘ We have come to lead you in the right path. Those who have hitherto taught you meant well, but their lessons must be forgotten; for they have defiled the wellsprings of life with their own misguided interpretations. Hear ye, therefore, the truth as explained by us, to whom all the secrets concerning this matter hath been revealed.’ So we watched their lives also; but no perceptible difference was discernible, excepting that some altogether eschewed women. But they all bought land, and built them stately houses, and despised the lowly and poor. They foregathered with our chiefs, they invited them to their tables, while the man with the ragged blanket had to fill his bowels in the cookhouse, on the leavings, with the menials.

“ Later on a rumour gained credence that while we knelt before the altar to pray the preacher cried: ‘Look not upon the things of this earth, but upward;’ and we looked upward. This was done with the intent that we should not see how, behind our backs, our lands were being appropriated by the ravenous incoming white trader. Then we neither attended at prayer, nor listened to the expounding of creeds, but ever alert to thwart the wiles of the schemer. Yet who could cope with the skill of smooth-tongued religion and the crafty beguilding of land-hungry cheats and imposters? Thence came the password, ‘ Kia mohio ’ (be wise-—cautious). Every incoming trader, every new sect, spoke at first softly, then louder, and louder, until the air trembled with strident and bitter revilings—one creed shouting this, another besmirching and bellowing that! So what could we do? If we forsook the faith of our fathers, which creed should we select and adopt?

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For they all spoke of •Truths,’ yet condemned the Truths of the other! And the end was that we sal on our heels and doubted the preaching of either!"

And here lielh the crux, my masters! The failure of betterment! The rift in the lute of brother to brother! Oh, the arrogance of it. where one layeth down lines and the other teareth them up! One goelh forth with bis bugle call, and another stoppeth the crowd, crying: * Haiti His the braying of an ass!’ Do ye know the harm ye have done?—ye that cry: “To me alone is given the gift to make plain; the rest are marauders, for they climb in through byways which I have forbidden!" Oh, the pity of it, lago, the pity of ill

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THE MAORI WOMAN.

That wonderful mechanical engineer and genius, the late Sir Joseph Whitworth, once said: “Show me the grindstone and hone of a shop, and I will tell you what sort of work it turns out.” Paraphrasing this, the expert biologist can predicate without error: “ Show me the mothers of a nation, and I will forecast the stamina of its children.” This applied to the subject under review is interesting, inasmuch as it places her in the very highest standard as a mother.

A woman’s proper function being maternity—whether she be while or brown—the mother of the one-time Maori gave visible evidence that her mission was no sinecure. It demanded of her health, strength, and virility. It required that her nature should meet all the stresses which her rude surroundings called upon her to bear. As a natural sequence, she transmitted these to her offspring. The race she produced and perpetuated, justified the injunction that her children should rise up and call her blessed.

In article form there is much that one must omit; there is also much which it is inadvisable to publish. This is a pity, for there are many incidents which could be adduced that her maternal superiority is not overstated; and as this is a record of her past, they would be of the highest value, not only to the student of comparative anthropology, but to every admirer of this once hardy and numerous people. So I will trace her history as I remember her, with such digressions as will make the subject entertaining. This section will open with the ancient custom of “ Tapui ” (betrothal at birth), of which I have personally witnessed three, and here mention the one which impressed me the most, and is fairly representative of a custom which has now fallen into desuetude.

True to her woman’s destiny of subjection, she met her first rebuff on the discovery of her sex at birth.

When Torea and his slave returned from the fishing ground the latter’s wife came down to the beach with her basket, to collect and clean the fish, and remarked: “The

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midwife has come; it is a daughter.” When Torea heard this he grunted morosely: “Ugh, mou mou te kai.” (Bah! food wasted.) Even Te Amo, the mother, knowing the desire of her lord, would have preferred to present the tribe with a worker, to worthily hand on the traditions of her ancestors. But what of it? Was not the disappointing little stranger flesh of her flesh? So she cuddled the potential atom closer to her heart, and, laying it at the feet of her kinsmen, said: “Despise it not. Some day two friends will part, and this thing be the reason why! Some day great deeds will be achieved; and all for love of this!” And so despite the father’s humiliated ambition, the incubus received the recognition due to a member of her house.

Now Torea, ever on the watch for advantage, went to the chum and friend of his youth, and said: “ Puke, since we last foregathered, a daughter has been born to me. I could have slain the brat, until I bethought me of thy son Tama. Shall we tapui (betroth) them, and thus continue the traditions of our friendship?”

And Puke, loving the playmate and sharer of the villainies of his unregenerate days, answered: “Yes. Let the living token be established. My son Tama (a child of 12 months) agrees through me to keep the friendship sacred.” And calling to his slave, cried: “ Varlet, make preparation to kill the ‘ kotipu ’ (pig with a broad girth mark round the body). But Torea, knowing what usage demanded from the proposer of such an alliance, replied; “Nay, my slave already has instructions to forward matters of ceremony; and thy mere formal approval shall be the signal that the day be appointed when our people may assemble to witness the deed. So let us say the day after next.”

When the feasting and gaiety had subsided, and we all lazily awaited the lining up of the poi maidens, Torea stood up, and, taking three kangaroo leaps along a space cleared for the purpose, yelled with ferocity: “Visitors, friends, and tribesmen—Puke is my friend! The tribe listens? Good! Puke has a son who is also my friend. The gods have sent me a daughter. What shall Ido with her?” (Here he took three earthrending leaps back.) “ I will give her to the son of my friend; they shall marry, and beget that which has been denied to me. Speak, Puke, that the tribe may hear.”

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Then Puke arose, and leaping three leaps along the space just vacated by Torea, glared at the audience, as if the supreme moment had arrived in which to show his undying hatred of Torea and all his connections, and shrieked: “Visitors, friends, and kinsmen, listen. Torea has spoken; he has laid the desire of his bowels before you, and (taking three leaps back), what he has said is correct in every detail; know all men this day that Tama is tapui to the daughter of that man (pointing at Torea with a threatening finger), to the daughter, whose name I now pronounce, * Hine Rerepo.’ ’’

Then Torea again arose, and having made the three prescribed leaps, howled, as if the sentiments just uttered met with his utmost condemnation: “All the circumambience, listen, Mine Rerepo, listen—From henceforth to the end, thy stream, and Tama’s stream, shall flow together, until they empty in the sea of death. Who shall divide the stream? Not thou, Hine Rerepo. So beware of the forbidden wink behind the hand; the desire of a wilful fancy; and the face of the beguiling stranger. Beware! beware! beware! Know all listeners assembled here, and yet to come, beware!”

Then Puke, leaping up like a geyser, howled a last despairing howl, sang a waiata, and ended thus: “Who shall divide the streams? Not thou, Tama. Listen, ye winds, and carry the message to every maiden in the land, ‘ Tama is betrothed.’ When the temptress whispers, ‘ Come this way,’ remember thou thy bond. When thy eyes would single out a handsome stranger’s face, remember thou thy bond; in all, through all, to the ‘ puwaha ’ (river’s mouth) of death, remember thou thy bond.”

All the foregoing sounds very ridiculous; but it must be remembered that they stood sponsors for their children. To them the ceremony was symbolical of an ancient rite, which, though intended to preclude future complications, was more often the direct cause of them, sometimes ending in bloodshed. Although tapui was common, many, for various reasons (as largeness of family), neglected to adopt it. In such cases the future as regards matrimony was allowed to develop itself, as matters might conduce; and the girl up to the age of eight or ten, lived the life of an unrestrained tomboy; got into mischief with the boys; went on mimic hunting and Ashing expeditions; and displayed the same talent for youthful enormities as the boys, and in the majority of instances exceeded them. But this could only happen where the family was small. Where

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the order to multiply and fill the earth had been implicitly complied with; woe betide the tender, forming backs, as they grew strong enough to waha, or pikau (carry) the baby. Then she could only be a spectator of games, in which she dared not participate; nevertheless, no more punctilious enforcer of rules and observances existed in the wide expanse of earth than this shrill-voiced, domineering, self-appointed umpire. Oh, the little palpitating heart! How it thumped with restrained eagerness to be in the thick of the frolic where it was gayest. Eh, now r , that high jump; she could have exceeded that and to spare, but for the monster clapped to her wearied little back

At about this age a thin attempt at education was begun, such as: Learning the various plaits in mat and basketmaking, together with other household duties, not great in themselves maybe, but leading on and up. Now, also, are sedulously practised, haka, and poi swinging; but these do not irk; oh, dear, no! On the contrary, it is recognised as far more exhausting to fetch a calabash of water from the creek, or collect a few dry twigs for the morning fire, than to rise from the early meal, and continue without intermission, say, four solid hours, to catch that eluding, cunning, overhand slap clap of the poi, which comes so fluently to her chum and instructress, and looks so bewitchingly graceful and easy! How the eyes watch, and the body strains, as the crucial instant approaches!—there!—so perilously near being caught, yet missed again. And her chum goes through the motions slowly: “ There, do you see it now? Oh! stupid—there!” Is there any sign of fatigue? Any pause for rest? Any discontented sigh of weariness? And so the time glides on, and the rhythm ebbs and flows, until the old folks sicken of the game, and cry in desperation: “ Ai whakamutua, kua turi turi aku taringa ite owha!” (Oh, end it, my ears are deafened with the weariness of it.) Ten solid hours! Happy days! happy youth! Why have the gods mislaid its recipe? An untold fortune awaits the finder of its hiding-place!

And so the intervening years glide by. The old growths droop and wither, supplanted by the ever new. Suddenly the grey of dawn gives place to the fuller glory of the rising sun; when the landscape changes; this looks brighter; yonder nearer. Left behind are the toils and tasks of the irksome lesson days. Who so cunning and skilful in the weaving of piu piu, korowai, fancy mats,

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fancy plaits, and household ploy as Te Aalarangi? (Peace of Day.) But the sun stands now at mid-heat, and all again grows indistinct. What is the mystery? What is it that throbs, and wells, and gambols so? Why does the song of bird and breeze lilt, and tell of something unexplained? Ask Peace of Day. Ask her why she is so impatient to suffer the painful operation of the “ kauae moko” (tattooed chin). Why does she pause so often near the placid pool, and study her reflection in its depths? Why does she frip and quirk her hair? Sing songs of sentiment, with deft allusion to that tender yearning of the heart, that mystery, which answers to the call of “ Aroha ” (love). Why does she wander (accidentally) where certain young men congregate to play at “ krieg spiel ” (war game), where one side yells “ kokiria” (charge), and the other answers, “ Whakahokia te riri!” (counter charge). And one by name of Hoera, as they meet, drops on one knee, trips up his opponent, clutches him by the topknot, and yells; “ Kiau te mataika” (syn., first blood)? Why does her heart dance and jubilate at the successful manoeuverer? Because it was Mr. Right showing her his skill, Hoera, crying: “This is the one—choose mel” Why does she chum up to and be so affectionate to his sister? Is the sister blind? Bless you, no! That is why she meets the attention half-way. She loves, and is proud of her stately, active, straight-limbed, handsome brother, newly tattooed by the best artist, the graceful blue lines of incurve and outcurve showing up rarely on the young brown skin. His wellpoised head jauntily decorated with a “ raukura ” (albatross feather). She knows that he also is given to wander (accidentally), and halting in the vicinity of Peace of Day, the fairest maiden of the tribe!

Has he not already made suspiciously incriminating inquiries of her; thrown out hints, and suggested just such a camaraderie as Peace of Day is so anxious to establish, tentatively, in much quavering fear: “ How will she take it?” Oh, the deplorable hypocrisies of this special age I Oh, the secrets and hiding of secrets, in the thought no one sees, that no one knows!

So they chum and charm, and laugh and practise songs and hakas, invent new intricacies of poi swinging, when the great presence is looking, with the unravelments thereof, the dexterities of Peace of Day I “ Say, Rangi, show them our last discovery.” And why all this to do? Because one loves a

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brother; and the other, also loves a brother! And when presently these preliminary ceremonies and subtleties, ending in oath-sacred confidences, are accepted and exchanged, they are supremely and idiotically happy.

One very prominent characteristic of the Maori is his ungovernable shrewdness and curiosity. Where there is no such a condition as privacy, or even a name for it; where children see and hear everything, and prudence is a mere form of speech, a secret is no secret long, unless preserved and covered with elaborate subterfuges. Thus, when two lovers wish to meet, an intermediary is an essential, without which it may not come to pass. To decoy the objectionably inquisitive, and beguile with games, news, and tale, those most likely to interfere, this is where the go-between exalts herself. Be sure that when a poi dance is suggested, and while the maidens are displaying their most captivating attitudes, one of them noiselessly glides outside; and another, to draw attention from the defection, puts extra zest into her actions; all this is prearranged; the one is hieing to a tryst, and the other covering her retreat.

In the case of my heroine, Peace of Day, the sister decidedly approves of the match. The parents may have other views for their son, of which she is ignorant, and those of Peace of Day be also wanderers in altitudes of unsettled choice; his sister, until the various elements have been weighed and classified, will be their true and loyal partisan. She will openly show preference and associate with her. She will in her absence laud her excellences, compare her advantageously to others, and detrimentally subject them to criticisms, not with malicious intent, but only that her protege may stand the fuller into prominence. She will scheme and plan (though she may have a case of her own on hand), and never rest until she has piloted her precious charges to their anchorage.

At length, when they have gently tapped at each other’s hearts, and inquired with much trepidation how the inmates fare, and have been assured by signals from the eyes that all is well, and further progress may be adventured on, Hoera will lay the matter before his parents (in the sister’s presence) thus: “What are your designs concerning me as to a wife?” and the father knowing by this that all matters of importance have not been disclosed, will reply: “It is true, oh, son. The subject is weighty; to relieve me, you maybe have taken part

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of the burden on yourself; therefore, speak further.” “Because,” Hoera will continue, “ Peace of Day is not objectionable to me, and my present inquiry denotes that if she appear so to you likewise, why, then, it is in my mind to provide a sleeping mat for her.”

It will be noticed that his statement is callous and businesslike. No meretricious ornamentation. No impassionate can’t-live-without-her declamation. He feels all this; it vibrates in his voice, but it becomes him not to lay it bare. Should there be no objection, the father will, while addressing the son, look at his wife and daughter, and say, “ It is well spoken, oh, son; very well spoken.” If the others also agree they will repeat his words, and the momentous interview will close.

On the morrow the mother and daughter will visit the parents, and Peace of Day having been warned of what is to the fore, will discreetly withdraw. Then the mother will minutely narrate last night’s episode; every word, gesture, and inflection having been reproduced, she will sit back and await the enemy’s plan of campaign. If here no opposition is intended, the reply will be, “ Kahore he whakautu atu, kei te pai.” (There is no rejoinder. It is well.) “ Call Peace of Day, someone.” When she arrives the whole case is exactly restated, and she is asked, “What are your thoughts? Do you agree?” But it would never do—however elated she might feel at the success of her heart’s desire—to proclaim it by agreeing too readily. So, having behaved with becoming maidenly reserve, she gravely answers, “It is well spoken; lam willing. I will tell him so.” And now they are practically married. No more eye signalling. No further need of an intermediary. And she can now devote her energies to assist her sister-in-law should she require her aid.

The foregoing case of Hoera and Te Aatarangi is a typical one, and is true in all its material details; because a similar instance happening of which I was an interested spectator, this was told to me as confirming testimony that these were the customs of a bygone age.

I have shown little as yet to indicate my contention that the Maori woman deserved hero-worship, or the distinction of a mother of nations. Nature’s operations follow the lines of least resistance, and in my estimation she did so here through the weaker sex—woman. The physiological why

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cannot be mentioned in this place; but the result of the mechanical was patent to all who became acquainted with this splendid specimen of the human race. The Maori was sent on his mission provided with no more efficient tool to cope with its difficulties than the “ toki panehe ” (stone axe). After the man had felled the trees, burnt away the brushwood and fern, and loosened the earth with his “ko ” (wooden spade), he reclined on his back in the shade, and took his lordly ease, while the woman had to stoop in the heat of the sun and plant the seed; to nurture and watch; to weed, to harvest, and carry the harvest home on her back. Which, nature seeing, was thereby moved to compassion, and in the wealth of her vast compensations whispered in the ear of the labouring woman: “I know that thy task is heavy and hard. Be patient; I will lessen thy toiling elsewhere. I will fashion and build up thy strength, that thy pains shall be light later on; for now—even now—as thy body is aching, and thy tendons in tension and weary, I will infuse in thy nerves, and the nerves of thy hope yet unborn, the vital blood of the virile and mighty. I will repay all thy toils, in the abundant content thou shall have in thy children.”

In all this work the maidens had to share until they left the parental roof, to start a brood of their own. I think I have now absolved myself from adverse criticism, and will return to those two- —Tama and Hine Rerepo, whom hereafter, for brevity, I shall designate as Hine. They also will curse or bless with others a senseless, soulless, interference with the clamours of the heart.

As soon as they could understood their parents’ language, they were informed, and it was impressed on them, that a bond existed which neither appeal nor tears could soften or relax. When Hine was the age of ten—a lanky scarecrow of legs and petticoat—Mrs. Blank, a kind and motherly settler’s wife, said to Torea: “Let your daughter come to me. She can go to school with my girls, and learn to sew and cook, instead of romping round with those untrained rascals, the boys.” “ Epai ana ” (good, how much you make pay?) Now, our mothers of the early struggles were not given to wiredrawn ambiguity. They measured up a vacancy by eye, and cut off a certain length of idea to fit—and it fitted. So she took the quantity of scorn and contempt she had meted for him, and banged it about his head with the pitiless precision of a just indignation, until he hastened to reply: “E pai ana, kaua ei riri ” (Good, be not angered), and so it was settled.

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When Mrs. Blank saw by the progress Hine made that her judgment had been justified, she persuaded him to let the child sleep there as well. (Here’s to the memory of the large hearts that now rest from their labours. Faithful hearts, who wrought without toll.) And, Hine, thou light-brown sprite of sunshine and laughter. Did it hurt at first, when the rasp cut off knobs here, and rough bark there? I know, dear, that it did, by the large-eyed surprise and desire to rebel! At—“ Wash your face and hands ” —“ Use your fork” —“ Put things down gently.” “ This is the way; now do it so.” Dost remember it all? And then that terrible agglomeration of hooks and crooks, that endless confusion of figures and learning to read? Yes, dear, often the weary brain sought surcease from turmoil, in a wild mad thought to leave it all and run away! Away to animal freedom; rollicking vagabond caring for nought! Back to thriftless larrikin life, haka, and poi!

One day she staggered Mrs. Blank with the inquiry: “ Can’t the pakeha be happy without all this fearful worry? What a strange people! Why, look at us! Let me go home again.” And the underlip shot out, and a teardrop flickered down her cheek! But this was where her patroness achieved, when others failed, for she gathered the incipient rebellion to her heart, and kissed her with a lingering kiss. (None of the brown came off, and soiled those holy lips!) And smoothed back the coarse black hair, and rocked her on her knees; and crooned an old-time lullaby until she fell asleep; then she carried her in her strong arms and laid her on her own bed, and gently covering her, fell on her knees and prayed these words: “Help me to succeed.” Hearken, ye thoughtless: of such are the corner-stones of Empire! Be these well and truly laid, the shocks of time and crime shall not prevail! Hearken, ye that suffer from carking truthache, and would regenerate the world by Act of Parliament, yet lay no corner stones; ye cry and roar, “prohibit” this and lock up that—but ye lay no corner stones!

And this was the reason that while she slept the angel of gratitude entered Hine’s soul. So when she awoke, she took the d’oyley from under the bedroom lamp, screwed it into a ball, and, seeking out her benefactress, recompensed her with a poi hakal Dear Hine—-child and heir of nature—-and what did thy mistress say and do? Only smiled and prayed again. “Help me in my duty, that I may succeed!”

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Are my readers aweary of this prattle? I would lay down my pen; but there is yet the ending, and into this Mrs. Blank entered with the same devotion in which her task. She knew that Hine and Tama were “ tapuid.” She knew also that nothing excepting actual flight and refusal to return would break the tie; and whichever side were the aggressor that side would heave up by the roots the sacred tree of friendship, and be the cause of a lifelong feud, together with subjecting his or her people to the dreaded custom of “ muru ” (reprisal). So she said in her simple, but massive faith: “ Why not prepare them both in such a manner that a mutual esteem be established between them at the outset; that they be so trained that they see in each qualities which the stranger has not, and so willingly abide by the text of their bond.” So she interested a neighbouring blacksmith in her scheme, and he agreeing, Tama became a duly-indentured apprentice. Oh, much could I tell of anecdotes, hopes, fear, and despair! How failure often preponderated to perplex and dishearten; how this and that went awry! How his master one day saw the last straw laid on because it amused Tama to fill the bellows, and pierce the leather with a redhot wire, and then hold his cheek in the stream of cold air from the puncture; and his master catching him in the act, and soundly cuffing him, Tama, in revenge, snatched up a scythe blade, rushed out and hamstrung a pet breeding sow, and then bolted! How his father having goodwill to the pakeha master, led him back with a flax string to his neck, and offered to pay for the pig! But who would bow to the storm when Mrs. Blank, having trust in her mission, cried: “Try once again!” And so it became that the master catching up the tints which guided his friend, forgave the lad and his debt of the sow. All this I have said, and more could I tell, not pertinent to the spirit of this article: how it all ended so complete a success. How they were married in pakeha style. How he went as a blacksmith for a short trip, on a whaler, to weld up harpoon shanks, and set up the gear. How, when the news came to the bay that his boat had been stove, and himself and two others drowned, Hine said: “The world is suddenly empty. Now I will lay down and follow him. I will lay down and die!’ And how that spirit of fatalism which none can explain, affected her, and she lay down and died!

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TOUCHING MAORI NAMES.

A name— what is a name? It is a symbol which represents an object, an arrangement of sounds condensed into a portable definition of what would otherwise be an unintelligible jargon of words—in short, whereby we differentiate one thing from another. There is, and could be, no language without this symbol, and the nearer it agrees with the thing represented, the more it appeals to the sense of euphony.

In my estimation, the Maori is pre-eminently gifted in the selection of suitable nomenclature. It comes to him like an inspiration; a moment’s hesitation, and the problem is solved. He meets a man—a pakeha for choice, women he generally passes by. He looks him over, and, if he be short, what so appropriate as “ Potopoto ” (short)? If he is tall and lean, what so simple as “ Koke ” (short for “ Pakikoke ”) ? If he be massive in girth, what so delicate as reference thereto as “ Puku ” (stomach) ? Should he have any notable oddity—as one eye—he must harbour no sinister afterthought when addressed as “ Karutahi ” (the one-eyed). Should one ear lie closer to the head than the other, this peculiarity would invite the distinction of “ Taringamutu ” (the crop-eared). If his nose should wander from the beaten track and turn retrousse, he must exalt above his fellow men as “ Hongi Kai ” (food-smeller). Should he have a deformed foot, his other name would be ignored in the beauty and brevity of “ Hape ” (the limper). An imperially Roman nose must bow to the servitude of “ Ngutu Kaka ” (kaka’s beak). And so on. The more bizarre the comparison the more it is relished by them and of glory to the inventor.

The Maori thrills with joy when a new name is being discussed as suitable to some particular happening of importance to himself. If a child during a severe ilness should, in its delirium, babble one word, and die, that word or sentence will be bestowed in loving memory on the relative who has shown the greatest anxiety and sorrow at its sufferings. The same will also occur to fasten a reproach on, say, a father, who has neglected anything which might have relieved it. I

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knew of one who, when returning with medicine from the doctor, on passing a public house, got drunk, and went to sleep on the road. In his absence the child died, and the stigma of the offence clung to him in “Haurangi” (drunk). But he proved his penitence by accepting the reproof in a spirit of expiation as quite proper.

Any occurrence whatsoever, if it can be made commemorative of an event of importance, will be pounced upon and utilised, as in this instance;-

Two brothers lived in an isolated whare. One went for a backload of firewood and left his brother, a paralytic at home. Before he came back, the poor cripple had, in attempting to drive away a pig, which was rooting at the wall of the house outside, fallen into a fire. When the woodman neared the house a smell as of burning flesh met him, and his first thought was: “Some kindly neighbour is roasting a piece of pork for my brother; it smells just like pakapaka (cracklings).” As he passed he glanced inside to see who the good Samaritan might be, when he saw, to his horror, that it was his brother’s arm, lying across the live embers. And “ Pakapaka ” was bestowed on him, and is borne by one of his children to this day. Thus names, however absurd they may appear to us, to them stand as emblems that the memory of their forbears are kept green and sacred. Not only are names given to the living; but as soon as one dies his or her name will be passed on to the next nearest relation, providing he or she does not object, which, unless there be cogent reasons, is seldom done.

This custom of altering names would, and does, cause interminable complexities; they know this, therefore such a common name as “ Rangi ” is prefixed with: Aa-ta-rangi (Peace of Day), Tua-o-Rangi (bygone days), or affixed, as Rangiua (rainy day), Rangi-kauhoe (the swimmer). And so on, ad infinitum; to the pakeha a cul de sac, but to the Maori and his intolerable curiosity and memory, plain as the highway to eternity.

With us the perpetuation of family lineage is secured by a taproot surname, so that no matter how many branchlets may radiate from the parent stem the surname at once establishes their identity in the male line. Certainly, the female line might cause some heterogeny were it not for the parish register. The Maori having no register, still further obscures o

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his derivation by the senseless habit of changing his name when the idiotic fancy impels him. In the past the unit was of less importance than the tribe, and the ordinary man only became notable through distinctions acquired by his personal valour. Hereditary chieftainships held a place of their own, and these being comparatively few, their genealogy caused less diligence to trace.

Some names have their origin in scenes of very tender sentiment, and others in most gruesome pathos. One of the former reminds me of a phase of their character which is not known to the pakeha, and barely recognised by themselves, viz., a yearning, affectionate remembrance of past thoughts and emotions, which they call “ Aroha whakamuri ” (yearnings of the past). The simple incident was this:—

I once came on a middle-aged woman, sitting beside an over-shadowed pool, into which she gazed with mournful, abstracted intentness. She seemed quite undisturbed at my presence, and when I innocently asked her: “E aha to wawata?” (What is the subject of your reverie?) she laid her head caressingly on her arm and said: “Thoughts come and go. Time was—long ago—when I was young, and fancies played their truant pranks there—as listen to the breeze! One day it found a tree, with two wormholes side by side. First it blew into one hole—that was too large and loud. So it shook its head and tried the other—that was too small and shrill. Then it considered, and said: “Ha, I will blow into both at once I’ and the sound pleased its ear. So it sang, sometimes loud and sometimes low. It was by this pool; and. 10, who should come this way, attracted by the South wind’s song, but my beloved! Then we stood and listened, and when the song was ended he gave in love to me my present name, Tangi Hau (wind melody). Often have they pressed on me to change it; but I only answer; ‘ Give me back my man and you can take the name.’ To-day my sadness drew me here, hoping to hear it, and, through it, his voice once again. But since that time—like my beloved—the tree has fallen, and the melody is ended. Auee! (Ah, me!)’

“ You have a sad and painful reverie,” I said, “ but its sentiment is beautiful.” And I respectfully withdrew.

The other incident was pathetic, though it bordered on a tragedy. I was coming home from an inspection of our ewe paddocks, and, in passing a copse of young timber, I heard a

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crisp rustle in one tree. Thinking it might be a bull polishing his horns against a sapling, I moved on; but suddenly remembering that there were no cattle there, I investigated, and found a young woman hanging by the neck. I had barely resuscitated her when her mother came crashing through the scrub, having tracked her thither; and when she saw the severed “ kawe ” (carrying sling), she took in the situation at once, and cried; “Oh, my new kawe!” As a memento of her folly, this lovesick, jealous girl had to bear the disgraceful “ Kawe ” for years, and one of her children, without suspecting either the reason or her mother’s almost tragedy, hands on the name!

So, as I said before, there is no circumstance or position too romantic, grotesque, or horrible to debar it the honour of conferring a name.

There is no such thing as empiric nomenclature with them. Every name has a well-defined cause for its adoption, though the majority have lost their significance and origin, there being very few remaining who, as in past times, held the honoured and envied office of “ Kai whakapapa ” (syn., public registrar). The which to properly fill required a special gift and constant practice, because form demanded that the recital should be delivered without mistake or hesitating repetition. Should such a misfortune occur, it would at once be regarded as an omen of evil, and a disgrace to the reciter. To be able to detail the minutest act or incident in the prescribed style touched their highest standard of oratory.

But all these accomplishments are now forgotten and neglected for the superior distractions the pakeha offers for their reception. The horse-racing swindle, the card-sharping vice, the football atrocity, gambling in all its corrupting varieties—these now sit in the seat of the ancient deification of deeds of valour, contempt of death, and fearless assertion that the strength of arm was the mightiest lord of all. Who knows? The white man’s innovations may be, after all, the more ennobling of the two! The higher aims of life! The necessary adjuncts to a rising people! Perhaps, in my crippled view of these national institutions, I overlook the fact that they have replaced for betterment all that makes for the development of muscle, stature, and the stamina which buildeth up a race, like unto the Genesis of Rome in the glory of her youth.

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Perhaps, in my inability to see beyond the length of my nose, I miss the beauties of gambling, lying, over-reaching, fraudulent speculation, vapid arrogance of caste, and the frivolous inanities of conventional pomp and pride of life!

The Maori delights in abbreviations. A mother will watch for some peculiarity in her child. It may be a shade darker than the others; then she will croon lovingly into its ear: “ Cling closer, thou little ‘ mangu mangu ’ (darkey),” and if it return the hug “ Mangu ” will be its pet endearment name until its third or fourth year. Or it may be a tinier mite than usual, and in a gush of affectionate abandon she will talk to it in a gibberish common to mothers since the world began, and say: “ Oh, thou infinitesimal wedge of humanity, let me whisper the secret why I could not live without thee, ‘ noki-noki ’ (smallest) of my life.” And the brown mass of pleated adipose will stare inanely, and stuff its fists where food was only meant to pass. Then “ Noki ”is its mother’s pride. Or it may be deformed. Will that decrease her loving sympathy? Or let it be clubfooted; the father may glare his disapproval, but the mother will hide the calamitous foot in the folds, of delicate solicitude. Yet, for all that, “ Hape ” will cling to it for life. And so the mother’s skin is black, or brown, or white, or any shade between; but the mother’s love is white.

Spite and revenge against an enemy in private life is an unknown sin; and the Maori never descends to the lower depths of calumniating him by calling him out of his due and proper name. And why? Because it would not conform with his dignity as a ■warrior to belittle a foe whom he ambitiously hopes to meet in open battle and defeat. On the contrary, it is his policy to exalt his prowess, and speak of him with respectful admiration. Where would be the fame of having vanquished the hump-back, the thumbless, the one-eyed? Perish the debasing comparison! Rather let him be the spear-thrower; the artist in the understroke; the spring which leaps into the spot where carnage is the gayest; the arm that beats the common foe aside with the flat face of his mere, to preserve the keener edge for him, the enemy, who is also searching with eagle eye to meet the bravest of the brave!

THE HAANGI (NATIVE OVEN).

lot

THE HAANGI—(NATIVE OVEN).

As we look down the vista of years, we see, as it were, a broad, distinct highway, extending to the farthest limit of vision—and beyond. Strewn along in indiscriminate confusion lie relics of the past, a motley wreckage, each of which having served its use and time, has silently fallen out of line. Some, if we look closely, we shall recognise as tried and faithful servitors, whom, after years of patient drudgery, we had regretfully to cast aside. Our hearts may have saddened; we may have longed to help the decrepit retainer yet a little further on his way; but adamantine-bowelled Progress wots not of languid sentiment, and will not bide. So we stifle our indignant thoughts, waft back a parting sigh, and keep our place in line.

It is of one of these relics I would speak. To the old colonial stager there may be nothing novel in a description of the simplest and most ancient cooking known to man. And I call on him by these presents to avow whether in all his after life he has tasted any food so delicate and good as that cooked in the Maori oven, the haangi? I have from time to time been asked by several its proper name, and how it is made. In the hope that it may prove interesting I hereby answer all.

“ Coppa Maori,” “ Maori oven,” etc.—these are the slang names given by those who know no better. By the natives it is called an “ Umu ” and universally a “ Haangi." To make a successful “ haangi,” three requisites must be provided, viz., wood, stone, and water. Having these to hand, the native cook proceeds in this wise:—First, she looks at the bulk of the raw food and the company to be fed. Having judged of the size required she scoops out a circular hole (generally three feet wide and one foot deep), and, having smoothed out the bottom of the hole, and piled the loose earth round the rim, fills it up with wood, neatly stacked, which she lights, and when it burns she reaches for her basket of stones—of a size from a goose’s egg to that of a man’s fist. She empties

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these on the burning wood, taking care that they will all be heated. Having satisfied herself that all is well, she will leave the fire to burn itself out, and, if the food is not already prepared, will now turn her attention to scrape the potatoes or other tubers, and gather fern and flax leaves, if away from home. If at home she will have several mats ready plaited, as also a “ parepare,” i.e., a couple of thick ropes made of twisted grass, long enough to encircle her oven. All this preparation will be made some distance away from the fire, for, unless the stones have been used before, and even then, they will explode, and perhaps find mark the archer little meant. When the fire has burned down she will take out all the unburned wood, and with a light pole lay the stones in a neat pavement around the hole. Now, taking a casual glance to see that everything is to her hands, she will smartly place her rope of twisted grass in position round the rim, quickly splash water over the stones, pour in half the potatoes, roughly smooth them down, put in her pork, pigeon, eels, fish, or whatever she has, pour on the remainder of her tubers, pack round the edge any oddments, pumpkin, etc., vegetables, such as thistle, or native cabbage, another splash or two of water, on with several mats, generally worn-out baskets, over all a large mat, made of split flax blades, plaited close, and over the whole will be covered the loose soil dug out of the hole. It has taken longer time to write than a smart wahine, experienced in every detail, would have taken to do it. Fine judgment, quick action, and having everything to hand, are necessary to be an accomplished haangi-builder. Your eyes are of little use, because the rising, hissing steam is over all. When the haangi is ready to be opened (in from one to two hours) two women—one on each side-—will take hold of the overlapping edges of the topmost mat and lift it, earth and all, off carefully; the remaining covers are also dexterously flicked aside, and when the steam has drifted away—there you are! All so dry and mellow and clean, with just the faintest suspicion of roast in flavour that rises; not like the sodden wreckage fished out of a pot, clinging with grease and scum and horror for ever and ever.

THE HAANGI (NATIVE OVEN).

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IN PRAISE OF THE HAANGI.

The pioneer men of my country,

The hardy and hearty explorer,

Keen to the front in all danger,

In thew and in muscle to conquer

The pathless dominions of Nature,

Shall sing me a song of the haangi.

The camp-fire shone lurid around us,

But showed only eyes staring moody

At wallets since noonday depleted

Of food which many a house-dog

Would sniff at in scorn and contumely.

We gazed at each other in sadness,

At the gaunt, hairy features still human:

Though the teeth, like the fangs of a tiger,

Worked truculent, hungry, and vicious.

But hope, like the gems of the Caliph,

Shone bright, though the eyes were aweary.

Some stupid, inquisitive weka,

~ Some guilelessly staring wood pigeon,

Some stridently frolicsome kaka

Would surely appear to be shot at

With the earliest dawn of the morrow.

So we heaped more wood on the camp-fire,

And laid us down hungry and hopeful.

To dream of Gargantuan banquets.

Yet at dawn we rose stiffly and grumpy,

Not a pleasant good cheer in our greeting,

But we each took his swag and departed,

Like ghosts of the night through the forest.

Not more than two miles had we covered

When we came to a native encampment,

Enlivened by wahine chatter,

Preparing a bounteous haangi.

And when these wild children of Nature

Saw famished and road-weary strangers

They straightway cried loudly their welcome

To enter and share in their comforts.

So we sat or reclined at our leisure,

Narrating in broken-sign language

Our mishaps and sore-footed travel.

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“ At last the recital was ended,

And our thoughts wandered truant at guessing

What might not the oven now harbour—

Was it pigeon, potatoes, and puha?

Potatoes and pork—mayhap taro?

Mayhap kumara, hue, and tuna?

And all of celestial savour

When baked that the flavours commingle,

As they do in the oven, the haangi.

“ But presently wafting to us-ward.

An insidious fragrance pervaded,

Distending our nostrils anticipant

No longer we ogled the maidens,

But gazed with the view of a painter

At a vision no artist might venture:

For when the last cover was lifted.

Like a mayor unveiling a statue,

And the beauteous craft of the artist

Stands forth in its marvellous grandeur, And IL rt nnnnln in a a

And the people in reverence uncover.

“ Thus we silently greeted the haangi,

That stratified miniature mountain.

Potatoes and tui alternate,

The eye sought in vain to discover

Which of the strata was tui

And which that most genial tuber.

The apex built up like a steeple.

With milk-corn of daintiest yellow,

And the base bordered neatly with hue,

Whose salmon tints peeping through puha:

Like a maiden at eventide trysting,

Awaiting the loved one in coyness;

Pretending to hide in the bushes,

Yet blushingly, happily peering,

To note if the ruse were detected.”

Now my song of the haangi is ended,

But as long as my memory lasteth,

And as often the palate grows dainty,

That feast and its old-time surroundings

Will remain as a landmark, a mentor

To remind me that I be contented

If I have—and no more—what is needful.

W.B.

A FEW CLOSING WORDS.

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A FEW CLOSING WORDS

“ It is by the single efforts of the many that the progress of knowledge is advanced.”

Thus a scientist rebuked a bashful amateur entomologist for refusing to exhibit his collection and valuable notes thereon. Applying this to myself, I have endeavoured in this series of articles to add my pittance, and place before the public a character-sketch of the Maori as I have known him; as well as to expose phases of his inner thoughts, which previous writers have not touched upon. In now closing them, I will briefly summarise what I have achieved, leaving my readers to decide with what success.

Taking the Maori child’s hand, I have journeyed with it on to youth and manhood. Our farings have been over paths and byways often difficult of discernment. Many of the treasures collected in our travel have had to be discarded, because the means of transport, a public paper, catering for the tastes of many, left just room for bare sketches, with thick and thin lines to devote their high lights and shadings, and this is their gist:—

That the brown man is as human as I am. That he was the production of a nature, whose fundamental law is a strife in which only the fittest can survive, and which, if it be infringed, retaliates with decay and death. That his opportunities to work himself out of that debasing rut being confined to tools of stone and bone, no progress was possible, other than what those tools could accomplish. That his curiosity being keen, and his intelligence of an order which sought a deeper understanding of the wonders of wind, water, thunder, lightning, hypnotism, dreams, and the many evidences of a power behind the throne—which the brightest beams of modern searchlight are even yet investigating—l say, to account for these, he created a cosmogony which left none of his scruples unsatisfied, but what remained obscure

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he docketed “ Makulu ” (witchcraft), and feared it; feared it so utterly that to ward off its malignancy, he invented a series of placations and observances more absurdly incomprehensible than the primary irritant; yet they comforted him, and he went on his way trembling and happy. That standing in the midst of this merciless destruction, without understanding its necessity, tested its efficacy on his fellow; but his fellow objecting, developed a mutual suspicion, with its twin result: self-defence. The ensuing collision so fascinated the combative instinct lying perdu in his system, that he at once adopted it for his insignia of manhood; his superlative apex of glory 1 That this curious section of creation—for the reasons stated—was shrewd, suspicious, tentatively cautious, prone to be affronted, haughty, aggressive, cruel, abjectly superstitious, and, above all things, shamelessly inquisitive. These attributes lay fully charged and aimed, only awaiting the occasion to explode, and would of themselves proclaim the possessor a “ savage.” But as a set-off he could be affable, generous, and kind; faithful in friendship, just, patient, patriotic, and brave; an indulgent, affectionate parent; amenable to order and decency; quick and keen of humour (at another’s expense); a merry, noise-loving, happy output of Nature; and singular in nothing but an incomparable capacity for the acquisition of learning and progress. He was so in the past, and is so in the present—where the debasing pakeha vices will let him; for the absorption of which, it grieves me to say, he has the greatest capacity of all! Even to this day the further removed he is from the white man’s gambling and guile, the nobler a “savage” you find him! A shameful admission, my brothers, but true. But where is the guardian angel to save him? Not among the faddists who weary the soul with cries which end in “ ibits ” and “ isms ”; not among tract colporteurs laden with the dead, dry leaves of old repetitions; not among the vendors of lotions and washes, who know not where the wound festers and smarts; nor among ye that stand afar off and cry: “Yonder lieth the highway, go, pursue it.” For of preaching he knows as much as the preacher; and from the Book he can cite with his eyes shut. But what availeth empty knowledge and booklore if the hand lack the skill to employ it? The cry welling up from the hearth of the Maori this day is: “ Show me the way to benefit my body, then I will listen to your cure for my soul!"

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A FEW CLOSING WORDS.

Before I conclude, I am reminded that 1 have a duty to perform, the gravity of which impels me to break my invariable rule, not to mention the names of places or people without their permission, which for the present purpose I have obtained.

The other day a halfcaste woman friend of Oparure—a village near Te Kuiti—begged me, as the writer of these articles, to lay before the public, and others whom it may concern, the following distressing facts, and endeavour to enlist the white man’s sympathy for their amelioration: —In this village there are 42 native children of a school age, who are growing up in abject ignorance. It is impossible for them to attend the Te Kuiti School, because of the prohibitive stale of the dangerous quagmire which some grim jokers here derisively call a road! Now, I ask, what reply is to be given to these 42 children which stand on the other side of this abyss to perdition, clamouring for that instruction which would assist them to be decent, loyal subjects of His Majesty the King; and that we retain the honour of true men, who never tire of boasting that we give the brown man equal rights with the white? Are they to clamour in vain? Are these 42 bright, intelligent-featured lads and lasses to swell the crowd on the downward grade? We have their parents’ land—all but a paltry papa kainga of seven acres per house! It would surely be the greater mercy to kill these people and snap up their few remaining acres, than let them decay before our eyes! For the whole family cannot live on these plots when the children grow up. And how else are they to subsist, unless they can compete with their more enlightened neighbours, as they have to leave the home-nest. Listen, ye prohibition orators, who squirm in unbearable agony at the mere mention of a license for the King Country! Here is your chance to certify that you are honest in your reiterated cry, that your wish is to preserve the remnant Maori of the King Country. Bestir yourselves, that it be known ye are telling the truth. This is your opportunity. Grasp it, or never again utter your boast!

I have for merciful reasons understated every claim which my broken-hearted friend has asked of my race. I have badly told a bare, lamentable truth! I have done my duty.

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In my introduction I warned my readers not to expect in these articles a history of the Maori, but amplifications of notes collected during the best years of an intimate contact and study of the varied phases of his quaintly conglomerate life. The succeeding pages shall tell of such contacts, and in his own words explain his views, hopes, disappointments, and disabilities.

A few are the experiences of other investigators, whose credibility I stand sponsor for, but who have refused me the pleasure of divulging their names or station. They will conclude with my own views of how this apparently intricate problem may be solved.

I repeatedly quote the Treaty of Waitangi, and as this is a State document, the contents of which define the position of the two races in relation to each other, and vitally affect the status of the Maori, and of which the present generation knows little or nothing, I will introduce the following series with its text.

THE TREATY OF WAITANGI.

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THE TREATY OF WAITANGI.

I said the treaty is a State document; so are the preliminaries which led to its adoption, and as it would be beyond the scope of these articles to reproduce them here, I will shortly outline the fundamental reason why it came to be necessary:—

After Captain Cook’s discovery of the fertility of these islands, he proclaimed them, by hoisting the Union Jack, an appanage of his King; and America, France, and Germany heard from the same and subsequent navigators that here the mighty oil-producing mammals of the deep passed in their annual migrations, and that here ships could with safety provision and refit; and, because, as I have mentioned elsewhere, Australia had become a penal sink for the Crime of the Old Land, and many escapees-—with the connivance of whaling companies—found a refuge here; and further, fertility and climate, with a friendly native population, invited both missionary and trader to bring their families, in which Britishers preponderated; and it furthermore became known that France had similar intentions; it followed that these aggregations of nationalities and complex conditions required that law and order without which social decency cannot exist. Therefore the British Government sent out Captain William Hobson, an officer in Her Majesty’s Navy, to acquire from the Maoris sufficient dominance to exclude other nations, and establish such law and order; and after negotiations, not pertinent to this sketch, Governor Hobson concluded with the Maoris the following covenant, known as the Treaty of Waitangi;—

THE TREATY—ENGLISH VERSION

Her Majesty Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, regarding with her Royal favour the Native Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand, and anxious to protect their just rights and property, and to secure to them the enjoyment of peace and good order, has deemed it necessary, in consequence of the great number of Her Majesty’s subjects who have already settled in New Zealand, and the rapid extension of emigration both from Europe and Australia which is still in progress, to constitute and appoint a functionary properly authorised to treat with the aborigines of

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New Zealand for the recognition of Her Majesty’s sovereign authority over the whole or any part of these islands. Her Majesty, therefore, being desirous to establish a settled form of Civil Government, with a view to avert the evil consequences which must result from the absence of the necessary institutions alike to the native population and to her subjects, has been graciously pleased to empower and authorise me, William Hobson, a captain in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, Consul and Lieutenant-Governor of such parts of New Zealand as may be, or hereafter shall be, ceded to Her Majesty, to invite the confederated and independent Chiefs of New Zealand to concur in the following articles and conditions:—

Article the First

The Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand, and the separate and independent Chiefs who have not become members of the Confederation, cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England, absolutely and without reservation, all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which the said Confederation of Individual Chiefs respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or to possess, over their respective territories as the sole Sovereigns thereof.

Article the Second.

Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession; but the Chiefs of the United Tribes and the Individual Chiefs yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of pre-emption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate, at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective proprietors and persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf.

Article the Third.

In consideration thereof, Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the natives of New Zealand her Royal protection, and imparts to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects.

W. HOBSON,

Lieutenant-Governor

THE TREATY OF WAITANGI.

11l

Now, therefore, we, the Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand, being assembled in Congress at Victoria, in Waitangi, and we, the separate and independent Chiefs of New Zealand, claiming authority over the tribes and territories which are specified after our respective names, having been made fully to understand the provisions of the foregoing treaty, accept and enter into the same in the full spirit and meaning thereof. In witness of which, we have attached our signatures or marks at the places and the dates respectively specified.

Done at Waitangi, this sixth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty.

****** These are the essentials of this famous treaty, which promised so much to the Maori; which he discussed with his tribesmen clause by clause, and sentence by sentence, and only signed when assured that the greatest Queen upon earth had pledged her faith thereto. What has it done for him? Have the pledges so faithfully guaranteed been redeemed? Has he the privileges of the pakeha?

Yet it is a covenant of vital importance to the Maori. It is his Magna Charta, because it has never been repealed—neither can it be repealed by our colonial legislature. It is a bond entered into between two independent nations, whereby one, the weaker, on the faith of a protection by the stronger, surrendered its foreign sovereignty to the stronger, yet retained its personal and property sovereignty intact, sacred and inviolate. It is a bond which the Imperial Crown has not, and cannot delegate to another, without the consent of both parties thereto. And if the Maori but would listen to advice, and in a united voice appeal to the Imperial Government, it could not otherwise reply than in an annulment of every law we have enacted which is contravention of the Treaty of Waitangi. Listen to what the eminent jurist of his day. Sir W. Martin, Chief Justice, who was intimately conversant with detail and intention of that treaty, has to say;—

“ The Treaty of Waitangi carefully reserved to the natives all their existing rights.” And again:—

“ These rights of the tribes have been solemnly and repeatedly recognised by successive Governors, not merely by words, but by acts.” And speaking of that shameful fraud, the purchase of the Waitara Block (of which more later),

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when the true owners resisted the illegal sale of that cause of sorrow, bloodshed, and strife:—

“ These persons were all British subjects, and entitled to all the rights of British subjects by the Treaty of Waitangi. The assurances thereby given in the Queen’s name have been solemnly repeated many limes from that day to this.” These weighty sentences covered the whole ground, and left nothing to ambiguity or doubt.

Therefore, in what follows, I wish it to be distinctly understood that nothing derogatory to the person is intended. And I warn whom it may concern that the Editor is cautioning his correspondents with; “All correspondence to be addressed to the Editor, not by name, because though the man may be out, the official is always there.”

And when Mr. Kaihau asked in the House whether the treaty were still in force, and the Native Minister replied, “ It has still force, except where it has been abrogated or modified by the parties thereto, or by changing conditions which have rendered its provisions no longer applicable,” one is reminded of the fable of the wolf and the lamb, for no matter how sinfully ridiculous the reason given, if rapacity needs justifying, political dishonesty stops at no subterfuge to gratify it.

When the Treaty of Waitangi was laid before the Maori, and its contents explained to him, he understood that by signing it he incorporated himself into a community whose stores of taonga (goods), of guns, blankets, axes, rum, and others were illimitable; and when we forbade his ruthless warrings he understood that his co-signatory, the Great White Queen, would protect him from the encroachments of his own race and from external foes. He further understood that his ancient rights remained inviolably sacred and unaltered. And when the Crown pre-empted unto itself the right to purchase his land he made no objection; what did he care who bought so long as he was paid? Pre-emption means the right to purchase before others; not the sole right-—that would be senseless, and contrary to the status of a free British subject which the final article conferred upon him.

The Native Minister makes a point of the fact that Governor Fitzroy abolished the Crown’s right to “ preemption”; and because he classifies this as an infraction, he deduces from it the corollary that he can continue illegal infractions. But Governor Fitzroy committed no infractions;

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he only reinstated the original intention of the treaty—that the Maori was to give the Crown pre-emption, the first offer—in our colloquial English, “the first refusal”; and to interpret this otherwise is quibbling casuistry—a dishonest condoning of past trickeries; consequently when he further postulates that “ those w’ho took advantage of Governor Fitzroy’s proclamations are not at liberty to contend that the Crown was solely responsible for that breach of the treaty,” hje—

Another ingredient by which he thinks to enrich his argument is that “ because the natives took up arms against the Grown they thereby broke that treaty, and are not at liberty to plead the treaty as a charter of their rights.” Will he tell us by what logic he includes those natives who did not take up arms against the Crown, who instead spent their means and blood to defend it against their compatriots? Why are these faithful creatures repudiated and penalised with disabilities which an unjust cupidity has forced upon a people defending the land of their fathers from unscrupulous strangers? Or can he point to any classification where the loyalist is discriminated from the rebel, or further, show in what part of the terms of pacification the treaty conditions are mentioned, and excised?

But he has discovered further obstacles to rendering unto Caesar his tribute. “ The treaty has been modified by legislation passed by a Parliament in which the natives were represented.” This style of reasoning cannot even be dignified into casuistry; it is an obvious malversation of actual fact. It is notorious that those native members who were yet strangers to sycophancy have consistently opposed every curtailment of the liberties which their treaty conserved to them. Read the records of past Parliaments; read the political life history of the late Hon. Hori Kerei Taiaroa; collect all the petitions appealing for redress and amelioration which have been presented by the different native members in the Council house where wisdom is manufactured. “ And consequently the responsibility of the modification rests upon native and European alike, and, shortly, the treaty still has force, except where it is abrogated or modified by the action of the parties thereto, or by changing circumstances which have rendered its provisions no longer applicable!” No longer applicable, forsooth! Where are the records of mutual abrogation or modification? No longer applicable? Why not? Because it stands in the breach of further grab? Because u

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we have conformed to its every schedule and installed our brown kinsman a British subject, and enriched him with the blessings of a glorious civilisation, and therefore we require it no longer? Truly this Maori is a wicked rascal to complain in the midst of all this luxury! Let us gag and silence this shameless murmured

A noisy outcry is made from end to end of the colony aghast at the horror of a Maori landlordry! Because he is poor he cannot till his land; because he is dying out and his descendants yearly becoming larger landowners the State has forbidden him to sell; and because of a colour sentiment he shall not be our landlord! In God’s name what is the creature to do? Die? But the Premier says we are to preserve him because he has given us this glorious land! Given? The miles of confiscated acres and the graves of many battlefields attest the donor and the gift!

Shall I repeat that the Maori sulks, and will die in his sulks because we refuse him that which his fathers covenanted with us—the inalienable fee-simple to his property; and as the Waitara business, which began all things, and other aggressions which he justly resented have proved that our love for him is hypocrisy, he is within his rights to mistrust our admonitions? What accentuates the sorrow is that colonial progress is retarded; that incompetent dalliance bars the settlement of the inland districts; that the gorse patches get larger, briar bushes grow into trees, and ragwort, Californian thistle, rabbits, and desolation disfigure the landscape! Will not our legislators end this mad riot?

Give the Maori a chance; frankly admit that the Treaty of Waitangi is his, “ take it, but see to it that the pakeha gets his share of what is there provided. Circumstances have changed to both of us; therefore come now, bestir yourself. You can sell all land you cannot use to the highest bidder, but give me the banking of the proceeds to spend on you; because you are unreliable, I will take your hand and guide you. Yes, I admit that I neglected when I should have guarded you; come, step out.”

Is it impossible? Cannot we do this. Give the Maori a chance: try him, say, for two years, and if he will not bestir himself then we must compel him, and take his land and settle it for him. And drive him into some corner out of sight and let him relapse into barbarism 1

THE WAITARA BLUNDER.

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THE WAITARA BLUNDER.

About 1830 the terrible warriors of Waikato invaded Taranaki, and, after a prolonged siege, captured the great Ngatiawa pa of Pukerangiora on the Waitara River, with great slaughter, and, following up their success, attempted to reduce another stronghold, Nga Motu. In this they failed, but the defenders, fearing a return of their implacable tormentors, fled to Waikanae, on Cook Straits, near Wellington, where they joined Te Rauparaha, and lived there until 1848, when, with the consent of their Waikato enemies, they returned to Waitara and the ownership of the lands of their ancestors.

Before this, 1840, and later, the New Zealand Land Company legitimately, and in accordance with treaty rights, purchased land from such Maoris as would sell. But when, in 1850, this Company surrendered its charter to the Crown under Governor Grey, the Government became the purchaser of native lands for the State, to which the returned exiles sold freely; but, when it also desired that part which lay on the southern bank of the Waitara River near its mouth, all but a chief (Te Teira) and his faction absolutely refused to sell. At a large meeting of natives, held at Taranaki on March Bth, 1859, to greet Governor Gore Browne and discuss matters for the welfare of both races, he spoke to the assembled chiefs these words: “You will be wise to sell all lands you cannot use yourselves; but I will never consent that land shall be bought with a disputed title; neither will I permit anyone to sell unless he is the rightful owner; neither will I take any man’s land without his consent.” At this meeting Te Teira offered to sell the before-mentioned piece of land. On the block stood two pas, in which Wiremu Kingi (the objector) had been residing for years. After Te Teira had spoken, Wiremu Kingi stood up and said: “Listen, O Governor. Notwithstanding Teira’s offer, I will not permit the sale of Waitara to the pakeha. Waitara is in my hands. I will not give it up. Never! Never! Never!”

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In spite of his previous assurance, the Governor there and then accepted Teira’s offer, subject to his producing a satisfactory title; and as the presence of the Governor was not the place to dispute land titles, there for the time the matter ended. Yet it was at this point that the diabolically ingenious sin was perpetrated which plunged the colony into an expensive war, decimated the Maori, confiscated his land and inserted the barb which rankles in an incurable wound this day, and caused him to doubt the honesty of the white man, whom he had so cordially taken to his heart as a descendant of the gods! The land was inexpressibly desirable; therefore, through its land purchase agent, the Government tempted Te Teira to sell, with a sop of £lOO down and the rest when he should have fought out, or bounced Wiremu Kingi into compliance. But the grim hero of many battlefields refused to yield; and when surveyors were sent by the Government to cut lines and mark out boundaries, he sent this pathetically respectful letter to the Governor:—

“ Waitara, April 25th, 1859. “ Friend, —Salutations to you. ... I will not agree to our bedroom being sold, for this bed belongs to the whole of us. . . . Do not be in haste to give money for it. . . . —From your loving friend, WIREMU KINGI.”

According to the native land tenures of that day, every member had an inherited right to cultivate a portion of the common estate, and his occupancy made that portion his very own by right of use; but, on no account could he deal with it in a way which would alienate it to a stranger without the unanimous consent of the tribe. Therefore, when Te Teira insisted, and sold his undefined share against the wishes of his co-owners, before every condition of custom had been observed, and, notwithstanding Wiremu Kingi’s objection, the Government bought, and violated the privacy of the communal bedroom by sending surveyors to lay out boundaries before a proper inquiry should satisfy all parties; and when the objectors, without damaging theodolite, tent, or cooking utensil, removed these articles off the land, and warned the trespassers not again to trespass until a legal inquiry had been decided who was in the wrong; and when further the chief objector humbly appealed to his pakeha friend—Archdeacon Hadfield—and others to intercede for him with Governor Browne, to wait, and not buy what he

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regarded as the birthplace and nursery of his people, in language which brings tears to the eyes of the reader; and, notwithstanding the co-prayers of his tribesmen in words homely but stirring: “It will not be good to take the pillow from under our head, because our pillow is a pillow that belonged to our ancestors,” etc.—thus you read page after page of the records; when, I ask after all this peaceable resistance, the objectors, according to custom, sanctified by the laws of defence in all ages and among all nations, took up arms to resist the aggressor, who is the sinner on whom the tower of Siloam shall fall? And, considering all the arguments for and against, am I exceeding moderation when I denounce the Waitara land purchase and its aftermath as a crime, and a disgrace to our civilisation, religion, and justice? And yet, in the State records, may be read the opinion of educated English gentlemen who not only condoned the atrocity, but actually degraded their exceptional abilities in a specious casuistry to infract the Treaty of Waitangi, and justify the infraction!

They are dead! The victims of a mistaken faith are dead! But their children live. And it is to replace them on the pedestal which the pilgrim fathers had placed some, and wished to place all, but failed, that the next article will endeavour to accomplish.

That I will now attempt to explain:—

It has recently been my pleasure to meet with and hear the opinions of many who have dispassionately studied the Maori, both in his past and present conditions; not as collectors of prurient and frivolous flotsam, but hard-headed, earnest colonists, with a knowledge of his customs, mode of thought, language, and intimate contact with him in a lifelong service to their country, which authorises them to deliver practical judgments upon him and his ever-increasing complexities; and because office discretion no longer forbids them, can now speak out, whether to justify or denounce the tyrannical impositions of a lamentable past. To my intense satisfaction their conclusions so exactly agree with mine that we might have sat in conclave and concerted the ideas to be presently described, thereby showing that to those who know there is only one course to be pursued in a fundamental redemption of the Maori. For let no one deceive himself, the Maori is a living presence in our midst and refuses to be

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ignored. He meets us in up-country wastes and at town street corners, a standing reproach to our pretensions. And looking back upon our rapacity, with all the deplorable consequences, surely, surely our colonial heart will at this eleventh hour arise in its greatness, and with one voice respond to his pathetic appeals for assistance.

One of my friends is a grim, reliable old pioneer, who has served his country honourably both on the Bench and in private life as a settler, and in piecing together fragments of history we also discussed the disabilities of our brown friend the Maori; presently he leant over to me and roared—as it is his emphatic habit—“ It is our despotic assumption of superior wisdom, and a mulish obstinacy in defending untenable positions, which prevent every attempt at pacifying the Maori. The bother began at Waitara.” Here he stabbed every word with a forceful finger on my chest. “ After five years of bitterness, bloodshed, reprisal, and expense, Governor Grey proclaimed that; * Whereas an engagement for the purchase at Waitara of what is known as Teira’s block was entered into but never completed, and as circumstances have come to light which make it advisable that the sale should not be proceeded with, therefore I hereby declare that the purchase be abandoned, and all claim to the same by the Crown is now removed.’ But Naboth’s vineyard was inexpressibly covetable, hence what did we do? (with a final stab). We confiscated itl See the dodge?” And he chuckled a warm, rich chuckle of admiration at the depth which duplicity can plumb!

And when I read to him the points by which to my mind we should guide our brown brother’s canoe to reach a haven at last, he agreed with me, that, (1) and before all things, the Maori shall be placed on the same platform as the European, to enjoy the rights and privileges of a British subject and to frankly admit that the Treaty of Waitangi is the same inviolable compact which its framers and subscribers intended it should be; (2) to wipe off as with a sponge from the statutes of the colony that collection of idiotic nonsense, the Native Land Laws, and enact that reserves be apportioned to each family sufficient to maintain it, and rendered absolutely inalienable to others than next-of-kin. That all native lands shall at once be individualised by the State, and any surpluses, after all reserves have been made, it shall be in the owner’s power to deal with them as to him, or

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her, seems fittest—to sell or lease, according to his best advantage or market price. That instead of the intricate process now in vogue of wasting time and money, appearing before Land Courts, Commissioners, and other poverty-inducing institutions, a Native Trust Board be established in each district, consisting of four members—two Europeans and two Maoris—whose duty it shall be to investigate and ratify titles, receive rents or sale moneys, and, banking the same, disburse them according to the strict requirements of the depositors; in short, stand in loco parentis to the people, and be responsible to no other person whatever but the Auditor-General and Parliament, to which an audited account of the year’s stewardship shall be rendered. That all restrictions but those mentioned shall be removed, that thereby the Maori may feel a responsibility and live up to it, and be enforced to redeem his emancipation, be proud of his position as an independent man, and glory in his membership of the British nation, which the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed him. That this Trust Board shall be of competent persons, having a thorough knowledge of Maori language and customs, and be salaried officers of the State, to devote their whole energies to the economical management of all matters entrusted to them, and be bound by their appointment to constantly keep in view these two prime factors—the progress of the colony and the happiness of the Maori race. And as soon as all rectifications have established the Maori as a going concern, a less expensive arrangement be instituted. This Trust Board shall report to Parliament where extra legislation is required in excess of their already discretionary powers, and Parliament shall consider these as suggestions to be acted upon, and, if found desirable, to legalise them. That the office of Public Trustee for native lands be abolished at once and for ever, because by the nature of its control and extortionate expense it satisfies neither race and is a barrier to the comfort of both. That the office of Native Minister be closed and the key thrown into the sea where it is deepest. Also that the effete farce of native representation be exchanged for a system by which there is no distinction of franchise, and the natives who fall into a certain pakeha electorate may vote for any candidate they may wish for; or, as in the case of the popular member for Gisborne, Timi Kara, a half-caste—or even Maori—may bid for pakeha support. This change is absolutely imperative. The four Maori members are mere

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marionettes whose strings are pulled by astute political dodgers, whose policy is self-aggrandisement and suction; and who, say they what they may, will improve nothing they touch, because their principles are wrong. And what makes it all so intolerably maddening is that so long as party interests are permitted to over-ride the weal of the whole, so long will waste, corruption, and inflated incompetence stifle the cry for relief!

So far I have outlined the foundations upon which a successful native policy must be built. Other minor details will automatically group themselves as they arise and where they belong. All else is endless patching and shoring, constant and irritating renewals. And because we will not concede what he legitimately asks for he will not bestir himself; nor is it humanly possible to force him, because he can lie down and die when he wants to, and his graves reproach us and our descendants for ever!

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SOME REASONS FOR THE DECLINE OF THE MAORI.

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SOME REASONS FOR THE DECLINE OF THE MAORI.

On my journey back from Taranaki the day was one of New Zealand’s garden variety—clear, fresh, and bracing. My horse and I had established a feeling of camaraderie, and as I didn’t urge him, he repaid my leniency by keeping to a brisk, exhilarating walk. But at noonday he suddenly suggested that a plot of cocksfoot by the roadside would look more home-like if I allowed him to pass his lawn-mower over it. As soon as he drew my attention to the fact, I agreed with him, and taking off the saddle tethered him in the centre of it and left him to his labours, which he at once began with great goodwill and energy. By a strange combination of thought and inter-thought, it came to my mind that a parcel which my native lady hostess had affectionately stuffed into my pocket as we said farewell at her gate, would be the better pleased if I remembered her kindness.

I had barely satisfied my curiosity as to its contents than I felt a presence disturb the molecular pulsations of my surroundings. On looking up, I saw a native standing a few paces off, regarding me in a spirit of genial amity. He was an old man. His clothing consisted of a faded and frayed shawl wrapped round his waist; the remains of Joseph’s coat on his back, and a rimless “ hard-hitter ” on his head. Using the long staff in his hands as a strut in front of him, he hitched the basket of fungus slung to his shoulders a trifle to correct the balance, and nodded. I returned the nod; the which recognition emboldened him to inquire: “You katti tupeka, pakeha?” I lazily threw him a cake of Golden Eagle, which he picked up with an alacrity surprising in such an old man. He smelt it carefully, then communed with himself: “He tupeka pai; he rangatira pea te tangata nei.” (The tobacco is good; shouldn’t wonder if he is a lord.) ‘ You katti maati?” I threw him a penny box of matches. “ Koia ano ” (so he is), he muttered, depositing that also in the only pocket of the coat which would carry with safety. Then he felt that the

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crucial moment had come. So he smiled an extra smile of propitiation and coughed a dry cough before he ventured: “You katti paipa?” Then I forgot myself and replied: “ Keiwhea hoki moku?” (and what am I to do?), and —well, my heart went out to him in compassion at his pitiful efforts to conceal the shame of having begged like a common beggar from one of his own people, in a patois which the ordinary pakeha learns quickly, and forthwith applies to be certificated a licensed interpreter!

Beckoning him to me, I said: “ Rest awhile,” and spreading out the remains of my lunch on a picture sheet of the “ Weekly News,” invited him most cordially to help himself. He came to where I sat, but he never for an instant took his eyes off me. And I knew just what he suffered. He felt no compunction at having begged from a stranger, and a pakeha, for such are legitimate prey. But to be caught begging from one who spoke in his own language simply paralysed his manhood.

The morsels were tempting, for she had been lavish with the jam. So, belittling my offer with the regret that they were only shards, and that he had not come sooner, I urged him again, but he only glanced down a glance which barely left his eyes, and rising, said; “ Maake taua ki taku kainga ” (come, let us go to my home). So I saddled up and silently followed him. Presently, in a turn of the road we came to his homestead —a ponga whare with a bark roof, stained with smoke. A slight distance from it stood another, but shingled with palings. Opening this he invited me to enter, and taking the bridle from my hand, led my horse to a paddock.

This house was neatly lined on the inside with raupo blades, and everything in it betokened absolutely clean poverty. Presently he came in, and sitting down cross-legged in front of me, asked, “Were you ever ashamed?” “Yes,” I said, “ every true man is ashamed that he didn’t do better when the opportunity came.”

“ That’s just it,” he replied, and pointing with his finger at the centre of his chest, continued: “ I am ashamed.” “For what?” I asked in pretended surprise. Taking the tobacco and box of matches, and laying them side by side in front of him, “ For these, and the manner you gave them. A gift to a beggar, and the remains of a feast for a slave,” and replacing the articles in his pocket, continued, “ To aroha kito mokai.” (Your regard for your slave.)

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Thus he purged himself of his disgrace, and afterwards we became most friendly and intimate, and nothing would satisfy him and family but I had to promise to travel no further that day; and I agreeing, they ransacked a couple of chests and sundry other hiding places to produce clean sheets, new blankets, a pillow all clean and inviting, and making up a bed His Excellency the Governor would not refuse—on a journey—to sleep in, invited me there and then to make myself at home.

So we gradually fell into an interesting discussion on the decline of the Maori as a people. What impressed me greatly was the opinion that their decline is due to the disregard they pay to their ancient faith in the tapu is so universal. “ For,” said he, “ in the olden time our tapu ramified the whole social system. The head, the hair, spots where apparitions appeared, places which the tohungas proclaimed as sacred we have forgotten and disregarded. Who nowadays thinks of the sacredness of the head? See when the kettle boils, the young man jumps up, whips the cap off his head and uses it for a kettle-holder. Who nowadays but looks on with indifference when the barber of the village, if he be near the fire, shakes the loose hair off his cloth into it, and the joke and the laughter goes on as if no sacred operation had just been concluded. Food is consumed on places which, in bygone days, it dared not even be carried over. Therefore, what can you expect but that the spirits should avenge the insult by retaliating on the sacrilegious offenders with the life of those most dear to them?”

“ Then,” I asked, “in your opinion, rum and strong drink have not been the destroying angel they are represented to be?” He looked hard at the ember fire, and meditatively stroked his chin with a paw of the kitten he was nursing. “ No,” he said, at last, “ I don’t think so. My brother lived and worked among the bay whalers many years, where he was barely ever sober, but he died a very, very old man, and I know of many others, women and men.”

What effect do you think it has on young women?”

“ Ah,” he said, “ now we tread on ground where the foot slippeth not. My opinion is that to them it is ruin and death, especially those about to become mothers, or likely to be. Ah! or to any of them, for it destroys their protection.” Then he went into details not quite fit for publication, as this

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article is not a treatise on obstetrics, but which showed me that when they reason without prejudice they can give a logical why and wherefore on the convictions they arrive at. At last he said: “Tena, me whaaki mai hoki koe i to matauranga o to matou mauiui ” (Now then, disclose your experience on these, our sorrows).

While I was mentally headlining the subject of my lecture, he ostentatiously began filling his pipe from my gift. I thereupon handed him another cake, which he put in his pocket without thanks or comment—as became one lord accepting courtesies from another. “ Tena, korero ” (now speak), he said, when this interruption had time to subside.

“My friend,” I began, “ follow me. It is a law of Nature that where the greatest pressure is there she will supply the greatest supports. Look at the trees on the outside of a forest: in proportion to their size, these have the strongest roots. Now, we apply this to human beings. You walk barefoot, therefore Nature thickens the skin on the sole of your foot. Also, when a man works hard, the skin of his hands gets tough and callous. Now, take to wearing shoes, and cease to labour, the skin slowly gets thin and tender. The man who works hard—the axeman, the navvy, the blacksmith—these men’s tendons are subjected to continual strains, therefore, Nature builds them up and strengthens them. Apply this to nations: The people who have to strive and exert themselves against difficulties are stronger than those who don’t require to do so. Now, apply this to yourselves; In the olden time you had to cut the timber for your houses and the palisading for your fortifications with stone axes, and sleigh it into position with great labour.” “ Good, good,” he cried delightedly; “ proceed, proceed. Good.” “ Certainly the heaviest of this labour was done by slaves. But what of that? Your freemen, through constant wars among themselves, had to keep their muscles in perfect suppleness by the activity of exercise in the use of arms—to attack, to feint, and parry. You had to make long and difficult journeys on foot, through roadless forests, and over ungraded mountains. These hardened the muscles. Then you had to camp out on these expeditions, exposed to the inclemency of storms and night dews, damp camping grounds, and coarse and insufficient foods. All this made your bark and roots rough and strong, and you were a hardy, enduring people.

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“ Look at you now. Since the pakeha brought you axes and spades and ploughs and teams, not having to labour so arduously for the same amount of food—and the wars having ceased, this is all your ambition incites you to—you idle away the interim between planting and harvesting in aping the vices of the pakeha. These you acquire with the utmost skill and promptness.”

Here he hung his head and murmured: “E tika ana, otira, me pewhea? Kei te mohio koe kite tu o te Maori.” (It is true, but what will you? You know the custom of the Maori.)

“ That, my friend, is one reason for the decline of your people. But there is one equal to it, if not greater. We call it congenital decay, but the farmer calls it ‘ breeding in.’ This breeding in means a continuous marrying of relations. I am perfectly acquainted with your reasons for doing so.” “Ah,” he cried, doubtfully, “are you?” “Yes,” I said, “it was the land. In the past ages you had enormous tracts of land which, unless it contained eel streams, or they were easily cultivated, or again bordered a seacoast of rich fishing grounds, was the refuge of the weaker tribes. And those in possession of these good lands held on to them tenaciously till driven off by a stronger people, consequently you increased till Nature’s limit—the food supply—stopped you. But if Nature builds up, it also lops off. Therefore, your wars were a natural benevolence, as they kept weeding out the weaker—you understand me?” “Yes, yes, go on; this is good.” “To make room for the stronger, and thus you became a great people. So also being so many, you could procure wives without outraging Nature by marrying your own relations. Besides, you were constantly introducing fresh blood by the capture of women and children whom you adopted into the tribe.

“ In the course of time, because of your increase, these lands became valuable—so much so that intertribal wars resulted out of land disputes. Therefore, to keep out this disturbing factor, you married into yourselves, and in the frantic effort to keep your land in your families you married the healthy to the diseased, the capable to the incapable, until Nature, with her undeviafing law, stepped in and) cried, ‘Stop! If you cannot obey me, then rot and die.’ For you must know that the strongest parents among all created things perpetuate the strongest species.”

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And I told him what is known to all students of biology—the battle of the males —which it is undesirable to repeat here—though why it should be treated as a mystery is a “ mystery ” to me, as everyone should be made conversant therewith. And if it were more widely known, we should strike a death-blow at that abominably loathsome custom, the intermarriage of cousins.

“ In short, you mean—?”

“ Yes, I mean that neither the white man with his guns, his rum, his vices, or any other imaginable curse, has any mana to accomplish your decline. I repeat it, none whatever! As the conditions which the white man has introduced have changed, you have to change also. You have to follow in his footsteps, but sacredly eschew his vices, and, to begin with, strengthen your muscles with labour, cultivate your lands, get a ‘ kiri wera ’ (hot skin—syn. sweat of the brow) on you. Lay aside your lethargic, enough-for-the-day, etc., system; build proper houses and live in them; eat proper foods; live cleanly in person and surroundings. Aye, dare I suggest such a radical innovation, I should say, ‘ Send away for a fresh batch of wives, for the ones you have are but one remove from being sisters to the men they call husbands.’ It is pitiful to see you cling to an absurd ancient custom, the reasons for whose adoption have long since passed away, but the which you nurse with a perversity born of stupid heredity.”

“E hoa, ki o korero! E kore taea tenei iwi te Maori." (Friend, what a speech! This people the Maori cannot do it), he cried in consternation. “No one will listen to you. You are asking for an earthquake.”

“ I know it,” I answered, “ and therefore you will die, and nothing can save you, for Nature’s laws are unalterable.’

Thus our discussion went on far into the night. What aggravates me is their exasperatingly iterated “ E tika ana ” (quite true), with the surety that it will end there, as our very friendly conversation did.

The foregoing are the causes of the decline of the Maori. Condensed, they are idleness and intermarriage. Nothing else, my masters, Prohibitionists, Philanthropists—neither will any or all the many “ ists,” “ isms,” or “ ologies,” that ever set their wise heads to solve the problem succeed. As

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they have failed in the past so they will fail in the future Salve and embrocate as their fancy prompts them, it will remain an open sore.

The last winter will long remain a sorrowful memento of the merciless diligence with which death has exacted his annual tribute among the Maoris. Most severely so in the smaller coin of the children. There is scarcely a village which he has spared. I had almost said family. I personally know of three out of a household of five. And reports from different parts are all burdened with the melancholy tale.

Since the introduction of measles this district has been a continual travelling route of tangi parties. To those having at heart the preservation and progress of the race, the prospect is dull and disheartening. Reviewing the position in the silence of my own thoughts, the conclusion is being regretfully forced in on me, that it is doomed, for customs die hard, and the people die with them.

On going into the township for my mail, I met a middleaged native of superior intelligence, with whom I had often discussed the problem of their life. After a sober greeting, as befitted the prevalent gloom of the shadow of death, he asked; “Are you not the writer of an article in the “Weekly News,” of some while ago, ‘ Some Reasons for the Decay of the Maori,’ which contends that one cause in his custom of inter-marrying among his relations?”

“ Yes,” I replied, “ and I have thought of a third, and fourth. But these are secondary, though equally deadly in their actions.”

“ Ah! my son reads the ‘ News ’ to me, and from what my uncle—the old man of whom you make mention—told me, together with a noticeable trend in your arguments on previous occasions, I conjectured it to be yours. Now, anything which offers to upset our own theories, is of interest to me. As it shows that the subject may have more sides than one. My uncle also gathered from the earnest, fearless way you expressed yourself, that these were your very deep convictions. Since then I have seriously weighed the matter, for and against, without bias or prejudice, and find an insuperable obstacle, which to my thinking conclusively decides against you.

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“The Bible says: ‘ In the beginning of Creation, God made one man, and one woman. These two begat children.’ Those must have intermarried again and again to—as they did—people the whole earth. If your theory were correct, man, instead of increasing, must have decreased, and ultimately died out. I think this is unanswerable, hey?”

And he took me by the ear and greatly rocked my head, and gurgling a soft, triumphant laugh, continued:

“ Your own Book refutes your argument. Come, let us thrash out our stack on this seat, and determine how much there is of grain, and how much of chaff,” and having thoughtfully probed his pipe stem with a grass haulm, peered at me kindly and inquiringly.

But I hesitated. How could I, of the race which had placed this Book in his hand, with the assurance, “ This is the Truth, and the source of all Truth?” I say, how could I question its reliability in terms of such language as would convince my friend, and not convey a suspicion of heresy? How could I, there and then, explain the controversies which have shaken the foundations of religious belief? Neither could I enter on the illimitable field of evolution, with one who had not the faintest conception that such a law existed?

So I said: “Your objection is fairly put, and to the point. But I will also quote from the same authority: ‘When Cain had slain his brother Abel, he fled into another land, the land of Nod, and there took unto himself a wife.’ Does this not show that there were other people in their world, besides Adam and his family?”

When I had ended, he brought a heavy hand with a sounding smack on my thigh, and cried: “ Kia ora, karutahi, kia kore au e kite, kapai tataua korero ” (your health, oneeyed (hat I am, not to have seen that; now we talk), and yet what does that prove? Either that both statements are wrong, or, there is an interval of which history is silent.”

“ Probably,” I replied, rising. “ Let us leave it there; let us not further question a witness who refuses to answer, for we can get what evidence we require by applying to our old friend Practical Experience, who slurs no intervals, but cries in tones not to be gainsaid, that if you interfere with laws which are at work building up, they will resent such interference, by not only ceasing work, but also pulling down that

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which already stands. Those who listen, and obey, prosper. Those who clog their ears, and cling to senseless customs, will perish. Of which the Maori and a great number of mentally crippled pakehas are first-class specimens.”

But he refused to release the hand I held out to him in farewell. “ Stay,” he cried, “ you thrust your spear, and rush for further prey, but the foe is not dead yet. Gome, what is that third and far fourth reason of which you spoke?”

Reseating myself, I said: “It is useless to combat customs and superstitions, which generations of ignorance have firmly rooted in your natures. These die hard. When one places facts before you, you listen and doubt. When you can no longer doubt, your murmur, ‘ Etika ana, otira a taea te aha ” (true, but what avail.) That clinches your objection. And when the next land dispute, or, prospect of dispute, arises, you bar its progress, by inter-marrying the contestants. No matter how closely related and inter-married they have been before.

“ When the next measle, or other epidemics, come along, you send for that hideous monstrosity, your tohunga, who knows no more of its treatment than that snag in the river there, who brings his stinking lotions and baths, his idiotic prescriptions, and lost soul incantations, and sits down so long as there is a mouthful of food left in the house, or until the sufferer dies, and then stalks away to do murder elsewhere. And why? Because it is your custom.

“ When the child in the throes of fever, kicks off the bedclothes, you leave it so. The chill, winter winds eat through your wretched hovels, and as it lies there exposed, the disease is driven inwards; and when it cries for water you give it, and in three days there is a tangi. Why? Because your ignorant custom says, ‘Don’t thwart the children?’

“ When a messenger comes to your gate and cries, 1 Tama died last night,’ the men unyoke their teams. Women leave their washtubs. Important labours are neglected, everything is dropped out of hand, and let lie. Ailing children are made into bundles, and away you rush to the tangi. You don’t stop to decide which is the more sacred duty—to stay at home and comfort your weaklings, or run pell-mell to assist at a pernicious custom. What if you know that the party died of some contagious disease, influenza, measles, or whoopingcough. It is, we must go, ‘ e taea te aha?’ As the malison I

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does not come to you, you wilfully take your children there, and inoculate them; and custom hallows the crime of further disseminating the contagion.

“ When you arrive, there is no room in the house; so you crowd into tents, behind breakwinds, fences, anywhere, in cold, ■wet, and discomfort. You herd and crush until the air thickens and festers with the various grades of pestilence each one has brought and thrown into the common stock, to ferment and breed other death scourges! But what of that! Is its importance to be compared to the satisfaction of having honoured and perpetuated an ancient, though insane, custom?”

When I paused, he held up his hand and cried: “ Kati, aata korero.” (Stop, speak gently.) “ You think you understand, but you don’t. Many of your charges are true. The root of the difficulty lies in the fact, that the Maori is at the place where the road parts. He cannot conceive why customs and practices which were effectual in the past, should now be inoperative, and concludes that their mana has in some mysterious manner departed. Our ancestors introduced them to meet specific contingencies: they proved successful, and hence became part of our national life. Naturally they become difficult to now set aside. So you see, they are not a mere clinging to the past. They are our soul, our ‘ punga ’ (anchor); cut us adrift from them, and we are like the canoe of which the paddles have ceased rowing. We can only drift, God knows whereto! As usual, you cry and find fault.

“ Look at us in our present calamity, when the eyes are never dry, when the death-wail greets you everywhere, and the burial never ceases! You condemn our tohunga; where is the white doctor? You ridicule our ‘wairakau’ (herb waters). Where is the dispensary? Our home-nursing? Where are the hospitals? Bah! You almost anger me. Whose diseases are these which cut us off! In the past our maladies were few, and those which our remedies could not cure, died. The pakeha brought these diseases to our doors. Doubtless in his past, before he discovered remedies, they killed him also. So he altered his style of living to counteract their power. But when they come to us they find us unprepared; we cannot cope with them, and—die!

“ I have thought, until my brain is in a ‘ poriporipo ’ (whirlwind). ‘ Titiro kimuri, kua taepatia, titiro kimua, kua

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taupatia, ki taku ringa katau, he pari, ki taku maui, he huhi.' (I look behind, it is fenced off. To the front it is divided off. To the right-hand a precipice. To the left a morass.) That is why we stand still, and cling to such remnants as are yet within our reach, peradventure there may be a modicum of mana to be gathered therefrom.

“ Come, be generous in your judgments. We cannot return to the past, that is fenced off. Ahead in the future stands the pakeha, behind his ‘ parepare ’ (breastwork) of race pride, from which he beckons-—merely beckons, mind you—'come up.’ We make a feeble attempt to reach him; when 10, he has retreated to another. And so it continues. And before we can mount all his breastworks we shall be dead! And the last one to mount will not be a Maori. Maybe a half-caste. Who knows! Would to God he were that!

“We grope; we put out our hands in the darkness—ha! we touch something. We stop and listen; does it breathe? No; that is well! Then we grope further, and so on to the end. Never sure, never certain, but what our touch may send us back in terror to seek light elsewhere. We are ‘ mokarikari ’ (playthings) of the gods. And when at last the end comes, which shall then dare to say, ‘ I was right.’ * You were wrong.’ ‘ This is the way.’ 1 That was the proper turning.’ But our hands, the hands that one time groped so pitifully, are folded on our breasts, and the everlasting silence takes us in its arms.”

And he dropped his head on his hands and sobbed—sobbed, as one who watches the outward-bound ship, at the closing of day, sailing into the setting sun; bearing away the last of his name, to a land which lies in the regions of . . . never return!

****** The ethics of social obligations constrain us to be merciful, and not disturb the cherished faiths of our fellows. With this mandate ever before me, to temper my judgments, I hesitate to enter debatable ground. Yet I cannot evade the truth as I see it: as others may see it who will cry a halt amid the hoarse calls of creeds: “This is the way; come hither!” And I iterate that the Maori was not a special creation, but just a creature fashioned to match his surroundings in life, and even ordered in his death. He was the product of a combination of conditions inflexible in their

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exactions. What they decreed he had to yield to. He was not like our colonial youth, allowed to give precocious back answers, nor sit in the presence of his superiors, and offer unasked opinions, nor join in the family conclave, and by his casting vote select what he liked best. For his mother, Nature, had a watchful eye and wiry arm; and when she dealt out retributions she smote with an unerring aim. She permitted no amending of her ordinances, nor innovations which she decided were superfluous. Thus he was taught respectful obedience, and a suppression of greed when comforts were distributed! She utilised the materials which lay to her hand with patience and industry, jealous of her handiwork; and let a presumptuous hand dare to interfere, then she arose in the might of her wrath and slowly, but surely, and mercilessly proceeded to demolish it.

The decline of the Maori has produced many theorists, mostly those whose knowledge of his customs and past history bear the imprint of vague and superficial assertions, which do not qualify them to pose as propounders. How glibly they quote—“ Unhealthy dwellings,” “ insanitary customs,” “ unwholesome foods,” “ alcohol ”•—and the alcohollers holler loudest! not knowing, poor adjective hunters, that excepting alcohol all these were conditions under which he developed his acme of status; not even guessing that they are now mere accessories after the fact, that the cause lies deeper, yet so near the surface that all may grasp and examine it.

It was the cessation and reversal of Nature’s law, the gradual decay of ambitious yearnings for distinction in the only realm of renown he knew of l —war! It was the drying up of the fountain from whence flowed through his pre-natal heart the vital essence which shall in time to come meet the severe stresses and strains of coarse food, inclement exposure, and stone-axe prepared rude housing, and yet emerge a victor through all —perfected from parent to child through successive generations, carefully tested, and the failures relentlessly cast out, until it grew into a necessity, involuntary, as the inherited memory of that northern rodent, the lemming, when its period to migrate increases it from a few parents to the ultimate ending of figures, and impels it to travel a prehistoric highway, now barred by the ocean, and drown.

It was a reversal of Nature’s process of weeding out the weaklings by hardships and war. And who was to blame for

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this? It hurts me to answer, the missionary, who, obeying the Master’s command to go everywhere and preach the “ rongo pai ” (good tidings) of Peace, breathed upon this vitalising bacillus, killed it, and with it the Maori. This is neither blasphemy nor vilifying the servant who obeyed his Master’s behest; it is the callously calculated truth as I see it. But I will add that the early missionary in his simple loyal faith, and a love for his brown tattooed brother, meant otherwise. He yearned to take the taiaha and mere from his hand, and substitute the axe and spade, the saw, the plane, and the smithy hammer, and teach his bright, willing apprentice to forsake his savagery and cherish a pride in his new works, and thus turn the flow of his ambition to kill, into the fuller and happier, to manufacture and till.

It was a nobly designed structure he proposed to erect, upon which success would assuredly have mounted her finial had he been left undisturbed, with time, and patience, and many repetitions to assist him. But this was not to be! Other creeds crept in to undermine his foundations, pull down his rising walls, and by their creed dissensions, make it plain to the Maori that he need not hasten. This is what a Ngatiraukawa chief said to his tribe when he was urged to accept religion: “Waiho kia kaakari, kia taua nga kai” (let them wrestle, we will eat the food). And what of the demolishers? Look around you, what have they rebuilt?

Another initial factor of a nation’s decay is the wellknown fact that a vanquished race becomes decadent unless it be merged into that of the victor—to their mutual benefit if the vanquished be absorbed by natural channels, as free inter-marriage; but to its annihilation if, as in the case of the Maori, this is deterred by a colour prejudice, and the superior merely tolerates the inferior so long as he has possessions which may be obtained.

It may be urged that the Maori was not vanquished by force of arms. Granted; but he was so in fact by the isolation we imposed upon him because of his pigmented skin. Is it to be wondered, then, that when the old deeds —which made selection a course of Nature—were forbidden him; and having no incentive of his own to take the place of war, and the honour it conferred, that comprehending the truth at last in all its baldness, that the innovations and strangers he had so cordially welcomed were over-rated, and desired no closer

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contact with him than what the acquisition of his possessions necessitated—l say, is it to be wondered at that he should despair, grasp at the vices we brought for his adoption, turn a deaf ear to the exhortation of religion, and sit down to dream of his past greatness, and pine, and die? For the Maori can die when he wants to! Let him imagine that a makutu spell has been laid upon him; he will take to his bed, say, “ E taea te aha” (what can avail?), and yield to fates that are stronger than he.

Another error, and which indirectly assisted to destroy him, was the mistaken charity which essayed to make of him a pakeha. Instead of studying his natural proclivities, and using them to advance his betterment, we strained at gnats and swallowed whole camels of fallacious experimenters’ discoveries, and forced upon him uncongenial laws, and restrictions, which estranged his confidence and neutralised the sterling good of those who had understood and achieved some measure of success in his progress, and failed to appreciate the position that a good Maori is preferable to a nondescript, ill-manufactured pakeha.

But why recall the mistakes of the past unless we intend at this eleventh hour to utilise them for beacons for the future? The question is yet unsolved; Are we wiser to-day? Has experience taught us to be wiser to-morrow Or are we still hoarding up, and working on exploded premises, and listening to the shibboleths of faddists, which they themselves understand not?

I have outlined what my study of the Maori has made plain is the fundamental cause of his decay. There are others, but they do not point to a radical antidote, and this is what we must recognise as our paramount duty, if we wish to make good the boast that wherever the Union Jack waves, it is a token that civilisation, justice, liberty, and progress dwell under its shadow for all colours, races, and creeds which ask for its shelter.

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Everywhere, dear friend, for the earth is his and the fulness thereof. The question of how it became his is a minor consideration, and is adumbrated by the majestic fact that it is his, and that he intends to keep itl He is unconsciously declaring that Nature has singled him out as the one who in the ever-changing conditions and strifes for existence is the fittest to keep it.

But what I and others here entreat is that he should do so gently; that when he puts his foot down he should do so with least damage; that if there be a child in his path, not to tread on it—to either lift it out of the way or take it up and carry it with him. The latter were the more humane, and it is only after 60 years that he discovers this remarkable truth! Yet he excuses himself with the doubtful plea that he cannot be burdened with every waif it is his misfortune to meet, for the pertinent retort lies to hand: "Do not travel in paths where waifs do stray and impede?”

But this is apparently impossible. Ngatipakeha’s octopian tentacles seem especially fashioned for exploring and investigating; probing into crannies and clefts; and it depends on his size and powers of suction whether he will rout out the original proprietors and placidly affix himself in their place. And he does so; neither is he disturbed by the rights and wrongs of it until he has securely affixed himself; and when the water, discoloured during the struggle, has clarified, and he sees the mangled remains of expulsion, is he sorry then, think you?

It is the intention of these presents to investigate and declare the truth of the decline of the Maori in a language to be understood by all. This may necessitate a harking back to matters dealt with before, but it will be done in manner not to pall interest, and rather amplify those matters, because on a clearer understanding of these several points rests the true foundation of a means not merely to keep alive, but elevate his standard among the aboriginal races of the earth.

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It has been asked: “Why do so? Why not let him die out, as presumably Nature intended him to?” From the town dweller these questions are to be expected—l have heard them —and he answers them according to his lights; but these are unfortunately, dimmed by tall buildings, electric trams, the Rialto and schemings of Shylock et cie; the Gargantuan appetite for novelties, and artificiality of all things, in which, when the Maori obtrudes his brown face and ridiculous apings, he certainly would appear to be a creature of an importance insufficient to warrant the loving hand of a comradeship which shall lead and assist him to keep step with our march. It is with us back-blockers who have seen what he was, and is now, that the answer to the question shall lie: Is it worth while!

Do I put the case cruelly, without regard to conventional glossings? Then I have mistaken my vocation. So have those, my staunch friends, who see heart to heart with tne, and urge me to yet further exertions. The other day, riding with a native along a path through high fern, we came to a clear spot about 20ft. square, of which the side opposite to our advance was heavily overhung by tutu branches. We entered so suddenly that a cock pheasant upon it had not time to arise for flight, though he attempted it, but fell back to the ground, and to the casual glance disappeared so completely that but for the noise of his fluttering we might have doubted our sight. We stood awhile to admire and discuss this conjuring trick; at the same time we examined the surface carefully as to where he might lie hidden, but besides dry grass and a few wind-carried leaves there was positively nothing under which he could hide. Presently my companion, whose sight was keener than mine, cried “ Inana ” (there it is). “Where?” “ Na, e kemo mai nga kanohi ” (there, blinking its eyes), and surely on the very spot where he had touched earth he lay, wings flattened, and neck and head reaching along the ground, and had he known not to blink his eyes we should probably have left him undiscovered, but once we had seen so much the wonder seemed that we had failed so long. Looking at the bird from the back—in which position it lay towards us—the colour of the head feathers was the same as the clay nodules strewn in its vicinity, and I noticed that as we moved round it, it imperceptibly turned its head also, as if it knew that its head was red, and that this red would betray its location; and further, that the colour of the

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fore-shortened feathers harmonised with the nodules of clay among which its head lay! The rest of its body it seemed to disregard.

I was astonished. My friend was equally so, for he exclaimed heartily: “ Ti, he atua!” (10, a god). “Why is it a god?” I asked. “Because,” he replied, promptly, “it can do what neither you nor I can, and we are next to the gods!” “ Then we will not disturb it,” I said, and rode away.

But the thoughts which his smart rejoinders opened up—and we debated as we rode on-—led me to the hotly contested, but not yet won, battlefields of Special Creation v. Evolution. Was this bird created with the knowledge of self-obliteration, and its protective consequences? Or was it the off-spring of a sport, or freak, which, because of these distinctive features, survived some great slaughter in the misty long ago, and perpetuating them preserved its species? Special creationists cry the former, evolutionists the latter. My Maori friend would divide the honours, but canted his head to an angle of doubt when it came to their placing, so he explained: “Look at me, lam 1 paakaa ’ (brown). Why am I brown? Because it is the colour of the earth. I belong to the earth. I was reared on it. In the beginning of days, when all things fought for the possession of the world, the party which could lay the best ambush vanquished those either lighter or darker than the earth on which the ambush was laid, and by their colour betrayed their lair. Then the party nearest the earth colours survived, and all became alike. That is why the Maori is brown. Then further success lay with those of the thickest muscle (tapping it). The strongest begat strong children, until you brought us guns, which make strength of arm and endurance unnecessary. That is why you are the masters; you had guns superior to ours, and knocked us about at your will. Had you met us in the open with taiaha, tewha tewha, and mere, we would have swept you away even as a woman sweeps up chips! A cripple can point a gun and fire it. Weaklings have the same chance as the strong; thus tribes of weaklings, which possessed guns, overcame man’s muscle, straight begat weaklings, and died out!” (Don’t tell me the Maori doesn’t think. And you pakehas, who don’t understand his language, and how to draw him out, miss a large slice of intellectual fodder, let me tell you!)

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I have no doubt that in the main my friend’s reasonings were as admissible as many a theologian’s; they agreed with probabilities, and I record them here because they bear upon the subject I have set myself to elucidate—the decline of the Maori. And also, because never yet, in all my contact and discourse with them, and their sometimes inimitably shrewd opinions, have I heard that they held a theory regarding the colour of their skin.

When we admire and laud the perfection and harmony of Nature, it is with the perceptions of the poet and sentimentalist, or as our education and the humour of the moment impel us, and we garb it in language, each according to his genius and excitement at the time of perception. A sunny day, exhilarating fresh air, a pleasant prospect, an assured income—with these concomitants it is easy to cry, “ Wonderful,” “ magnificent,” “ delightful,” and enjoy a feast of the senses.

But stormy weather, impassable roads, overdrafts at the bank, reading in the press how our legislators vote themselves high commissionerships and impose unnecessary restrictions upon our liberties—aye, and vote hundreds of pounds to make up the deficiencies of their “ we won’t go home till morning ” parties. These make us ill-tempered; our ideals become stunted, and we see no perfection in anything! Then also Nature lifts a corner of her cerecloth and allows us a glimpse of the death and corruption by which she changeth all things, and we see the merciless mother she is! Then many questions come forward for answer, of which the supremest asks, “Why?” Why is it necessary that her sorting out the strongest and fittest, and their propagation, should be attended with the stupendous warring and striving around us from the infinitesimal atom to the mighty cachalot! But she is no gossip; she knoweth her own secret and keepeth it!

No; examined with the steely eye of investigation there is no poetry in Nature. All is relentless struggle and warfare! And it is good to know this—peradventure the merciful may be endowed with more mercy, and the eyes of many be opened, and the hearts of all be mellowed in this era of civilisation and progress, so called, to the sufferings in which man is coheir with all that liveth, and the Maori a conspicuous example!

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But what makes it all so pathetic is that this death was necessary, that the rest might live. Nature sows prodigally, and then sends in her weeders, famine, disease, and for a final purification, war, to thin out the weaklings and test the survivors! From the birth of the Maori, as a people, tribe, family, or individual, this constant selecting and testing went on unbroken. “ When we heard the fame of a new attack of which the defence was kept secret, instantly,” said Kaha, “we learnt the attack and devised its defence, and then we either tested it in mimic war or on the persons of our slaves. Not only that, but we invented counterstrokes to follow arising out of that new attack, and hungered for a cause of war to establish its efficiency.” All this is savage, is it? Perhaps so; but it was not his fault; to say so is defaming Nature—his mother! When he fought he did so with tools, and in a manner which developed all that was desirable in man—health, endurance, agility, swiftness, and sureness of sight, and that masterful presence which portends deeds to come. It was Nature’s final test before she passed and stamped her production for the market. And he leaped into the arena, straight of limb, supple, tendons and muscles proportioned and balanced, tattooed, awesome, virile; prepared to challenge all-comers, and the love of the maidens! Do I hear you say, “That is savagery?” Maybe it is; but don’t cry it from the housetops; my ancestor and thine did likewise! Besides, it is belittling his Creator.

It was after a gale in the season when the karaka (Corynocarpus loevfgata) was in full nut, the which and leaves are much relished by cattle, and paralyse their spine, but cooked steeped in water are tasty and nourishing, and greatly prized by the Maoris. To prevent the cattle picking them up I was sent as a lad to bring them home. When I came upon them, 10, there sat Kaha smoking, and watching a cow feeding at a windfall branch from which he had just gathered the nuts. Presently a huge bullock came up, and, taking the cow in the flank, crashed her away, and calmly took her place. This was more than Kaha could tolerate, and in two strides he fetched him a welt on the nose with the long handle of his tomahawk, brought the cow back, and made the episode the text for an object-lesson; “He kararehe, he tangata, rite tonu (like beast, like man, exactly). What are the first causes of quarrels? The stomach. Fill that, then it is women; satisfy that, (hen it is land; acquire that, then

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it is to slay men and be a famous warrior; after that it is death, but the greater the fame the longer will it be repeated in the years to come. This is the life of man. It was always the same. But the beast has no knowledge of fame; there he differeth. Yet when all else hath been consummated, the beast again parabeleth. In the older histories of our people, before the pakeha ordered that three meals a day make life happier, the man at hunger-time did not order the wife to cook, but looked into the food basket, for maybe one, or more, remainings of last meal’s kumara, and remarked when he saw it empty: ‘ Kua pau ’ (finished). Then the wife knew. We ate when we were hungry. Our stomachs never impeded easy stooping; that is how, to us, all things eatable refused to be bitter. Then, when digestion worked pleasantly, a while of closing the eyes, and man was contented!” (Good old Kaha, preach that to our gluttons who live to eat, and take to thy heels!)

The necessity of the Maori was the mother of his race. It fashioned him on her pattern. From childhood to death it regulated his conduct, and Nature, proud of her child, made its rough life as comfortable as its circumstances permitted. When she fitted out her family with a coarse loin mat, those who grumbled at its hard texture she gently put in the grave. Those with whom her food did not agree she had no time to argue, because she had no other. Probably knowing that consanguineous marriages produced weaklings, she made them prolific, so that she could weed them out at her leisure, and still have sufficient to keep up her number. She gave them a stone axe and said; “ Work your arms, I will supply the muscle,” so labouring with limitations it restricted their desires to a canoe, palisading posts, and council house frame. They housed on the bare earth. Yet because they were her children her cruelties were more apparent than real, for she dispensed compensations; she gave them no shoes, but she thickened the skin of their feet. She gave them no headgear, but provided their heads with a crop of thick, coarse hair. She had few mats for clothes, so she closed the larger pores of their skin, and acclimatised it to the raw air like our faces and hands. Their food cultivation was a laborious process, so she said; “Go and make war on yonder tribe, and bring home slaves to assist you.” They hankered not for the unattainable, because they had all they required. They knew

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some of their mother’s by-laws, and what they failed to comprehend, well, there was Makutu, Taniwha, and Tipua to charge it to, and thus removed a multiplicity of vexatious investigations. Their cosmogony was simple, for it equated with unaided observation. And with all their moral and mental deficiencies, circumscribed in their facilities, they increased into a numerous people!

All these things we knew not of when we came amongst them, but with our preconceived notions, conventions, and Mrs. Grundy legends we endeavoured to graft on a people who must first patiently unlearn before they could adopt, and, well, they adopted that to which they were adapted.

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I was standing on the train platform of a smoker, watching the guard, one hand at his whistle and the other rising to make the semaphore signal “ All clear,” when I heard a clamour and lament in Maori of “ Au-ee ka mahue au ” (Oh, I shall be left behind). Looking in the direction of the voice, I saw a native woman desperately boring her way through the sea of faces lining the station kerbing at Frankton Junction, Waikato.

Blind in her anxiety to reach the train, she rushed for a carriage, and that being my smoker, frantically clutched the handgrasp just as the whistle of the guard, and the answering scream of the engine, gave her two seconds to wave my outstretched arms aside and clamber up.

Now, I have been intimately acquainted with the natives all my life. I know their customs and language, so that I naturally speak to them in it when I meet them.

“ Friend,” I said, “ you have come to the wrong carriage; this is for men who smoke.” Casting a searching glance at me, she replied, doubtingly, “ Probably you lie,” but opening the door, and seeing two stolid walls of faces, dim in a panoply of smoke, cautiously closed it again, remarking humbly, “ It is true; but I can sit here’’—and, triumphantly producing a pipe, continued—“ I also smoke.”

We had drawn out meanwhile, and were humming along at the reckless speed of about five miles an hour. After about twenty minutes’ trifling with eternity, X suddenly remembered my companion. But she was quite oblivious of danger, and from her gentle crooning, that kept time with the swaying of our motion, I guessed that her thoughts were far away—away in the past of her forefathers.

Presently, looking up, she pecked her head at me and smiled, as who should say: “ I see you; I don’t recognise your features, but I greet you all the same.” I smiled back, and looking down on the poor old face, studied it with many a kindly thought. Her features were well formed, on which the tracery of her tattooed chin must have shown a conspicuous

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embellishment in the lusty heyday of her life. And as I looked down on the wistful eyes my heart went out to her. I began linking her with a past, when the dear old face, now lined and shrunken, and like a last year’s apple forgotten in the fruit loft —creased with countless wrinkles —was young and plump and kissable. And while I looked a magic hand rolled back the screen of years, and passing, touched and smoothed each line and crease. I saw her in her youth and prime, full of the virility of barbaric health and vigour, swift in affection, and swifter still for vengeance, when the heart is full of hate, when the pulse is quick and keen to feel the ardour of a love grown cold—when the eye is sharp to note the secret signals of a rival’s advent on the scene; for never pang so deadly as the jealous thought that fills the native maiden’s soul—He ceases to regard me I

The train had by now forgotten that it set out with the mission to tear up the rails, and we sauntered along in a pleasant, hand-in-hand, lover-like dawdle. We knew that we should not reach our destination before five o’clock, and also that before we came to a standstill the driver would waken out of his reverie, and pull over the lever a notch or so. This gait suited those hard of hearing, for in these lulls a theme could be comfortably discussed and exhausted, and when interest began to fag, the sudden uproar of the stampede along uneven rails would shake up the system and quicken the faculties for a fresh subject.

My native acquaintance also took advantage of the spell, for after a shrewd, sidelong inspection, she inquired if I objected to the smell of “ torori ” (native tobacco); if not, why, then, she was hungering for a smoke. I told her not to regard me, as we were both in an unlawful place while the train was in motion, and, pointing overhead, translated to her the caution there notified. “Ugh; meaha tera, kei te pai ” (Oh, never mind that; it is all right), she carelessly retorted, and forthwith began to unwind herself, and spreading out her knees began to discharge thereon the varied contents of her pockets. After a lengthy manipulation she produced a photograph, with the remark, “ Taku mokopuna ” (My grandchild), then a silk handkerchief, a pocket knife, and finally about four inches of hard, smoked sausage. Holding this up with great pride, she said, “My torori; I cured it; take some, try it.” I shuddered. I remembered one day when the tobacco hunger

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pinched me sore, and the choice stood' —torori or suffer; how to please the giver I pretended that it was good; how that presently I felt moved to go outside and take the evil-smelling pipe, and dig a hole, deep and secure, and bury it; how I went to the creek and held my head under water, and protruded my tongue, to soak it, and cool it; how I covered myself with vows, as with a gravecloth, that henceforward and forever I would have patience, and humbly ask in prayer that the smok’ard’s pain might pass! But I took her specimen and acted the shameless hypocrite. I told her that I found it a particularly precious sample, that it ought to be preserved as a trophy of her skill; that she must allow me to take half to show my friends—at all of which her dear old face crinkled with pleasure and with infinite tenderness, laid a detaining hand on my knee, saying, “ Just let me cut off sufficient to last me home, then take the rest, aye, take it all.” I have it still. I keep it in remembrance of my friend, and to preserve its special aroma and prevent its defiling the neighbouring contents of my Gladstone bag, I have enshrined it in two folds of bright tinfoil.

After several blasts she turned on me a smile of ineffable satisfaction and content, inhaling the foetid vapour, and discharging it again in an ecstacy of enjoyment most envious to look upon.

I should guess her age to have been 65, probably 70. Hunched up as she sat, her hands clasped round her knees, her petticoat was too short to cover her feet, which were bare; her head was covered with a man’s serge hat, decorated with a rusty huia feather; a shawl of dubious pattern and age (but clean) round her shoulders, completed a figure quaint and ridiculous, but deeply interesting as I knew her more.

Our way lay over a dreary maze of rolling down and swamp—cheerless and depressing—manuka and fern-—with here and there a patch of stunted raupo standing listless in its sour and stagnant ooze. Once in a while we would strike a run on a down hill grade. Then the engine would hearten up, and show off its paces to an admiring cluster of ancient cabbage trees; but directly they disappeared, we fell back into apathy and the ultimate desire to get off and help to push it along. Therefore, it was with a sigh of relief we panted into Ohaupo. “Now,” I said, “we’ll get into a carriage and be comfortable; you follow me.”

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We were now rising, and as our horizon widened I turned to my companion for information. “ Friend,” I said, “I am a stranger here, enlighten me.” With a countenance beaming with pleasure she replied: "So you are a stranger here? And I looked on you as one of us, far gone into the white man’s blood. That, yes, that is Pirongia,” and as she went on I was amazed at her unending flow of description. Instead of answering my questions in a desultory staccato, she slid her shawl from her shoulders, and poured forth a wealth of tribal history, amplifying it with anecdote, collateral incident, and ancient legend-—of family quarrels and their results; of famous heroes of war, their names and imperishable deeds of might—merging one with the other in proper order and sequence; and forgetful of place and circumstance, wound up with a slap on my thigh, and the violent peroration: “ Those were men—men with juice of life in their bodies. What are the Maoris now?” She answered herself, and with a passionate contempt spat on the floor. “He tutua (they are slaves) slaves to the white man’s abominations—to idleness, gambling, and the lecherous coveting of their neighbours’ wives, and whenever they can get it the white man’s stinking water. Ah! then is heard the boast of the precious ancestor, the battles he fought, the trophies he brought home, and the slaves that he made. But enough, why speak of it?” and like the typhoon that has suddenly spent its fury she said; “What are those people looking so hard for, and whispering? lam not mad,” and snuggling herself into her corner gazed as one inspired, with eyes that saw but inwardly, and in a subdued voice, but which I could hear distinctly, intoned this plaintive monody; —“The white man came, he saw our lands; the white man went, we knew not where; few came at first, then more and more; they clamoured at our chiefs to let them have land; the churchmen came, with voices soft, and promised blessings to our race; at last we let them land upon our shore. And thus the white man came. He stepped ashore with humble tread, and cried, ‘ Make room, make room for these,’ and threw down guns and stinking water at our feet. ‘ Behold,’ he cried, ‘ the blessings that I bring.’ We touched and tried, we smelt and drank, till all we saw looked red like blood, till we were mad with lust for more. ‘ Kapai,’ he said, ‘ you give me land, I bring you more.’ We gave him land, he wanted more. He felt his feet, and found them firm; he crooked his toes yet deeper in the soil. He tried his strength—then our eyes saw K

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our mistake. But what cared he? He strained his loins, and pushed; we also pushed. But we were weak, for in our veins, instead of blood, our fathers’ blood, there welled a poison—the stinking water of our ruin!” After a silence she looked at me, and said, “You understand!” Yes, I understood how much of truth there was, and how to place it; but this was not the time to analyse and explain. So I simply said, “It is true, with some exceptions, but what avail? Would that the strangers’ promises had been redeemed other than they have.” She smiled one of her dreary smiles, which said little yet implied so much, and, laying her hand gently on my arm, looked at me with eyes that had in them a suspicion of tears, and said: “Listen, our people came from the rising sun, we are now going into its setting; we are hurrying into the night. As it gets darker we grope. The white man, who is far in the lead, calls back, ‘This is the way; come along!’ But he travels too fast. He knows the road and where the boggy places are. He thinks that when he cries out from the darkness, * Hasten, but mind, here is a pit,’ we shall, when he comes to it, avoid it. We don’t. We are weary with long years of travel. We clutch at what we take to be guide-rails; but find, when we grasp them, that they are rotten sticks. Then we despair; we lie down —some never to rise again. Thus we thin out by the way; the road is dotted with our graves. Still the white man strides along. He comes to a hill. Is there a way round it? No; therefore he inflates his chest like a tui on the topmost branch; he bends his back; he breathes hard. Ah, he is at the top, and laughs! Ah, why does he laugh? He rejoices at his strength—then he is great. See, he looks at his arm; he crooks it, and smiles at the pattern of his tendons. He comes to a river. Does he look for a shallow ford? Not he! He says to himself, I My fancy is to cross just here,’ and he crosses there. We see his footsteps on the other side, and marvel. We venture closer; ha, of a surety has he crossed there! And how? Ask of the first-born of the gods!”

We had now reached the hill country, winding about with many a cunning turn. Here on the straight crossing a headland; there skirting a deep bayou of raupo swamp. On our right the setting sun gilded the nearer uplands with the restful lustre of matt gold, while the further ridges and the foreshortened spurs cast looming shadows, here distinct and crisp, yonder blended and mellowed into blues and purples, making

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a dreamland panorama, transient here, to burst into fuller glory round yonder graceful curve.

Suddenly, like a slap in the face from an unseen hand, where one had looked for fresh wonders of forest beauty, spread a settler’s recent burn! Gaunt and charred, prone on their mother’s bosom, lay the mighty monarchs of the woods. Giants whom the storms of ages had battered at in vain, the tireless pecking of a pigmy two-legged creature with an axe had conquered and laid low.

And I heard a deep, resentful murmur at my side: “ There are his footsteps. That is where the white man treads!”

I was lazily wandering about, exploring its by-ways, and admiring the beauty spots of the King Country, when I discovered a nook of surpassing cosiness. It was a miniature valley, whose uphill ended abruptly in a craggy steep, covered from foot to crown with plants, some dwarf, as became their source of nutriment; yet wherever a ledge afforded more generous sustenance, great ferns spread their arms to breeze and sunshine.

Down its centre tinkled a lively stream, clinking and gurgling on its merry way, as if revelling in the joyous thought that man might come, and man might go, but it went on for ever—aye, winter’s rains might force it over bank, and summer’s drought abase its fleeting pride, it stayed not once to moralise, to question this, or reason that; but hugged its mission to its breast, flowed gaily on, and will do so forever!

Suddenly the raucous barking of a distant dog disturbed my pleasant reverie. Following the sound I forced my way through man-high manuka, whose flowerets filled the air with an incense of long ago; for it brought back to me the days of my youth. lam a colonial, and sweet to me are the scents of the land of my birth.

Having crossed this Nature’s plantation and brushed a cobweb from my face, I saw before me a native whare, in the low doorway of which—with head aslant, as of one who listens intently—l recognised the ancient dame whose friendship I had so curiously made some months before.

When she saw who it was that had intruded on her solitude, she stood forth and waved her hand in welcome, calling, in the voice I remembered so well: “ Haere mai, haere

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mai, e te manuwhiri kite whare mate o aku tipuna ” (welcome, welcome, visitor, to the deserted home of my ancestors), and, as is the habit of this people, when those meet, whose griefs have seen face to face, she took my hand and held up her nose.

Now, knowing the natives as I do, I make no pretence of fastidious delicacy, but conform to their custom of greeting'— when they invite it—as strict courtesy demands. I therefore murmured, “ I greet you,” and crossed noses with her. Then, beckoning me to follow, she entered; but, turning on the doorstep, said: “ Tomo mai, otira kei te noho noaiho maua ko taku mokopuna ” (enter friend, but I and my grandchild sit here empty), symbolising thereby the regret that they had nothing worthy to set before the visitor. Expecting to see the grandchild, thus included in her apology, I cast an inquiring glance around, which she divining, smartly intercepted with the remark; “ He has gone to the township.”

Before hanging the kettle over the fire she spread an absolutely clean mat over others equally clean, in a part bordered off from the rest of the house by a straight fern bole, secured in place by four pegs—two at each end—driven into the ground. “ Now,” she said, briskly, “ rest. He will be back soon, then you will see my grandchild. He has shot 25 rabbits, for which he will get sixpence apiece, which, counting two for one shilling, will come to 12s 6d; is it not so? He will bring home a loaf, and some butter, also he will buy some more cartridges and some cigarettes. Now this causes me much grief, because Dr. Pomare has warned us that cigarette-smoking is very baneful to growing lads. I ask him to smoke my torori (native tobacco), which a friend had prized so highly (here memory smote me in the face, and left a bright accusing red, for I bethought me of my lies of months before) but he refuses. He says there is shame on his face when the white man sniffs, and says: ‘ Young man, smoke not thy old soiled stockings, for the smell thereof is evil.’ But he is a good boy. He has been to school a while. He can say * God dam’ like a pakeha, as also other words, which I don’t understand; but his dog does, for he obeys him at once with great fear.”

While, woman-like, she made conversation, I searched her face for some change, if any. There was the same old

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smile, only more pathetic; the wistfulness of eye more touching; the quiet submission to the fate of her race more patient; and the glow of idolatry more exalted whenever she mentioned her grandson—always her grandson! The remnant fruit of her body; he at one end, she at the other; but what of the space between? Husband, children, friends; love, pride, affection! And only her grandson left, with sorrow, and heartache, and a memory growing old with the years!

And, 10l there he stood in the doorway, having heralded his coming by viciously kicking a dog that lay sunning himself in the entrance, the everlasting cigarette in his mouth, and leaning against the door-post, without salute, stared rudely in while he inhaled the smoke and expelled it again through his nose, looking, when lit up by a sunbeam, like the simultaneous discharge of a double-barrelled gun, hat a-rake, a sweetbriar flower and cluster of berries in his buttonhole, boots with toes gaping unlaced —yet she looked up with a love which I envied him!

He was evidently ignorant of the fact that the visitor understood their language, for this uncouth chunk of truculence inquired: “And who may this upoko kohua (pot head) be?” Lifting a deprecating hand, as if to ward me from a blow, she answered: “He is a friend—our friend—who sees as men see, heart to heart; he loves us, for he sees in us the konini, whose leaves fall in the fading year; he is the friend I told you of that praised my torori, which you despise; come, shake his hand—so— Where is the loaf and butter?” And this graduate of a low white education threw down a parcel at her feet, reached for his gun, whistled to his dog, and lurched away.

After he had gone she sat silent, hurt at heart, may be, that the idol of her life had not made the most of his opportunity in the matter of good behaviour, and I felt that the furtive glances cast at me should be read as a dumb appeal to be merciful. Moved more than I care to tell, I reached over and gently stroked her sleeve, saying: “Be comforted; he will remember your devotion in the years that are coming; he is young, and it is the way of youth; he is thoughtless. Now listen. His mistake is pardonable when you recollect that the white man of base and ignoble nature, in manner and speech, is of animal flavour; that the native youth, by such is much sought for, to learn from him phrases and words, which the

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decent keep secret. What marvel then that contempt for the white man in terms of derision finds utterance? For such is the bent of our curious nature, that we laugh at the joke with the joker, yet despise him in heart thereat after. That to touch what is evil is easy; but to grasp and exalt what is comely, means patient and painful endeavour. If what I have said in affection to your seeming is just and of savour, speak gently, in sorrow, not anger; rebuke in your grandchild his error. Yea, tell him that wit is not wisdom, nor rudeness a sign of high kinship; that white and black are equal in colour, if we judge of their shadow by daylight; that a guest is a guest by the token of a host being a host in his manner, and a visitor’s rest when invited should be sacred as friendship, because of the inviter.”

"Yes, yes; all true,” she replied; and continued with a weary air, “ but you white people expect too much. Why burden our last few steps home with more than we can carry?”

Then she relapsed into dreamy repose. Her feet close together, her pipe in one hand, the thumb over the open bowl, the other clasped over it, and both clasped round her knees, her head tilted to one side—a far-away look in her eyes, staring hard and absently at the fire, as if waiting for the flickering flame to light up the chambers of her memory. Then, speaking more in soliloquy than conversation, she said: “ Aye, what you have told me sounds good; that is my judgment on it.” Then she asked, “Did I tell you that I had had two husbands? No? Then I will tell you now. The first I will not speak of; he was an evil man, and it is not meet to speak hard of the dead. The second was the light of my life. By him I had two children. The second was, I think, one year old when my husband left me. He left me, ah, woe of the day! You must know that the war was very grievous in the Waikato, at Rangiriri, at Orakau, and all the other battlefields of long ago, where many brave men went into the night. Though we Maniapoto had no direct quarrel with the pakeha, and the war never crossed our boundary, we heard that the pakeha intended to take all our lands, from Onehunga to Mokau, and drive us into the poor, cold lands of Taupo, and to kill our wives and children. This report frightened us, and we said, * Let us guard our frontiers. We will set the river Puniu as our boundary, and no white man shall cross it; if he does we will kill him.’ So it came that our best and strongest went away to lie in wait there. When those who had wives and

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children returned, they were relieved by others. At that time we never asked, ‘ Where is So-and-So? Why did he not come home?’ They had gone to the fight. For great was the fame of the leaders and heroes—Manga, Ngapora, and others. And the blood of their ancestors grew hot in their veins. So when news came of how the white soldiers, with the warrior from England (Cameron) had failed to storm Rangiriri, our messengers spoke with great freedom, and vaunted large boasts. That same night our young men met in council, and agreed to halve their forces—one to stay and watch our plantations and provide food; the other to join the heroes, who had at last shown the white man how the Maori can fight, or die. When we women heard this resolve some cried; others were glad. You ask why some were glad? I will tell you. Every woman knows her man. All those who cried knew that their men were brave, and would go; and the others were cowards, and their women knew that they would stay at home, finding some excuse to do so. Ah! it was the winnowing of the grain; the chaff was blown away and the corn fell where all men might see it. It is many years ago; much has happened since then; but I see it all again now; and our speaking of fighting to-day has brought it all back to me. My man got up and went into our house, dug up the powder keg out of the corner, and began to make cartridges. All that night he made cartridges. He cleaned his ‘ tupara ’ (doublebarrelled gun), but never a word to me! I sat by the fire and watched him; and my heart was heavy. Oh! why did the pakeha covet our lands? When the children stirred I reached out and kept them away. Yet never a word to me! He looked not my way, but he saw me all the time! When I could bear it no longer I cried without noise, and when he heard me he tried to be blusterful and angry. That relieved me. Yes, such are the ways of the hearts of those that love, eh? But what of the glory—the name to be handed down to the children? Were not his ancestors brave, who suffered and said never a word? He looked my way at last—just one look! And I saw his hands tremble. Twice he dropped the bullet past the cartridge-case. Then he ordered me out in a voice I knew not; and which failed to sound like anger. But I knew it was love, and therefore I went not! And when all was finished I went to his side and threw my shawl over his head, so that it covered us both. Then he cried in the voice of a man in terrible pain. For now when all was complete for the

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morrow it was meet we should chant the words that are sung at a parting! Then we unclosed our arms and sat silent. He thought my thoughts and I thought his! And to cheer me, and harden his feelings, he chanted the chant which the warrior recites before battle, and the chant was taken up by the others, who were also preparing for sunrise and travel." Here she sat silent so long that I thought she had ended, and I was on the point of making a remark when she continued. “ After 20 days—-I counted them—a messenger came panting in, crying: ‘Prepare food; a party is at the turn of the road bringing in wounded.' My heart turned white. I wanted to ask but could not. And I said, ‘ Why should I shame his children by unseemly questions, and so much work to do?’ But I knew, for my aitua (evil omen) whispered hard in my ear, ‘ He cometh back as those who come home to their people to die I' Presently the messengers strode up and down, and recited the deeds, and the death of the fighting—the heroes, the dead, and the wounded! One instant I stayed my hand; it was powerless; five blinks of the eye, while the heart ceased its throbbing! For his name being called had palsied my living! Among the bravest he was, and how in the forefront of battle he had stood up and hurled his defiance, had singled out the foremost-—also a brave, though a foeman, and shot him! Dead at his feet fell that foeman, just as two bullets struck at himself—one through the bridge of the nose, from a pistol, the other through both jaws, smashing through teeth and bone till his jaw hung like a beard to his face, cut thus by a bullet! ‘ But you will see,' said the orator, ‘he cares not. Yea, though he will die, he will joke at his blemish!’

“ And truly he spoke, for there, when they brought him, he had stuck a huia feather through the hole in the bridge of his nose! Oh, my poor man! He never spoke—for how could he?—his tongue torn away and the wound all black with mortification. For we had nothing like the doctors of white men; only dock leaves, which we bruised and pressed the juice of into the wound, and thus laved all his terrible gashes. On the fourth day of his home-coming he died—died in my arms, where he lay from the day that they brought him till he went to rest in the home of his people. And his children are there! And the one that is left to me is one only—my grandchild!”

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THE MAORI AS A STORYTELLER.

THE MAORI AS A STORYTELLER.

Like all uneducated people, who neither read nor have a literature, but in whom the sense of curiosity is as sharp as in those who have the world’s news to hand in their daily paper, the Maori is inordinately ravenous for gossip. Hence, the storyteller’s gift is a prize of value. In fact, so much is it appreciated that there is a universal desire to attain proficiency in the art, and the Maori cultivates it assiduously. The visitor, the returned traveller, a member of the family who comes home from an expedition, as he nears his journey’s end, is suddenly pensive and silent. You ask him questions; he either pretends not to hear, or gives answers which imply, “I am busy; don’t bother me.” And this change; what is it? He is preparing the coming lecture; he is cataloguing incidents; he is sorting details, and apportioning them. His audience expect to be entertained; therefore, it is his duty to make his incidents interesting. If they are not so per se, he must embellish them or place them in situations which show off their best points.

“ I met a strange dog on the road ” is a bald statement, raising no expectancy of a climax. But to say: “I wonder if there are strangers about. Have any of you heard or seen of a new arrival?” At once the congregation faces him. He appeals to each individually. The chorus sings, “ No. Why?” “Because I met a strange dog on the road.” There you are! That frivolously paltry fact has created a sensation. No one is excluded. All have an occasion to join the small talk which it invites. Apart from the inborn curiosity of all creation, this is one reason why nothing, however trival, escapes a Maori’s notice.

I once had an exceptionally intelligent young Maori for a fellow-traveller, who had been over the road before, and I anticipated an enjoyable two days’ ride, as I had not. He knew the district through which we passed—the owners of the land, whether native or European, the names of places, mountain ranges, rivers, distances; he knew them all. From the amused side-long glitter of his eyes, he apparently looked on all this as innocent babble. But, like a good-natured

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fellow, he willingly satisfied my terrible capacity for information. Beyond this, though, nothing appeared to interest him; in fact, so dull and commonplace he showed our ride to be, that he found it necessary to yawn in the intervals of one set of questions and the next!

As we neared our journey’s end, I noticed that his replies came jerky and disjointed, accompanied by impatient digs into his horse’s ribs, as if he would widen the space between himself and his tormentor, and a far-away, glazed eye fixed itself on the distance ahead. Then I recollected with whom I rode, and the classification which was going on in his studio. So I moderated my appetite, and began to speculate what he would find in our eventless ride to entertain our hosts with. Yet that same young man kept them awake until two o’clock in the morning. And how did he do it?

By an almost verbatim repetition of the questions I had asked, the manner of asking, the intonation, his answers, my surprise, my satisfaction, the pleasure his answers seemed to give, his conjectures for what purpose, his oft-time “ oha ” (weariness) at my insatiable hunger for facts; all these, reconstructed, ornamented, set out in exact sequence, nothing omitted, and, as he told it, nothing unimportant.

To while away some of our tedium, I had narrated to him the fables of the fox and the grapes; and the fox and the crow. But somehow, when he retold these stories, they did not seem to be the same; they were epics; they were poems, enriched with appropriate local colouring, wherein the play of fancy sparkled and scintillated. They were no longer allegories; they were living, passionate realities, feeling pain and pathos, whose inner soul was dissected with keen skill and intricate reasonings—this motive laid bare, that desire elucidated, another plain fact surrounded with impenetrable hedgings of hidden meaning; here a suggestion of realism, there animal instincts made human. They were comparative, indicative, ethical, moral, dramatic—each section rounded off, each detail interwoven with the next, supremely, attractively, complete.

I was amazed. I envied him. I had thought him uninterested and bored, with only one aim—to get over the journey. Yet he was minded to flatter me with the compliment, “ Me i kore te ngahau o taku hoa kua mate maua ite oha.” (Had it not been for the entertainment of my companion, we had perished of weariness.) And what of his listeners? They were entranced!

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A good storyteller is sure of his welcome wherever he goes. If the day is cold, and the household cosily huddled round the fire, the butt of the family is pushed to one side that the storyteller may take his place. He has the gift, and values it; for, does it not assure him of meat and drink, bed, and the place of honour? But this very surety is his ruin; it makes him careless for the morrow; hence, he is a ne’er-do-well. He is invariably good-hearted, ready and willing to take a joke, leaving the umbrage to slide past him as he listens. He goes from village to village, picking up trifles of conversation—who is at home, who is away, where they are gone to and their errand; the good said of a neighbour, which he repeats; the evil also, which he keeps sacredly to himself, for he is no mischief-maker. All these he carefully collects, assorts, dockets, and makes presentable for his next haltingplace.

He knows full details of the last elopement, and can discuss the secret ways of passion, its bane, and what can be tendered in extenuation; wishing to be discursive, yet having an eye to the wit of brevity. He is deeply read in neighbourly dissensions; that the reasons are envy and uncharitableness he knows without being told! nevertheless he tempts comment thereon, for he is aware that to relieve pressure eases pain. He is crafty and deep in the probing of heart wounds, as thus:

“I met Poutu yesterday; he looked troubled of spirit.” If his listeners’ eyes take the form of interrogation notes he may continue, “And I pondered on the reason of his grief—he of the merry heart and ready smile.” If he has opened the valve of bitterness, he will know by the reply: “ Merry heart? Yes, when he has done some shameless act, then is he merry, and the ready smile is also there to hide his guilt. Our pig had a litter of eight; he is too lazy to raise pork for himself, so he coaxes her to his place, catches two of her young, hides them in a cave, earmarks them, and then gives out that he caught them on the mountains.” Or:

“ There was no one at Te Pehi’s as I came past. Now, I wonder where they are?” He pauses, to let his inquiry soak in, and is not surprised at the irate reply: “ You wonder where they are? Why, at the back of our section stealing fungus; that is where they are?” He laughs, but makes no rejoinder either way. It is as he guessed, for have they not the reputation of sneaks, and secret packers to the white man’s store? And he leaves the subject at this point; although he has seen

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them busy creeping from log to log. picking fungus on their neighbour’s plot, he says nothing of it. He knows that any seedlings he may drop here, the winds will surely waft to Pehi’s, and there grow into a deadly upas tree, under whose shade this weary, hungry storyteller may not again recline!

One season I went with the Maoris on their annual birding trip to the outlying rock islands near the Chathams. We were well out at sea, and looking about me, presently saw something floating ahead of us. I directed the steersman’s attention to it, and asked him to draw up, which he did. On lifting it into the boat, I found it to be a white painted board, about two feet long, and eight inches wide. In the centre of its length, tacked down with copper pump tacks, was fastened a small, oblong tin box, painted yellow, the lid soldered down, air and water-tight. In this were packed two small cubes of scented soap. On the top lay a slip of paper, inscribed: “ This is soap; try it. If it gives satisfaction, buy more, and recommend to others.”

The Maoris asked, and I explained to them, that this was evidently a novel advertisement of the pushing makers. Now, here they had something after their own heart; for it opened out immense vistas of speculation. Here they were on a borderland of the adventurous. They touched the barnacle-covered bit of wood fearfully and reverently, thinking aloud thus:

“The white man again! Oh, he is past human comprehension. Think, brothers, for a moment. He looks to the future, always the future, with its possibilities. Now, who but the white man would have conceived this unique plan to advertise his wares?”

When we reached our destination that night, the subject was again discussed and conjectured on. This was the chance of his life for the local orator, and thus he relieved himself of his brain freight; “Consider, comrades, the matter. This man said to himself, ‘ The world is large, many people have used my soap, yet there must be many more who have not. I will reach those in a manner unheard of before. The finder will say to himself, “ This trifle has sailed on the bosom of the deep, who can say how long! This must be superior; I will try it.’ ” But supposing he uses the soap already, then he will see it this wise: ‘The man has adventured much. I will send this as a news item to the papers.’ Thus again the

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man gains his point. The world hears of this brave navigator, and buys for the joy of boasting to his friends, ‘ I use the brand of soap which was found lonely on the sea.’ Then his listener says: ‘I must be even with this man.’ So he also buys.”

Here a fearless sceptic, who was eagerly quaking to be delivered of his objection, cried, “ Say, if it never was found or reached a habitable island, what then?” “What then, stupid? But it was found. The man was right. He judged that one of the several he had set adrift would meet some fortune. And even if none of them ever did, what would that matter? His brain would feel at rest. He had tried what no man had tried before. Don’t, friend, tell us that you cannot conceive of fame and glory beyond the ordinary!”

And thus the Maori planks the bridge which spans his gulf of life. But to meet this trait, in all its magnificent proportions, listen to their women! Their white sisters merely gabble. A Maori woman can be generous, and still come home, hard held.

The most insignificant happening is related as a portentous adventure. The horse shies; she tells that, and the sensations arising therefrom thrill her hearers. She arrives at the gate of her destination; a dog rushes out and grabs at her skirt. She is terrified, and thinks of the children at home, wondering which will miss her the most —the girl—and why; or, the boy—and also why? The dog horror is over. She meets her friend. This is never slurred; the greeting is important, so is her reply. Then their delightful gossip is recapitulated. At this Juncture it is proper to intersperse the recital with laughter, modulated according to impressiveness, with intoned passages, to emphasise attention.

If the conduct of a neighbour has been diligently criticised, this criticism hangs her audience on tenterhooks, while the evidence is being taken; and when the summing-up has been concluded there is an audible sigh of contentment. This history of her experiences is absolutely necessary. It is expected of her, and she enters on her duties with a vim.

I have listened to them. At first it is passably interesting; then it becomes tiresome, it palls; later, aggravating, then intolerable, and, lastly, maddening. But to themselves it is utterly absorbingly satisfying.

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A BIT OF DIPLOMACY.

It all began in an injudicious dispute over a native path—a path which centuries of brown, bare feet had patted and guttered, but which the white man, with his passion for short cuts and straight lines, had left on his right hand, and taken his own to end on the edge of a deep, unfordable pool-—to be bridged when the funds of the province could venture that way.

One side of George Felmore’s land was bounded and fenced along the road, and where his fence abutted on the pool he had placed a gate, so that wayfarers as of old could get by. For he was a kindly, honest Briton when his emotions lay dormant, although he could be as obstinate as a fogmoth when he felt he could afford it. And sundry careless travellers—not having learnt the value of voluntary concession—had left it open and let his stock out; so to secure himself against future annoyance he had chained and padlocked it.

One day Taupoki came along with a drove of pigs to the local sale, and found his usual thoroughfare closed. Being a minor chief and freeman, he glared at this obstruction, rattled the chain, and, stalking up to the house, cried, “ Kua tutakina te tatau ne? Huakina,” which George, not understanding to mean, “The gate has been closed, ehl open it,” Taupoki supplemented with broken English: “Open the gate that I and my pigs may pass.” This request and the manner of delivery struck on George’s fine proprietary ear, as too peremptory to be graciously acceded to, so he replied: “ Kahauri, you cross down below. This isn’t the road. Come on, hook it.”

Taupoki, gleaning from word and gesture that his appeal had been refused, cried: “ If I go by the lower crossing I shall lose my pigs in the fern and manuka.” George, more angered at Taupoki’s defiant pose and crisp delivery of a cataract of words which jarred his ears, pointed to the road and shook his head. Then Taupoki garnered up his wrath and yelled:

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“ Good, now I shall cut it down,” and walking off with great dignity, delivered a few well-directed blows with the back of his tomahawk at the staple, and passed through.

Here was so neat a “ cause for war ” as could be desired. Both acted on rights, as they understood them; but in a direction opposite to mutual goodwill and forbearance. If George —knowing that no one could cross the deep pool—had bent his fence aside a chain or two, and left the ancient right-of-way clear, until the bridge could be built, no trouble would have arisen. The position was interesting, but impracticable. And George, with the obstinacy of his species, had chosen the latter.

George Felmore, young, inexperienced, virile, and strong, was for further widening the breach, by bringing up his reserves, consisting of his younger brother Jim and an ancient Tower musket; but Jim prevailed on him to let the incident pass. And they both went down to the sale.

When they arrived there, Taupoki was in full blast, in front of an admiring audience of his friends, setting forth with circumstantial details how he had attacked and vanquished the enemy; and, turning round, saw George wonderingly red in the face, gauging the position. Seeing a further opportunity of humiliating his adversary, Taupoki stuck out his tongue at him, and lifted his mat. George, accepting these as a gage of battle, promptly took two strides forward, and fetched him an accomplished smack under the jaw. Such an indignity could only be appeased in blood, the which his tomahawk would have been instantly used to draw, had not the mass of bystanders of both races interfered to prevent. And the head chief, leaping into the midst of the fray, yelled: “ E poki whakamutua ” (“ Taupoki, end this ”), and to George, “ Hia pakeha, ko te heru.” This was a mandate both parties truculently submitted to; and though they glared at each other with scowls too bitter for words, this incident also closed.

The next day, Taupoki came to me and said: “Yesterday’s degradation; you saw it, hey? Well, it came to me last night, that this must be atoned for.” Then he rambled off into an inventory of the deeds of his forefathers, and minutely describing how each insult had been satisfactorily dealt with, continued: “This falleth into the same category; and as you understand our language, and that son of a mokai (slave) does not, you shall come with me to interpret the decision I

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have selected, and make it plain to him that on the completion of two days and two nights I shall go to his house and kill him, therefore let him be prepared. Will you go?”

“ Yes,” I answered, “ on the condition that you leave your 4 patiti ’ (tomahawk) with me, For,” I continued, 44 this is merely a declaration of war, and should heat intervene the result would be regrettable.” So we went.

I might here inform the general reader that in the bygone days no native left his home or grounds without his patiti. It was his most useful implement. He might, in passing through a wood, take a fancy to a straight-grained stick; or pass a good sample of supplejack, or the multitude of possible requirements of a tool; his patiti was in his hand convenient for every contingency. Besides this, it was his badge of armed peace. With it he fell himself on equal terms with anyone he might meet. It also prevented heated arguments. It told his chance way mate: “ If you are armed, so am I.” There was also a ceremonial way of carrying it. This was to hold it behind his back; the dexter hand grasping the handle, and as it lay across the back of his loins, his left hand would clasp it just abaft the blade. And thus chance bad thoughts were kept within the bounds of retaliation.

When we arrived, Taupoki hutched down on his heels without greeting, and fixed his eyes on George’s boot-toes (this also has a meaning). George cast a lofty supercilious glance at his visitor, but I held up my hand and said:

“George Felmore; this man has asked me to state his case for him, and I wish you to listen carefully and dispassionately. These people were the one time owners of the soil. They held a pre-emptive right-of-way over what is now your land. They have not been educated on points of meum et tuum, as it affects public fairways. Their ancestors held free porterage wherever they found it most convenient—and in times of peace without molestation. I have said thus much, to show you the position in which he views your obstruction, and his late action. I now come to you as his herald, and, personally, as a peacemaker. I think my friend, that you were the aggressor, and if you give him 21b of tobacco he will consider his dignity appeased, and this trouble smoothed over. (Here Taupoki interrupted: “Tell him two clear days and nights.”) I fancy also, if you were to show alacrity in meeting him half-way it would considerably assist matters; other-

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wise, take my word for it, there will be further difficulties. (“ Tell him this is a fair warning.”) You don’t understand this people’s customs of law and equity. What do you say?” He looked down, reached for a seed stalk, bit off the end, and chewed it ruminatingly for a few moments, and then said: “ It goes against the grain; but there, I suppose you know best.” Then ejecting the masticated straw with a jerk of decision, turned towards the door and said: “I’ll see what I have got in the house.”

When he had gone inside, Taupoki looked up and asked: “ You have warned him so that no blame may lie with me, should I find him unprepared? If he requires a longer time lam willing to give it.” “ Yes,” I said, “ that is a point worthy of thought; but listen: This land is his own; he has bought it. His deeds and maps define to him his boundaries, therefore he is right to fence along those lines. If the authorities have not reserved a right-of-way, you or I cannot say: * Give us a road here,’ ‘ a by-way there.’ He may give us one, but demand it we cannot. See the justice of it?”

He had red ferrety eyelids, and in the contrast with his ridgy tattooed face, looked hard and vindictive, as he glared at the house and cried: “ It may be so, or may not, but with his closed hand he disgraced me in the presence of the tribe. Ko ahau tenei Ko Taupoki (lo it is I, Taupoki), in whose veins flows the blood of fighting forbears, to submit to indignities as these, and not resent the blow of anger? Not repay the shame of insult? Enough, he hath been warned!”

Mediation was being strained to its utmost tension; but I still held the main strands firmly in my hands, although I had to play my fish without either tearing the hook out of the mouth or breaking the line, so I said with calmer insinuation; “ Look you, Taupoki, he is also of a breed which never turned its back to the foe. In his veins also flows the pride of his forefathers; but he has compassion for the blow he delivered when he saw the tongue of your defiance hanging on your chin. So to me has been given the privilege of explaining to him that the Maori will accept payment, and that then the rancour breeds no more. Let us now name the price of propitiation. Will one pound of tobacco cover the wound?”

I had him; I saw it at once, for he jumped up and cried; No; three pounds, counted out 16 sticks to the pound of

L

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‘ wiri rua ’ (twist), and not dry or mouldy.” This I pretended to weigh, as became the gravity of the enormous amount at stake. Having extended his patience to where tear of withdrawal intervenes, I said: “True, most true, but consider, he is not rich. Consider also that the pakeha hath certain susceptibilities which it were madness to affront. Shall we halve the fine, and say 24 sticks well chosen?” “ No,” he cried, “ not unless there be added two new clay pipes.” “ Yes,” I said, “ if you will throw in the handshake, as a token that all is forgiven; that the fire of anger is dead.”

And so it was agreed. Then he sat down and checked off the items on his fingers: “24 sticks of wirirua, two new clay pipes, one handshake in token of goodwill, and kaua e tutakina te huarahi o aku poaka ” (not to close the highway of my pigs).

This happened 35 years ago. And Taupoki has been gathered to the number of his fathers. But it is yet to me one of the pleasures of memory to know that these two, so distant in race, colour, and customs, became firm and trusting friends, to the day of Taupoki’s death.

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TARANAKI (MOUNT EOMONT).

TARANAKI (MT. EGMONT).

I ought to have said, “ A Summer’s Ride on a Summer's Day,” for this was the heading I had placed in my notebook before I set out, towards the end of December, on a ride from the King Country to New Plymouth, and on to Parihaka. It is a fairly well-known route, so I do not intend going over ground o*hers have gone before. I can tell my readers nothing new, not even of the ghastly mantraps on the road crossing the range which divides the coast from the inland districts, beginning at Mahoenui and ending at Awakino. Oh, what a road! especially on the top, at a place called Taumatamaire. Here I counted in a distance of two miles no less than five next to impassable mudholes, with not even the chance of skirting round them. For on one side there is a precipice, and on the other stands a safe and well-made barbed-wire fence. And how much would it cost to make those places sound? The answer comes in gloom and despondency, “No funds!” And yet—follow that band of legislators sailing serenely on a summer seas; basking in the smiles of dusky maidens, careless of promises, of reproach, of the cry that echoes from the firmament, “Roads!”—plain passable roads! Hear them again as they stand on the hustings, denouncing with protruding eye and tongue, runnels of sweat streaming down their cheeks, as they declaim against wasteful expenditure! Oh, ye scribes and pharisees 1 I have wandered through the length and breadth of the land, I have heard enough and seen enough to satisfy me that to neither politician, statesman, nor philanthropist shall belong the paeans of glory which the poets of the future will be called upon to sing. But to that large-hearted giant—that broad-should-ered, living reality—the man that takes his axe on his shoulder, his nosebag on his back, determination in his soul, and with sheer, dogged perseverance cuts out a home in the pathless wilds of the glorious lands he has fallen heir to.

Why not get a move on you those who refused to join that pleasure jaunt? Why not make up an opposition picnic, visit the sinks of iniquity, which cry so loud, and cry in vain? Gather facts, tabulate them, itemise the bill of charges, and when you rise in your places in the House, you can with sure

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and armoured front fling down your gauntlets and defy that gang of squanderers to take them up!

Get a move on ye, I say, and this pilgrim ride will tell ye more than fairy tales in Parliament—will bring you fame and praise for evermore. Is it your wish to build you up a monument? Here is the block, ready to your hands; shape it, dress it, and the country will inscribe thereon, “ They loved the people—and their duty.”

But, oh! why appeal to ears that will not hear? I hear the sigh of iteration-hardened souls, and yet why not appeal again? Does not the constant drip, drip, of a minute globule of water drill a hole through flint?

I say also to those whose city lives narrow down their views of the vapid inanities of their artificial surroundings— Get ye also a move on you! Brave the horrors of Taumatamaire; it is worth the journey. On to Awakino and the Mokau; cross the Mokau River on to Tongaporutu, and inhale the ozone, wafted up with raw and fresh sea air, as you ride over the gently-swelling downs along the coast. When you have crossed the Tongaporutu bridge turn inland—for the coast road at Parininihi, unless the tide be very low, is risky. Another 17 miles will bring you to Urenui, and at about two miles this side of the native pa stop—stop and turn your eyes southward. If, in looking in that direction, and the day be fine, you don’t thrill of glad surprise, your soul is dead—dead to all that calls forth the noblest attributes of man. For there in all the majesty of its solitary grandeur stands Taranaki, the glorious cathedral spire of New Zealand, no lesser crowned heads near to share its dignity; all the reverence it inspires by the magnificence of its silent presence it alone receives, full and undivided.

Taranaki—the theme from which I have wandered—what does it mean? Many so-called interpreters (licensed forsooth!), whose piebald knowledge of the native language pitifully resembles a Chinaman and his pidgin English, give fanciful translations—to repeat even a few would degrade that stately pile. To me its simple native name, which it has borne since Time lay in a cradle, is sufficient. I asked Te Whiti, than whom concerning the lore of his people there is no authority more reliable; but he only shook his head and said; “The ancients called it so, we follow them; inquire no more.” Aye, why need to ask? The rose would smell as sweet by any other name.

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It was a delightful summer’s day. The sun's rays, impinging on the snow, and melting its surface, gave it the appearance of polished glass. The heat, tempered by the keen air, wafted to us as if moved by a giant fan, and eddied in gentle, soothing puffs, inclined one to take life as it came, making no inquiry as to whence or how. And the carking cares of yesterday seemed lifted by the breeze, and scattered to harass one no more.

We had finished our midday meal, when Te Whiti, rising from the table, laid his hand on my shoulder, and in passing said: “ Come, we will smoke in the sun.” His attendant, following with a “ porera ” (reclining mat), spread it on a knoll, overlooking his petty principality. We smoked in silence refusing to disturb the idle trending of our thoughts, until the spirit moved us mightily thereto. Presently he leaned forward and said: “Friend and visitor, you tell me you have wandered far, and that among your desires was one to see me. Is there aught that you would hear? If so, speak.” “ Yes,” I replied, “ I would. I have heard the glad report that you teach your people to live in love and peace. This is good, and all right-thinking pakehas give you hearty praise. I would also hear from your own lips, now that all strife is at an end, how you regard the past, the present, and the future.”

Taking his pipe, and using the stem as a pointer, he answered: “You sit there, I sit here. Good. I am on the sunny side, you are in the cold of my shadow. Presently you say to me, ‘Friend, you keep the sun from me; I feel chill; shift.’ I say, ‘No, I will not shift; I sat here before you came; but if you feel strong enough push me away.’ You do so. My dignity is hurt; you have touched me roughly. I not only return the push, but in my anger strike you. We come to blows. We fight until one retires. Now, this is the law of the beasts. One hen finds a potato; a stronger one chases her until she drops it. Man was always so—-is so still. The white man in his covetousness ordered me to move on, instead of removing himself from my presence. I resisted; I resist to this day; not with force of arms—no. But I say to my people in the wisdom of the newer light; ‘Cease strife. He who would live by the sword will die by the sword.’ I await my time, and I tell you it is not far distant. I have begun this work, and my hand will end it. I have no bitterness against you as men. Yourself, for instance. I like you. I have no objections to all decent Europeans visiting me, that

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they may see with their own eyes how all the charges brought against me are from a heart begotten of the father of lies.

"As for our own wars of the olden times? Yes, they were the outcome of a heart closed up with envy—greed of land, greed of women, greed of good fishing-grounds, greed of everything one has and the other has not. But then they were blind —madly blind. See the wars between the Waikato and Taranaki natives.” Then he detailed that old fight over again; and as he warmed with the recital his hands held spears and warded blows; his eyes grew brighter; his quavery voice forgot its impediment; he struck out with his pipestem, made attack, parried, and with a dexterous stab got in the final blow; till seer and prophet, messenger of love, peace, forbearance, and all that makes for the pleasure and security of social existence vanished, phantasmal, out of sight; and the warrior, hot with lust of battle, forgetting right and wrong, all but the hereditary instinct of all life—to hunt and catch and kill—appeared in all the glory of its kind. This was no revelation to me. The veneer of civilisation and its restraints is very thin. It takes but little friction to abrade and bring to view the under surface, which is the real skin that covers all.

Whether, after this display, he felt that he had been traitor to his creed, he leaned over and almost whispered, as he, pointing backward, said: “Ask that mountain; Taranaki saw it all!” And rising continued: “Enough, now wander where you will; visit your friends if you have any, enjoy yourself. Igo into the house.”

But I turned my face to Taranaki, still haunted by the spell of the old man’s recital. Yes, Taranaki’s sleepless eye has seen it all I Man’s inhumanity to man. The bitter hate—the ignorance! The ghoulish superstition, with its rites! The lust of war, exterminating, cruel; when tribes seeking excuse to kill found grievance everywhere; throwing down the battlegage with coarse, defiant, jeering taunt. The war dance, when five hundred feet as one in rhythmic thunders shook the ground! The scout fires on the lesser hills, sure signals that the enemy is near; the ambush laid with wary craft, winding catlike to its lair, whence peering silent, keen, alert, the muscles tense, as bands of steel, awaiting but the chief’s “ Tenaa, kokiria, ki au te maitaika ” (“Now, charge; to me be the first of the slain!”), leaped forth, to fall on, fore,

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athwart, and aft, with slaughter everywhere! The clash of arms when spear met spear. The thud of blow, when foe felled foe! The pursuit, when the weaker fled, cruel, relentless, sparing none; or, if sparing, not in mercy, but as slaves for evermore 1 The victor with distorted face, protruding tongue, and vaunting shout, prancing in triumphant glee; now hacking here, now gouging there, wherever moan showed sign of life. And when the night in pity closed the eye of day: the loathsome feast. Enough! Yes, Taranaki, with its heart of stone, unpitying, saw and heard it all!

But all around the base of that majestic, snow-capped peak is classic ground. For here two races met to match their strength—a white race from a distant land, a brown race, owners of the soil—and Taranaki with its soulless eye, saw how they met: how one, the white, forth from the whitewinged monsters leaped ashore; how, undismayed by strange surroundings, the invader’s greedy eye roved o’er the landscape with approving nod, allotting with appraising glance his future on these fertile lands.

The brown race, standing doubtful by—wondering in his stupid awe what all this skin-bleached people’s antics might portend! Yet bravely anxious, with the brave man’s second thought: 11 If they prove noxious I can fight them, slay them, drive them off again. Who is afraid?”

And Taranaki stood there looking on, caring no jot, when stern and grim at last the struggle came; when hand to hand and thigh to thigh, hot and panting, in dead earnest, blows were dealt! When back and forth the tide of strife swayed like a flax stalk in a gale. It saw the homestead’s blaze. But did it hear the widow’s moan, the children’s wail, when, creeping from their hiding-place, they found parents hacked and weltering in their blood? Did it count the tears that fell, the prayers that rose to heedless ears? The vows in oaths of swift reprisal on the slayers of kin? Aye, there it stood, cold and serene, and saw it all! Just as it had in ages past, and may again—who can foresee what future ages keep in store? But never will it see again two races meet, one white, one brown, except it be in amity, to join their blood-stained hands in solemn vow to brothers be—one phalanxed front, shoulder to shoulder, heartbeat feeling heartbeat, strenuous and brave, to meet the common foe, be foeman who it may, that dare to venture an invader of these shores!

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WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS—AND A STORY.

Where does he not tread I Ask of the days that are past. When the spirit of adventure was strong in men; when the vast uncharted seas called, and brave men answered: “Lo! we come,” —and came-—some out of curiosity, to unravel what no man might guess at, and the haze of the aeons had shrouded in marvel; some for gain—to follow the leviathans of the deep into distant southern waters; peradventure to fill their ships with the oil that lay crude in the fat of their bodies—a dangerous quest; yet it found men to dare and to hazard—the well-bred, the boor, and the scholar; the outcast, the saint, and the sinner—with a past to regret and forget; the fugitive fleeing from justice, with the hand and the brand of Cain to hide! But what mattered his status or fame?—his past or present condition in life? To the Maori he came a miraculous vision; utterly stunting his powers of conception. To his simple knowledge of regions infinite, this white-skinned mysterious stranger must surely-—could only—from thence be a herald —an offspring, mayhap, of the mystic creator—an “ Atua.”

Some months ago I tried a fresh direction, and worked my way from the Upper Wanganui, through to Taupo. I arrived at that dream of desolation in no spirit of contemplative worship. Even my horse, which had borne with uphill and down-slide, morass and perdition, with a cheerfulness which had endeared him to me, when he saw the dreary expanse of stunted fern and manuka lost the forward air of expectancy, and his mute reproaches fell with the sharp distinctness of speech.

The sun had set as we emerged from the pumice wilderness behind, and, nearing the lake shore, I saw before me a huddle of bark-covered native whares, and a row of heads stolidly watched the approaching stranger. When I neared the fence I cried the old-time greeting, “ Tena koutou ’’ (Greetings to you), and like a cloud passing off the sun their callous, frozen stare changed to a lively smile of hospitable goodwill. They called in response: “Haere mai te manuwhiril

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haere mail” (Welcome, stranger, welcome) and cordially invited me to enter, to which, having seen to the comforts of my travelling companion, I cheerfully complied, for the chill night wind as it came off the snow had a coarse grasp where it roamed over the body and encountered the skin.

Later that night the house filled, and courtesy called on me to say something; therefore I told them as much of myself as I thought proper, and waited; for now it was their turn.

The Maori is a strict observer of rules and customs, and after a correct pause, an old man with an elegantly flowing white beard began by inquiring: “He pakeha koe? Kite aronga o to reo he Maori, no Te Atiawa.” (Are you a pakeha? According to your speech you are a Maori, of the Te Atiawa (Taranaki tribe.) For it is a pride with them to be able to distinguish tribes by their dialectic variations of language.

“ But the skin. What about the skin?” inquired an ancient crone by his side, who watched my every movement with painful eagerness.

“Ah, true! Yes, the skin, but what say you should he admit to be a half-caste? Answer me that."

“ But the pakeha,” he continued, “ oh, he is inscrutable. We think we know him, and behold he knows us. And we? We know him not at all. No, we never did. lam an old man now. When I was a youth I heard the sayings of those who saw him when he first came to these lands. To them he was something to be discussed with gravity and many searchings, as became his miraculous difference to anything our legends and traditions had disclosed to us. Wars were forgotten; tribal disputes held in abeyance; family feuds laid on the left hand. The news sped from village to village, and people came great distances to view this wonderful creature with the bleached skin—who laughed as they did, walked as they did, who spoke not as they did, but when he made his wants known in sign language they understood him at once.

“And thus they argued: ‘He has come; what can we provide to induce him to stay? We have it—Women.’ For they saw that he looked on their maidens with the eye of desire.

“ What next? Again we have it— ‘ Land ’ —and they gave him that. Thus they had him anchored even as the ‘punga ’ (stone anchor) is dropped at the fishing-grounds.

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“And the goods which he landed from his ships, such as no mortal eyes had ever seen! Guns that killed further than a man could throw a stone, with a noise so exaltingly terrible that the earth trembled, and in the terror of wonder they asked to hear it again, and ‘ poo,’ it came so suddenly that they jumped in the air and were satisfied. But no other tribe must acquire this weapon. Then axes; you threw one against a tree, and, behold, a strong arm applied with force could only draw it out! What were their ‘ toki paneke ’ (stone axes), compared to these? And knives, and blankets—soft to the skin—not like their * pureke ’ (cloak), rough and hard! To behold these and numberless others was to them a neverending feast. To sit and see them spread before you aroused the desire for possession; an unsatisfied sight to be renewed on the morrow.

“ One other strange thing was a curious dark liquid, whereof the white man drank and smacked his lips, as if the taste thereof were to be remembered with relish, and a sign that it brought content. Now, when they saw this, they cried: ‘ Let us also taste.’ But when they smelt, the fumes were acrid. Yet the white man drank again and was merry thereafter. ‘ Surely this must be good. White man, give us some.’ Ugh I even as scalding water went it down the throat, and they would have no more. ‘ Only one more,’ cried the giver, and truly his face shone red with the happiness within him. So, to please him, they tasted again, and they felt warmth and comfort. Presently their thoughts expanded and floated in space; they saw in objects around them great alterations of figure. Cares, hardships, and sorrow departed. Would they taste again? Of a surety. But after awhile the genial feelings evaporated. One remembered that his wife was not so affectionate as of old. There is a reason. It must be seen to; and forthwith he staggers off to find and thrash her! Another remembers a word said in joke by an acquaintance; now it cuts into the heart of his new dignity; so he also staggers off to avenge the insult. Yet another feels sure that his friend is paying attention to his betrothed, which custom has not sanctioned; therefore he, too, wends him on unsteady legs to investigate the matter. And presently, wherever the eye is cast, there is riot, bleeding noses, and scalp wounds, and a commotion as of a stormy sea rushing and foaming among the rocks. And on the morrow the head is cracking in several places at once, as is a frozen-over pond and a stone thrown

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therein. The throat is harsh and dry, so that water is required to moisten and slake the thirst. The heart is downcast; and he goes to the white man in sorrow, and cries: ‘Friend, I feel inexpressibly wretched; give me medicine!’ ‘Ha! ha! laughs the white man. ‘ I know what the matter is with you. Here, drink this.’ So when the Maori cautiously smells it—as is his habit—he cries: ‘No no, this hath caused the evil.’ But the white man pats him on the back, and says: ‘ You drink it and see; it is my cure.’ And the Maori, having faith in his wonderful friend drinks, and lo! he is refreshed. He takes more; for if so be it has done thus much, why, it will cure him altogether; then he gets drunk again, and is no longer human. Thus he goes on until his friends avoid him; his wife leaves him; his children are starving; his flax is sold for drink—his land gone the like way—and his life is ruined!”

Here the old man gave my face a searching glance, and continued: “Such was the story of my father, and I began the same course. But a reason stepped in and stayed me, and that is a separate tale; and if you are not yet weary, why, I feel in the humour to tell it.

“ Know then that I come from the sea coast, and was born there. The only land I have is here. My father was a man of repute, but he lost his manhood and all his possessions through drink. And at last one sorrwful day he was found dead. Stupid with drink he had wandered homeward, but went in the wrong direction, and fell over the cliff. Then a relation adopted me, and I grew up. When I was strong enough to look after myself I joined a party of Bay whalers, where rum was in abundance—rum ashore, and rum in the boat. When the whale was killed and brought ashore, there was a feast and more rum to celebrate the luck and the catch. So, instead of laying by money, I was in debt to the owners for clothes and rum. But what cared they? Rum was cheaper than gold!

“ Close to our station was a large pa. When they came to know that I was the son of a great warrior there was welcome and house room for me. For you know, when one fighting man has killed some noted foe his name is flourished abroad as a hero. Even his enemies regard him as such, though they will take the first opportunity to * Rapu utu ’ (be revenged). Thus I came and went, making friends and companions of the young men, and also be sure of the maidens.

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“ Now among these there was one (Oh, keep silent, woman! or wilt thou tell the tale thyself?), whom to see was to love, and hanker to own. Aye, desirable above all things for ever. That being so, why, what would you? canst thou not guess? Ha! well, then, it was even so!

“ Thus for nights I tossed sleepless with yearning. Should I adventure? Would she say aye? Would she turn in disdain and say no? I will risk it—she can but say no. Therefore, one day, when I could bear it no longer, I sauntered up to where the maidens were cleaning fish in the stream. They greeted me with smirks and laughter—all but the mistress of my heart. She also greeted me—then hung her head—just looked up once maybe, and shot a glance. Then I said to myself, ‘ Good, this matter is ripe for the testing.”

“So we promised each to each our troth. When I went to the parents they at first would not consent, and asked for time to make acquaintance of my pedigree. For know, she was the daughter of a famous man.

“ While they demurred I kept sober—a hard task—but such is the cunning of those in love. Yet on the night of their announcement, that they looked kindly on my wish, so bloated was my frantic joy that I got drunk, and stayed so for two whole days and nights; and even with a sodden brain went thus to visit her. My maiden gave me one look, then turned away and sighed! But her love was stronger than her grief, so she made room for me to seat myself beside her (this was our custom then), and sang to us this song:—

‘ On the sea coast there is clattering

’Mong the pebbles,

Telling that the swell is soft and low

Then I venture for my bath,

Then I venture in the tide.

How it laps me, how it laves me!

Yea, it soothes me

Thus —my wish is—may it ever be.

1 On the sea coast there is rumbling,

Much of roaring; much of striving,

I go forth to view it—oh it frightens!

And the sea-froth meets me,

Whirled and scattered by the storm.

Will I take my bath this day?

Will I trust myself to its embrace?

Woe is me! Shall I say—never?’

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‘‘Then she rose and went to her bed weeping! And the father said: ‘Friend, hearken; have you read the riddle of that song?”

“ ‘Yea,’ I said, sobered at this great calamity. 1 Shame and curses on my head forever.’ And in sorrow I called: ‘ Mine—for that was her name— ‘ Hine, listen; trust me for six months, wilt thou?”

“ ‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘ if thou touch not drink for six months, and then bring me thy wages to my hand, I will go to thee. Now, peace and courage to thy test.’

“ And, friend, ’Us here she sits beside me now. For such is the power of love. It rises above everything, it conquers everything! Love in the heart, also a wife with a strong arm and the knowledge to use the strength thereof. Ah, they conquer!

“ For the next six months I battled hard. I not only lost the taste for drink, but also paid my debts, and laid twenty pieces of gold in the hand of my maiden.”

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A TRAIT AND AN INCIDENT.

The Maoris have still a few codes and customs, which grew out of necessities arising at the time they were invented. But since the pakeha has introduced others, most of them have fallen into disuse.

One of these demands some notice, for, though not so actively prevalent as in former periods of their history, it yet regulates much of their intercourse with each other: this is the cautious, non-committal attitude they assume on first acquaintance with a stranger. In the olden time, when any such might be an enemy, this course was correct, as a measure of self-defence, and the welcome of “ Haeremai ” was not proffered until he had delivered his credentials in the form of an explicit account of his status, and the object of his visit. But once the “ Haeremai ” had been called, it meant that the best in the possession of the host shall be set before the newcomer.

I said the best, and this is strictly so. Whether it be in times of plenty, a feast, or when in the life of the household the last piece of pork has been eaten, even then (I am speaking of some years ago) there were few housewives but had, with a judicious forecast of possibilities, set apart a small store of “ huahua ” (flesh preserved in its own fat) for this and similar contingencies, which could be broken into.

The advent of the pakeha has accentuated this ancestral trait; not with his own people, but with the white man. For the Maori adheres to his custom, not to approach a stranger with the view of soliciting aid, unless he be in such straits that his wants require little or no explanation, which the donor grants without thought of recompense, and the recipient accepts without comment or thanks.

Since the pakeha has established the principle of “ utu ” (payment) for services rendered, unless he pleads in forma pauperis—and even then—the Maori may or may not have bowels of mercy, just as he feels disposed. If it is asked for and granted in the ordinary way, and the price not agreed

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on beforehand, a shrewd eye will watch whether the hand travels pocketwards with the intent to make compensation. The Maori always remembers that the pakeha is a usurper, an alien, whose eye rolls freely in a socket of greed, and what it may appropriate. This being so, his limited knowledge of biblical precepts, such as giving also the mantle where only the coat was demanded, does not move him to further generosity than he placidly refused to entertain.

To myself, who know their habits, many difficulties are overcome by an intimate acquaintance with their language. A pakeha who addresses them in speech such as they would use themselves in similar circumstances at once arrests their attention, and the first comment on hearing it is: “A, he reo Maori!” (Lo, he speaks Maori!). It is not only the correct choosing of words; there is fluency, gesticulation, inflection, and many other signs by which he is either attracted or repelled. He is also keen to note whether the same are studied and artificial, and therefore met with suspicion, or spontaneous and natural, and at once claiming sympathy. Having the latter qualification is equivalent to a possession of the secret password, and to entering their armed camp as one of the garrison.

It was getting toward the time of day when the sun, peeping over the traveller’s shoulder, points a long, black finger on the road before him, and whispers, “ Hasten.” I could have reached my intended stage for that day—nine miles further on- —and my horse, of whom I had made a companion rather than a mere automaton to be scored into speed with spur-rowels, was also in the humour to step out and have a right to his banquet. I say I had resolved to push on, when I saw an open gate by the roadside, leading to a cluster of native whares. So I rode through it and up to where a healthy-looking man, with white, short-cropped whiskers, was making an addition to his ponga verandah.

When he saw me he laid down an axe with a broken handle, which he had been using as a hammer, and stared at me, not sulkily, but as one having the talent of curiosity, commerces therewith. “ Tena Korua; e hoa ma; kua mate au i te hiawai.” (Greetings to you and friends; I perish with thirst.) “Lo! he speaks Maori,” cried his wife, who sat by a small fire in the yard, filling her pipe. “ Yes," I said, “ and the water by the roadside is green with scum.” “ Haere mai

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ra! haere mai,” they called electrified. I drank the water she brought me, made a few unimportant remarks, and had my foot in the stirrup to mount again, when the woman asked: “ Here, where are you going, and the haangi just ready to be opened?” At the word haangi, the necessity for haste seemed suddenly to lose its urgency. I lamely suggested that I had intended to reach the next stage, and waited. “He po ra tenei; kaia e harere apopo ” (Why, this is night; bide till to-morrow), responded the man. So I unsaddled, and the woman, inviting me inside, said, “ Rest,” and proceeded to make preparation for the feast.

First she spread a piece of sacking on the ground, on that again a tablecloth made of flour bags, but scrupulously clean, with—by way of ornament—the miller’s brand in blue uppermost. A tin plate, a sheath knife, a steel fork, with a prong and a-half, a pannikin, a broken saucer of sugar, a plate of four and a-half biscuits—these were set out with the utmost nicety, and frequently re-arranged with the best side to the visitor, until their alignment satisfied her, and all was ready for the contents of the haangi—pork, puha, and potatoes; and an appetite stating its case with great fluency—and what more could heart desire?

On looking back to this simple meal and goodwill, I remember it is a friendly redemption of hereditary usage. For I was a complete stranger; I brought no introduction—except a knowledge of Maori be called such. And thus I return to my opening remarks: that it is a sacred injunction of their customs, once the call of welcome has gone forth, its collateral is an unstinted bringing out of the family plate, and the killing of the fatted calf to be served thereon, seasoned with the relish of self-abnegation and hearty hospitality.

While the meal was comfortably digesting, he told me that their son and a friend were camping in. the bush two miles away, sawing timber for a settler, and that they had a great difficulty with the saw—that it would leave the line, and hence made the labour doubly heavy; that they had no knowledge of setting it. “ Yes,” said the woman, “ and it was such a chance to make the pockets sound pleasant with the clinking together of silver. But in consequence of a blunt saw they had it in mind to throw up the job.”

“Yes, they file and * whakaturaki ’ (set over the teeth), and they discuss and ‘ whakakeko ’ (take sights with one eye

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closed). Then one tries, and the other tries, and they cover it with pakeha indignities. Eh, but it makes the heart weep to watch the persevering lads. Then they try again, and breathe hard, and one blames the other. And the wish is ever present to earn something, and to cut the timber so that the pakeha may not have excuse to refuse payment 1 They were here last night and related it all. And,” she continued proudly, “he is such a good lad. He promised to buy me a thick shawl against the winter, and now they are disheartened.”

“ This must never happen on any account,” I cried, roused by their plaintive tale of distress to an enthusiastic wish to help them. “ I will see to it on the morrow.” “ Can you do it? can you set them right? But why do I ask? Is he not a pakeha? That people from whom no secrets are hidden. But assure us,” she pleaded humbly, with eyes looking into mine, as a criminal might entreat for mercy.

1 Yes,” I said, “ I can and will do it.”

“ And then if all goes as you promise 1 shall say, * Na te Atua koe i ngare kia peka mai ’ (God sent you to step aside here),” she cried, gently stroking my stockinged foot with a hand trembling anticipatingly. The poor old hand covered with the callosities of age and much labour—but a mother’s hand —chafing my tired feet, to intercede for help that her son might advance! So I put my hand on hers and patted it, and assured her huskily—for my heart was full and thankful that I had the skill—that I would set them right.

So eager was the old lady that I heard her pottering at daylight, making preparations for the portentous event, which was to declare whether her son, despite his willing soul, should give up his enterprise or through the God-sent visitor succeed.

Oh, yes, she must also go. What, not behold the success? Perish the base and hireling thought! When we arrived the lads were already at it, wheezing the wretched old instrument of riches along through a curly-grained rimu. And while I “ topped,” and “ set,” and filed, the mother looked from them to me and back again, as who should say: “Expect a miracle ”—at first a slight shade gravely doubtful, but more confident as the work went on. And when I sent the top sawyer to his place, while I took the place below to test the alteration, and find where other defects lay, they all stood

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open-mouthed waiting for the verdict. Having eased it yet a little more, and tapped out a buckle like a swollen cheek, I put them both at it.

I may live to be an old man, I may forget many episodes •of my varied life, but this one will always stand out clearly and crisply. How, when the lads, after a few trials, got into the new cut, and at each stroke gave a yell and then a whoop, and then, mocking the “ chapening ” of the saw, laughed. How in a frenzy of delight they began to swear terrible oaths in pure English (the words they learn before any other), and then in Maori, was simply a circus show, and strangers would have fled!

But the poor old mother! The dazed, bewildered look on the aged, care-lined features—changing, ever changing, in a transport of varying emotions—even as the crinkling and shimmering film on hot milk, which seems a thing of life—and the quavering cry: “ E-e-e, Kua taea ” (Syn.: Success at last!) was meed in full. The whole scene was foolishly simple, but to me, as I watched, inexpressibly touching.

Then, coming to my side, she took my hand, and, holding it, wailed: “Oh, woe is me I have no daughter.” This regret is above and below comment.

When the lads had cut along to the first crosstree, a matter of eight boards, without a stop, the father came opposite to me, and staring in an abandonment of wonder, asked: “Friend, where did you learn this?” and was making room for further information, when his wife broke in with raspy sarcasm: “That’s right, expose your ignorance. Kahore koe i te whakama ki to patapatai?” (Are you not ashamed of such questionings?) “The pakeha knows—he doesn’t learn, he knows; that’s all. Look at the saw. Who taught him to make that? He made it because he knew how to.”

Who can rebuke or gainsay a woman’s logic? He couldn’t. He said meekly, quite meekly: “ Etika ana, otira—” (Quite true, but—). And thus a woman solves life’s problems!

AS HE SAW IT.

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AS HE SAW IT.

I had posted my correspondence, and was sauntering about in the genial morning warmth, grateful that winter had packed his portmanteau and departed. And spring, nodding to many an old acquaintance, was moving into the vacant apartment; waving a wallet, bulging with interesting confidences, to be divulged later on. Aye, later on; but in the meantime she broke in on suspense with snatches of sunshine and song, and a promise of greater revelations to come.

Presently I met one of those human limpets, who, given a promise of moderate sustenance, fasten on at once. This is not said in reproach, for he was my friend—an enthusiastic talker, charged to the muzzle with information, which it was pleasant to listen to. He had a quaint happiness of expression, which is lost in translation, and, finding a convenient seat, he began:

“ Why is it,” he asked, “ That the pakeha looks down on us? Is it because of our colour, our customs, or what? If it were merely our customs I could conceive an objection: for there are many of his own which are an abomination to us. So Judging by comparison, it is possible that people who have been taught according to rules growing out of one set of conditions, may look with disfavour on habits quite necessary and nice to those of other conditions. For instance:

“ I was sitting at an hotel dinner-table, wherl two other Maoris (strangers to me) came in and sat down. One of these was a grown-up lad, and the elder, either his relation or friend. The first course was soup, and as the younger used his spoon, his lips reached forth to meet it, at the same time he insucked his breath, which made a particular noise. After the third mouthful the elder said, in an undertone, ‘ Ei, kaua e pera to kai, kei kiia taua he poaka ’ (say, eat not like that, lest it be said of us that we are pigs). Then he looked at me, and we nodded, thereby silently agreeing that as we sat at the white man’s table it became us to conform to his customs: —

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“ Here we have an illustrative point of varying habits. Among us, in the past, a man of importance by this motion of his lips, proclaimed his distinction. No man of inferior station would dare to slobber thus. This prerogative was claimed by chiefs alone. The slave, or vassal, had to consume his food humbly, and with the least possible noise.

“ When a chief was invited to a feast, before he touched the food set before him, he first lowered his mat to his hips—mother naked to the waist—so that no one sitting in his rear might be able to place a makutu germ in his robe, which germ would be most potent while at meals. Then he would grasp the meat in both hands and bite out a mouthful. When he came to eat his puha he would insuck his breath with force, and thus draw the portion in. He would be exercising his right, and thus make manifest his superiority.

“ Behold in this one of the many lessons we must unlearn when we associate with the pakeha.

“With the pakeha, to act as I have said, is a token of lowly condition, and to partake of his victuals noisily brands him as uncouth. He must open his mouth no wider than will admit the portion presented on the fork or spoon; he must masticate in silence; he must eject bones and other substances so as to call no attention thereto. With our forefathers the direct contrary marked elite rearing. Strange is it not? Are we therefore pigs?

“ A pakeha housewife, if she have but one basin, will wash her face and also mix her plum, pudding in the same utensil. This have I seen twice, and each time it farewelled my appetite, for with us this is supremely ‘ weti weti ’ (disgusting) . At another time I saw a woman, whose husband had brought home a string of fish, cast< them into an iron tub and pour water therein, to prevent the scales drying on before she had time to clean them. Would you believe it? This veritable tub had been used to wash clothes in! Another abomination which even an insane creature among us would remember to avoid. Yet we are both human. Why should we not mortify your pride by calling; ‘Behold the pigs.’

“ You mention our sanitary matters, and that wise? Truly, as you say, they are to be reprobated. But, my diligent fault-finder, listen: A distant relative, serving as a sailor on a ship, when he returned from Sydney, related tales of what

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he had seen there at the time of the plague, which, when he had ended, we condemned as the imaginings of a stricken brain. It was past believing that a race, which boasteth of progress, would allow in their midst the filthy horrors which lay exposed when the houses were pulled down—over which —listen—they had eaten and slept! Never in our out-camps, homesteads, or villages have such enormities been allowed to accumulate as he told us of, and which he had seen with his own eyes. And we said, ‘After this, let no white man smite us with his dirty hand, and cry: ‘Friend, thy face is soiled.’ Pigs, indeed.”

“ But,” I interrupted, “ you would not condemn a race for the degrading practices of its minority, which, in this case, is manacled by poverty, even if it be of its own devising."

“ And why not?” he answered. “ Why should not the child be amendable to the control of its parent? Why should it be allowed to cry. ‘ Don’t strike me;! am thy offspring?’ I will here mention our proverb— ‘ Near the nest, the bird is silent.’ I am reviewing customs, under which we were a numerous people, and which you are pleased to classify as the customs of pigs.

“ Of this, also, much resentment disturbs my heart throbs. I speak of the chastity of our women, which the pakeha denounces most impudently. Here, again, look on this picture, and that. Does he know of what he speaks so confidently? Does he speak with the authority born of knowledge, careful search, truthful information, and impartial decision? I say, no, he doth not. Whence cometh this information? From a few of our loose women. How is it acquired? Look at our halfcaste children! With us, it is in all cases a matter of the affections. The pakeha thrusts his mischances out of doors; we forgive and cherish them. He boasts of his stature, yet brains himself against the lintel. He—as the Bible hath it—is frenzied at the splinter in our eyes, but forgets that he causes damage ramping around with the pole sticking out his own! Verily, he is like the wild duck, which pretends a broken wing to distract attention from her young. Enough of that.

“ There remaineth our colour. Now, I have not myself, or heard any Maori, remark, ‘ I wish I were white like a pakeha.’ We take our colour as a gift from the gods, and are satisfied with it. If we have sufficient of food and raiment, and we

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get the woman on whom we have set our affections, we recognise that life is good to us. Then, beyond the petty tribulations of this day and that, we are happy. For what mattereth the colour of the skin? A white face and a black heart—it were profitable to decide which is the more to be preferred. And as he has sense, the pakeha cannot make this an obstacle to closer union. And so that objection vanisheth.

“Then reraainelh lastly to be inquired, ‘What is it? And the probability lies on the surface that he despises us, because the gods have selected him to be the repository of their wisdom. This, we concede without cavil. Truly, in dispensing knowledge to their favourites, the gods have been unstintingly magnificent. Turn where we will, it exudeth as the dew of the night. He lies down at night with a question, and rises in the morning with its answer. It comes to him as poverty to the spendthrift. This makes him sarcastic when ignorance asks for information which lies so apparent. This is my opinion, and I ask you, of the race, to confirm it. Is it the reason the pakeha despises us?”

I was so utterly captivated with his cheerful garrulity that I had forborne to interrupt him, but now I said: “It is possible that there are among the unthinking rabble, some who, as you say, look down on you, and each may have his or her reason for doing so. But the sweeping assertion that all do, is not only a mistake; it is an untruth. The pakeha sees in you the germs of unlimited expansion, and would assist you gladly, but you must let him do it his own way. Therefore, why not listen to his advice? Why not step out of that uncertain rut you call a road? Why not bestir yourselves, and shake off your killing fatalism? Lay aside your tohunga absurdities, your unnatural marriage laws, your unwholesome tangi customs, your laying on your backs in the sun, to await impossible events; your maxim of ‘enough for the day,’ etc., without assuring yourself that there is not only enough for to-day, but the morrow also—the morrow of your children. The pakeha has a deeper regard for you than he himself is aware of. But the struggle of life does not allow him to drag along an unwilling cripple at his side, who continually cries: ‘ Stop a little, here is a custom I must observe; here is a fruit I must taste; here is an ancient flower I must sniff at.’ So he shakes you off in disgust, and says, ‘ Bah, go your own way. I can’t waste my time; that chap here at my elbow will get

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past me if I loiter!’ You must throw away your crutches of superstition, tribe hatreds, paltry jealousies, makutu insanities, and obsolete hereditary customs.

“ Remember you are the favoured race. The pakeha once stood where you now stand. He had no one to show him as you have. All that which you look upon as gifts of the gods are nothing of the sort; they are the results of hard thinking, bitter experiences, and constant labour. Every man’s skill ended with his life. But he planted seeds which grew for those after him, who improve on them, until stands accomplished that which staggered you. This day he wanders on the seashore of the vast unexplored beyond. Every sunrise tells the world of a fresh discovery. And all this is yours. What you have to do, is to throw away your crutches, and make a grab for what is to your hands.”

Oh, I felt grand and fine in my heroic enthusiasm. I had risen from my seat, and declaimed with suggestive armflinging. I saw a small prophetic soul expand, and blend with vistas of a brown race vieing with a white. I took the horizon for an objective, followed its majestic curve—broken by mountain, valley, tableland, and plain—down to my feet to watch the fiery ardour I had lit. But, 10l he was asleep!

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A PROMISE REDEEMED.

I have known the natives many years—in fact, nearly all my life. Yet each fresh contact reveals a phase of their character unobserved before. In my many efforts to rouse them from the apathy which their “E taea te aha” (who can alter it?) fatalism is slowly sinking them, I have found the most effectual to be an appeal to their ambitions. For I have noticed that when they see something the pakeha has excelled in, they will also be seized with an inspiration to emulate him, to also do that which will make their name “ kia rangona ” (to be heard of). A curious illustration of this came to my notice during the late unification meeting at Te Kuiti.

We were awaiting the arrival of the Native Minister and Mahuta’s Waikato contingent, and to fill in the time I strolled round admiring the carvings in the whare whakairo (carved house), famous as a memento of Te Kooti’s sanctuary among the Maniapoto, when I saw two natives follow me and anxiously watch my face to gather what emotions those grotesque figures might excite. Knowing the reason, I purposely controlled my features, though it came hard to do so in the presence of the best-preserved remains of ancient Maori art I have yet seen. But after my second round, the elder of the two crept nearer, and asked wistfully, “Pewhea?” (how is it?) Then I felt impelled to do the artists justice, and replied: “ This is art, but also an art which will presently be lost, for who among you can repeat it?”

“Yes,” they cried, “lostl lost! but their history will remain, and the living will do greater deeds than even these." And he took me by the sleeve and led me into the porch, and pointing overhead to where the carved effigies of Rangi, Papa, and Tane looked down from the ridge-pole, continued: “In the beginning of existence these deities worked marvels. But they did not make trains, or railways, or iron bridges, nor could they talk across space by the aid of wires slung from posts, nor the thousand things the pakeha can make. Yet they created man—the Maori man. And what staggers us is, that they, being gods, stopped short there. Why did they not create

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that which the most ordinary pakeha can think out of his head of flesh and bone.” Then looking across to where a rainbow spanned its iridescent arc, like a glory everlasting, so near and yet so far, that none might feel its texture, he murmured as if prompted by its tints: “Who knows but what they made the pakeha also—and things got mixed while all was yet in parts —a changeling here and there might well have disarranged the plan, and the God of the Bible remade the whole again, and received the credit? And yet, that can neither be. Does not Nebuchadnezzar’s vision plainly say that the head was golden (money), the chest brass (the pakeha), the loins iron (the wonders of the world), and lowest of all, the feet, were of common brown clay (the Maori).” “Wonderful,” he communed reverently. “ Wonderful,” repeated his companion, “ Hei whakamiharo mo nga iwi katoa ” (a marvelling for all people).

After they had bisected, dissected, and redisseoted the subject, and then turned it end for end, and opened other seams of thought, and inspected hidden crevices of meaning there, they carefully took off their shoes, so as not to soil the beautifully clean mat with which the side aisles were paved, and led me along to tell me the history of each carved ancestral post. For each post represents a tribe, and there is not a figure or curve but has a meaning. And as they dilated with a pardonable pride of ancestor worship, the maligantly protruding eyes, widespread palisaded teeth, and defiantly-in-sulting lolling tongue, seemed fit to match and illustrate their tale. Heraldic emblazonments of founders, listening to their degenerate posterity! was the subtle thought that came to me. And taking these effigies for an object lesson, I addressed them thus:—

You have told a stirring tale, my friends. Look at those icons carven there. Will your descendants, looking to your deeds, exclaim; ‘Lest speech should falter, let us grave our forbears’ histories in monuments to tell their fame.’ What have you done?”

By this time a fair crowd had collected, and an old man —a chief—stepped forward and took me up, saying:—“ What have we done? We fought you; that have we done. You beat us, cast us down; now help us to rise again. You are the coming race. Talk not too boldly, times have changed, but give us room to change as well. Then, mark me, greater

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deeds than these have wrought shall carve our fame!” And the whole assembly cried with a solid wall of voice, “ Kia ora, kia ora, tera korero!”

Watch the people. Watch them in a crowd free from the restraints of observation. Lives hidden under a disguise intended to baffle the curious, are here off their guard. Each goes on his or, her way. Each brain working its own ferment of thought. Here faces aglow with pleasure; there weighted with cares and anxieties no stranger may intermeddle with. Here exalted by ambition; there slinking past in despair. Here the derring-do, caring nothing for jeer or taunt, waving aside difficulties as one brushes a cobweb from the face! there the faint of heart, though seeing the tide at flood height, but too craven to launch his barque on its waters! And so the crowd passes on I

The place I had selected to view it was a success. It was the open windows of Hetit’s Hotel. Presently a whiff of “ torori ” wafted like a pestilence past my nose. Turning to the direction from whence it came, one of the speakers at the meeting sat himself by my side, and opened the conversation by inquiring;—

“E aha to whakaaro mo nga mahi o tenei ra?” (What do you think of this day’s proceedings?)

“It all depends on the actions to follow,” I replied. “ The intention is good; but past tasting has left an uncertain flavour in the mouth. What with your tribal jealousies, distrust of the pakeha, and other weaknesses, you will have to exert yourselves in no ordinary degree to work in harmony together.”

“Distrust of the pakehal” he muttered. “You have spoken truly, and so long as he looks on us as inferior to himself, and sees only our women and lands, so long there will be distrust. When we see him cross a muddy road with his hand to the fore, and a smile on his face, experience has taught us to beware. Ido not speak in bitterness. We have been deceived so often, that before we return his handshake we sternly search his features for the reason of this great civility. See, friend; all this is old history—the Maori is naturally suspicious. We are regarding you now even as a child regards his parent who offers an apple with one hand

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and hides something behind his back with the other. You have offered the apple of self-government, but what do you keep in the background? We do not forget that our customs are an abomination to you. Why, even your churchmen come not near us. We are now at the parting of the roads, we are inclined to follow your lead. The question is—Are you to be relied on? For know that we have no more lands to sell, the most of us are too poor to start in the race with you, we are penalised with the handicap of poverty, which weighs heavy on our withers. Let us look our difficulties in the face. Of these there are four: Poverty, jealousy, idleness, and a distrust of the pakeha. Now, which is the greater? I say poverty; which is your choice?”

“ Idleness,” I replied, “ for it is a law with the pakeha that labour can live without capital, for it is labour which creates capital, but capital cannot live without labour. It must be continually reproduced, else it dwindles and dies.”

“ A true reasoning,” he replied. “At the present time we are searching for the road which will lead us to the most fruitful return for our labour.” And, rising to take his leave, he continued: “Idleness and tribal jealouy. I think you are right. Kia ora.”

I had barely returned to my former reverie, when a clarion voice entered therein, and taking a seat opposite me, exclaimed in the purest English: “What a refutation of the outcry—--1 Drunken King Country! Debauched King Country! Sly-grog selling King Country!’ till one sickens of the sound. Oh, I wish I could write just what I feel!”

Turning, in mild surprise. I recognised in the owner of the voice a well-dressed half-caste woman, whom I knew. She was strong featured, and could use her gift of speech with force. “ Look at them,” she cried. “Do they reel in drunken orgies, such as the cranks delight to hold aloft as samples of the life we lead? Dear friend, speak for us; say a word in our defence. What have we done that the King Country should be another name for plague-spot or pesthouse? And the tears stood in her eyes. “Look,” she cried, pointing an indignant finger at the merry crowd, as it went chattering on its way. “Here are rather more than 1,000 people, where are the police? Where in Auckland city, for instance, will you find a comelier, decenter lot? Will you say a word for us?” And I said, “ I will."

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“ But this is not all. I am an honest woman—not rich —but I can pay my way. We are all British subjects, or supposed to be. I can, and do, read my papers, where I have met with the assertion that under British rule there is no such thing as one law for the rich and one for the poor; one for the white, and one for the brown or yellow—in fact, that in its presence all are alike. Compare that with this: Igo to Auckland, well-dressed and well-behaved. I call at a hotel for a lodging. They see my tattooed chin, and at once there is no room! Igo to another, 10, and behold ditto. So I make the round of the town, and have to put up where I can—possibly some foul-smelling, cheap, lodging house. And why? Because I have a tattooed chin! Again: I would like a glass of beer with my lunch, my tattooed chin forbids it! while whitefaced strumpets just demand and get it. Where is the justice here, I ask? We had a king; that again was wrong. There cannot be two kings; the law of England does not allow it. But it decrees that there shall be two castes —the whole caste and the no caste. Those with tattooed chins and those without! A lady friend of mine went to Te Aroha hot springs to try the waters for her health, well dressed in silks and furs, fair-skinned, well-behaved, and clean, but she had to go to a common boarding-house, or come away again; the hotels would not take her in. So she took the first train and came home again. British equality! in the village where I live there are 45 children, a year or so more there will be 50, and because there is a school within three miles of us, we cannot get one nearer home. You know the road, don’t you?”

“ No,” I said, ** I don’t know of any road. I know a mudslide over two miles long, in which a horse once foundered, and, because the rider could not get him out he took the saddle and bridle off and left him there!”

"Well,” she cried, indignantly, “That is where our children have to come, or stay at home! And they stay at home! And you, dear friend, will speak a word for us, will you not?” And I said, “ I will. But others have spoken, and who has heeded them? Move the Church, did you say? My friend, the only lever that will lift the Church is—cash. The command of the Carpenter of Nazareth, 'Ye shall carry neither scrip nor wallet,’ has lost its potency. In the newer dispensation, vestments, and genuflections, flrst-class fare, and to be seen of men; so much a year and comforts in the home, are the latest revision of the Master’s charge!”

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No, my friend. The Church has its hands full at home among its own people. Were it China missions, South Sea missions, prohibition to be evangelised, Bible-reading in schools to be championed—the harvest field would not want for gleaners. But to get into closer touch with the needs of people who ask for no more than the Treaty of Waitangi assured them. “ Oh, yes, has it a fund set apart for it?” If it has, good; but no inconvenience, mind you. First-class fare, not the Master’s donkey, or His command to take their staff in the hand and walk on foot from house to house —even into the wilds. But in these automobile days mobilisation requires scrip and wallet, and all the accessories to comfortable travel.

It was different in the early days. The pioneers took the Master’s injunction literally. To them in their simple hearts a spade stood for an agricultural implement, but they called and used it as a spade, proud so to use it in their Master’s cause.

And now I have redeemed my promise. Let no one take umbrage at my speech, “ Many a shaft at random sent finds mark the archer—fully meant.”

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A TRAVELLER’S MUSINGS.

Looking along the horizon line the heat waves shimmered and billowed: but I intended to begin my return journey on the morrow, so I lay down beneath a tree fern to take a last satisfying look at that vision of delight, snow-capped Taranaki, and clasping my hands behind my head I gazed restfully, listening to the drowsy breeze that gently sang itself to sleep.

As the sun declined to the west a black cloud arose above the horizon, and as they met the sun leaned over and whispered-—a joke, mayhap, for it beamed a lingering smile and slid out of view. The cloud, mindful of the injunction, rose higher and blacker, until suddenly from out of its solemn depths there shot a flash and roar, followed by a sheet of water, which as it touched the earth moved along like a solid, grey-white wall; and the wind, rushing in behind, belched it along with maniac laugh and wild hurrah, snatching at this and hurling that, shrieking through treetop and down chim-ney-shaft, searching each flaw and cleft, and, not finding its foe, shook a departing fist, and hurried on!

It ceased as suddenly as it began. Now and then a moan, fading down to a light sigh, died away into the majestic silence of the night.

I arose in the early flush of day, and riding along inhaled the freshness and fragrance of Nature—Nature glistening and clean—and the rising sun called to the keen south wind to hasten along with its towel and dry her, while he stood by with his mantle of warmth to enwrap her from chills, and kissed her in love and endearment, and whispered, mayhap, the meaning of yestereen’s joke, for Nature blushed shyly and gaily for answer.

Riding on with a buoyant reverence for the strength of joy that was in me, thoughts came and went, and there remained the surety that there come seasons in everyone’s life when Nature pours its healing balm on friction galls and weary feet, and makes the distant goal seem nearer, and the intervening stretch, mellowed by the blue of space, beckons

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with a kindly semaphore to make one more effort; and to hasten —for that there the journey endeth.

Towards noon of the second day I overtook three natives —two men and a woman. They greeted me in broken English, and continued their conversation. The road was public, and while they treated me as a stranger I felt no pressure of courtesy demanding of me to inform them that I understood their language. Presently my horse closed up, and I began to take note of what they said. The woman was relating a dream, and the men were interpreting it. The matter of the dream was so utterly ridiculous and the interpretation so improbable that I laughed—l must confess rather derisively, nay, insultingly. At least so it appeared to the woman, for she turned and said contemptuously, “ Ugh, Ka kata te upoko, Kohua nei, kei te hauraqgi pea!" (The pothead laughs, probably he is drunk), and angrily, “ What for you raaf, pakeha?”

The rebuke smote me so suddenly, and, having no lie ready, I answered, “Oh nothing.” Evidently I had aroused suspicion, for they regarded me with frequent side-long disfavour, especially the woman, whose hard, steely eyes, and long, aggressive nose flooded me with a torrent of excoriating contumely. However, she began another mis-statement, to which—albeit, delivered in an exasperatingly raucous voice— I listened attentively. And, while she spoke, my thoughts went back to years ago, before I had read Dr. Brown Sequard’s masterly exposition of the philosophy of dreams. When I used to listen with entrancing awe to the fireside entertainments of native dreamers, and their diviner’s thrilling interpretations, and in my uncritical reasoning wondered whether after all they might not be manifestations of the dual existence of mind and body. That was many years ago, and to hear in almost the same sentences the recital of this native woman, brought to my memory many a scene of the long-forgotten past. But she kept one vindictive eye in my direction—so much so that I began to question myself where I had let out that I understood them. At last she enlightened me when she asked, “You peena Parihaka?” Taken off my guard I replied, “ Ae, i mohio koe kite aha?” (Yes, how did you guess?)

But they were speechless. Now I accounted for their persistent displeasure; for she looked hard at my hat, where I still wore the albatross feather, which most Europeans who

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visit Parihaka display as a token of respect to Te Whiti, the “ raukura ” or albatross’ underwing feather being the badge which his adherents wear in their hat, as an emblem of their allegiance, but which to Mahuta’s followers, is looked upon as an insult to their “ king.”

She soon regained her speech, and at her versatility, of which, in the choice of biting reproof, I met with a revelation. “What right had I to pretend ignorance?” “Why did I not greet them in Maori?” “Where had I learnt road manners?” To all of which I made judicious replies, and having nothing further to resent she continued her terrible narration.

When she had ended, and each of the men had delivered his views, she turned to me and asked for mine. “ Don’t ask me,” I cried, “ I don’t believe in the mana of dreams.” “Koia?” (Is that so?) she almost shrieked. “No,” I continued, glad to revenge myself at last. “ Among Europeans anyone who looks for a mana in dreams is at once recognised as of deficient education.”

It came hard for me to say so. For I called to mind some dear and absent friends—some gone to prove their faith; some tarrying still in perfect surety that they have seen the similitude of things, which in the olden time made history!

It may not be known that dreams, and the quarrying in their hidden depths for meanings, provide the natives with an evergreen intellectual pastime, and to treat it with levity is an insult not lightly forgiven. Besides their personal belief in dream potency, they are proud to have such corroborative testimony as the Bible to support them, and no ridicule, scoff, or disbelief will shake their faith. To make ex officio parade of one’s opinions as I did seems to them simply a gratuitous scorning of well-authenticated history. Many a clever schemer, who has heard that a certain house has a piece of pork, potatoes, and puha in the pot, will suddenly furbish up a dream and a plausible interpretation—especially if he knows there is a grievance in that house against a neighbour—and forthwith call, ostensibly to inquire if a missing horse or pig may have wandered that way-—and by an ingenious combination of surmise and fact so construe his bogus dream that to the wrapt listeners the enemy has met his Waterloo. For has not the dream caught the accused and found him out?

Having satisfied herself that here she had a peculiar formation of intellect not worth any serious after-thought.

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still merely to assure herself that she had not misjudged me, she asked, “So you have no faith in dreams?” “ No.” And, loftily, “In Makulu either?” “No.” “I don’t believe you are a pakeha at all; but one of those infidel half-castes who have been to school and learnt to despise the wisdom of the ancients!” And she sniffed the upper air in chilling disdain. Then in a tone of hysterical sarcasm, “ Te whakahihi o te tangata nei! nana nga whetu ote rangi!” (The pride of this fellow! his are the stars of heaven.) And whipping up her horse she galloped away from my pestilential presence.

The other day I came on a packet of notes which I had docketed: “Knowledge v. Ignorance.” They were an assortment of incidents bearing on this subject, and the foregoing was one of them. Having re-read them the question presented itself: “Does the culture of the educated bring him the happiness and content claimed for it?” Or, rather, has he a greater capacity for happiness than the ignorant? Does it tend to his greater enjoyment of what life has to give?

It is an irritating question, because directly you inquire you are wandered off into mazes of conjecture and perplexity. Sometimes there seems no reason to doubt. As arguing in this wise: When an expert in chess is confronted with a problem which to the amateur is so complex that it seems unsolvable, he, knowing the individual power of each piece for attack and defence, by glancing at the consequences of each move, intuitively becomes identified with the motive of the composer, and the problem is a puzzle no longer. So after testing the accuracy of his conclusions by a few rapid moves, he announces the key.

Now, though by reason of his intimate acquaintance with chess, he encountered no difficulties, any loyal lover of this form of recreation will tell with hearty satisfaction of the pleasurable treat just afforded him.

Thus far I have dealt with a definite intention, admitting of only definite result, yet the subject is so wide, and its conditions so varied, that to become bewildered is no disgrace. So now I will adopt the dictum of those who hold that education, per se, brings its own reward, not only in the greater measure of content its possessor enjoys, but that it creates a greater capacity for happiness; and see how it works out. Let us take that class broadly termed the “ well educated,” by which we distinguish those, who having had no expert

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training in any distinct branch of study, are yet so cultivated that they can without effort grasp the intricacies of any subject brought before them, with that terse grasp of detail which marks the solid thinker from the scientific trifler.

Once I was watching the march-past of a household ■“ flit." Now, such a sight brings to me something of sadness. It has the solemnity of a funeral procession. It seems to speak of riven associations, of heart-breaking farewells, of outcasts journeying toward the setting sun, yet knowing not the ending!

The housewife sat on the top of the goods in the conveyance, and the children trotted by its side. I knew her to pass the time of day to, because she had lived near me. So I absently followed in their wake. Presently they stopped and unloaded. I stood by, and to hearten her remarked, “ You have one advantage here; you are close to the library,” pointto an ornate building a chain or so away. But she only yawned, and, tucking her massive red arms under her breasts, replied with a contemptuous jerk of her head over her shoulders, the while pensively contemplating a grasshopper sunning itself on a chip, “ I guess that ’ere libery’ll worrit ’l-long without us. Bed’s our read’n when lights come to be lit!”

Even so, thou mass of crass ignorance. And thy children inherit thy capacity. I looked at them in disgust. The faces were human, but the expression distinctly animal—coarseness and precocity graven in every line of their faces. And I slunk away with a chill on me, like the chill of a passing cloud!

When the sun has hidden his face on this day’s turmoil, before the lamps are lit, and the fire is stirred till its flame casts unsteady shadows on hearty, healthy faces, and the home-brood gathers at the parental knee; when the benediction of peace shuts out thoughts of to-morrow; when the last infantile question has been asked and satisfied, and the tired little eyes blink as the dustman flicks a pinch in each, and they are safe, and snug, and dreaming—then, oh, rest of rests. Just a few pages of mental refreshment. Just a smile of appreciation on the passage read. And when the book is laid aside, just an intelligent review of passing events. Just a—

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But these are not the home comforts of the coarse creature whose “ read’n’s bed!” Who toils and cares for the body that it may enjoy a male companion and “bed!”

And the dreamer seeth visions. And the wise man seeketh laws. And the scoffer smiles serenely, jeers at each, and doubts them both! But when the reaper cometh along with his ruthless twine binder, and cutteth all to the same height of stubble, who knoweth but the wise may whisper to the foolish, “ Have I lived through stress and strain and uphill endeavour to end all here? Wert thou happy in thy light?”

And the foolish may answer, “ What availeth further question; neither scoff nor jeer harmed me one jot. Yea, brother, I was happy in my light 1”

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SOME NATIVE TRAITS.

The natives are essentially an emotional people. Sorrow, bereavements, happiness, even a pathetic inflection of the voice, anything of a romantic nature, appeals to their sympathies. Especially is this true of their women.

Journeying some months ago on the western coast of this island, I came to a small seaside native encampment, where, by a fire of driftwood, some women were roasting flounders. On the bank of the stream where they had been fishing grew a fine patch of native sand grass, and as the merciful man regardeth his beast, I unsaddled and sauntered up to the fire. To their boundless delight I spoke to them in Maori, and while we were chatting, one of their women, who had been collecting driftwood, approached with a bottle in her hand. Telling us that she had found it at high water mark, she passed it round. At last it was handed to me, with the remark, “He aha tenei? Tena, tirohia hoki e koe.” (What is this? Do you also examine it.) What puzzled them was, that though corked and sealed, it was apparently empty. “ This,” I said, holding up an ordinary champagne bottle, “is a ‘ Karere o te moana’ ” (a messenger from the sea). “ What is a messenger from the sea?” they asked, crowding round like the inquisitive children they are; two actually rested a hand on each of my shoulders, to get a better view. Holding it so that the light shone through it, I said: “Do you see that stick in there? That is a paper rolled up tightly, so that it will enter the neck. It has one of several imports. It may be a message from persons cast away on an outlying rock of the ocean; and contain the hopeless farewells of friends or relatives to the loved ones left behind.” Here they all sat down in a becomingly pensive attitude; to be ready when the climax came to speak the proper words.

“ This roll of paper may have been written ” Here I paused, doubtful whether it were right to harrow up their feelings, especially as I did not even know what the contents of the bottle were. But they.all cried: “Why do you stop?

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Tefl us, for this is news to us; tell us what you think now may be written there—and who might have written it.”

“ Well, then,” I continued, looking round on rapt expectant faces, “ such episodes have happened in the past:—A ship sails on the sea for a distant port. She is laden with a freight of souls. Some are gay and happy, others sad, as memory taps them on the heart and whispers: ‘How are the absent ones this night?’ And the sea replies—singing its deep monotonous refrain—‘ Who knows?’ So they sail along, when suddenly there comes a crash; and there goes forth a wail, for she is a wreck; and the people’s cry is: ‘Death, forbear, we are not ready.’ Forgotten are the gaieties of life; banished the frivolous enjoyment of the hour. For life is sweet, and now the single aim is: ‘ How can I escape?’ ” Here one of the women began to chant the parting wail—and all eyes were fixed intently on my face—repeating the words after me in an undertone:—“lt may be she is firmly wedged in clefts, which hold her, while they clamber out; only to find a barren drinkless islet of the sea; and Death here meets and greets them with this welcome: ‘I am master here!’ ”

Here they forgot to turn their flsh, and no one seemed to care till one more callous or prudent than the rest, put out the blaze and lifted them aside: “When morning dawns, behold they are alone, for the ship has disappeared; and only wreckage lies around the rock-base of the seagirt prison, which the Judge has sentenced them unto for life. And who shall tell the thoughts of past life histories, that no one dreams of but in dreams? Despair! Complain thou lovelorn youth or maiden, knowest thou the meaning of despair? But thoughts of home and homefolk will then clamour bitterest of all. Just one hand clasp; just one parting kiss; ere deaj,h holds out its cup, and stooping low, says in a soothing whisper: ‘Come, drink this opiate!’”

Here the sobs were quite distressing. Neither made they any secret of the tears that trickled down their cheeks, and so great is the power of sympathy, that I began to feel queer myself I

“ Mayhap among the wreckage someone may And a bottle, such as this; and write the words they ache to speak, yet may not—how that their latest prayer was; ‘ Lord, keep watch and ward o’er those at home!’ And trust it to the sea. But the

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wayward sea, who loves a plaything, might be loth to part with it; and toy with it for months, aye, years, or never let it reach the shore.”

I felt sorry that I had humoured their fancy, for their excitement had become so tense that they cried: “ Wahia te patara; kia tere.” (Break the bottle; hasten.) “Read to us this message from the sea.” “ Aye,” said a romantic maiden, "it may be from a young man to his ‘ whaiaipo.’ (Sweetheart.) Oh, hasten.” And another: “Or a son to his widowed mother; tarry not.” And one impatient soul snatched it out of my hand, and was on the point of drawing a sheath knife from her waist to knock the neck off, when I cried, “Stop; perhaps we are wrong.” But the answer was a “ clink,” and an angry mutter, “ Sluggard; and all this while they may be waiting to be rescued.”

While she turned the bottle mouth downwards, and shook it to get the paper out, I continued: “ Even so; but it may also be a tide test.” “ And what is that?” they asked in marked disappointment. “ A captain has a suspicion that he is in a strong ocean current, setting in a certain direction, which it would be valuable to know the trend of. So he writes down the exact spot where he then is, with the time and details, and oasts it into the sea—(which proved to be the case) —and every finder is requested to forward it to the Minister for Marine?” Here one commercial spirit asked: “And what does the finder get?” “Nothing,” I replied, “but the knowledge that he has done a worthy act.”

Although the climax came contrary to their expectation, and a frown of unsatisfied desire lingered there and there, they presently turned to the broiling of their fish, consoled doubtless with the reflection that a feast of the emotions cometh not every day.

One of their most insatiable curiosities is the white man’s courtship. lam speaking of those away from his frequent contact. I once travelled in the districts of the Upper Wanganui. (I purposely abstain from giving the names and places and persons, because some of my relations with them have been very confidential, and I hold it as discourteous to violate the trust by disclosing their identity.) My day’s travel had been exceptionally wearisome; and when at their invitation I unsaddled at a native village, I felt a grateful sense of rest, and a genial intent to be companionable to my native hosts.

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At the fireside that evening the crowd was large; eager for news from the outside word, and also to view with gratified amaze the marvel of a pakeha who understood, and was above the “whakahihi” (vain pride) of conforming to their customs. After a minute transference of news and its importance had been discussed, the conversation became of a general cast, and the host said; “ Ehoa, tena, whakamaramatia mai nga ture whaiaipo a te pakeha.” (Friend, now enlighten us on the rules of the pakeha courtship.) “ How do they come together, and know that they are mutually agreeable to attract, and be attracted? Is it as with us, by the eyes? The eyes that see so much, and are yet so blind.”

When I had explained the matter in all its details, he turned to the company, and cried in a fervour of wondering delight: “ Titiro koia: ko te peha i rere ke, engari ko te hiahia o te ngakau ko taua ahua ano ” (Behold; the skin is different; but the desire of the feelings is the same), "with this variation—that with us the law of ‘ tapui ’ (betrothal at birth) regulates most of the courtship and marriage. With us when the parents have decided—why, the matter is at rest; and if the parties ‘ tapuid ’ do not, after the wisdom of their elders hath been expended, thereafter agree thereto—why, then the disobedience must be paid for! Often this law meets not the case,” and after a pensive interval continued; “And their own desire appears the wisest. Now you have been very kind, and told of that which was of pleasant wonderment to us. So I will tell you a history of where, and how, the parents’ foresight failed. Listen;—

“ Tupara and Himitangi (fictitious names) were brother and sister. Himitangi had a son; and Tupara, her brother, had a daughter. Their lands lay adjacent. Their parents were also thus related; and what more fitting, than that the joining of families should go on for ever. So they were ‘ tapuid,’ and grew up, and the marriage-time drew near. But some months before there came to these parts a cattle drover—a half-caste he was; earning with his dog and horse 15s. a day when on the road. A young man with the wilful ways of youth, and the spirit of much adventuring among women. Yea, of substantial furnishing, and of a handsome presence; and eyes most wicked in the discernment of what was desirable. So, what would you? The droving season was past; and the gossipers whispered that Timi had seen that which made his journeying of other import than the search for

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cattle lost upon the way. That Tinirau, the girl, was oftener to be seen listening to his mellow voice while telling of the wonders of the settlements than seemed prudent to Tama, the lover of her bond. That, therefore, he remonstrated with her, and reasoned angrily, that her behaviour tasted to him as the eating of bitter herbs; and that if she persisted in her preference, why then Timi would be lost some day, even as his pretended cattle. But his jealous warning only made her secret love for Timi stronger. And thus it came to pass one evening when his tale demanded the fullest attention that Tinirau coughed, and Timi understood. He, of old experience, knew what signals meant. But he stopped not in his recital; only shot an answering glance, which no one saw but Tama, who crept slowly to her side and whispered: ‘Beware! the time has come,’ and went away.

“ So when they dispersed she slipped close to Timi and asked: ‘ Your road to-morrow. Is it up or down? ‘Downward, beloved,’ he answered. Then pretending to have stumbled, she whispered, ‘ Good; be on your guard for Tama, he knows all. Look well behind, before, and sideways. Give out that you are going up, and instead go down; and I will meet you on the wayside.’ The next morning Timi gave out that his search would be upward; and Tama volunteered to be his mate. Then Timi knew that she was right, and hired a lad for company. So Tama saw his plan had failed, and found excuse to stay behind. When Timi and his hireling got them out of sight, he sent him on a message further on—a half-day’s journey—then turned sharply round, and by a circuitous route got on the downward road, and met his Tinirau. Thus they escaped; but the story does not end here. Cunning Tama, when the girl was missed, guessed, as the jealous do, and this time guessed aright. So he saddled up, and by a short cut made for a white man’s settlement, and finding that the fugitives had not passed that way, waited by the roadside. But cautious Timi saw him from a distance, just in time to halt and plan what now to do. The girl was frightened, and cried softly: ‘How shall we get by? Let us avoid him and go round.’ What, turn and flee? That were but sorry skill. Coward’s resource, which any fool could do! But the shrewd and brave man dareth all. So he said: ‘Tie your horse there in the thick manuka, and leave the rest to me. We shall pass him, you and I, and he will let us pass! I will wrap you in my tent fly, and lay you right across my saddle tree; only

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keep silence; it will not hurt you long.’ So they did, and Timi rodQ up boldly to Tama, who greeted him: ‘Ha, Timi, thou art laden like a butcher; hast been slaughtering?’ And Timi answered: ‘ Aye, and I must hasten to get it salted; thou knowest in this heat it will soon smell; farewell, friend, farewell.’ So he cantered away. They soon arrived at a friend’s house, where he stowed his burden. After dark he rode back for the other horse, and when daylight came they were at home —his home. His children are here—and lam the eldest. His wife is here, and there she sits,” pointing to a smiling, well-preserved old lady, to whom I mentally took off my hat. “ Our father is away, or he should tell the tale himself.

“Now, this is the history; what do you think of it?” “ Why,” I replied, “ ‘None but the brave deserve the fair.’ ”

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A MAORI PHILOSOPHER.

Op my own choice I had elevated him to the position; and as our acquaintance grew, and we—as he put it—spoke heart to heart, I added that of friend. And as I write, the remembrance of our foregatherings leaves the distinct impression that I was the richer by the friendship. As I write there rises before me the image of a simple, untutored “ savage,” shrewd and inquiring, having doubts, groping perchance as one seeking light, and finding it in his own way; incomplete, maybe, but loyal to the truth, as he saw it. So his presence comforts me, and breathes a tranquil gratitude, that even thus I see him once again. For he has crossed the great divide, and entered that field of exploration which we had often accepted provisionally, investigated tentatively, and as often set aside—unresolved —for further consideration. That magnificently vast space, which many cartographers have reticulated with parallels and meridians, routes, deviations, and sailing directions; but from which none have risen with the certificated assurance that one or any are correct. My benison on his memory.

The boats were drawn up, and annual taking of birds stacked safely, beyond the reach of the high seas which the tempest outside, we had just escaped, would surely raise before midnight.

He was my boat-host; and, as the younger rabble had fixed up Adamp of their own, he and I housed ourselves in a bush carnf, in the building of which he was an accomplished expert. A bough and fern bed on each side of a pyramid of live embers, under a canopy of the boat’s mainsail, we lay like two autocrats, daring in our superlative comfort to despise the palace of a king.

Presently he asked: “ Kei te hiamoe Koe?” (Are you sleepy?) “No? Then let us talk of that which lies uppermost,” and he began;

“In the ancient days, so our traditions say, the gods acted and thought just as men act and think. I could tell you

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of many instances; but you know them already. Besides, are they not truly set down in the book, written by the pakeha, John White, as you related to us the night before last, when the lads crowded round and jeered: ‘Listen to the lies.’ For which I pray you forgive them; they are of unripe brain, understanding neither the past of their own race, nor the wisdom of yours. So I continue; And from what has been told me, your God is depicted in like manner. This opens a wonderful vista of perplexity. Let us state cases, then we will review evidence, and, if we can, pass judgment:—

“ Your God made the earth and all that liveth thereon. When He had finished He filled His pipe, and taking a seat from whence to get the best view, surveyed His works, and said: * Everything is perfect. Nothing hath been forgotten. The smallest atom provideth food for the next in size, upward unto man. He, whom I have made into an image of myself, eateth all; all he can get his teeth into; all is perfect.’

“ The other day as we opened the mutton-bird burrows, I heard you remonstrate with our lads, who, when they drew out the birds, broke the leg and wing bones, to prevent their scrambling away. I heard you tell them that it was cruel, contrary to law, and displeasing to their Creator. When I heard these rebukes, at once there tapped the thought against my brain: *My friend talketh like a child. His reasoning is imperfect; for why should it be displeasing to Him when His creation, man, only acts as He Himself has taught him?”

“I heard you say: ‘Kill the birds; give them a quick death: wring their necks!’ When you know perfectly well that the flesh comes off in lumps when they are plucked cold. Then you said: ‘Pluck them while they are warm.’ When you are aware that we have to hasten with while the tide serves, and that there was no tira* to pluck them on the rock. No; when the pakeha essays to alter customs which have been in vogue for ages he must bring forward better reasons than a statement of unsupported evidences as to what is pleasing to his Creator, and what is not. The Maori judges and regulates his actions by theinstincts of that Nature which has made him the creature he is. Now, our gods made the earth, just as we required it, no more and no less. When the food of one district became insufficient for its people, and we heard of another where the land and fishing grounds were rich in foodstuffs, we made

WHERE THE WHITE MAW TREADS.

war on it, and tried to subdue it. If they were successful in their resistance, and repelled our attack, we came home again, satisfied that we had attempted to accomplish the duty which our gods had laid upon us. We made no excuses to ourselves or others. It was a law, incumbent on all. The implanted desire was universal. Hence we hid the productiveness of our lands; our crops were gathered in early, and hidden away from the prying eyes of strangers. It was a law common to the whole race that during the ‘ hauake ’ (kumara and taro harvest) no visitors were to be expected. And it was exceedingly ill-bred to ask: ‘How were your crops this year?”

1 So far your God and ours agree.

“ Presently, along come your churchmen, and cry: ‘ Stop! You are doing Satan’s work.’ This amazed us. Satan! who is he? We had no two gods—one for good and one for evil. Ours made all things as we knew them. We saw nothing unfinished in their work, in which the son had to rectify the mistakes of his father! We recognised certain rules, and adopted them according to their beneficence, such as: If I take my brother’s property he will resent it. He will protect and fight for its preservation. Se we found it easier to make than to take by force; hence it was agreed that each had an inalienable right to the labour of his hands, and the units of the tribe lived in peace. Our doors required no locks. Those who felt the impulse to steal were restrained by the fear of tapu, which was twenty times more efficacious than the strongest lock!”

Just then the increasing gale shook our sail-tent, and flapped it overhead, like a giant albatross seeking vengeance on the despoilers of her young. But the comfort inside was nothing short of dallying ecstasy. When the paroxysm was past I looked across at his kindly, inquiring face and smiled. Then he reached his hand over to meet mine, and said: "Do you know why I love you? Because we can speak as heart to heart, and not misunderstand.”

“ Thus I have stated a few cases and compared evidence. But, before I pass judgment, the thought comes to me that this is not all. Your churchmen tell us there are fabulous mysteries, beyond what our conceptions can lake note of. They talk of sin, and atonement, and other matters, too intricate for simple minds to follow. Now the question arises: How

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do they know? Where is the evidence? . . Are you sleepy? No? Well, where are the proofs? If it is for our benefit to have a clear purview, why did He make our understanding so finite?

“ When I was a young man my father sent me to tie up a drunken sailor, who came to our house and spoke indecent words to our maidens, and generally so behaved that though we, being Maoris, and used to hearing private affairs spoken of openly, despised the drink-corrupted blasphemy of this bestial white man. Securely I had trussed his legs, then the hands; but the longue of the offensive misbegotten spumed words. Oh, insane; intermingled therewith foul allusions to our parentage. To the God of his race. Lively also in becursing his Christ and Holy Ghost. Oh, it was as the champing of a bailed pig, when two dogs, one at either side, slam their bitterest threats into his ear, in the desire to fall on. In wonderment I bethought me to inquire: ‘ls this the image of his Creator?’ Given to him are brains to discern great things; but just when he requireth them for self-containment, they fail him. Even then the answer said: ‘No; he hath besotted them with poison; he is not liable; his God hath discovered to him this secret and that, among them to brew the toxic potion which maddens.’ And I marvelled abundantly.

“ It is, therefore, heinous to observe this and that, together with doubts, as to what churchmen declare to be truth, and cast suspicious waverings, whether your history be reliably correct, with the evidence to hand?

“ So, now, with permission taken as granted, I pass on to my judgment. It is this: That the historians of both described a Creator, as evolved out of their puny obvision. That instead of a Creator fashioning them they have fashioned a Creator. That instead of their being his image, they copied themselves, and cried: ‘Behold the Infinite!’ This is conceivably possible, is it not? And when they found themselves to the rear of their imagining, and a fine disorder lay apparent, they charged the fault, not to their own error, but set their minds to the invention of quibbles, in which loom vast, unintelligible mixtures of words, of conditions, disobedience, eating of apples, banishments, atonements, sin-offerings, undying worm pains; in short, befog their Creator with fallacies, such as a child may indulge in, but stagger the plainest and truest of sense!

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“ If my judgment be correct, many difficulties disappear. For instance, incompleteness of design, jumbled details, mistakes in construction, faulty finish. And why? Because these do not exist. Everything is complete. That which is condemned as sin is man-made sin; and no curse resteth upon the earth. A missionary once, reading the Bible to me, struck a passage which explains my meaning: ‘Where there is no law, there is no breaking of the law.’ (This is as my memory serveth.) So it is no sin to fight; the sin lieth in the blow which is not returned. It is not a sin to take what is another’s; the sin lieth in the getting away therewith. And so on, right through. For all these we share with the worms and the higher grades.

“ Here cometh to my mind that which interested us unto satisfaction. The history of the Australian Maori, who hath not the gift of counting above five. Even that creature proclaimeth that atonement faileth at the doorstep. Hu! white man apologist, seek the root elsewhere. God made all these diversified sections, to match His wise purposes, of which we know nothing. Nothing! nothing! We are within our right to look on and wonder. To admire, not to criticise, nor to set up reasonings, which, when they are tested, tall to pieces be the handling never so lightly. What say you?”

But I said nothing, only gazed at my friend; questioning my right to further muddle and addle his brain. And somehow he understood; for he laughed the large-hearted laugh which trusts and is happy.

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A TWENTIETH CENTURY TOHUNGA.

It was a cruelly bitter day. The sleet, driving aslant a wintry sky, sent its arrows with such unrelenting savagery that the very sparrows sought shelter on the leeside of the house, and peered dumbly from their perch on the windowsill at the warmth and comfort within. I sat at the fire reading, when I heard a timid knock at the door. “ Come in!” I cried heartily, pitiful to all exposed, clamouring for admittance. The door opened the width of a hand, and a small voice quavered in: “ I kiia mai koe e taku whaea kia haere atu. Kua pangia taku teina ete mate.” (My mother asks that you should go to her; my younger—brother in this instance —has taken ill.) And a ragged girl of about eight or nine years of age brought her shivering voice and body inside. She also volunteered their diagnosis to be: “ He mitara, pea ” (measles probably). There being small chance of extracting useful information, I left her before the fire with a mug of hot cocoa, while I saddled my horse. Then folding a coat round her, I seated her in front of me, and rode forth to do what lay to my hand, and, though being no doctor, to cheerfully answer the cry of distress.

We had to travel three miles, which distance the unwashed little outcast had this pitiless day trudged afoot. When we arrived, she directed me to a ponga whare, which seemed to cry in pain so cheerless and desolate it appeared. Nay, if I had a sick dog to house in such circumstances I would in mercy have tacked up sacks or something to keep out the searching southerly squalls, which whistled shrilly in where the undressed ponga left spaces a closed fist might, without effort, pass through. It was an untidy, forbidding ramshackle of about eight by ten. A small fire in the centre, and at one end, shielded from the whirling ashes by a smokestained calico sheet, lay a skinny mite of humanity, moaning and wailing, “ He wail homai he wail” (water 1 give me water!).

The mother, sitting hunched on her heels in front of the child, looked up with a tear-soddened face, and cried: “Behold, this is the third in as many months. They are all taken like this before they die. What can I do? I have sent for the tohunga, but he cannot come.”

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“I am no doctor,” I said in heartfelt compassion; “but that child will surely die if you keep it in this hovel. Where is your husband?” “He has gone to collect herbs, to make a ‘ wairakau ’ (bark water) bath to bathe it in, for such are the tohunga’s instructions.” While she was speaking, the husband came in with a basketful of leaves and shreds of tree bark. This he proceeded to pack into a kerosene tin, and put on the fire. Presently he remarked, jerking his thumb in the direction of the plaintive cry for water, “He milara nera?” (Measles, aren’t they?) “ I intend to bathe him in this water, directly it has boiled enough.” “And kill it,” I said. “Did you bathe the others also?” “Yes; for such were the tohunga’s orders.”

“Water! give me water!” the little sufferer interrupted. And the mother reached for a bottle, and poured out a dark, offensive smelling liquid into a pannikin. “ What is that?” I asked. “Wairakau” (bark water), she answered, raising the child’s head; but I laid a detaining hand on her arm, and took the pannikin away. “ This,” I said, “ your baths, and the fowlhouse you live in, have killed your children. Have you no milk?” For a tethered calf bleated outside. “No,” the man replied, “ the cow has not come home yet.”

“ Then go and fetch her, and throw your precious tohunga’s garbage and foul-smelling cordial away,” I cried, exasperated at their wanton faith and stupidity. “If you had brought a backload of fern leaves, or raupo, and made this pigstye habitable you would have shown that your head has not dried into a hollow kernel.”

At this, he looked up in surprise, and asked, “ What about the tohunga’s orders?” “Go and milk your cow, and do not argue,” I ordered him.

When he came back, I said, “ Now boil it.” He was on the point of doing so in a scum-margined saucepan. “ Not in that,” I cried. “ Warm it in a pannikin.” When the child had drunk, it fell into a soft sleep. Presently he began again about his tohunga. “If you had such firmly-seated faith in him why did you send for me?” I asked. “Because,” he replied, nothing abashed, “ I have heard the pakeha say that two heads are better than one. That, and knowing your heart to be one of compassion, we said: ‘ He is no doctor, but his heart is good.’ Now, a good heart sees further than an evil one; and when a friend is in difficulties, he searches to help

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that friend. He searches in the compartments of his brain and remembers things, not forgotten may be, but lying stored away—as see, the child sleeps.”

“ That is so,” I replied. “ But touching your tohunga, and what I see here, I happen also in my search to remember that he is an idler, living on the superstitions of the ignorant, who mystifies your simple brains with mumbled unintelligible incantations.” Here he got up in great trepidation, and went to the door, ostensibly to look at the weather, but secretly to peer round the corner that no listening tohunga might hear this blasphemy, and blight his family—as an accessory—with horrible retributive vengeance. “ Such is your tohunga, whom I happen to know as a lying exploiter of dreams, as a party having a nose keen to scent the steam of a haangi; and generally such a soulless ghoul, that he can see you die one after the other, the result of his criminal prescriptions, and in the magnitude of his arrogance delude not only you, but also himself, into the belief that these calamities are ‘Na te Atua, e taea te aha.’” (Of God; who can prevail against them?)

“F hoa, kia mohio ki o korerol” (I say, beware of your words!), he cried, midway between consternation and rebuke. “ If he heard you now, and took offence, he could destroy you instantly. He could shrivel up your features, so that every woman would look upon you with abhorrence. And this, by simply pointing his finger at you, and calling on his familiars I”

“ Do you mean to say that the present ‘whakatupuranga ’ (generation) believes this infamous nonsense?” I asked, staggered at such fatuous credulity.

“Don’t they? And why not?” he answered, as one certain of his facts. “Doubtless, the majority are ashamed to own it publicly, but in their own secret hearts they fear and tread lightly. The child is now sleeping in comfort, and while the woman gets ready something for our teeth, I will tell you what I saw with my own eyes of the angered power of a tohunga.

“Te Motu motu ahi (Firebrand) —and as such I shall designate him—was losing his eyesight, therefore he went to a pakeha doctor, who told him that he could do nothing for him until he was quite blind. That then he would take out his eyes and skin them of the obstruction, and replace them in his head.

O

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“This frightened Firebrand; and he said to himself: ' Good. Now, I know for certain that the pakeha is an abominable liar. He is clever; but to take out a man’s eyes, and replace them—nay, that is reserved for the gods.’ So he went to a noted tohunga, and laying £2O before him said: ‘Restore my sight?’ ‘ Good,’ said the tohunga, and going to a sacred ■creek, he selected eight water-worn stones, and placing them in front of him, asked: ‘Can you see these stones?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Firebrand. ‘ I see them dimly.’ ‘ Well,’ said the tohunga, ‘ count them three times a day for a week. Farewell.' So Firebrand did; but his eyes got worse. Then he sent word to the tohunga, telling him of the failure. Could he do nothing else? ‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘ Lay them in front of you, but don’t count them.’ When, lo! he thought his sight improved. Growing impatient, he sent word again, urging him to put forth his whole ‘ mana.’ And the reply to this was: ‘To hasten the matter, don’t look at them. Think of them for two weeks.’ So Firebrand thought of them for one week, and he got so much worse that his daughter had to feed him. In despair he sent word once more, ‘ I am nearing total blindness.’

“ Then the tohunga rose in his just anger, and told the daughter.—for she was the messenger— ‘ My instructions were two weeks. Firebrand has disobeyed me; therefore he will be blind to the day of his death. Farewell.’ ”

When he had concluded his narration, I looked for a trace of sarcasm—naturally—but his face expressed such profound faith and admiration that I even withheld mine.

Presently he peered ruefully into his brew, which he had lifted oif the fire at my request, and continued: “The words you have spoken concerning our tohunga are undeserved, for he is a man of various resources. He has cured many people. One had ‘moe takiri ’ (nightmare) every night. Well he eased the patient by scratching the sole of his foot. Another had piles, and he straightened that matter by kneading the small of his back. Another was subject to ‘ anini ’ (vertigo), and he doctored him by putting his finger down the man’s throat, and drawing thence the malignancy. Yet another groaned, by reason of a ‘niho tunga’ (decayed tooth), and he exorcised the evil by waving a mussel shell in front of his face. And yet another came to be relieved of a ‘ ngarara ' (cancer). This, after applying his most powerful remedies—such as breathing on it, and poulticing it with the scrapings of "

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“ Stop,” I cried in disgust. “ Are these the recognised prescriptions for such complaints?” “No, no,” he replied, “ each tohunga diagnoses after his own skill, and in the ripeness of his wisdom applies what his atua has revealed to him. He would be no true tohunga were he to copy the knowledge of others. For tohunga means; ‘ One who sees by the hidden lights.’ ” “ Yes,” I said, blending in much sarcasm. “He is what indulgent persons call a visionary; but those with a love for exactitude term him a fraud, imposter, ignorant humbug, and those of a yet stricter sense of truth, a criminal at large."

As we sat down to what the woman had out of her narrow store provided, who should walk in but the creature himself. A hulking mass of adipose and imposture, greasy of speech, and —as it rested on the food—leering and covetous of eye, fluent of tongue, and meaningless of words.

“ Ha,” he began, “ It should be boiling now, so that the virtues of this may blend with the strength of that, and the component parts, enriched and sanctified with the ancestral ‘ whakahau ’ (errand of cheer) used as I directed, would cause the evil humours to ‘whakarewa’—pass into solution—and be voided by the exhaling breath. Put it on the fire. Boil it, and I will lave the child.”

Thus appealed to, his nerveless listener reached for the tin, looking at me guiltily the while, yet beseechingly also, as who should say: “Be lenient!” But I arose and said: “If you bathe that child in the state he is, and in this hovel and weather, it will die; even as you have killed the others. Neither will I stay here to witness it.”

“ Why does the pakeha interfere,” the tohunga asked, as he saw the man hesitate. “Is he a doctor? Are you a doctor that you speak loudly, as one having authority, in the presence of him who holds at his will the well-being of every living thing on the earth, in the water, and elsewhere. Here,” striking himself on the chest, “ still reposes the mana of the ancients. Put the tin on the fire, man. Maybe my mana cannot perforate his white skin, but there are those whom my arm can reach. Enough.”

And this incubus still cumbers the earth, with his pinchbeck occult wisdom. In two days the little sufferer was beyond the scope of his further experiments.

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THE PATHOS OF IT ALL!

From the room where I write a window looks south and west, Below me a river, like a dull-grey ribbon of silver, divides my ridge from hillsides which slope up with a firm, involute sweep to the foot of the throne; decorated as no man might invent; mottled with boskpatch and tree ferns, which wave their arms benignly in the glory of sunshine, and beckon to me to come over and sit in their shade and be fanned.

Higher up, on the crest, which hides from view other scenes of delight, pines and rata serrate the airline, through which the sky beyond appears a wealth of lacework held up to be coveted. And as I lean back in my chair and assimilate beauties spread with a debonair hand, a shadow hovers near me, and whispers: “Kneel down and abase thyself, for thou art in the presence of that which has been, is now, and will be when the ages to come shall pass and look down on thy dust!”

To the right, like a suddenly congealed Pacific in storm, lie wave upon wave of manuka, gorse, and fern-clad hills, once the cultivations of a race now trending away into space; one of whose remnants, an old man, sits on my left, a shade heavy of feature maybe, but when you hear him speak you forget that his skin is brown, and his breathing loud, and that in whichsoever he dififereth from you, the soul of the man is human. He also leans back, watching with a film on his eyes, like the iridescence on a pane of weather-oxydised glass, the panorama of years.

Presently he reached over and affectionately laid his hand on my arm, saying huskily: “ In that angle there stood the roofs of our village. On that low ridge in the centre the maidens met to ngeri and haka (sing and dance). And on the highest ridge, where that single pine tree stands, dwelt the chief of this district. Where are they now? Listen:—

“ On yonder knoll where that clump of acacia waves lie 500! Their wives are there and their children! Their sisters are there and their husbands, waiting for the trumpet’s call

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of your Bible to join the ranks of the living! The living, did Isay? God be praised if their memories be there! You understand? (I understood.) Hopes of the future? None, dear pakeha friend, if I judge by the standards which experience hath tested! I find my reply in the graves which lie yonder. Hopes I have had and would have told of them, but speech failed me when I looked at eyes and saw them asleep! It failed me completely when I heard the rushing of feet—pakeha feet, laden with strange innovations! Then I cried; ‘Let us put out our hands and ask them to stop; to take us with them, as a strong man lifteth a child from the wayside;’ but not one heeded me! I don’t reproach the hurrying feet, for the goal is won by the swiftest!”

Then he paused, confused, as one who speaks out of his turn; but, seeing no rebuke in my face, he continued; “On that knoll sleep my kin. I and my daughter are the last of my blood!”

Neither of us spoke again. He was building a bridge, whose end piers rested one on the past and one on his heart, across which I saw pass a mournful procession one thousand strong in separate detachments, creeping up to that greencrested knoll to deposit their tribute! Then he turned to me wistfully: “Can nothing be done?” “Yes,” I answered, placing my hand on his and gently chafing it, as one comforts the hurt of a child. “ Yes, if we will, and you will; otherwise, no.” “How, then?” he asked. “I will tell you to-morrow,” I said, as I reached for my pad.

He is feebly walking down the slope, carefully selecting his footsteps: then he sees me at the window, waves his stick, and is gone!

* * • * * * And I am left to chapter-head my task for to-morrow. But before I begin I will lake my readers into my confidence and ask them to help me. What shall I tell him? Shall I tell him the truth and say: “ There is a way, but we are too occupied with our own concerns; we have no time to bother because no kudos will accrue; no pompous parade; there is no gallery to glance up to for applause while the play is being acted!” Or, that having dominated him, and acquired the best of his lands, no further interest than to dominate and acquire was ever intended! Shall I repeat the slang of those

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who declare that he is a vice-soddened malingerer, idle, filthy, a storage closet of offensive customs, and therefore beyond the white man’s pale? Or repeat the stale old tale that we have placed his case into the care of the most practical experts, who are satisfied that his demands are unreasonable, that the best has been done, and that all is well? (We may omit the latter, because it is so palpably untrue that he would only laugh at me.)

It would be injudicious to admit our culpabilities in a like series of confession, because we have a “ face to save.” But hide it as we may, he sees it and doubts our sincerity. He knows that his skin is brown, and that we are prejudiced against a pigmented skin. He knows he has certain customs which are objectionable to us, but which he cannot discard because they were those of his forbears, and therefore sacred, and that we keep them as linwards between us!

Believe me, dear reader, here is nothing extenuated, or aught set down in malice. These are weighty portions of the white man’s burden; they are barriers, and I say advisedly nothing will raise the Maori to a more hopeful view of his future unless these barriers are removed. For no concessions do I plead more than they deserve, and that I may tell my friend that we are interested in him personally—not his land; that we would gladly see him desert customs which to our training are crude, ridiculous, and insanitary; but our desire is to wean him gently—with our hand in his, tolerantly pointing to their absurdity, yet imparting the suggestion that haste were profitable; that consanguineous marriages are loathsome, unnatural and degenerating; that we know he is a child precociously gifted, requiring the more that these gifts be led in the direction of greatest consummation; admit that the past has been a horrible mistake, for which we abase ourselves, and ask for a clearer understanding and determinedly arise to pursue it; that we are earnest and sincere and—prove it; that high schools and over-education are nonsense, but that reading, writing, arithmetic, carpentry, blacksmithing, shoemaking, saddlery, fencing, ploughing for his sons, and for his daughters the first three, together with plain sewing, plain cooking, and cleanliness of person are consonant with clean, mat-covered, earthen floors, but that T. and G. flooring kept clean is nicer and healthier; and that when the young men see the accomplishments they have mastered, will fight gladiatorial battles to possess the most accomplished,

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and when the fateful question is awaiting an answer; it will be: “Yes, if you get me a home, and build me a house to keep clean.” That all these are comely and attractive, and since the arts of civilisation have pushed Nature’s process of propagation by her own selection of the fittest aside, hutching on the ground, sleeping out in the grass, eating with the bare fingers seated in a circle around a dish, etc., are uncomely, unhealthy, and do not differentiate man clearly enough from the beasts of the field. All this I would tell him, and be able to promise that he had his white brothers’ cordial assistance; that we are willing to take him by the hand, and when a difficult spot intervenes to stop him, and point out in detail how to avoid it; not angrily or with a snort of contempt at his stupidity, and haling him before the magistrate when he unconsciously steps aside and tangles his feet in the mazes of our mysterious by-laws, but gently, with the benefit of any doubt there may be to set him right.

Shall I tell him that, nathless every discomfort and “ to save our face,” the new year shall open a new era? if not, cui bono the talking and writing, the boasting, the salving, the promise, the cry of Empire coherence, of which the Maori is a by-law enforced unit, and also a by-law, queer customs, and colour tint outlaw!

Or, is my answer to be: “E kora taea?” (impossible) and all our magniloquence end in the reply of the swallow to the fox, when he congratulated her on the smart catch of a mosquito: “Yes, yes, fine talk, many bones, few feathers, but very, very little flesh 1”

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HIS SIMPLE FAITH.

Coming across last year from Lyttelton to Wellington in the flotomahana, one of the saloon passengers was a Canterbury native, a thin old man, to whom the stewards and waiters attended with the same assiduity that they did to me and the rest of our aristocratic company. When we neared the Kaikouras the sun was still about an hour high. Then the old man came and sat beside me on the skylight seating, and in distraotingly painful English tried to explain to me that the route on which we then were sailing was the same which Te Rauparaha took when that slaughter-glutton, with his fleet of war canoes, came from distant Kapiti to avenge the deaths of treachery at Kaiapoi.

I stopped one of his laborious efforts to inform him, that if it came easier to speak in his own language I would understand him. To show his gratitude, he promptly proceeded to inquire of me whence I came, where I was going to, and other private matters which the natives regard as their due when they meet a stranger. Knowing their customs, I took no offence thereat, and freely gave the details asked for, and returned the courtesy by demanding the same from him. “ Yes," he said, keeping time to the motion of our ship, “ I am now on my way to Taranaki, where I have relations on my grandmother’s side; for know that she was a rangatira’s daughter when Te Rauparaha took her with others prisoner to Kapiti, and adopting her into the tribe, married her to one of his chief’s sons."

When we came opposite to the Kaikouras, the scene was grand beyond words. The setting sun, gilded crag, spur, and peaklet, and the crusted snowflelds. But were they such? Were they not blocks of gold and silver thrown down on those massive anvils to be wrought and shaped—here entablatured and facaded, yonder sculptured and decorated; in the far distance matted and engraved, and the nearer slopes polished; and higher up—aye, up on the highest—fluted, pinnacled and turretted? And where are now the mighty Titans who began, and left their labours in this stale?

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He was a curious old man. I only once before met his counterpart. He knew every question I was preparing to ask him. Something in his wise:—“No, lam not seasick, never was. Yes, it’s indigestion I suffer from, it keeps me thin. Natives don’t know their ages; 65 I should fancy. No, I have neither wife nor family; they are all dead; the spirits of their ancestors call them, and they go, one after the other. The voice comes sometimes in the night; sometimes when they go to the well for water. Again maybe one wakes up in the night and nudges his or her partner, who sleepily asks: ‘Well, what now?’ ’The voice—l heard it call!’ And they go! No, I have not heard it yet; but expect to any time. No, we are not afraid; are they not our people calling in the other world: ‘ Come, join us!’ ”

My heart welled with pity, and I saw with eyes that looked through tears. “Yes,” he said, “you pity us. But why? Let us go in peace. Yes, you speak our language well; I can understand you.” Presently my skin felt rough and creepy. Was this a veritable thought reader? I must get away from him. Good lord, where may one’s thoughts not run to, and this mystic read them all! “No, be not afraid; it is a gift I have. Just think your thoughts regardless of my presence. Yes, I was brought before the tribe once as a sorcerer; but what of that? They could lay no evil to my charge. Yes, I have about 70 acres of land, and live very comfortably on the rents. Yes, I drank heavily in my younger days. No, I did not take the pledge. I am waiting for the voice, and wish to be prepared. Yes, I belong to the Wesleyan ‘ hahi ’ (sect). No, I don’t believe in all they say; I keep a part reserved for my ancestral faith; for look you, it is this wise; Which of the many creeds are true? We have a story which runs thus;

“ When the white man first landed on these islands, there came a certain man from among them. He had on a wide coat, a white necktie, and long face, and he met a Maori to whom he spoke thus: ‘Friend, where are you going to?’ The Maori replied; ‘I don’t quite know; somewhere over there,’ pointing to the space of distance. So the white man said: ‘Very well; if you go that road you will only reach a place called “ hell.” You come along with me. I will show you a better road.’ * Good,’ said the awe-struck Maori, * Maake taua ’ (let us go). So they went, and went. Presently they met another white man, who had cloth gaiters on his legs (a bad custom if his legs be bent). On his head he had a

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tall silk hat, the brim of which was guyed to the crown, with strings, and he asked the Maori: ‘Hallo, friend, whither art thou travelling?’ ‘I don’t know,’ answered the Maori: ‘I was going on my way when I met this man, who told me it was wrong; you come along with me, the road you follow leads to ‘ hell.’ * Ugh,’ sneered the newcomer. * His road only leads a little way: you come with me, I know a better road.’ And so they came to a turn; behold, they met another man, a white man also, who had a gown on like a woman, and a large silver cross on his breast. He also stopped the Maori, and cried: ‘Friend, whither are thou travelling.’ So he told the new road man what the others had told him. ‘ Bah,’ cried the newcomer; * this man, and they all are wrong,’ and taking him by the arm said persuasively: ‘Leave their roads, you come my way,’ so they went, and went. Presently they met a man with a round, jovial face, a light tread, smiling, and singing on his way (the others all had long, lean sorrowful faces), who cried in a hearty voice, with his head on one side-—like a bird spying a worm: * Hallo, my friend, where are you going this fine day? And what are you doing beside this man with the long face?’ Then the Maori repeated the whole history over again to the new man. ‘ What?’ he cried. * Hell? My dear man, there is no such place as ‘ hell.’ Come along and have a drink. Then we will dance, and be jolly; for, my friend, we have but little time to enjoy ourselves. So let us love one another, be brothers, and be happy.’ And the Maori liked his tone and ways; and they went, and went, and are still journeying together.”

After a pause he looked up and said: “Then we are justified in asking, Who is right? So the Maori follows his own inclinations; and only those who have pakeha neighbours pretend to follow the sects. For the pakeha preaches one thing and acts another. No, they are not all bad; there are good, just men among them, until they are tempted—then they fall like the rest. The white man taught us not to fight and kill each other —look at the Boer war. He tells our women to be chaste, and yet hear the cry that he raises at the increased illegitimate children among his own people.

“Yes, your company has been very cheering; when you come back, be sure and visit me. Yes, I can hear by your voice that you know and love my people. The white man makes a mistake, greater than he dreams of, to hold himself aloof from us. Strip off the skins of both, how will they

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look? You suffer from sleeplessness? So do I. Eat plenty of raw onions, never mind the scent.

44 Friend, I have a great affection for the pakeha. My tenant is a just man. One year his potatoes rotted in the ground. When I went for my rent he gave it to me. Then I looked at the crops in the field which the floods had destroyed, and my heart wept for his misfortune. So I gave him back five pounds, and said: 4 Buy bread for your children.’ Then his wife cried-,aloud, and because I thought she was going to kiss me, I rose and slammed the door to. And as I walked out my feet felt light; and my heart spoke thus to me: 4 Friend, in this you have acted aright.’ And I think so still!

“ After awhile I fell ill, and the soups they brought me, and the softening medicines! Yea! it put me to shame. And when their children came home from school, what do they do? The eldest girl walks in and cuffs my pillows, and straightens out the bedclothes, and pats here, and pats there; and peers here, and peers there; and lays me this to hand, and that in the right place. And all the while chatter, chatter; of which I understand nothing; for so quickly she speaks, like a goose when she finds a potato; and all the while it did me so much good! Yes,” he said, after a pause of deep reverie, 44 if the pakeha will just think; only think of doing something for our good in our everyday lives—not stand in an ornamental box and preach—we don’t require that—our lives could flow side by side like two peaceful streams.

“What do you think of my tenant? Speak! Yet I must tell you they are what the neighbours call 4 free thinkers.’ Can no one tell us which is right? Or is the heart the true test? What think you, brother? The heart is good, because it is good, and cannot be otherwise? Say something, speak!”

“ You are an older man than I,” I began. “ The way you see it I have spoken and written many times, even until it has become stale. Religion as it is preached and acted is a living contradiction—and those who preach, know it! No wonder that your people stand aghast at the hypocrisy of those wha pretend to lead and feed the poor creatures who cry for bread, and are given a hard, indigestible stone.”

When we arrived in Wellington, this kindly-hearted “ savage ” asked me to All in a telegram for him to acquaint his people of his arrival; and passed, as I thought, out of my lifel

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But one day, standing on the New Plymouth Railway Station, waiting for the train, who should hobble along but my friend and fellow-traveller of months before. He had a grown-up girl beside him—a comely maiden. He blinked, but knew me at once: “ My niece,” he said, leading her forward. “ She and that white man’s daughter shall share my dole between them when lam gone.” Then he drew me out of earshot, and whispered: “The voices—they have cornel And I go home now contented; for I shall meet those who left me to go on before. Aye, he murmured, “ the voices of those who call; ‘ Come, join us.’ ”

I saw him enter the train, to the Breakwater, where his steamer was waiting to take him away to his home. Thus we met, and thus we parted, he to go on the road of his lathers, and I to wonder and ponder.

OUR FIRST STEAMBOAT.

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OUR FIRST STEAMBOAT.

“ E pa, e aha tera; he kaipuke renei, e aha ranei? Na e pawa mai, rere!” (Say, what is that, a ship, or what? See it smokes.)

Such was the cry of Rauru, a lad of 10 years, of ever present scheming to deceive. Rushing into the family circle in blind haste, he trod on a dog asleep in the doorway, which, mingling its howl with that of a child it had overturned in its retreat, drew this stinging reproof from his mother: “ Now is thy measure full, thou outcast of perdition, never wert thou nearer to have wales raised on thy hidel Maea, daughter, hastily reach me the ember stick, that I may carry out my threat.” Thwack, and thwack. “ Thus, thou untrained wanton of evil.” Thwack. “ Now, betake thyself and thy falsehoods to the bottomless pit; oh, incarnate of lies.”

But he had only himself to blame. Ever since he could crawl to the water bucket, and found that upsetting it angered his mother, his life had been one long rebellious joy; and when he could lure his sister to share in his devastations, his happiness was complete! So, when the s.s. “Star of the South” came tramping round the coast, to snatch up the cream of the trade from that gout-footed schooner, and regular trader, the “ Sea Mew,” and paralysed the allseeing eye of Rauru, no one believed him. A ship without sails coming round the point! Who ever heard of the like? “Leave off thy sniffing! What! Thou will persist in thy lies?” But when she came to the door in full chase, and suddenly heard the brain-searching blast of the syren, she gave one wild glance seaward, and snatching up her youngest child in terror, cried: “ Maea, Rauru, at once, this way, fly! Oh, my children, hasten! Never again, my son, will I .” bu«t here her experience with Rauru rose superior to fear, therefore she refrained from injudicious admissions, and, dragging them forward in haste, disappeared into the brushwood!

But they were not the only fugitives. Here and there in the village could be heard the flapping of petticoats, and

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the frantic calls to wandering children. Some —the more inquisitive.—could be seen scouting the enemy from behind tree-boles and fences, one eye staring up on the retreat, and the other hurriedly collecting details for future discussion at the women’s caucus!

Thus they watched and waited, while the monster crept slowly up to the anchorage, until with a splash and rumbling of cable, succeeded by a jubilant scream of success, emptied corner and vantage point, filling the air with a final flutter, and then silence; the silence of a pest-ridden city!

Presently could be heard distant calls and answers. Now and then the breaking of underscrub twigs, anxious and cautious footsteps, and the wary parting of branches; the nervous advance of men, a patiti (hatchet) firmly grasped in the hand, showed that those away in their “ waerengas ” (plantations) had also heard the commotion, and were hastening out to investigate, and if need be do battle; talking in undertones, stopping now head sideways to listen, and compare impressions; then in a rush through the deserted village, down to the scrub-lined seashore, they beheld that which rooted them motionless to the soil of their fathers! Gods! What new enchantment was this of the white man? “E tama ma kia mohio ” (brothers be cautious). “A ship? No! Yes! It must be!” “On fire, may be, eh brother?” “ Look; coughing up water!” “ A whaler trying out blubber.” “ Well spoken, father, but see, where are the masts, the sails, and the boats—two on each side, and one across the stern —as I counted on the last that came in here.” And each man grasped his patiti firmer and stood forth on the broad sandy beach, prepared for any fresh development of the stranger. “Ha! a boat.” “Ho, brothers, a boat.” (This is cast to rearward loudly; peradventure to rally those not so brave in the background!)

“Say, thou in front there, have they guns?” “Nay, I cannot see; ha, oars!” “Brothers, only three men pulling, one steering, and the other smoking a pipe.” “To the front, brothers; he smokes, therefore, tobacco may be asked for." “Only three men pulling?” “Then it is not a whaler, they pull five, and the mate to steer, six; all dipping their blades at once.” “ Aye, and no kanakas amongst them; may be they are of that to be dreaded people the I wi wi ' ” (oui oui, their name for the French).

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As the boat drew near, each man's tendons twitched in the tense suspense of expectancy, moving uneasily to the front of the man before him for a better view; the embodiment of curiosity, doubt, and stern-faced preparation for whatever might befall!

And where were the women? From the 2ft. high sandbank, the shore scrub swept upward, to where it met the taller forest, in a massed, impervious interlacing of leafage and branches, with just an affectionate cuddle and lean landward; but a storm-dressed surface, smooth, and even as pile velvet, open beneath, by reason of sparse and separate stems; that was where the women were hiding! Every now and then, had you looked that way, you would have seen the leafage silently part, and a brown face peer forth, take a hasty comprehensive stare, and before you could have drawn a bead on it, would have disappeared, and close by another take its place, to do likewise, and report to those below.

My readers may ask, with reason: “ How do you know all this? Because I was there as a lad, and saw it. Saw also, with many another lad of 12, for the first time, and felt creepy, at that wonderthing, which moved without sails — a steamboat. And when these people asked me, “ E aha tera?” (what is that?), I could only answer, “ Aua, katahi hoki au ka kite ”(X don’t know, this is the first time I see it). “It may be that, which I have read of, and heard of, a ship called a steamboat.” “Ah! and what may that be?” But how can a lad of 12 explain—even if he knew —of steam and engines, of pistons and cranks, and the mysteries which moan and groan, down in the dark bowels of a ship without sails?

Presently the oncoming boat with the lubberly rowers is within hailing distance, and the man in the sternsheets rises and calls: “ Tena koutou ” (greetings to you). And 10, suddenly the tendons are relaxed, the tension is relieved, and the tremors slide from brawny limbs into the sand. And there rises a cry, “ Brothers and friends, the speech of greeting is in Maori; come forth.” And they do. Creation has heard the resurrection trump, for the stillness of boulder, scrub, and fern hillock, gives up its dead! Forth come women and children; the halt, and the cripple; dogs, after their kind; pet pigs, great and small, after their kind; voices and calls, after their kind. The village virago, loud and strident, gives orders right and left; here trenchant and severe, there

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forgetting her dignity, indulges in broad, coarse jokes, and real natural laughter, the joy of immediate drinking deep draughts of satisfied curiosity!

On the beach also things are in a forward state of friendly interchange of question and reply. The man in the stern has given promise of a knowledge of Maori; but which, when heard at closer range, causes sidefaced grins, and the word is passed about, “ Speak freely, but be wise.” He is one of those poor creatures whose Maori is pitiful; a few end for ended sentences, and their interspaces filled up with gesticulation! One of that contemptible crowd, who, looking on the Maori as a savage, to be cajoled into buying what he does not require, and then charged 500 per cent, for what an old clothes merchant would refuse as moth-eaten shoddy!

He was a red-haired varlet, with green, supercilious eyes, and “ smug liar ” pasted across his face. I forbear to disclose his nationality; his sort is common to all, and cumber God’s earth! Why? He knows best! Presently his boat grates on the sand, and he jumps out and offers a universal handshake, and inquires, “You katti plenty the porker?” But there; his senseless gabble shall remain unrecorded. Somehow they distrust his unnecessary affability. “Pigs? Oh, yes; at a price.” And the murmur goes round, “ Kia mohio ” (be wise). Here the village virago pushes to the front, looks him over, firing volleys of question and banter. “ Pigs, does he want?” Suddenly she has decided on his name, and cries, “ Pakakaa (fiery chestnut), what have you in that strange ship? Tobacco? Dungaree? Calico? Blankets?” A nod of the head signifies that all those are in stock; that the day being late, these will be brought on shore to-morrow, to pay for pigs which he will now select, and arrange the price for. Where are the pigs? But this does not lie parallel with the ideas of the strident female, who is evidently the chieflainess, for her speech is not interrupted or questioned, so she cries in reply, “ Kahore (no); we will see your goods first; neither will you bring them ashore; we will come on board and inspect them. No doubt you will sort them and bring us the worthless and rotten.” (This was his intention, which is suddenly frustrated.) So he takes his cue and says: “Look here, my time is short, better settle for the pigs now. So much tobacco for one, and so on.” He also fears the advent of the “ Sea Mew ”; he knows that he is trespassing on her beat. But S.F. is adamantine, and he

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looks on his venture here as not to be quite the success he anticipated, and which he had met with further up the coast; so he debates whether he had better not up anchor, and away to impose his frauds on more unsuspecting victims. Just then five lordly baconers come stalking up to the group, and grunt happily as they listen, and sidle up to their masters. These at once arouse his cupidity, and, like a shrewd schemer, he agrees, and pushes off to his vessel, where for the next few hours he will be sorting goods, picking and brushing out moth larvae, brightening tarnished brass buttons, polishing rusty needles, wiping mildew off the outside of blocks of tobacco, throwing in an extra handful of black ironsand in his bags of powder, overhauling his case of ancient Tower muskets, and packing away his best goods for trade with the white settler. Before he goes, she orders the pigs to be called down to the beach, whither they come, a collection of pork, sleek, and fat, and handsome.

The next morning early there is a gay patter and chatter on deck, among which the strident one is predominant, asking the anchor watch, “ Kaiwhea a pakakaa? Karangatia ” (where is the fiery chestnut? Call him). For answer he winks at her lewdly. (Catch a Maori woman to misunderstand.) So she resents the familiarity by clutching his shoulder roughly, and repeating her demand in a voice which vibrates the funnel stays. This reduces him to abject insanity, for he smiles a pale, emaciated smile, and gurgles hoarsely: “ Me no savee.” Just then, happily, pakakaa pushes his head above the companion slide, and the venue is shifted aft.

“ Now, then, bring your goods on deck and spread them here ” (indicating a spot in the fairway, where all may comfortably sit round and pass judgment, and the chaffering begins). “This blanket, how much?” “Two pigs.” “How much in money?” “ £3.” (It is worth about Bs. She holds it up to the light, whence several holes show, where moth cysts have been picked out.) “ Take it away.” “ How much for this roll of calico?” (It is soiled at the edges, where many previous fingers have doubted its texture.) “ Three pigs.” “Take it away; it is dirty.” Thus one article after another was discussed, sampled, rejected, and time wore on. At last in desperation he produced a box of brass and glass trinkets. The women hutched nearer, and several hands stretched forth to touch and admire. “ Gold, all gold,” he cried. “ Here you

P

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are, rubies, carnelians, amethysts, diamonds.” “ How much?” rose in eager inquiry. “ One pig for that set, and a string of beads thrown in,” and there was much giggling and coveting. At last, strident voice asked me (she was my patron when I visited them): “ What do you think?” and I whispered into her ears, “ Kaua, e hara.” (Don’t, it’s worthless.) So she passed the word along, and they all fell back. Presently she said: “Give me a pound of tobacco.” And, emptying a bag of coppers in front of him for payment, rose, and cried: “ Farewell, our pigs are sold to the captain of the “ Sea Mew,” who will give us good sound goods. Farewell."

The last we saw of him as we paddled ashore, was pakakaa standing at the taffrail shaking his fists. But our people went home as satisfied as if they had emptied the “ Star of the South.”

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THE MAORI AND OUR DUTY.

I know that these articles have been diligently looked for, and read by many educated natives. I am sure also that wherever I have located the faults of their race, they feel I have done so with a kindly touch. And why? Not with me lies the claim to pride of place. Not with us as victors belong the spoils which fate has cast into our arms, trusting in our worth. Rather is ours to admit a sacred trust misused! With a high hand we have put down this and that; plucked motes from out our savage brother’s eye, to make place for others of our own, and stepping critically back, exclaimed: “ Ha! now that looks better!”

That excessive indulgence in alcoholic drink is an evil, no sane person will question; but that it is a greater curse than gambling, I absolutely deny. X have seen the effects of both, and after unbiassed consideration say that the former is to be preferred to the insidious ruin which the latter has caused, and is causing, this day among the native race. Distance has hitherto preserved the inland districts from this loathsome pestilence, but it is creeping nearer; for wherever the white man treads he takes his vices with him!

I was comfortably satisfying a week’s literary hunger with tokens from the outside world, when three young natives stalked in and said: “Tell us what is in the paper. Tell us about the races; what horse has won, or is likely to win; what dividends are paid at the machine.”

“ No,” I cried, sternly, rising and throwing the paper on the table, “ I will be no party to the further dissemination of this murrain!”

“ Why?” one asked in pained surprise. “ E pa, noho iho; e aha te take o to weriweri?” (Say, sit down; what is the cause of your annoyance?) “What is wrong? How can this be evil, when the whole land patronises it? When two pakehas meet it is the first and only topic they discuss.”

So I sat down again, and, looking my duty in the face, said: “I am angry at the inconsistence of my race; at its

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lies, its hypocrisy, at its blatant superiority, at its pretending what it has not—common honesty. Here you have the position: It refuses you intoxicating drinks, for the stated reason that it destroys your people. It has a huge system of religions, of social conventionalities, a multifarious assemblage of “ don’t do this ” and don’t do that-isms, for the safeguarding of the nation’s well-being on the one hand; and on the other, builds up, and legislatively protects, an enormous gambling combination—horse-racing. This affair was instituted and is upheld with the ostensible intention that the best stamina of horse might be discovered and perpetuated. Granted that this was so, is the aim and end of life breeding horses? Does the perpetuating of this noble animal require that statesmen, politicians, artists, mechanics, merchants, down to the veriest scavenger, should devote the energies of their thoughts and tongues to the eternal inquiry: Which horse will pull off this or that race? Does it demand that the ordinary citizen—who loves his horse with the passionate affection of a friend —shall have the companionship of his fellows made a weariness to him, and be compelled to live in the midst of a madness of horse? Does its perpetuation require betting and gambling?—in which all that is unholy and ghoulish enters; in which the servant is the equal of his master, and therefore unblushingly robs him; the clerk of his employer, and in the end falsifies his books. Money, which ought to be expended in the buying of food and raiment for the children, finds its way into the pockets of that scum to whom this institution is a comfortable annuity? This is what angers me. And to you, poor deluded people, this degrading humbug is one of the pakeha’s respectable pastimes. This is what angers me, and this is the reason I will not enlighten youl”

I held those three natives in the palm of my hand; they swayed like reeds at every period of my denunciation, and in the end their spokesman whispered hoarsely: “Is all, can all, this be true? We thought that, being so universal, it must be good. We had a letter from a friend in Auckland who asked us to send him money to back certain horses, which were sure to winl We were thinking of selling our pigs to raise this money; we were also under the impression that there was a machine on the course, where you bought a ticket, and, when the race was run, you handed it up and drew out more money than you had put in.”

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“Who told you all these lies?” I asked, amused at the simple faith in which they stated their case.

“A pakeha, who wanted to sell us tickets; but we had no money; besides, he spoke too plausibly, and when a pakeha does so to us as strangers, we distrust him, because we know that behind our backs he calls us ‘ dirty niggers.’ And when our friend wrote to say that he had made £5 one day, we came to you to advise us.”

My heart went out to these curious children of nature—so easily led by those they trust —and laying my hand on the shoulder of the nearest, said: “ Be thankful, my lads, that you took this precaution. Do the fools who try to entice you to your ruin tell you what they have lost?” And further looking my duty in the face, explained the matter to them statistically, categorically, and kindly, on which they said: “Then we will take your advice.” And after a silence of deep reflection, during which they searched my features with the intentness of augurs, one continued: “ To me your speech seems of great earnestness. Are you sure there is in it nothing of spite? You have no private grudge against this matter? Have you ever risked anything and lost it?”

“ No,” I answered, “ never in my life have I risked a penny on a race, but once. It is many years ago, but I remember well; it was a friendly sweep, on a friend’s horse, of one penny a piece, and I won 3s 4d, which I put into the hands of a blind man as I went by. No, I have no private spite against the horror; but it has been the ruin, financially and socially, of friends whose fall has left a sore no time will ever heal; because I loved them, and love them still. No, the whole farce is a delusive folly and falsehood, compared to which the drink evil is as a babe of innocence!”

It is inexpressibly saddening to reflect that we, as the superior race, have had our opportunities and missed them—and missed them so wilfully and madly—l had almost said utterly. So let us cease from bombastic presumptions. If there is anything we can do to ameliorate evils, let us do so, and begin in the high places, and cleanse downwards; let us turn out our whitewashed sepulchres, then we can bid the Maori enter to find our statements true!

On one of my travels I had to pass a native settlement, and the time of day, coinciding with my arrival, suggested the

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advisability of greeting the people there in my most insinuating and pleasantest of Maori. It was successful, for, as usual, they assisted my inclination to loiter, by calling a hearty welcome, to stretch my weary tendons beneath their humble rooftree. When our simple meal was ended the young fellows, to the number of six, clustered up into a crowd. After casting a doubtful glance in my direction, one produced a greasy pack of cards, and hazarded the proposition that I should also take a hand.

“ What are you playing?” I asked,

“ Which would you like? We play 100, poker, bluff, nap,” he replied. “We are familiar with all these, and you can take your choice.”

With an astringent sensation at my heart, I said gently, “ No, I play none of them.”

“And why not, pray? We thought every pakeha prided himself on an acquaintance with these games, but perhaps you don’t play at all?"

“ Yes,” I said. “ I don’t object to cards; on the contrary, I heartily delight in cribbage and whist.”

“And why do you especially select these?” asked one with a supercilious leer, in which I detected my retrogression in his estimation.

“ Because,” I answered, “ they include an element of skill. Take cribbage: to engage in it with success implies a more than superficial knowledge of figures; a terse grasp of addition, which, if you have not, cribbage is a most entertaining practice to attain the proficiency; the same, in a lesser degree, applies to whist. But I am a stranger, and your guest; don’t let my presence interfere with your amusement.” So they sat up, and the madness began.

Two of them had the wages of three months surveyors’ line-men in their pockets. Two were paid-off bushfellers; and the other two carried the money (borrowed) to buy cattle at a distant sale, wherewith to stock their farms. The two bushfellers got a lead and kept it. The two cattle-buyers, having the heaviest wealth, after a win or two, backed their cards with the recklessness of madmen. When their money had gone, in series went the saddles, and bridles, and Anally their horses. When they drew out, the other four fought with

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varying success; but at breakfast the next morning the bushfellers held the whole outfit. As the party rose, blear-eyed and hoarse, with the yelling and blasphemous oaths of the all-night orgy, the two losers charged the winners with cheating. From recrimination they got to blows; in fact, the whole scene was horrible and debasing, a criminal travesty on pakeha civilisation, a criminal devastating blight wherein four simple, good-natured, hardworking children of the newer light, rose four brutal and hardened paupers. “ And my heart was hot within me, and wept my wasted tears.”

On another occasion, a friend, the manager of a sheep station, invited me to admire some new sheep-shearing machinery he had put up. It was too late to see it at work, as the shed had cut out, and because of wet weather there was a spell in the work. So to fill in the time he took me over the shearers’ quarters, to discuss improvements, which a Liberal Legislature had none too soon forced on station-owners, who, like the old-time shipmasters, looked on their men with less regard than they did their bacon swine I The shed-hands and shearers were mostly Maoris. As we entered, the whole gang sat ranged round the mess table, indulging in their usual pastime, playing cards. “ Hallo, boys,” cried my friend, “at it yet?” “ Yes,” growled the cook, “ they hardly wait till the table is cleared, when at it they go again, and what do you think some of ’em are a-putting in the pool now? Sheep that ain’t shorn yeti Some are working with borrowed shears, some with shears to be redeemed later with sheep. Others have to walk from their stand to cadge a sharpening from stones, a pen or so down the board. Sheep, shears, stones, all gambled away.” And I heard afterwards that some came home poorer than they went out.

Oh, ye prohibition anguished souls, travel, I say. The field is larger than what you see from the five-barred gate you are resting your chins on. There are worse curses than drink!

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MISTAKEN ENDEAVOUR.

If the annual report of the native schools of New Zealand is pervaded with the same common sense as the excerpts which have appeared in the press, there should be nothing to carp at; and I heartily agree with the conclusion:—“So long as there is no definite end I believe that we are likely to make the mistake of giving the higher education to too many.” This, spoken of the girls, applied with equal force to the boys.

What obtrudes itself with exasperating persistence is the prominence given to that higher education, which finds its culmination in one of the professions, to the neglect of other education and other necessities which call for assistance and call in vain! There also seems to be a widespread faith in the fallacy that, given the Maori youth the opportunity to enter these higher schools, we have compassed their salvation, and may forthwith repose in the content which cometh of an irksome duty neatly circumvented at last!

This fallacy has now arrived at a point when silence on the part of those who know it to be such.—and why—becomes a wanton mishandling of the talent entrusted to their charge —nay, a criminal collusion with an absurdity which no one, having a solemn appreciation of his share of the white man’s burden, may stand by and condone.

Let it not be understood by this that I under-rate the higher education. What I wish to make clear and emphasise is that, for the Maori in his present state, it is misapplied and premature. He has not yet arrived at the stage when it can benefit him; when there are other things lacking of vaster importance to his welfare, and which must take precedence in any scheme professing to save his remnants, and build them up into a virile, self-contained nation.

That my contention is shared by the more thoughtful among themselves, I have gleaned by inquiries and conversations with them, and was especially confirmed in a recent discussion with one of the most modern and enlightened it has yet been my fortune to meet, whom I shall frequently

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quote, and who illustrated this folly of the higher education thus: “ It is arraying him in dress suit and top hat, and forgetting the singlet and shirt!” The simile was apt and invited a smile, but there was a distinct vibration in his tone which spoke of an unqualified contempt for an inglorious failure! For he, too, had been to this fountain of knowledge and drunk thereat, hoping to quench his own thirst and tell of its virtue to those of his kinsfolk! He, too, had been to the high school and sat in the ranks of listeners to the white man’s wisdom dreaming the while of his race, its future and progress. But an unrealised dream, which vanished, and left no token behind it!

He spoke beautiful English, in which he explained why: “ We are being laden with wares which we have no market for. Ido not even except the medical profession. Our higher education, to produce a result, must advantage the race; this must be the aim of all the nursing you expend on us. As a doctor it is among his own race he must expect to establish his practice. It is not to be supposed that he will be able to compete with success on the same plane as his white confrere in an already overcrowded profession, or be able to work up a clientele among the pakeha, where the colour line is so idolatrously sacred! Besides, to a majority of us, after we have acquired more polished tastes in our University life, it irks to go back to ponga whare and earthen floors. And the parental heart is sore when it notes contempt and sarcastic sniffs; when there is hesitation at the home-coming to present the nose for the hongi greeting and shamefaced glances are cast at our domestic customs! And this is one, and the principal, reason why they object to send their sons and daughters to a race which sows ‘ whakahihi ’ (presumptuous pride) into the souls of their children!”

There are other professions which the higher education leads to—law, engineering, architecture, chemistry, etc. But these all come within the category of “ inapplicable ” to the welfare of the Maori; and to parade a success or two merely proves his unexampled capacity to learn all the white man can teach him. But it is the medical profession from which the advocates of the higher education expect the greatest results; and, if the decay of the Maori could be traced to certain diseases which medicine could cope with, their advocacy would be justified. Now, it happens that the Maori is

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not dying of any specific disease; he is yielding to that inevitable law of Nature which warns the aggressor; “Don’t interfere with me, because I shall hit back.” The pakeha has unconsciously done this; he has interfered with a style of life which built up a race. He in his lordly way forbade this, and ordered peremptorily: “You must end that,” thus cutting away natural prop after prop, without supporting the mass by others until it could stand by itself. It was. “ Take off that ‘ pureke ’ (coarse flax cloak), and put on this coat.” “You must sheathe your bare legs in trousers; to walk abroad in a short loin mat is indecent;” and “ Get on this horse, you will find it easier travel.” And the Maori listened, and reflected, and said: “ Koia ano ” (surely), and, having put on the coat and trousers, and noted that the pakeha beside him wore boots, he wanted those also; and, having broad acres lying idle, he sold them to obtain these luxuries, and, treating them as he did his pureke and loin mat—cast them off when they cumbered his movements, regardless of weather—it presently followed that he coughed up his lungs and diedl He was no longer the warrior exposed to vicissitudes which kill off the weaker and harden the strong. He was no longer compelled to arduously toil for his food—food which suited his system of life so well: coarse, nutritive, and plain!

The Maori has no faith in his pakeha-taught medical kinsman; for, when he returned to his tribes, flushed with the fame of successfully-passed exams., they flocked to the oracle in crowds to be eased of their ailments, and when European-taught skill failed (as fail it must against Nature), they turned their backs to him, and sent for their tohunga, who brought his materia medica—a pint bottle of evil-smell-ing herb and root-water, enriched with an incomprehensible jargon of senseless incantations—which merely hastened the end. Then they held a conclave of sorrow, and discussed the inefficiency, and charged it to a departed mana, or other absurdity, not knowing, poor souls, that the ancient merely suffered from an overfeed at a tangi feast maybe, which the herb-simples without the mummery would have cured; that it is not a colic he has now to combat, but a nation’s natural decay I

Yet, as sure as the sun will rise on the morrow, the plague may be stayed, not with potions and pills, or doctors, however high their degree, but a radical change of life, which conforms to our artificial aids to evolution; and to assist him

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in this, my brothers, is the weight of the white man’s burden. And, if we are true men and women, and not boastful shrievers of inadequate souls, we will grapple with it, each will—fully recognising the labour—insuck his breath, take a good griphold and lift! and do it with a “ yo, heave ho,” heartily, with a love for his call and the race. For, as Mr. Ellis, of Otorohanga (and he ought to know), so truly says: “It is our ward.” We owe it a debt; therefore, let us make friends with our creditor while yet on the way, lest the deficiency to be made up, when posterity shall examine our wardship, bankrupt our fame as trustees.

The betterment of the Maori is a subject dear to my heart. I have studied his wants in all their phases. I have, to advance that study, lived his life with him, argued his problems with him, and so gained his confidence that he has unlocked to me his inner sorrow chamber and shown me its contents. I have within my limited means practised what I preach, and tested my theories; therefore, I claim to speak with the authority of experience; and, as it is the duty of those who have had it to come forward and declare it—be they who they may—l have decided to devote an article or two to temperately state what my theories are, and the result of their testing.

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THE OLD, OLD PLEA.

“ We are dying fast, and want you to show us how to live and work, so that we may not all go down to the grave.”

This pathos-laden appeal is touching; but it is not new. It is merely another instance of the Maori’s strenuous belief in the supernatural; it is recording evidence that his faith in tohunga impostures, whether of white or brown, and no matter how often falsified, if iterated with a sufficiently vibrant glottis, and enriched with appropriate mystifications, old platitudes clad in fresh disguises and bombastic assurance, find an open portal to his creedful soul; that alluring phrases of; “Our coloured brother,” “Privileges of British subjects,” “ One people, one law,” “ Magnificent race,” administered in cunningly graduated doses—as at public meetings, when the fever pulse of pomp and parade beats high, and all is unreal and toxic—may, as of old, be relied upon to mould his plastic faith anew. And what accentuates the pathos is the futility of it all; that this burden of travail is wailed into ears that understand not what the suppliant ails of. This is why no amendment accrues, and the plea has degraded from musket and tomahawk to sullen despair, and in the more hopeful to urgent appeal. This is pitiful, but that which wells up yet further tears in the utter hopelessness of a change, so long as incompetence is permitted to dally and experiment with the precious lives of men.

Tu Whakaririka (I have permission to use his name) is the owner of 9180 acres of land in various parts of this district; divided between himself, his wife, and five children. He is a young man, strongly imbued with notions of pakeha progress. He is anxious to conform himself and family to all the exactions of pakeha prejudice; to work his land, build a house worthy of his status, buy good stock, and show the pakeha what the Maori under favourable conditions can do. But with all this landed wealth he is a pauper—a titled lord without a rent-roll. And to acquire the means to compass his desires he is confronted with four shameful alternatives, repellant

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to the descendant of freemen, who never bowed the neck to the oppressor’s yoke until the white man placed it there: —

1. He can sell to a State which, nathless a law which prevents the Maori denuding himself of his last acre, does so denude him, and with a pittance too sinfully paltry to mention, yet makes earsplitting boasts of having his welfare at heart!

2. He can entrust it to the enervating mediation of that passe invention, the Public Trustee, whose very mention dries up the blood in their veins: with his 10 per cent, charges, and more; and especially since he opposed the plea of Mrs. Brown and Mrs. R. S. Thompson to have their lands cut up and let them manage their own affairs—two highly-educated halfcaste women, living the lives of cultured ladies, both legally married to honest European gentlemen; whose children and grandchildren understand of Maori “ kapai ” and no more; and are infinitely better gifted to manage their own Crown-granted lands than that same Public Trustee, who caused their humble petition to so manage it to be cast out of the House! Which is no defaming of that Officer, because he is the servant of this iniquitous embarrage.

3. He can submit to the humiliating interference of impotent Maori councils, whose mana-less transactions must await a soul-wearying interchange of correspondence from Wellington, until the disgusted prospective lessee ends the negotiations, and goes elsewhere; and, should the lease eventuate, the poor lessor is surcharged with 2s in the £ for fees and expenses!

4. Or he may, as he does, curse all things, and sulk, and die!

These are Tu Whakaririka’s alternatives; and why? It would melt the type were I in appropriate language to describe the senseless, bewildering why. Let us further consider this man (his kind is broadcast over the land). Here we have a decent, clean-lived “ wealthy ” pauper, with glorious ambitions, which he cannot gratify—the ambition to stand beside the white man and be his equal, to utilise lands now gorse and briar covered for the proper nurturing of his children. To consummate this desirable progress he wishes to sell 1000 acres of this to him useless land, and yet leave sufficient for his children and descendants to untold generations, were he

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legally permitted to do so. Consider his case in all its bearings. A pakeha has offered him £3 per acre, which is £3OOO, only too glad to pay this, spot cash. My heart saw face to face with his when he cried in desperation: “Why am I not allowed to benefit by this which hurts no one? I only wish to keep flesh of my flesh alive! Spy on me; watch how I spend it; restrict me fore and aft; see to it that every penny is spent on land, house, and stock; take it from me if I squander it! Only let me bargain with this pakeha, who if I pressed him would add sufficient to pay transfer expenses. lam told that if it were put up to public competition it would rise to £5 per acre, because it is first-class land.” Then he threw his cap on the ground and spat on it. “ Tell me why!” And that question flutters east, and west, and north, and south, and every echo calls back, “ Why?”

Because of the supreme importance that something be done at once, and because they are my friends, I will cite another case, but for a reason can only mention fictitious names. Blank owns 12,000 acres. He has no children of his own, but has adopted as his heir one of his brother’s. He also has high ambitions; he knows that only by keeping pace with the pakeha in all his various progressive customs can his nephew escape the fate of his race. He sees the truth, and has profited by that which lies on this hand and that, but cannot gratify his desires because of his poverty. He asked my advice: Should he send his nephew to the high school, and so prepare him? “Yes,” I replied, “send him, but, so sure as the sun will rise on the morrow, so surely will you fail in your mission!” “What then shall I do?” “ Send him to the local school until he can read, write, and cypher; then have him taught carpentry and useful smithy work; warn him to avoid the racecourse, cigarettes, and waipiro; teach him to respect himself and the pakeha. That is all, and when he is man-grow T n he will revere the memory of his benefactor with a benison of love and affection.” He sits on his verandah and looks across to his ancestors’ graves on a hill which lies between him and the setting sun, and sees the end of his day dreams there! Presently he rises wearily and says:—“ Kua paiherea aku ringa; e kore taea.” (My hands are bound; it cannot be done.)

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He merely wishes to sell 1100 acres of his surplus lands, which a pakeha is eagerly awaiting some change in native land transactions to pay him £4OOO for; but, as things are now, dare not—one-half to be banked, and the remainder spent on the lad’s education.

And thus Maori progress is checked, and by whom, and what? By a buffoonery yclept native land administration! By a criminal mania to test moth-eaten fads! By ignorance, prating, and incompetence; caring no jot that it mangles and slays its “ coloured brother,” “ noble Maori,” “ magnificent race,” so long as it can strut and parade as its patriarchal protector; but which posterity will crown-quest and verdict as murder!

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“THE WHITE MAN’S BRAIN.”

A recent Herald item mentions Dr. C. E. Adams’ discovery—how the bubble of his transit level by erratic movements indicated a disturbance of the earth somewhere. This discovery was termed “ unique.” Perhaps it is, to casual observers. I myself have noted the phenomenon and wondered why its lessons were neglected.

When, in 1874, America sent parties to observe in these Southern lands the transit of Venus across the sun, one such party set its station on the Chatham Islands, not many miles from our sheep-station home. Though the visiting public was forbidden, the party’s chief, Professor Edwin Smith, and his second-in-command, Dr. Albert Scott, seeing in me an inquirer whom only violence could expel, granted me permission to remain, on condition that I joined them.

There I saw piers sunk and founded on mother rock. I saw those piers’ surface mounted with instruments of such wondrous exactitude, and so delicate to touch, that, though grounded on eternal rock, in their vicinity list-shod feet became a law inflexible, and we stepped as sleuth-hounds tread.

Weeks before the actual transit, observation drills were held to locate our exact meridian, so, when the crisis came, each one should know his post and work. These drills were the main functions of our lives. One day, during such drill, the chief, viewing the transit-axis level, saw the bubble out of centre. He was small of stature, hence also of temperament. “Who the ! Mr. Scott!” Suddenly he saw the bubble move, and broke off short. Then, turning to the chronograph, he saw that its level bubble also moved. Stepping to the heliostat, with its fine platinum plummet line, whose heavy bob was suspended in a large water-drum, he saw that it no longer rested on its mark. Thereupon his choler ended, and merely remarking, “ Earthquake somewhere,” ordered that no instrument or levelling screw be touched.

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A midnight visit found the bubble nearly normal, and the next mid-day almost, but not quite, restored, showing how these earth movements possibly make contours that remain permanent, and from the angle of their “ lean ” many deductions, such as centre of origin, may be made.

As his mission was not earthquake records, but measuring parallaxes, all instruments were readjusted, and our usual routine was resumed. But I, red-hot with discovery fever, prated long of reticulated levels, arranged in axes, in series, in systems, in recording mechanisms, till the chief, with a grin of cynical benevolence, would cry; “O Anaxagoras! O Thales! O Ptolemy!” beneath the weight of which implied rebukes I lay suppressed. Yet, to-day, I return to those enthusiasms refreshed by Dr. Adams’ “ discovery.”

As said, all visitors were rigidly excluded, till one day a lone brown rider was detected approaching our camp. At once I, the party’s linguist, was sent forward to forewarn. Returning to report, I said:—“lt is Hao, a Maori chief, a personal friend, the representative on these islands of the world-famed Taranaki seer, Te Whiti. He has come to verify repute.”

Yielding to my unexpressed appeal, the professor not only stood aside, but graciously paraded all the secrets of his cult. From magic to magic, each in turn was viewed with wonder and alarm! From hut to hut, piled with canned foods and tools only the qualified may touch; item —a Gatling gun, racks of Remingtons, stacked ammunition chests. Pointing, our visitor inquired—“ And these—what for?” To our host’s confusion the tale emerged that they thought us islanders folk who slew men that we might eat the fleshl “ Hal Ha! Truly the world is very large! Much these wise men have not learned!” On we went: “And those magics on the hill we just have viewed, what use are they?” “Those are measuring rods to mete the distance from the sun to where you stand.” Nimbly he stepped aside to see the magic he had trod upon! “E tito pea!” (those probably are lies), “who can reach the sun with rods?”

The professor is delighted with our guest:—“ Mr. Scott, kindly demonstrate.” Mr. Scott calls an attendant to plant a stake at a chosen distance from us. Then he produces a theodolite, and takes an angle from that stake. Then he moves along a base-line and takes another angle. Then he

0

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calls for a chain and measures along the base-line, and, after a few figures on his pad, says: “Tell him that the distance from the centre of this base-line to yonder stake is so many chains and links.” The distance thereupon is measured and found exactly as foretold.

It is then explained that we are waiting for the day when that stake will stand upon the sun in the shape of a then unseen star, which on the day we are wailing and preparing for will serve us as that stake has served, and that these were the white man’s measuring rods.” When all had been explained, our pagan guest took off his cap, and throwing up his arms, cried in frenzied rapture; “ Te roro a te pakeha!” “ What does he say?” 11 He adores in your persons the genius of our race in the heart-cry; ‘O, the white man’s brain!' ”

Even I, conversant with the fierce emotions of the Maori, was astounded at that abasement, mingled with adoration that he had touched the hem of that understanding which made the white man lord of all! Not only to that “ savage ”on the threshold of strange visions, but even to me this thaumaturgic puissance of a biped weakling opened vistas of the deeds he yet might do; and I gloried in the privilege to have lived that day!

To hear companionly instruction of earth’s marvels told by masters of their craft! ... Of that studious English curate, Horrocks, who, with his crude measures, predicted that 130 years later that spot—Venus—then upon the sun, would there be seen again! . . . How men’s skill had figured that upon a lone mid-ocean antipodean islet on a certain date and hour, and minute, that spot would there pass across the sun; to find from actual observation on that date, to be just four clock-minutes late! Strangling! Stupefying! Beyond remotest comprehension of the possible, and yet all achieved! Simple, once the key is found, but ah! the finding of the key! Through all the ages this remains the sublimest reach of man—the mathematics of astronomy!

I was there, and with the others felt the tension of the wailing as the time drew near. Hand and eye of each were upon his matchlock, ready for the order “Fire!” I was with the chief, to take his notes from the eyepiece of his telescope, where he sat a rigid, graven Buddha, waiting! watching! Suddenly, in one unbroken torrent, figures, whole and

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decimals, battered on the ear. Drill-perfect as I thought myself in these, some passed me by! but, as all fell in series, these were afterwards filled in. When all was over we emerged with clinging singlets, wet, as if lifted from a washtub and hung out on us to dry! The first question asked of us was: “Did she come on time?” “Yes, only four clockminutes late!”

Of course, of these marvels our visitor saw none; but he saw enough to understand. What wonder then that he should grovel low in reverence, and nudge me: “ Kihai ano i makona; kia kite ano pea?” (I am still unsated; shall we view again?) He called those hutments on the hill:! “ Tuaahu atua ” (altars of the gods). So we wandered slowly, piously, from telescope to chronograph, from transit-tube to heliostat, passing them edge-bodied less a careless touch defile those sacred exudations of the white man’s brain! *

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CONCERNING STONE AXES.

On the Chathams, the furthest south inhabited islands of the Pacific, lived an aboriginal race who called itself “ tchakat maihor ” (Moriori), and who used stone axes to cut the knees and other materials required to build his queer sea-craft, on which to annually visit the albatross nesting islets at distances varying 20, 13, and 7 miles from the main islands. During some years of intimate exploration I collected specimens, from the incised boulder from which the desired axeflake was split, to the polished and helved tool.

Some 26 years ago a German scientist, Herr Schauinsland, director of the Hamburg Museum, and his lady, came on a curio hunt in which they included the Chathams. While there I showed them my collection, upon which he cried in delighted recognition:—“ Those are exactly like we have in our museum, dug up in Danemark, and by them presented to us,” and turning to his lady, whose English was careful but sparse, “nicht wahr?” To which she brightly responded in German words, which I later discovered to mean: “Sure. The likeness is astounding,” and on the spot I was offered a sum hard to refuse, but, thanks be, I did.

Darwin sees in alike stone tools—though fashioned a world’s width apart—proof of a common man-origin. It is not my object to argue upon this, but rather to show that this “ alikeness ” is no “ proof.” For instance, how else could a lump of stone be shaped to stand percussive blows as a felling or wood-dressing tool for large timber? Stone to be drilled and helved for percussive use, and to prevent fracture at the drilled eye, must be of a mass, so ponderous that no average man could lift and swing it. Such a mass could not be reduced to an edge sufficient to cut a deep kerf. It followed then that the tool must be of lesser mass—a flake —which, as it could not be drilled for a helve, must be attached to such helve by a lashing, and as this lashing would be an impediment to cutting deep if used like we use an axe, the tool must be shaped as an oblong flake, and lashed to a helving like an adze.

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Even with this the labour expended would be out of all proportion with the resultant effect, so some other and cut-across-the-grain tool must be devised, of which the Danish, the Maori, and Moriori form was the same, viz., to shape a flake some 15 to 20 inches long by, say, 4 inches wide, and any thinness the stone will bear. This, lashed to the end of a stout pole and resting on a trestle the height of the desired upper kerf, and another for the lower one to provide that the tool cut in the same line round the tree, was then “butted” against the bole, and the in-between wood pecked out with the “ adze ” till the tree fell.

To crosscut the top from the fallen tree another tool had to be devised, viz., that narrow, cigar-shaped stick of chisel-sharpened stone, the non cognoscenti call a “chisel” helved adze-wise and used to score a kerf a certain distance apart and the intermediate wood also pecked out till the tree is cut. This small “ parting-tool ” was of infinite unrecorded use. With it grooves could be scored any convenient distance apart and hacking away the ridges so left large blocks of wood could be reduced and fine-finished with an adze and pumice stone.

Of course time was no factor in the Maori life, and for the rough hewing many hands were within call. Thus, the Dane and Maori built their roving craft.

In the case of the Maori, the final shape and finish became the sole privilege of the master-craftsmen, whose decision stood supreme; who spent endless time and thought on curves and designs for which their genius was famed. So sacred was their final removal of a shaving here and there that no idler might approach the precinct and disturb their meditations.

On them depended the sentence: “ Kua otil” (it is finished!) No chips might be gathered and burnt; an insult to the god of forests, Tane, he will resent with merciless afflictions. Thus, the Maori. Did we know all the customs of the stone-age shipbuilding Dane, one sees no reason to doubt that he, too, observed rituals to prosper his exploits.

That all life, and that of man in particular, expands its desires to accord exactly with the chance of those desires being gratilied, is by special creationists denied, but by the simple-lived Moriori triumphantly confirmed. He had no seafaring instincts or desires. Why? Because his trees were

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not of a height nor girth like those of Polynesia and New Zealand to “suggest” the idea of explorations beyond those near-by, albatross-nesting islets. So when he built up of dry flax-flower stalks his ugly, square punt-shaped contraption, and it returned laden with birds, it became in his esteem a stupendous creation, a work of art; the greatest audacity conceived by man!

The Chathams grew only one durable timber, the ake-ake, which, because of its insufficient bulk, was seldom without heart-rot, shakes, and other blemishes. It did not invite the expenditure of permanent labour or decorative art, and the brain of the Moriori did not develop artistic ideals, not even that personal vanity, “ tattoo.” Hence, many minds have wondered to what uses he put those stone axes of the usual shape and perfect finish so abundant before the übiquitous curio fiend swept them away. But the wonder should cease when we are reminded that this degraded—mentally—creature was, at one time, before that pacifist tyrant— Nunuku—ordered the cult to end, a fierce relentless warrior, whose weapons of soft perishable wood called for constant renewal. It was the absence of sized, durable timber that incapacitated him from building palisaded fortress pas. and thus his open battlefields demanded that he be thorough and merciless. As also each man’s tools and weapons were sacred property, to be privately secreted at his death, the tool and weapon manufacture followed genealogy, and must be rebegun through all its stages by each rising warrior.

If my deductions be correct, it appears that Darwin, excellent investigator and theory constructor, as results have shown him to be, has not “ proved ” that from an identity of stone tools can be inferred a common origin of man.

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AN APPEAL.

A history of the early colonist has yet to be written—not names of ships and dates of arrival; not mere surface twaddle, such as is told at banquets and in drawing-room; but the inch by inch contesting of conditions that the present town dweller has not the slightest conception of. How he landed, and, standing on the shores of illimitable possibilities, surveyed them with unblanched courage; hitched his waistband spat in his hands, gripped, and gripped to hold; how he adjusted his shoulders to the strange burden —crudely underrating its weight, maybe, with good chance of many a gall—but taking the brave man’s heart of grace—succeeded with a success only to be found in the annals of that race whose footsteps circle the globe.

And we, their offspring, are proud of them. We look on those old battle-scarred features (such as are left) with the profoundest love and respect. We listen to their reminiscent quaverings with silent attention, and hoard them in iron-clasped chests of honoured memory: as befits the recital of deeds rich in valiant endeavour: many a sleepless night of wild scheming: of heroic achievement, despite bitter frustrations, for often fortune dismissed their appeal! Often hands dropped in despair at heartless rebuff! Often eyes watered redly when Hope turned its back! Often, ah, me! hands crossed meekly—stilled for ever—and the service was read!

When the early colonist’s boat grounded its keel on the new land’s gravelly foreshore, a hand was extended to steady his leap—a brown, not unshapely, hand—and its grasp meant ‘ Friendship.” And a seamy tattoo-ridged face opened its mouth. It said, “ Welcome.”

And the chattels stacked on the beach had a pat of the hand tapped thereon; the same in savage sign language meant “ Sacred.”

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And the first haangi, opened to banquet the strangers, sent up its steam in an incense of “ Goodwill.”

When the blue-stained lips of the mother of warriors parted to smile on her awe-numbed white sister, and —shyly —proffered a hard, horny hand, with a touch as of angels, uttering mysterious jumbles of wordcraft, she simply invited her skin-bleached new sister to enter and honour her whare, and recline on a mat inscribed with the legend, “ Maoriland Hospice.”

When a dignified savage—noble and stately—struck out his tongue with a fiendish grimace at a newohum white boy ,haunted with fear and trembling in terror), he merely rendered in unspoken glyphics, “Kindly, good humour.”

And I lean me back and shade my eyes sadly, with a sob retrospective, at a might-have-been waste! Where, amid such propitious beginnings, lay hidden the omen of evil to herald the ending? In Sheol maybe; plotting dissensions and ultimate bloodshed! Was there no one with prescient wisdom (knowing the sins of both) to explain and interpret? There was none! And the curse lay unpurged. No arbitrament there but the spear and the rifle!

Be just, ye future historians. Tell them the truth. If it was land greed which the lord of the soil so fiercely resented, say so. If the lord of the soil, seeing the flood rising, attempted to dam its encroachments with the tools to his hand—tomahawk, spear, and flint musket—Say so. And add: “Were we in his place, we had done likewise!”

But a history such as I indicated in opening this article would comprise a set of volumes which could not be completed in one man’s lifetime. And to ask of those who remain to us as connecting links with the past, to write out their experiences, would be unfair. Sot them before a cheerful fire in the company of “ old cronies,” with a glass at their elbow, and stirring episodes might be listened to, worthy of faithful reproduction. But as I said, it would be unfair to ask of labour-callosity-covered hands to lake a pen and write them down. Again, the true heroes of colonisation distinctly object to blazon their deeds. Others again hate notoriety from a sense of innate bashfulness. So there remains the last resource, that those who have friends capable of filling the

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post of amanuensis should not let bashfulness, (praiseworthy) hinder the building of a monument for the enjoyment and instruction of the coming generations. I look on this as a call which all who can should respond to.

Speaking for myself, I intend to follow my own precept. But t is where he came in contact with the Maori—and of the Maori—l would prefer to tell. To one who knows and understands their language, their nature, failings, peculiar manner of solving life’s problems, and capacity, a comparison of the two races is of perennial interest. I have mixed with them since childhood; yet as a study they never pall. I have listened to their legends, their songs, the simple annals of their tame, domestic life, and the deeper tragedies of war. Yet I can listen once again.

The Maori is not understood; never has been —excepting by that venerable company whose ranks are thinning year by year, at the head of which Colenso stood head and shoulders above all. Had those in authority in the successive stages of our contact with the Maori understood, and treated him according to such understanding, and not looked upon him as a fool, a savage without capacity, except for murder and plunder, a landholder, whom it was fair to over-reach and dispossess, the lamentable bickerings, incompetencies, arrogant posing as superior civilisers, ending in murder on the Maori side, and reprisal on ours, which red-splash our colonisation history, had not been there.

Let no one be deceived by the reflection, that because he is quiet that we have done with the Maori. Our policy of filling him with rum, dangling tinsel before his eyes; playing off one tribe against the other; pretending they were princes and men of importance; getting his patrimony at a sinfullycontemptible price, and then casting him on the scrap-heap, has to be atoned for. Our duty is to raise him, whether he will or no. Bishop Julius sounded the right note at the Anglican Synod in Christchurch. (I have mislaid the paper, but the sense is burnt into my brain; it is what I have advocated for years.) “ Don’t try to make English men and women of them. Train the girls to grow into helpful wives for Maori men; and (I am amplifying) train the Maori lads to be decent, industrious, law-abiding, Maori husbands.” That is our duty this day—not the collegiate farce we are offering them now.

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HIS FIRST ROMANCE.

The Maori nature is interesting. It is not easily analysed, except by those in possession of the keynote—which is, emotion. There is no act of his life but is primordially actuated by sentiment. Yet he is averse to discussing it; and the one which is most sacredly shielded is his love secret. He makes no mystery of what may be called the mechanical aspect of the sex problem, but he shuns the laying bare of his love feelings. It is only in his songs that we get an insight into the tender pathos of his romance; even there he enshrouds it in imagery, and often very beautiful imagery it is.

It was my fortune to be made the confidant of a native friend’s first love throes. These he imparted to me in profound secrecy, and on the understanding that I would give him mine in return-—for a Maori’s curiosity is as great as his sentiment. In the following story I have kept as rigidly to the text of his expressions as translation will permit.

“ I was of the age when the young hair about the mouth is nursed with great kindness, and my father said to me, ‘ Petere, inspan the oxen early in the morning, and deliver over the waggon and team to the white man with the wen behind the ear at Hokianga; he hath hired it. Take the inner road, and thereby avoid the sea beach where the girls bathe at midday.’ So I went. But fathers have deep insights. Why, even as he spoke, I was thick in the frolic on the beach among the girls, and I avenged my disappointment by the slowest travel I could invent, with much straining of the beachward ear to where the gambol was gayest.

“ I had to cross the branch of a tide river, where the mullet is fat or lean, according as the wind blows north or south. The approaches to this creek were deeply guttered by traffic, and, as is the habit of our roads, no metal thereon. Slowly my team crept up the opposite slope. When about the middle, thundering with clear-heard vibrations, came to my ears the racing strides of a rampant horse.

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Fearing I knew not what, I called loudly, so thereby I might awaken caution in the on-coming horseman. Suddenly, ere mistakes could be rectified, down rushed a horse in among my oxen. On the horse sat a young woman—hair to rearward, the remains of a broken bridle in her hand, also grasping the pommel in front. I had stepped aside as the horse fell into the mixture of mud, horns, and yokes; but on flew the maiden, and shot forward into my arms, then outstretched, in terrible doubts what to do. Thank God, and the steep bank behind me, I stood like a seashore rock backed by the mainland. So I sat her down. Then I saw that she was a stranger, handsome of feature—an angel dropped from the sky (as I had seen in pictures at the Mission Station, painted yellow and blue). We looked into each other’s eyes, and the harm was done.

“How shall I describe her? Oh! speech would have failed me then to describe her. Now I calmly can, for many a year have I looked at her features. Enough; never before had I beheld one so beauteous.

“ The horse had impaled itself, two horns having entered its bowels; and with one foot through the yoke-ring, as the oxen backed, it snapped beyond mercy of mending. But all this I saw with eyes that were blinded. From maiden to wreck, from wreck back to maiden; yet not a word had been spoken. Then she ran up the bank. Perhaps from thence her deliverance loomed by comparison, for she sat down and sobbed.

“ By this the horse was dead, and mutely I took off the saddle and headstall, hitched on a pair of leaders, and drew it back to the stream, to float where it listed. And while 1 did this the world had changed. What had come to it?—To me ?—to my thoughts, wandering masterless?—yet wandering back to that which sat above me sobbing. I got the team into order again—yet without pakeha oaths, which the oxen expected. When I came to the top, road-manners demanded of me speech; yet my tongue clave, dry and swollen. Utterance? With the blood from feet and bowels surging into my chest? What bewitchment was this? I stood beside the waggon wheel savagely chewing my whiolash; but no saliva moistened my lips. Then a mad thought took lordship—l would pretend to be dumb; and tried to remember children’s sign language; for long ere this she must have

■■ TTfg WKfTE itw TSIEjLDS.

25

M I meoatotoeoe fee l —me, the loosest of tongue, to when ao by-woed was seared, no ribald jest too coarse to be I dboafd base ashed her and the place of her itodfis; tod I sebbed to a tf throat, aad mentally cursed my Srtsfsarr. Tbsw I lasted at a tf clay-stained clothes. Oh, hoar I baled IbeatS —ntii here, patches there, grease flares deww the thigh, where the Sagers are wiped after the meal. Tbs* my thick heels obtruded tbeauetves offensively, a hole to the toe, saggpesttog todfeadiea not to be borne. My hat, a *•* lime straw; tod sow. like a no-man's ebild, nameless. ban psdtod it sff aad stood on it; but that would have : • ■ • ■ - - " . • . r dt baMaff anil, mf watch aad chain, awagger hat, cocked to aaa aide, He a daefc glaaetog saa sards. Then I thought ed ®T potogma. Ties, that was blameless; bat bow would she rmw—*fait wriaee flavour I hungered for so mutely?

-■- • - - ■ .. r ir»;n like a covey of hwaA i - Oh, what had ease to me? What bewitched nantoan mere these? SHI she sobbed, with her shawl wnr her head, way sah stafabtog end stabs. Yet I knew that -■ - ' - ■ - ' -" hs ■ f strangers ra erra.re, me ranee at her mishap.

*Rd then! To teak at the two buckle-ends torn off at *be thhhag spake finer than words that the horse bad **aed at a wayside pig. deep to the soil digging fern-root, ■■4. stalling eat of its hnoa with a soul-snatching howl, had fled to deplarahie poetic to gato the cover of brushwood, V. : : - ;:rs - r ■ . • • . • • : 1• ; ;se :: 'eru uaii ha> i harmed ::s soul, and sent it forward with ■ageaeatoas growing as it hasted. Suddenly the servicerecayeu '.earner a; r retag e-runl to the weight of horse, maid, aad hnw. gave wav. This I saw at a glance; so it seemed ••; ; -: tr; re - : ur w ; i vj? r tin to the senses.

■ 2a ‘ I a myself. ' I will lire her the “ hongi ” ' : - ' - • .' • . • r - long - ■ • - ■ - ' . ■ Thus I ' . - • i ' ' - - ' : ' wHiml- ktr «v jast thro. I saw her glance at a ■ ■ ' . :-i - - ; rc:r. hands to fend H ttM rtar ling ansi msM to her side; hot. being in a vast (MMK. 1 ddil wait whl she had oeonnd her face. So ■ ■ -' ■ - ; • . ■ ■ struck out

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upward with a fist which fitted my adjacent eye to perfection. But when she saw me thoughtfully nursing my eye with one hand, and grab that besotted remnant my hat with the other, how could you greet guests like these but with joke and laughter. So the hongi died childless, and it became as the gods had forewilled—the tapu was lifted, the spell disconnected. Forgotten was shame of the clothes; the boot with the truculent toe no longer slunk behind the heel of the boot which was sound.

“ And again the world changed. Question and answer flitted to and fro like ‘ pepe atua ’ (butterflies) in the sunshine. She told me her name (had I heard it before?), of her parents, and we laughed—glad as children down by the seashore— (and the horse in the creek!) —glad of the life within us, without thought of the morrow. The morrow to us, as we sat on the grass there and talked? Then the oxen moved, the links clinked, the dray groaned; they were tired of this nonsense. One, a working bull, bellowed, as if he would mock us. I cried to them: ‘ Woa, you!’ But the pakeha oaths stuck in my throat! This was strange; to them also strange, for they went on.

“Then the world again changed; and from our heights we stumbled and fell. I ran forward and stopped the beasts, while she stood, looking hither and thither, bewildered. Why, just now, no care in the world, yet here lay a horseless saddle and a maiden thereby (God-warded), but wondering: ‘What now?’ ”

Then he turned to me with a twinkle in his eye, and said; “ What do you think of my tale? It is true; these things happened even as I said. It is many years ago. Otira tana maharatanga kei te reka tonu ” (but the remembrance thereof is still sweet). “ Has the pakeha feelings like these, think you? Tell me.” “ I will,” I answered; “ but how did it end?” “How did it end?” And he laughed. “No need to ask how it ended. This is one thing and that another; inhaling large ideas only inflates the bowels. So I gathered a heap of fern, and seated her on my waggon. I was for taking her back to my home. But she said: ‘Nay, six miles have you come, and three more to go. My errand was merrymaking in the surf with the girls. My aunt is at Hokianga, where we are visiting. I will ride with you; jump up and sit beside me. Then we can arrange how to humbug the old folks. (Which we

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did.) That is, if they don’t come to our terms. I am a “ tangata tapui ” (betrothed person), you must know.’ When she said that my heart sank and sank, till my bowels seemed laden with stones. But she placed her hand on my neck, and whispered: ‘Don’t, don’t do it.’ Yes, she had guessed aright; I was scheming to kill myself. ‘We are tapuid; but he is after another girl; I know it. We must see to it that he completely entangles himself. Then I can demand utu. Then his people will have to undergo “ muru ” (forcible exaction of payment, in which all his goods are taken.) After which I shall refuse to accept him; for I shall say, “The ware is damaged. Take it back.” ’ And she pinched my ear cunningly.

“ And the world changed again; but there were still clouds in my soul-sky. So I leaned my head against her lap, and said darkly: ‘ What if someone else seeth thee, what then?’ Then she playfully smote my cheek, and mocked my voice: * What then? This then.’ And she took her ‘ heitiki ’ (family charm), and, holding it before my eyes, said: ‘Let this be the token; take it. But what about thyself?’ Then I took out of my pocket an American dollar, with a hole in the edge, and pressed it into her hands: ‘Let this be my token.’

“Thus it became that we were married. She refused to accept the damaged ware (her betrothed), and my father consulted his friend, the missionary, who said the whole proceeding was most right and proper, and quite after pakeha ordainment. For had not God joined us together in a miraculous manner when I saved her life?”

“ Now, tell me thine own experiences.”

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IN VARIOUS MOODS.

It was the month of December, that glorious incidence of our colonial year, when a genial goodwill breathes a gentle benediction over all.

Come and spend your Christmas out with us.”

He was brown, but natheless my friend. Presently his eight-year-old niece, holding my hand, and pretending to crack my fingers, and thus discover the number of my sweethearts, peered up and supplemented her uncle’s plea with, “ Nera?” (You will, eh?) So I stooped and kissed her. “Yes, I will.”

••** • • * The Maori may not understand the full import of this festal day, but to him it means—Kai —at someone else’s expense; and because the pakeha for it kills his fattest calf, the Maori being the imitative creature he is, does the same. And because he is poor, and the pakeha storekeeper wary when he gives credit, he diligently gathers fungus to defray the cost. And that his name may travel wide, denies himself, that he may entertain his friends as becomes the traditions of his hospitable fathers.

The guests were many: thirty-two, counting women and children; and the day being fine, and as in the out-back villages neither dining-hall nor table-ware may be obtained, an avenue of whole-bole fern trees had been planted along two sides of a space eight feet wide, and forty feet long; of which the leaves, just touching overhead, formed a shaded alley, grateful to recline under, and drowsily listen to the gentle swish of leaf and insect life, until the gong—a frying-pan, beaten with a knuckle-bone-—called in the stragglers, and warned the loungers to vacate the “ dining-hall.”

Presently a covey of merry, chattering maidens, assisted by a squad of young men, in Weekly News picture-sheets caps, and white flour-bag aprons, advanced to lay the cloth: clean, close-plaited mats, spread upon the ground; and because these are not washable, and to prevent their being

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soiled, white sheets were placed thereon. And, as the summer winds saw here a chance of frolic, the corners were weighted down with stones.

Historians tell us that many of our festive customs are mere modified pagan riles; and that the earliest monkmissionaries engrafted their new creed upon these pagan stocks for speedier growth. Thus, also, the Maori, when he adopts the symbols of civilisation, wherever he can, includes customs of his own. Now it was part of his festal ceremonies to chant a “ Karanga ” (call of welcome), when he brought food to set before the stranger guests. The food-bearers advanced in a compact body, each carrying a “ kono ” (small food basket), in front of him, or her, calling a welcome, and specifying the food brought forward. This ceremony is never omitted even now, only in the olden times it was accompanied with a rhythmic foot stamp, which is now discarded.

It was an appetising display: pork roast and boiled, cut into convenient lumps for conveyance to the mouth, methodically arranged to ornament a mound of potatoes, haangi steamed, diffusing a fragrance like a sacrificial incense; alternated with stacks of eels enclosed in wrappings (of “ raurekau ” leaves (coprosma grandifolia), baked on a framework of rickers over a clear fire, tender, juicy, and delicate of flavour. The Maori is artistic, therefore, to relieve the monotony of plain common foods, a large flattened globe of “purini,” black with currants, and surrounded with a moat of white sauce, diversifies the lay out. Also, the Maori wahine is ambitious, and adventures hardily into the intricacies of jellies; but these are not a success, for, not having a cool pantry like her pakeha sister, and the sun being of the proper temperature to melt all things, it presently takes unto itself a drunken list to port, until, with effluxion of time, it falls on its ribbed and fluted side a disreputable wreck!

But these are minor accidents, to be dismissed with genial wit and merriment: the purpose of to-day is to eat and drink at another’s expense 1 To this end the company hutches down cross-legged, and an army of hands reach forth in unison, “ keeping time, time, time, in a sort of runic rhyme,’’ of beard and chin wag! But the children! Watch the children! Surely never upon earth was such a joyous time as this! No conventional restrictions; no knives, no forks, no spoons; bare fingers here, there and everywhere! And when the great

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pudding has disappeared, there remaineth that sea of tantalising sauce! But what were hands shaped for if not to conquer the various exigencies of a cruel world; therefore the dish is surrounded, the forefingers crooked, and with a dexterous sweep drawn through the mass, and the adhering delicacy popped into the ready open mouth, sucked off, and before the eye can note, lo! the dish is empty! oh! bliss unspeakable!

Surely the great Bethlehemio message: “Peace upon earth, and goodwill unto man,” was predicated for a Maori Christmas Day; when in the distant future this proclamation should reach his shores, and disarm his warring hand! Such thoughts came to me as I watched these curious, wayward, happy sprouts of Nature. And my heart went out to them, and loved them; and I anathemised the race which so wantonly neglected its opportunities and betrayed a sacred trust! Oh! accursed earth hunger! Oh, shame on smug hypocrisies! Fitter than vile brag and boast, were it to burn our churches, and stamp upon our race-proud-inconventionalities, than we should laud what these have done, to raise our brownskinned Maori, brother man!

But to-day the dove of Peace hovers over this congregation: informal in all things: neither a blessing asked, nor thanks returned. No dry repetitions of chaotic creed ceremonials: nor church, nor priest, within a radius of forty miles! Yet they are happy; and I ask myself: do they require wide phylacteries? Of a surety, no; not to make them happier than they are to-day!

The years come and go. Nations rise and fall. Races disappear; and their component unit, Man, judges each his own career the most important upon earth! But the day oometh when the nation is only remembered by its monuments; races by the remnants which have built up others; and the individual by his heroisms, or atrocities! And even these Time mellows, and the juices of Nepenthe dissolve, until oblivion spreads her generous mantle over all!

When all the visitors had departed to their homes, my host and I sat back sheltered by a clump of manuka, and

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smoked a contemplative evening pipe; the while we watched a panorama of dissolving views where the setting sun ennobled all it shone upon; forming pictures no mortal artist might attempt.

Presently he said: “Do you believe the ancient tales of your race?” “Not all?” “True, miracles have ceased to be in these days!” “ Strange, is it not!”

I knew that my companion excelled in superstition, black, senseless superstition! He basked in it! His voice vibrated with the intensity of his abyssmal faith! Therefore I was not surprised when he continued:—

“In the olden days the river below us (the Mimi) swarmed with taniwha; taniwha which might be tamed and come to its owner’s call! Which no one dare “ taunu ” (jeer at), and clasp his wife again! Listen: My father and his younger brother went to lift a “ hinaki ” (eel basket) into the canoe; with bulged eyes they lifted, because of its weight! Then my uncle forgot the harmfulness of boasting, and cried: ‘ Koia kei a taua!’ (bravo to us!) At once my father cried: ‘ Hasten out an eel and cast it in the water for a “ tiri ” (offering) lest we be destroyed!’ But the eels were slippery, and the mouth of the hinaki difficult of access. Thus it followed that he delayed too long: Suddenly the canoe upset and my uncle disappeared! Struck a snag? No; it was a taniwha! You smile! What about Jonah and the whale?” And he took aim at me with his pipe-stem, as who should say: “Wriggle out of that!” “But they are there this day; to-morrow I will show you their wake, though their bodies are invisible.”

But on the morrow he said, instead: “ Come and see my crop of cocksfoot.”

This was an excuse to detain me, because with the intuitive premonition of his race, he had detected something which he construed into a desire to be moving; and that was why for two days his patent subterfuges constrained me to linger.

One day it was:—“ To-morrow I will show you a “ tauuru ” (rarity), it is a bunch of potatoes growing out of a knot-hole in a standing tawa tree!” This freak I must see and describe in my paper. But when I suggest an immediate investigation, after decoying me into impossible thickets, he unblushingly pretends to have lost the way!

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Another morning I had caught my horse, but complained of a slight headache; this he clutched at and cried:—“ Put out your tongue.” When he had clinically examined it, he said: “This decides it.” “You are ill.” “It shall never be said that a sick friend passed my doorl” “Boy, turn our visitor’s horse into the further paddock. Gomel let me see the hinder part of you before I breathe twice; or a rod shall tickle your seat!” And when he would lave my head with fermented herb-waters, and bandage it with split flax blades, according to an ancestral recipe, and I gently but firmly resisted, he and his kindly wife breathed such genuine distress that I relented, and let them work their will.

Oh! his resources were limitless, for while the next morning’s breakfast was being leisurely eaten, he began a history of a war between two tribes, whose fortress pas we could faintly distinguish on opposite ranges from where we sat; its cause; the plan of campaign; the leading actors! their defiances, ferocities, strokes, thrusts, parries, feints he simply played with me and knew it! His wife laid out the lunch spread as he totalled up the slain! And when he looked out astonished at the time of day, I knew this was real; because the toxic thrills of war-lust, inherent in every human being, parson or savage, had banished time and space to both! And divining that this latest scheme exacted no atonement, it was then he said: “Come; we will see the taniwha.”

So we mounted the patient saddled horses and rode up a valley, down whose centre snaked a shallow river: trailing past snags, and where a sunken log lay athwart the stream, gurgled over miniature waterfalls; the whole telling in summer speech of idleness and holidays! Even a burnished kingfisher on a protruding root, wondered whether the exertion to hop down and snatch up a sprawling fresh water shrimp were worth the effort; for after watching it with rifleaim intentness, he merged his body with a streak of blue and disappeared!

Presently where the stream turned a headland, which wo crossed, before us lay a stretch of deep placid pool; here we tethered our horses and clambered down to the water’s edge; and as we snuggled our bodies into the thick, pliant fern, and sat down to await events, he said, reverently: “ Now, Thomas will believe!” “Oh! yes; we can smoke; the mana of all things has departed!” “Thy tobacco to me also, brother; my pipe draws cold air.”

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Suddenly he laid his hand on my arm, and cried: “ Here!” (behold) and lo the mystery was solved! For the brisk gusts of wind following the stream up as in a flume, and impinging on the far bank, received a sudden check, and before it found release in the new channel where the headland intervened, it collected force, which, with the twist of the course, formed an eddy, and ploughed those volutes on the surface of the still pool which most people have seen, and know the cause of. But these were remarkable for their size and realistic resemblance to a large fish escaping across a shallow sandbar.

And, turning with infinite faith, he said: “Now, Thomas has seen the wound; is he an agnostic still? Does he now believe?”

“ Yes,” I replied, “ he has beheld a faith no mortal man has seen before!”

A NEW YEAR’S EXPERIENCE.

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A NEW YEAR’S EXPERIENCE.

There is a halting suspense in the air, a sensation of unrest. What is it? This joyous time of the year, when Nature is wont to be blithest and gayest!

The sun rests on the dividing meridian, its northern half bathed in a flood of sun-glinting warmth, exhilarated by a cool south wind, which transforms a field of green cocksfoot before me into a miniature ocean, whose waves billow and crest to their critical highest; but where tippets of white froth should follow, lo 1 a witchery bends them aside, to blend and mellow away into other phantom wavelets, and a broad expanse of hush broods over all!

Up from the south, from airline to zenith, a blue-black hemispherical shadow closes in from horn to horn of the horizon; meeting its brilliant northern counterpart with a clean-cut, edge to edge, as a giant might fit together the two halves of a twain-coloured globe. Slowly advancing, the blue ages to a dull grey; it underlaps the sun; a few moments of chill silence, and with a roar of a cataract the nearer creation is wiped out as with a sponge! Strident shafts of stinging sleet in one continuous volley batter against house and fence, and each bole of a clump of kahikatea pine is enveloped in a mist of rain spears, shattered to dust with the impact of collision! The pine stems bend and groan as in pain, threatening to snap or be uprooted; but neither happens, because Nature’s foresight has anchored them down with an intricate meshwork of earth-laden ground-tackle. So they shorten the leverage by stooping until the blast shall be spent! And I stand by and try to invent reasons for this truculent welcome to the New Year on the day of its birth!

But lam worsted. Memory fails to recall like weather or season since the days of my youth! So I tire of the monotony, and, during a lull, run across to the cookhouse, where my Maori host, his wife, daughter, and son-in-law huddle round the dinner-fire; where oval pot-lids clapper, revealing glimpses

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of pork, potatoes, and watercress; and the tag-end of a white cloth from another construed into words spelleth “ purini,” and the escaping commingled odours to an outback appetite greet the senses with hearty inquiries as to storage-room.

But this cookhouse beginneth a history, and must be described. It is a low whare of split slabs, adzed over, and sunk into the earth as closely as the inequalities of adzejointing will permit. These were green when set up, and have shrunk, leaving spaces where a hand on edge may freely pass, letting in shafts of wind keen as a dagger. It is roofed with shingles, which the percolating smoke has stained ugly. A rough door with a primitive wooden latch makes a pretence of comfort, and fails 1 In the centre, on the bare earth, is the fire, bestraddled by the now universal iron-frame, with bars. A kerosene case or two for seats, and this was the refuge I fled to for company, because the garrulity of my host was entertaining, and given an interested listener would flow on in unencumbered stream, teeming with narratives of wars, elopements, ghost stories, pakeha duplicities and friendships, sins of past Governments, intoned and gestured, and entrancingly satisfying to the teller! When I entered, a sudden hungry gust piped with a shrill scream through the windward crevices, and swirled a licking tongue of flame, ashes, and smoke, with a greedy relish at what it could reach! Upon which my host detailed a list of reasons why he had not lined it with raupo. In the meantime he tacked up two sacks by wedging in the corners with chips, planted a case in their lee, raked out some embers, and anxiously asked if I were comfortable. Comparatively I was; but the whole surroundings were beyond words impossible! On my right sat his wife, her face and hair thickly blotched with ash-spots, through which rivulets of smoke-tears had channelled pathways, and at each gust the hands went up to shield the sidecanted head. It was pitiful, and in hot anger I demanded that more sacks be put up, or else that she should sit beside me; because where she hutched, wrapped in a threadbare shawl, an unimpeded pack of storm wolves bayed in her ears, worrying her thin body until her tattooed chin trembled with the discomfort; one side baked, and the other chilled to the marrow! But she merely blinked her smoke-soddened eyes, and when I insisted, and explained that sitting in draughts meant death, and made room for her, she reached over a

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deprecating arm and said: “ Hei aha; ka mate; kia ahatia?” (Why trouble; death; what of it?) But I was firm, and when I passed my hand over her exposed side, 10, it was like touching a corpse! That night the rain ceased, but a searching wind arose with the sun, and my host, after vainly urging me to join him, rode away to some distant sports. And I wrapped a rug round my shoulders and sat down to write this article.

After mid-day his daughter came to me and said: “ Come, my mother is ill.” When I entered she was in a paroxysm of ague and fever, forcing words through her chattering teeth which wandered from song to the names of her dead children, speaking words of farewell to a lately-dead cousin, who had bequeathed to her a family heirloom, a greenstone heitiki (neck pendant), supposed to have been consecrated by an ancient tohunga; enjoining on those present to ensure the comfort of their pakeha visitor (myself); and so the thin voice rambled on I Her daughter wept; my heart went out to them, and I never before so regretted my medical ignorance as when I looked down on my helpless friends. Suddenly I remembered a pinch of quinine and citric acid in my knapsack, which she drank, and presently slept.

Now take notice: When her husband returned he became as one inspired; a tohunga must be sent for! So a messenger departed in haste to import the ghoul!

When I saw him my gorge rose. I had crossed swords with the miscreant before; therefore he hated me—and I him. So he whispered to my host, who, with a troubled face, drew me aside and abjectly prayed me not to interfere; which I promised, on condition that the proceedings were not unlawful.

After a senseless jumble of karakia-oum-humbug, he sat down cross-legged in front of the sufferer and distorted his eyes, like unto the sightless eyes of a statue in marble; then he held up his right-hand fingers, outspread, and twitching as with a palsy; suddenly his other hand shot up and delivered itself of similar antics, and, when the feverish babble uttered the word “heitiki,” the impostor screamed: “ The heitiki! Where is it? It hath done this evill It hath not been purified! It must be buried in the earth! Give it to me; I will bury it!” When his fingers felt the cold stone

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he clutched it with a final tetanic twitch, and fell on his back —where my foot ached to stamp on him!

When his listening instinct informed him that his abominations had taken root, he arose, and, with a strict injunction that no one should spy upon him, crawled on hands and knees outside; and, when I made a movement to follow, the piteous appeal of my host’s eyes restrained me, for it was my intention to locate the plant, and, by secretly removing it, foil the too plain intention of this arch-priest of imposture to later dig it up and sell it to the pakeha. After a spellhaunted fifteen minutes we heard him return, chanting his diabolical jargon, in which I detected an unmistakable gloat of success! And there it lies hidden where the crafty fraud can retrieve it whenever he wants to I

No wonder that Dr. Pomare is insistent in his demand that a more stringent hand shall be laid on an impudent continuation of a debilitating superstition which our friends had better be rid of.

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A FINAL WORD ON TOHUNOAISM.

A FINAL WORD ON TOHUNGAISM.

It is a cherished maxim of our liberties that no person shall be persecuted for worshipping his Creator in such words and ceremonials as his reason may deem most acceptable, and woe unto the day when either Governments or sects shall infringe that liberty. But assuredly the time has arrived when this inter-mutual toleration may discriminate between benefic religious beliefs and demoniac superstitions, especially when, as in the case of tohungaism, its baleful effects are decimating the susceptible, emotional Maori.

In my recent outback explorations I have met with scenes which horrified even my case-hardened experiences, and brought home to me as never before the imperative necessity that a special legislation shall take in hand and deal with the pestilence, to the end that it be a criminal offence, punishable with hard labour imprisonment, to practise tohungaism, boast of tohungaistic reputation, apply to a tohunga for illegal operations, and learning the incantations, for the latter is the tap root of the upas tree. There can be no tohungaism per se. Its virulent principle lies in a knowledge of the accompanying incantations. According to ancient priestcraft even this was insufficient—the incantations must be uttered when the wizard is in a trance of concentrated expectancy. He must form a mental picture of the curse performing its mission. During the recital there must be no hesitancy, no skipping or substitution of his own inventions (this was invariably advanced in extenuation when a tohunga failed to produce results). Many scholars were admitted to the Wharekura (sacred college), but unless they were of priestly descent, or could satisfy their teachers that they possessed the demonic afflatus, they were not initiated into the final rites, neither could they aspire to success in slaying. But in these degenerate days the merest jumbled smaller is dreaded as operative, and is sufficient to stampede a nation I

No one, unless he has studied the subject first hand, on the spot, can have more than the crudest conception of how

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the tohunga mania, with its corrupting consequences, permeates the life and soul of the Maori to-day. Yet the bulk of the people would gladly see it suppressed. I have been assured that the mana of these incantations, even in the mutilated abbreviations which pass as the real thing, is infinitely more dreaded to-day than it was in the olden time, because the Maori to-day is helpless; the pakeha has prohibited a glorious past of retaliation, when he could at least rid himself of the incubus with the tomahawk! This phase of the matter my friend, who is an enthusiastic rehearser of the rites and customs of his ancestors, illustrated by the following incident:—

“ Some years ago a famous tohunga makutu, Te Whakapaki, of Taranaki, opposed his craft to that of an equally famous tohungaess of the Maniapoto (who is alive to-day, but whose name I forbear to mention, because when a man lately applied to her to remove an opponent she flatly refused to do so). This woman went on a visit to Taranaki, and while there tried to induce Paki to cease his makutu practices, ‘ because,’ she urged, ‘ the remnants of the race are few, and as no good can accrue but revenge, why continue the killing?’ But he declined to abate one life! ‘Good,’ she replied, ‘then it is you and I; I will makutu you and kill you!’ Thereupon he defied her; * Tena mahia ’ (go to work then). So they seated themselves face to face and the duel began! Now Paki knew that this woman was an inordinate smoker, and when their incantations and curses were ended, he said: ‘Let us set a token by which all men may know that a mana has issued. I propose that the first to smoke a pipe between this and sunrise be the one selected for death; what say you?’ So she spat at his foot and said: ‘So be it.’ And they separated each to their house. But this priestess was of invulnerable power and forethought, and it befell that when the pipe-hunger nipped her bowels, she enlarged her heart, and gave her pipe to a friend to keep until sunrise, and slept. This Paki, great seer, as his many corpses testified, did not foresee, so he sat before his fire and laughed softly: “A woman’s appetite is like her morals'—not to be controlled,’ and slept. Before cockcrow he awoke, and forgetting the compact reached for his night-pipe and smoked with great satisfaction. Presently his grandchild by his side cried in alarm: ‘Paki. Thou smokest; remember the stranger!’ Then the virus of the priestess began its labours, and before noon

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of next day Te Whakapaki was dead! And the fame of this priestess covered the land like a welcome; even those of his personal tribe said; ‘lt is well, for now we can jest and be merry in peace; the white man’s law hath disregarded his murders, and prevented revenge with the axe! It is exceedingly well!’ Ho! this white man smileth. Then what of this?”

And to further demonstrate that tohunga potency is as effectual to-day as of yore, he categorically detailed the origin of the recent calamity by which a family of ten members were —or pretended to be—stricken with a tohunga madness, and to indicate that a makutu spell had been invoked indulged in unprintable orgies. But he asked as a favour not to publish their names.

“Spear and his wife, you know them? (I nodded). All the world knew that she loathed him, and manifested the same by shameless infidelities. At last the anger of a man cried: ‘ I will purge me of this disgrace!’ And while she slept he out some hair from her forelock, and, laying it before Sky, a priestess of death, said: ‘ This is my wife’s head, curse it that Ibe rid of her!’ But Sky refused: ‘ I dare not, nor will I; but give me the hair, I will make of it a love charm.’ When she had done so according to the rites of her craft she said to Spear: ‘Go home; the world will smile at two lovers!’ When his wife heard what her husband had done her heart went out to him! Have you not seen where one is the other is so close by that a hand may not pass between? (I nodded again). Why smile then?”

Then stabbing my knee with his finger he told me the remainder of the history, of which the above was merely the preamble, and because the whole is a confusion of crisscross and tangle I have set in words of my own:—

“A is a famous tohungaess, whose son, B, married a wife, G. After many months of happy life together G’s father separated them, and remarried her to D. Now this muchmarried wife had a brother with a cancerous eye, and to cure him of it she took him to her former mother-in-law, the priestess, A, to be doctored with tohunga rites; but none of her charms would act, until she discovered the reason to be that her son’s divorced state intervened, and if C would return to her son, presto! the charm would promptly succeed! But C disliked this to and fro handing, and said so. Then the

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bent priestess straightened her age-weighted back and became inspired, and, pointing a fateful index finger, cried: ‘Agree at once, lest a greater evil befall thee! Whatl Still obdurate? Then go, but my malediction will follow and overtake you before you get home! Not only yourself, but all of your kin shall be smitten! So C returned with her brother and sisters. But they had not gone half-way when, lo! the malediction overtook them and maddened their brains! Thus they arrived at their gate, and when they told their adventure an elder sister mounted her horse and rode back in haste to confront the sorceress with her guilt, but the malediction met and treated her likewise. Still she rode on and when she saw the priestess she fell upon her with tooth and claw and so feloniously behandled her person that the local constable brought to bear the weighty arm of the law and placed her in gaol, where we have done with her. Then the curse of the priestess took a wider range and smote from father to son until the scene exceeded description!” And there I leave it, with a repetition of the warning that this must be put an end to for the fame of our name and the race which it is killing!

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THE MAORI AS A TRADESMAN.

Before I continue I must correct a sentence in a previous article, where I offer to cite cases of what the “ teaching of handicrafts have achieved.” This conveys an erroneous impression, as it implies that these cases were indentured apprentices, which they were not; they were come and go pupils, mere visiting assistants, who returned home when they listed, and there assiduously practised what they had seen abroad’ and hence their after successes emphasise my assertion that the Maori is a born mechanic. As I have made it a rule not to mention real names without their owner’s consent, those requiring further information may acquire it through a stamped envelope and the post.

Our early home was located many miles from a town and its commodities, so being the mechanically gifted of the family it befell that on me devolved the making and mending of all things not obtainable but urgently required on our own and neighbouring farms. Was it a dray, plough, or harrow mishap, additions or alterations to dwelling or outhouse, on W.B. and his skill depended the work. To this end a fairly’equipped workshop was always at hand; and I was proud of the faculties so graciously bestowed. More so when two natives lads came, at first to stand by and watch, and in a greater degree when I later elicited their anxiety to learn, and they willingly assented. So it became that, when any building was to the fore, my lads came unasked to assist. Was the work at a neighbour’s, be sure they heard of it before many hours and at once fell to. In time this gave cause for deeper thought, and as one in particular began to be worth a wage I offered it. But my lad came of a lordly, proud, and “ savage blood. So he pushed the proffered sovereign away with: ‘ Kauaka; he aroha!” (Don’t; it is love!) which interpreted and here applied meant: “You are teaching me in kindness. 1 r . e^ ri L ll you m work - We are quits. Let no more be said However, the other took it cheerfully, and went home boasting that now he was a full-fledged carpenter—see! and he produced his money. But he also came of “heathen” parentage, and when he returned on the morrow he laid a

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packet of neatly-folded flax blade, clipped in a split supplejack, like a clothes-peg, before me, and silently went out. The instant I saw his face I knew what it contained; it was my sovereign: and written on the blade these words: “ To taonga ” (your goods). This was his father’s message, to be construed as the reader might incline. But I read: Insulted pride, unswerving rectitude, a dignity of grim contempt. And it taught me “ That in even savage bosoms there are yearnings, striving for a good they comprehend not,” which I try in vain to match among the pakeha-oontaminated race of now! But the lad never came back; he went elsewhere for further tuition!

One day our dray came home a wreck, which necessitated a new body; and as this was a job he had not seen before he eagerly offered his assistance by unscrewing the nuts. Presently I heard a snap, and the wail: “ Aue-el” (Woe is mel) “What is the matter?” I asked. “ Kua rere te kereanga!” (The head has departed!) But I comforted his distress and showed him (which may be useful to others) that by holding a heavy hammer or axe-head to one face of the nut, and smartly striking the opposite faces, the nut will stretch and break the rust film and come off easily. When the dray was finished and painted he went home, and I lost sight of him for some months, until, passing his place, I was astonished to see him grimy and busy, renovating his people’s drays. Then I met with a revelation—he had bought a complete smithy outfit, built himself a workshop of ponga, and fitted it up in every detail like mine! And I laughed happily, not alone at the quaint imitations of this born mechanic, but because I knew in my heart that his good was assured, and that my diagnosis of his race’s capacity had been triumphantly correct. Both of these young men, wide apart as they are this day, are decent, clean-lived, pigmented white men. They live in houses a pakeha might covet. Their children are healthy. Their name is good for a loan of three figures any day they might ask it. And my own heart swells with a pride which neither fame nor riches may buy of mel I can cite other and equally successful cases; but not until Thomas laid his hand in the Master’s wound would he believe, yet one wound sufficed for his faith!

But the application of the scheme shall have wider issues; here we can without trenching on the nation’s asset provide for the landless natives whose large families have

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neither wealth in hand nor prospect of any; and, instead of pottering away their lives in idleness, they could if so trained gain bread and comfort by working at dignified labour for their wealthier tribesmen, who will employ their own kin in preference to the pakeha, who they know will scamp his work for the Maori whenever he can, and boast of it; which I have seen and heard, to my shame and disgust. Three months ago a college-trained young man came to me, and with tears in his voice cried: “My life is wasted! what has my collegiate course done for me? When I left college I appealed to Timi Kara for a clerkship: ‘Yes, oh, yes,; I will keep your case in constant view; but at present there is no opening. Write again.’ I wrote again, and again, and once again, but the letter did not even draw a reply! This is our house; a pakeha built it. Look at it! (I did—and blushed.) Now, if I had learnt carpentry instead of algebra I could alter it. I could build houses for our people, and make it possible to practise what I read about in books. Now it merely tantalises me! My father owns large blocks of land, but these are of no use to us. No pakeha will be bothered with our Maori Council leases, and the unutterable dilatoriness at the Wellington end to get them ratified frightens away all possible applicants. My God, the whole business of native administration is sickening!” And he stamped in impotent fury. “If I were not married I would hire myself out for my clothes and keep to a pakeha master to learn.”

And such is the state over the length and breadth of the land. Every college-trained youth of sober thought curses the day that he left home for that wild dream, the high school and its word-gilt honours!

Not long ago I promised two young men that if they would saw the timber I would gratuitously show them how to build each a house. For three months early and late they laboured until the tale of scantling and boards sufficed for two houses; then they demanded of me to fulfil my covenant. And not only are their own houses built with their own hands, finished, but so much has the use of tools fascinated them that to find more work they are nagging and worrying their relatives to also build. Even as it is, they have transformed a dreary assemblage of kennels into a pleasant, scattered patch on the landscape.

And, finally, to my certain knowledge, the Maori tradesman—even if only self-taught—is alerter, healthier, his

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children snappier of eye, his wife smarter and sharper of tongue, his bearing superior to the proudest, patent-leather shod, insufferably caddish, college-trained failure that treads Mother Earth!

The Maori is an inborn usufruct; unless the labour he is called upon to perform promises visible utu (payment; returns) he incontinently becomes “ oha ” (weary). This is a characteristic which the superficial pakeha girds at as laziness; but those who have studied his nature declare it to be a hereditally constituted incapacity for sustained application to manual toil; and any mechanical medium which will exchange a maximum of result for minimum of exertion at once arrests his attention, and he is unwearied in keeping it moving. His ancestors, from whom he inherited his peculiar bents, had to conform their wants to what a stone axe and a chip of obsidian could fashion; but being by nature an artist, when the pakeha laid before him novelties bordering on the mysterious, he stood by, awed at the skill which fashioned them, but he never failed to understand their design, however rudimentary the explanation. The desire of his passionate brain for further complexities, for that which lies just beyond reach, is insatiable, to be investigated, and crucially tested, and above all things he must see results; then he hungers for more. Of these carpentry and smithy work offer the greatest incentives; the cutting and fitting of scantlings and their erection into a house frame; the various surprises of inside finish, panelled ceilings, dado, skirting, the cutting and fitting of architrave mitres, the final staining and varnishing. All these, when finished, and he wanders from room to room in head-a-cant contemplative survey, do not satisfy; his artist brain detects defects of proportion or discords of colour. I have known one pull down a panelled ceiling because the spacing of the battens offended his sight, and because a stain of mahogany brown on them would show more artistic finish! I have known one pore a whole night (refusing to be shown) why the members of a moulding would not match after his mitre cut. Another travelled 28 rtiiles, and brought me his puzzle—two pieces of 6in architrave —with a similar trouble, and when I showed him that the two mitre faces, to fit, must be of the same exact length, no matter how obtuse or acute the angle, his stupefaction at the simplicity found voice in:—“ Te Matauranga a te pakeha! He Atual” (The white man’s profundity! It is God-like!)

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Therefore, knowing what I do, I abate nothing of my assertion that herein lieth the main salvation of the lads whom the curses of horseraoing, cigarettes, and billiardroom loafing, are hastening to perdition!

I now propose to show how we can attain the necessary beginning; and first we must discard the vagary that, on merely howling “ bestir yourself," the Maori will arise and obey; he is too poor, especially the class we want to reach — the landless. Whatever premium is required for his indenture we must advance, and when he begins to earn wages a percentage must be impounded until the advance is recouped. There is yet another way, but this demands a voluntary abnegation on the part of the master, and remains to be tested on a wider basis. The case I personally know of, and will now cite, was an eloquent success: —Mr. Blank was a builder, and took a fancy to a native lad whose readiness to hold board ends, and getting in the way when fitting or finishing was to the fore, showed that the lad wanted to learn. So Mr. Blank, having the heart which carpentry seems to develop (I don’t know why), would have taken the lad on for an apprentice without thought of thanks or recompense; but he had mouths of his own to feed; nevertheless, he said to the lad’s father; “ Pongi, let your son come to me. I know you are poor, therefore money I will not take. You shall enlarge your garden plot, and give me one ton of potatoes and two pigs. The next year he will earn wages; one-half shall be his own to clothe him, and the other shall be banked against the day he will want to start on his own.” Then Pongi laid aside his pipe and said: —■“ So it shall be.” When the potato harvest was gathered Pongi inspanned his ox sledge and delivered the stipulated payments, and, having seen them safely housed, hutched down in the workshop to watch his son finish off a table top. And the son—as lieth in the soul of youth when the eye of judgment is upon him—took on the airs of a veteran, and whistling, planed, and scraped, and sand-papered, and, as was proper for exhibition, introduced fancy strokes, and when he finally swept off the shavings and exposed a surface true, and smooth, and workmanlike, the old man arose and silently departed. But what could you expect? He was only a “ savage,” with an untrained store of world-wisdom, and a heart-suffering of a gratitude and pride-ache which his customs forbade him to blazon! So to appease these he returned on the morrow with a third 3

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pig and an extra sledge-load of potatoes, and went home as one who has paid all dues and taxes to God and to man!

Much could be done if the Maori were taken in hand on these lines; and if we are true to our professions, come to this it must, because it is the better way. Neither need there be fear of prejudicial contact to the household into which he is taken; on the contrary, the fear lies quite the other way; for if their son is justly and kindly treated the parents will do their part, and insist with fearsome penalties that their child shall obey in all things on the spot. Maori sense of justice, even in these degenerate days, is inherent.. It is a remnant of his warrior ethics, when eye for eye, as a simple loss alone, demanded utu (retaliation). This was illustrated and impressed upon me by a descendant of one of the participators in the following old-time battle scene: Before the opposing hosts came to hand-grips, Mihi, a famous brave, leapt to the front and called: “Nawe, are you there?” and Nawe, also the hero of his age, cried back: “Yes, Mihi, I am here,” and leaping to the front waved to his men: “ Stand back and interfere not, but look upon the acts of the two bravest men on earth. Now, Mihi, it is you and I!” So these two warriors of renown stood face to face. The first onset was a trial of skill and weak points; the second shed Mihi’s ear; the third laid Nawe’s beside it. Then Mihi feinted with a shin stroke; here Nawe erred, the first and final error of his life; for instead of doing likewise, and following it up with a crutch thrust and neck stroke, he fended his legs, on which Mihi got in his upper cut, and Nawe fell at his victor’s feet a headless man! And to-day the descendants of both these mighty men praise this combat as the justest “ ear for ear ” display in Maori history!

By taking the native lad into and treating him as a home apprentice he will imbibe the charms which embellish and make lovely the orderly pakeha’s home life; for the lad, when he returns to his own people, to talk of, and—who knows—be the pioneer of their adoption. This is the higher education I have dreamed of, and in my experimental way tried and found a convincing success. This generation may not see a triumphant fruition, but assuredly it is worthier of our creeds and pretensions than the brutal neglect of to-day and the insolent cry of: “ Come, bestir yourselves, there has been 100 much taihoa.”

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A NATIVE PLEA.

The time has arrived when plain speech may no longer be toyed with; and when I say that the Maori loathes Te Kawanatanga (the Government) I only repeat what is known to all who have listened to its misdeeds, as described by this astute observer. It is to him the embodiment of everything false and intolerable. This is lamentable; it exhibits a condition of unhappiness which it is the paramount duty of a Government to investigate and remove. But ask him, Why? “ Because,” as a prominent native explained to me, “ because we trusted treaties which it has disregarded and promises which remain unperformed. When the Treaty of Waitangi was presented to our fathers for signature they accepted it, because it conserved to us our lands, water-rights, and personal freedom—all a man will die for. And to-day we ask. What have we done that these privileges should be taken from us? When we resented your interference with our customs, we did as other creatures do; neither do just men view this as sin. Further, was not our rebellion forgiven us, and the old status renewed? Look around you to-day: when it asked for permission to take a road through the Rohepotae it covenanted that it would neither buy land, interfere with our customs, nor bring waipiro within its boundaries. Every condition except the last it has consistently broken, and that is of no importance; what sense is there in forbidding dead men to drink? It made a law that every Maori should reserve 50 acres to live upon. Look at Hiiti, who eats his sister’s charity, every acre gonel Look at M. and T., and others depending on their relations for a plot to plant a few potatoes to keep them alive. Look at our village, all the land is gone but a paltry seven acres to the family of eight persons. Is this not a wicked disobedience to its laws, which it says we shall obey? The pakeha cried, ‘Build good houses.’ We sold our lands to enable us to do so, and now starve on the remainder, because we cannot let it lie fallow! We were refused the right to bargain with the pakeha, who would gladly have paid 30s for land which it gave us 3s 6d for,

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deducted survey expenses, and sold it again at a profit. Now its valuer comes along and assesses it at £3 for rating purposes. How has it increased so suddenly? For roads? Where are they? For a school? Where is it? Month after month 52 children are contemptuously told ‘ taihoa; these things take time.’ But its valuer comes quickly. We are charged for our own improvements on lands which it left us, like a bone to a dog! And those of us who have more acres than they can use, which lie contiguous to a pakeha neighbour, who would add it to his, or straighten a boundary, and gladly pay double market value for the privilege, which money would be a blessing to the dying Maori and enable him to buy home comforts, good stock, or fence and plough the remainder. But no; a howl goes up like a dog at the moon; we must not do so, lest we become poor, and die! When we are sorely tried to take our ailing dear one to a doctor, who among us can pay £5 or £6 for a visit, and chance that they die on the way? And to further add to our misery the threat is held over us that if we don’t pay these rates our lands will be handed to our enemies, the useless Maori councils, to mismanage, or ultimately defraud us of. Was it for these enormities that we permitted a road through the Rohe-potae? That soulless braggarts might pose as our almoners, and call from the highway, “ Kia ora, oh coloured brother!’ and go on their way to inhale fresh air for further boasting. Besides, who will take leases for 21 years with a Maori council title? The pakeha is a man of just thoughts when he is not pressed, but he has his necessities, and tries to profit by ours! This is not to be condemned, because it is human, and the chance comes to only a few.

“In the bygone days we had a kinaki of pork to our potatoes: now the pakeha blares into our ears, ' Shut up your pigs or I will shoot them —they dig up my garden;’ and does so. In the olden times our pigs went everywhere, and fed on fern root and berries, and each man warded his plot with a wattle fence, and there was peace. Now the pakeha cries; 1 My law says I need not fence for pigs; they are vermin.” So they crawl through his wires, and in the morning there is a gunshot, a carcase to bury, and a yearning for tomahawk days. For who among us paupers can stye-feed pigs, pay rates, and buy blankets for winter?

“Now, as to its promises: It promised to fence its railway lines on both sides with a good, sound fence. Listen: A

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pakeha who leased land from us let his stock feed within boundaries which we showed him; some of it strayed on to the railway line; barely has he brought them back when a summons hales him to the Court, and unheard of expenses. But, oh! the magistrate was a just man, and ordered the Kawanatanga to abide by its covenants; and refused our pakeha to be tortured.

"It promised that our manifold woes should be lifted; the landless reinstated on potato patches; all our miseries be examined into and rectified. Along comes Timi Kara, and boasts of acres and acres—oh, thousands of them, handed over to worthless Maori councils; oasts his eyes about for more land, grips his portmanteau, makes more promises, and is gone, Is this right and just to a people without sin, who love the good pakeha and abide by his laws, and only beg to be treated like him?”

When he had exhaled a deep breath of indignation, he continued: “And yet there are those who believe in the promises of this false Kawanatanga; nay, even preach it on their deathbed. Listen: on the Bth of this month there died at Oparure (near Te Kuiti), Pakuwera, one of the three remaining chiefs of Ngatikinohaku, whose ancestors were Turongo, Whatihua, and Tupahau; not legendary heroes, but warriors of fame, Before he died he called his people together and said: ‘Oh, my children, listen —In the olden time our ancestors had two laws, the law of right, assisted by the law of might. Those days are past; the pakeha has taught us the law of love. In the later days we met him angrily with guns and tomahawk; yet he taught the law of love. My dying eyes see into the far beyond. Whether he be wrong or right, obey that law; obey him when he calls, “ Come, this is the better way.” So may you, oh, my children, live, and hand our name to all the days of time as those who tried and won. I go far into the night—farewell!’ ”

Assuming that all is true as stated in the Book, which think ye will stand in the brighter halo when the records are read out —the boasters of “ our coloured brother,” and what they have done to elevate his status, or the poor “ savage,” staring with death-filmed eyes into the mysterious beyond, knowing that his aims have been thwarted, his prayers treated with contempt, and his appeals rejected, and yet asks the remnants of his race to renew their faith at the raucous

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boasters’ whine, and hope for better days; who, plucking at the bedclothes of his humble death-pallet, “ groping blindly in the darkness, touches God’s hand in that darkness and is lifted up and strengthened,” says to his weeping kindred: “Trust him once again; follow the deceiver’s law of love.”

mu S “ re yof such is the faith which moveth mountains, .therefore, let him—or her—among ye that is without sin cast the first stone at this sublimest superstition.

The poverty of the Maori, a knowledge of the perfidious outrage which keeps him poor, the assurance that a few safeguards unobtrusively hedged around him to preserve him from the unscrupulous, and that a judicious freedom wherein his shackles shall be hidden from his sight—that these will go far to reconstruct his race have determined me to speak out the truth as I see it, and the world shall see it.

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THE MAORI GIRLS’ SCHOOL AT TURAKINA.

The loving sympathy which moved the great Presbyterian heart ot New Zealand to found and equip the Maori Girls’ School at Turakina ought at last to silence the continual carp that the race is neglected. But it does not, and why? Because it sees in this another instance of that misdirected benevolence which has failed in the past, and will fail again; and pray believe me, it is in no mood of cantankerous opposition that I refuse to join in the laudations of a scheme which has for its aim the redemption of the Maori; but I cannot stultify my experience and convictions. Let us examine the position, and I will explain. My text shall be the Premier’s speech at the opening, in which inter alia he admits of past schemes; “ The consequences had been only what might have been expected. After a Maori youth left college he had gone to his home and chosen a wife. That wife being uneducated and unfit to mix in European (?) society, had caused the youth to remain in the hapu, with the result that his educational training was lost.” From these words I understand that the Premier is voicing the designs of the founders; and if it were an ascertained fact that this is the precise reason the Maori is the progressive failure we know him, unquestionably this would be the necessary adjunct to complete a triumphant success. But it is not. What is the use of training girls to cook good meals and keep a clean house when there is no food to cook but pork and potatoes, and no house to keep clean? If instead of cramming the Maori youth with ideals above his station and prospects, high schools were exchanged for the carpenter’s bench, the painter’s brush, and the bricklayer’s trowel (for which he has unparalleled aptitude), that he might build the house for the maid to keep clean, that the Maori may live, this were a sensible beginning; for, be assured, he is too poor to buy the timber, hire the mechanic, and furnish the rooms to a standard which the girls at Turakina and elsewhere are to be trained up to. I have insisted on this before, and every rising sun confirms

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my insistence, as every speech of the Premier testifies to past failures. To repeat is to surfeit; but its importance justifies me in again summarising why the Maori is apathetic and past schemes have failed, and until there is a radical change this plan will also fail.

On our side race prejudice, race pride, preaching honesty, yet unblushingly swindling him and each other; pretending a brotherly interest in his person (not his welfare), and letting him feel by act and tact that he is with us but not of us; dictatorial domination of the hereditary instincts of a free man, enforcing the legal axiom that ignorance of the law is an inadmissible plea; because according to the sensible code of his justice, every order and tribal regulation had to be decided in meeting-house convened, and proclaimed in the marae (village green) to the whole people there assembled before penalties could be exacted.

On his side a thorough knowledge of his manifold disabilities, and their bitter resentment; that he is (nominally) a landed proprietor, forbidden to obtain for his surplus land £3 per acre when he could get that, and more; and that he resents these disabilities with a sullen, passive defiance, and directly the hysterical admonition of loud-voiced incapacity has ceased to roar, and the unreality of public meeting pageantry comes home to him, he absolutely refuses to “bestir himself”; that he is too abjectly poor to take to heart and carry out those admonitions, and that this poverty debars him from buying sheep, a good breed of cattle for his waste land, fencing materials, draught animals, and agricultural implements to raise saleable crops on his papakaingas (home lands).

Further, he has a brown skin, which ostracises him from a closer communion with the pakeha; he knows this; he knows also that this pakeha, his sacred prejudices notwithstanding, makes overtures and chums with him until the object for which he has overtured and chummed has been obtained, thereupon, and because of these unconquerable prejudices, suddenly turns his back to him and the friendship is ended! This has been repeated so often that the Maori has no faith in the pakeha, his religion, his honour, or his professions! and pines in his ostracism, and when a smiling stranger proffers an extra hearty handshake he responds

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warily with a hard, dry eye, and admonishes himself with: “ Aata hikoi, kia marama! (step lightly until all is clear.) Be careful; what forgotten remnant is he after now?” And the result is that he is cautious, artful, listless, and vacillating, and dying before our eyes!

“ However, if schools such as the Turakina School were established this state of affairs would be remedied.” Of course it would, thou of colossal faith in ceaseless experiments; but only to take another and worse form. That is all! It will swell their heads with superior notions, which they are only too prone to exhibit; and when they practise the mission which the Premier in jaunty abandon has mapped out for them, teaching their sisters the evils of “ the communistic manner of living,” they will be insulted by their pupils and sisters after a week’s novelty of the innovation, with: “ Til te whakahihi o te tutua neil” (10, the vanity of the lowbred!). “Perhaps your ladyship would that I lay down my body for a doormat to wipe your shiny slippers on? Out upon thee for an upstart!” I have heard this, therefore I fearlessly oppose my experience to the fancy webwork of chimera and wordcraft.

Will no one understand the Maori? Is it possible that two generations of contact have not yet comprehended that he is a precocious child, beyond conception clever, astute, wayward, affectionate, wild, honest, just, cruel, compassionate, and— Oh, so utterly human? Cannot the combined wisdom and charity latent in the New Zealand heart conceive, that to develop his best and prune his blemishes, we must tieat him as one of ourselves; as one whose virility is not yet destroyed, but only dormant, awaiting the warm, moist compost of non-sectarian faith, hope, and charity laid to his roots with a loving but severe knowledge of his nature—not by Victoria, Te Aute, or Turakina College-taught proxies, but by our own willing hands; and assist him to cross the ford of Jordan into Canaan: hand resting in hand, eye seeing into eye, trust depending on trust, the stronger arm interlinked with the weaker, watchful to support the slip of foot; non-clamant, non-posing, non-Bible, prayer, or creed insistent, but simply and naturally, as man to man. Will no one understand this? I do, and because I have practised what I preach, and in my narrow sphere met with a measure of

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success, and because other efforts have failed, therefore I declare that stage declamation is of no avail; Bible and tract colporteurage a futility; and the holy widow’s mite so generously given to raise her brown-skinned sisters at Turakina. and elsewhere, a charity mis-spent!

Is this a severe stricture? Then we will examine it again; If these trained girls, when they returned, could walk right into houses ready built and furnished, but hampered with an assemblage of oddments only requiring assorting and adjusting, and that all her surroundings merely demanded the trained manageress’ hand and skill, Turakina would be justified. Instead of this, she comes back to a ponga whare, with its unspeakable impossibilities! Or, maybe, a slatternly, unpainted board house; broken windows, its inside smoke-stained; its furniture a single kerosene case nailed to the wall for a cupboard; dogs, fowls, maybe also a pet pig or two, trotting in and out unrebuked, and general dilapidation wherever the eye glances! Our college graduate arrives; the home-coming tangi and nose-greeting is over; the guest meal set out on the floor—no knives, no forks, no comfortable teaware, the bare fingers reach for this and that! At night her female relations want to sleep with her, to chat and hear the wonders of her late exile in foreign lands; the bed is on the floor, no receptables to store her belongings! What will our trained girl’s feelings be, think you? Disgust?

This goes on for a week. Presently her training asserts itself and she begins to order that the dogs and fowls be kept out. The father and brothers stare at her in bewildered conjecture, but there is no alteration. Then she asks for a table and chairs, and bedroom furniture —more wonderful stare and the rejoinder, “E tika ana, otira, me pewhea”? (Quite true, but how?—meaning there is no money to buy them.) Then she points to this necessity and that, but there is no money to buy them! Then she argues and lectures, and explains, until her hearers get “ owha ” (wearied). There are hasty words—which both regret, for she feels her subordinature, and her father listens to his heart and its affections; and presently she gives in and falls into line with the old familiar ways, and that plot has miscarried!

You say she is to marry the college graduate? But before he has arrived she has become a derelict! Besides,

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Maori custom has bespoken her for the son of a friend; or, to keep a plot of land in the family, maybe a cousin; and though he be loutish and boorish, and distasteful to collegetrained niceties, custom is sacred, and rather than resist her relatives’ desire she again falls into line!

Or, maybe the college graduate is not to her liking—maiden fancies, of brown or white, conform to no prearranged rules. Or he may prefer that other girl; she has not been to college, but she is handsomer, and—but here again who is to umpire the choice?

No, my dear friends, first learn to know the Maori, his customs, and his disabilities. Live with him; study him; diagnose his particular ailments, then apply suitable curatives. Don’t poultice the pimple; give it a dose of jalap! In fine, begin with the Maori at home.

Timoti was a large landowner. One day a pakeha said to him: “Timoti, build a board house, and live a long life.” So he sold some land to build it. But the party who bought his land —the State—haggled with him like a common huckster and beat him down from 10s to 3s 6d an acre. The house was not finished, so he sold more until he had only 6i acres left for a papakainga. Then there stood his empty house. Presently two relations died, leaving him 200 acres apiece. This was more than he could work, so a pakeha who bounded with his new lands said:—“Timoti, my boundary is crooked; sell me, therefore, 80 acres that my boundary be straight, and each of our blocks be square. If you agree, I will pay you £2 per acre, and for goodwill throw in the draught colt you so much desire.” But Timoti sorrowfully turned his head aside and said: “Willingly would I agree, but I may not sell my land. I will lease it to you, 21 years, what thinkest you?” Then the pakeha replied: “That may not be; some day I may require to sell my place, and the new lord may not like so short a lease; extend the time to 42, and our words are ended.” Then in Timoti’s sore heart there rose a bitter sob because of wealth he might not touch, and took the white man’s hand and husked: “Brother, this ends our speech. When my children cry for clothes and bread my heart may break, but they must die; you are the lord and I the slave, farewell!” (Verbatim case.)

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There stands the empty house. The storms of many winters have washed off the only coat of paint it ever had. The barge boards are rotten and bearded with moss. The corner stops are rotten; the board ends abutting thereagainst are rotten; the window-sills are rotten, and the man’s soul is—but never mind. How and to what end is Timoti to send his daughters to Turakina, or his sons to Te Aute? And while I write I can count 15 of the like, of which Timoti, by comparison, is a bloated ponga whare millionaire!

And so with a prayer for forgiveness to those giant Presbyterian souls who established the Turakina Girls’ School free of debt, and £5OO for a stand-by, if I have said aught to belittle sincere love and sympathy, it was inadvertent. Forgive me.

AN IMPORTANT CORRECTION.

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AN IMPORTANT CORRECTION.

When the practical astronomer notices variations in the otherwise regular motions of a planet in its orbit, which cause discrepancies between observation and computation, instead of wasting time devising theories at variance with gravitation’s laws, he points his telescope and explores the disturbing area, to discover what foreign body has intruded to delay his planet in its course. By analogy this is how we must treat our dilemma with the Maori, and perfunctory survey must no longer be permitted to dominate searching exactitude and plain common sense.

This is not the place to comment on the editorials of the press; but when it is asserted that “the soil is their (the Maoris’) true arena,” and that “ the Maori is a natural son of the soil,” and the public generally clings to the erroneous opinion that he is, because of his rearing on the soil, a farmer, and that herein lies the secret well-spring of his rehabiliment, I am justified when I use this space to refute these wellmeant errors, and repeat the reason why the Maori is no tiller of the soil to an extent which would entitle him to be considered a farmer; and that he has no inherited instincts which might be aroused and utilised to resuscitate our friend to-day as such tiller of the soil.

From immemorial days the Maori, because of wars, and the knowledge that the possession of a fertile country exposed its owners to invasion, concealed its fertility; and so deeply was this desire for concealment rooted that only a lunatic would ask—unless he asked the question to insult—“ How are your crops this year?” During their growth, his kumara, taro, and hue were guarded with an intricate ceremony of tapu to frighten the prying eyes of strangers. At that season every traveller avoided roads which led to cultivations, and if he dared to venture and defy the tapu, and was caught, the penalty was death! It was part of his comity of peace—his education—to keep the number of the harvest baskets secret. A.nd to further protect his gathered crops he stored them in his

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battlemented pas. And to yet further prevent covetous desire, he calculated to a fraction how much each member of the tribe would require; and no hope of sale or barter would induce him to produce more than this consumption warranted. Hence, when a niggard season curtailed his usual supply, or a large tangi or other party reduced his pataka or rua kumara contents, he stoically suffered and made shift with fern-root, berries, or mamaku (tree fern) until the next year’s crop came in. And so to-day: when you see small square potato patches dot the landscape near his kaingas, this meagre husbandry is no sign of improvidential laziness! it is a symptom of heredity, and tells more than theories or words, that he is no inherent tiller of the soil. Even when at an earlier date pakeha novelties tempted him to enlarge his plots, it was not their extra size; it was the denser population, the many willing hands, which filled the coasting schooners and provisioned the whaling ships of those distant, merry days.

Those noisy, merry days! when his blood welled and surged, pumped through his veins by a heart untrammelled with a cark for the morrow, enriched with the large red corpuscles of health and vigour and the knowledge that he was a free monarch of all he surveyed: when he could exchange the fluffy warmth of a new blanket for a few baskets of potatoes, planted, weeded, and gathered in by his women and slaves—mark this: the cheap labour of his women and slaves!

For he was, above all things, a warrior. What! soil hands fashioned and trained to wield weapons of war, to upper cut, shin-stroke, and bowel thrust; and orator’s hands, whose up, down, or graceful diagonal sweep delivered the gist, and sharpened the point of an oration? What! Soil these with the stain of menial labour, when his gods offered him the choice of a woman’s or a slave’s? Avast! you pakeha, with your narrow, earthy ideas; this was no grubby agricultural toiler! He was no “ son of the soil;” his “arena” was the field where men stood thigh to thigh, doing battle for fame; peradventure, to slay his valiant foeman, or die the death of a hero! This was the Maori; and because this, his natural vocation, we have denied him, his blood is chilled and his heart refuses its functions.

But lie was also an engineer, a Vauban, a Todleben, a wily, sarcastic planner of pitfalls for unwary feet; who

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studied his points with head-aslant relish; who lay awake, or sat apart, scheming with eyes, and “ all the seeming, of a demon’s that is dreaming,” how to so grade the escarpment of his fortified pa that it would appear easy—oh! so easy!—to climb its parapet; but when the eager enemy stood within reach of slingers and long-spearmen he could get no further! All this he was; but a tiller of the soil? Never!

And here I continue my reason why I condemn the higher education and tiller of the soil theories, and preeminently the fallacy of college-trained lads and lasses that they may marry and thus build up the race anew. We are not called upon to build up a new coloured race; our mandate is to preserve the specimen in hand. We want to resuscitate the Maori in his village as a w 7 hole; not here and there one, or a few, to “ mix in European society,” mere conformers to Mrs. Grundy convenances, or vapid fashion monstrosities! We want to build up our brown companion into a capable partaker with us of duties and responsibilities, a co-partner to share our anxieties, prospects, and profits, in his own sphere, his native village. These are the ideals which our pretensions must verify. And the first advance toward this desirable consummation is to instil into his moribund soul the sentiment that he is the same free man he was before we enmeshed him with, to him, detestable restrictions.

It may be asked, and justly: If the Maori is no farmer, what is he? What particular aptitude has he which may be impounded and utilised as a fundamental to further advancement? I have said before, and now repeat it: He is a born mechanic. I insist on this with a vehemence my own experience has taught me; and as I have come to the end of my space I will devote my next article wholly to illustrate by specimen examples how 7 my insistence is justified, and what results the teaching of handicrafts has achieved. But to introduce the subject, I will here point out which of his numbers should be selected as pupils, and why. It is a curious anomaly that the poor, or landless native has the most and healthiest children. And to din into these ears that they are farmers, and should till their lands, is preposterous nonsense! How is the small papa kainga plot to produce marketable goods, in the profits of which the whole family may participate? The answer has been: Let it be supplemented by hiring himself out to the pakeha, bushfelling, fencing, sheep and cattle droving, etc. He does this now; but the

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work is fitful, and lie sees nothing to tempt him to higher ambitions in a spasmodic, paltry-paid serfdom. He has not been taught a smart, alert readiness for jobs which his dignity loathes:— Nga mahi tutua ate pakehal’* (the white mans menial labours!) In which he recognises a yet deeper pit of degradation into which the usurper wants to thrust him! It is not an odd job to-day, and idleness and pining for a lost freedom to-morrow, which will excite him to a higher expansion. To attain this unaided is a dream of the expert at experiments, the foolish crier of “ Bestir yourselves, there has been too much taihoa.” We must touch the chords of his natural predilections with no amateur trifling, but with a master hand to sound the latent tones of this human creature’s soul.

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OUR HALF-CASTE POPULATION.

Let us salve our puny conscience; let us say that neither Treaty of Waitangi nor common honesty must stand in the way of pakeha progress, and the Maori, being the stubborn creature he is, shall step into the gutter while w 7 e parade the sidewalk: let us do all this. But what of our half-caste population—that section of our fellow-citizens which, both by kinship and treaty law, are doubly British subjects, and, therefore, ought to appeal to our compassionate affections —• what of them? It transcends human comprehension by what right but that of an intolerable insolence they are debarred therefrom. Why should educated half-caste men and women, living our best European lives, be prevented by an arbitrary legislation from treating their Crown-granted or inherited land as their unrestricted own; and be compelled to approach the State like a recumbent suppliant to beg of its gracious mercy to remove those restrictions: restrictions which neither moral law nor treaty stipulations empower us to impose?

But there is more to be said, and because of its enormity lam in the humour to say it. Peradventure it may lead us to be merciful: I can conceive that those half-castes whom a callous desertion has oast upon their Maori mother for nurture and upbringing should share the disabilities and restrictions of that mother —this is plain; but that those who either by their own exertions, or the compassion of their pakeha fathers, have been raised to a higher grade should suffer the same indignities as their darker-skinned cousins creates a position as preposterous as it is incredible. Yet it is so. Listen: One day when in town a high-class half-caste lady friend called on me at my hotel, and, would you believe it, because of her caste the glass of wine which I insisted on her partaking with me for refreshment had to be drunk by stealth, in a back room! Think of it, hypocrisy 1 Who authorised ye to penalise your sisters with burdens yourselves refuse to touch?

T

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Another half-caste lady friend (lady in all things but a tattooed chin, whose home and home-life is clean, and sweet, and her heart of purest carat gold) travelled into the city, and, wishing to rest her travel-weary body as soon as maybe, wandered from hotel to hotel, where, because of her tattooed chin, each refused her harbourage; and where her Maori ancestors strode unrestricted lords of all, their half-caste descendant, to be sheltered from the dews of night, had to humbly creep into a foul, cheap lodging-house!

No, I am not exaggerating; for of such is the kingdom of the pakeha, with the Treaty of Waitangi under his arm, and a Pharisees’ creed in his soul!

And yet another case (the ambience palpitates with them). He is an educated, hardworking, half-caste master mechanic. A few months ago he took his sick (half-caste) wife to a country hospital, and because it w*as too late to take her up that day he sought rest for the night at the nearest hotel. Now, according to an unwritten law of mercy, suffering has a pre-emptive right to every human heart. But the host knew not of mercy, nor charity, and it was not until the frantic husband spoke of police, and to fill up the interim offered to teach him the manly art of self-defence, that they were permitted shelter for the night! And when the shameful barbarity was repeated to me I suddenly rued me of my antiprohibition vote, and pondered! And the ever-present question remaineth: “Why should this be?” And knowing that neither at the bar of justice nor common sense can a tenable defence be tendered in counter-plea—“ Why is it perpetrated?” When at random periods a Laodicean fervour awakens our churches, do they speak with that certain sound which probeth every cavern of the nation’s heart? And this being so, what shall tempt these our kindred to superior endeavour, and to go forth among their brown relations and call: “ Come up, brothers, courage; come up, for great will be the reward of your uprising.” What is to tempt them, I say, when they know there is shame in our hearts because our blood flows in their veins, and all is tinsel, and sham, and conspicuous humbugl

Every day of my life, and especially the past month, in a close contact with some dear half-caste friends, constrains me to take our race into my confidence and assure them that

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the sower goeth into a rich field to sow seed for future harvests when he takes up the cause of the binding link of the two greatest races upon earth!

And it is not their neglect alone which rises the gorge of justice and mercy. Take this, for instance: No matter how educated, clean lived, how intimate his or her knowledge of Act, regulation, and land law may be, he is not permitted to either sell, lease, mortgage, or in any way deal with it, until he has submitted to the same degrading restrictions as the lowest full-blooded Maori, and where a native is the other party must employ a licensed interpreter!

And yet further enormities chill the soul which is human with a shame that it is one of the race! One of a family ranking with our cultured best, married a decent pakeha wife. He has fixed his home on one of our islands. He has land here on the main, also, and, wishing to bequeath it to all he loves best upon earth, discovers to his hot indignation that he may not do so without praying for a degrading permit! In fact, that no “ native ” (note the imposture) may bequeath or divert his land to a European without valuable consideration, not even to his wife!

So the miraculous position is, that in one voice we shout “Hasten,” and in another, “Keep off the road!”

And this is civilisation, humanity, Nazarene affection, Christian charity, and the multitude of bogus attributes with which we defile our false lips! Oh! the corruption hidden inside the gilded mausoleum, ornamented from corner-stone to fmial with flimsy pinchbeck decorations to catch the eye of the foolish!

Do you think that he is callous to the arbitrary humiliations which our arrogance is heaping upon him; that he is proud of the dual blood in his veins; that he does not know that he is neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring; that he does not in his heart of hearts rebel at the injustice of his anomalous position? He does; but he cannot sulk, and die like the Maori mother that bore him; because the mingling of bloods is Nature’s vitalising agency, by which she rebuildeth decadent species. Is it to be wondered at, then, that untrained he is reckless, hot-headed, unruly, passionate, tempestuous in anger, wasteful of his herculean strength, and an object to be shunned when he returns from a spree? All this he is; and that is why he seldom dies an old man—

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and ours is the sin! But take him in hand when young and surround him with all that makes for social refinement, and all the maidens sigh for his love!

The same, only in a lesser degree, applies to his sister —-ah! me, his sister—black hair and brown eyes; and the line of wreckage they have wrought! Yes, in a lesser degree; when tender home love and the watchful eye of affection have guided them with a firm handgrip past early quicksands. Time will never forgive us for the treasure we have wasted in our great national asset, our half-caste maidens of the past!

Let no one read this to imply that our kinsman is either saint or sinner; he is only prone, and by nature endowed, to resist temptation with as little force as may be; subject to the same frailties as ourselves, and human in all things, and because the near future (who knows?) casts its shadows before, therefore let us cherish this ray of a westering light until it blends its tints with the pakeha sky, when the Maori sun shall have set.

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CORNWALL PARK AND ITS DONOR.

Shake off the city dust, the roar of invention and its terrible clamour; its jostle of elbow and elbow, in the strife to outwit and deceive; the heat of the tunnel where man heeds not man, but hies on his errand regardless of his fellows, also panting and tense; also defying a fate remorseless and soulless; where the law forbids this and that, yet Nature cries as the bondsman cries, “ Why hamper my will? Let me be free!” where the feast of excitement when eaten abates not the craving for more, because it is dead-sea fruit, fair to the eye but dry to the palate, ashes and dust; where the disappointed stands at the turn of the way and glares at the passer with envious heart, and despair at his vitals, because of the thought, “Yon passer is happier than I”—blind mortals! maybe, maybe not! And the chances are legion, that his anguish would balance your own; where the brain seethes and broods, building up w r anton endeavours to attain the impossible, and rends his garments at the goal gate, because it is closed, and impotence jeers in his ears —One more effort thrown on the scrap-heap of time!

Shake off all this, and come with me beyond the city gates, that I may show you where the white man treads — where one white man, the greatest of them all, has left the imprint of his footsteps on One-tree Hill and Cornwall Park for us, and for all time —where this giant (who handled all things, great and small, and handled each thing well), having laboured from larkrise, and borne the midheat of day, but minded by the loom of eventide that his toil would soon be ended (God forbid!), wandered up to One-tree Hill and wrought the mightiest deed of all. See where I point; there he stands, as the gilding of the westering sun glorifies his dear loved face, and spreading out his hands in benediction, points to Cornwall Park, and says: “Take this as a token that I loved you well!”

I had read the history of this magnificent donation, and applauded with the world, but when I happened to spend my New Year’s siesta in the city, and he came to my hotel in his carriage, to take me, and personally show and explain

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this and that and all the unfinished desires of his heart, a feeling of reverential abasement held me speechless! Why was this humble sinner singled out to be the recipient of the secrets and high aspirations of one who thus loved the people, who, after loyally filling the various duties which his fellow citizens had entrusted to his guardianship, suddenly rose in the might of his majesty and paralysed the nation with this stupendous addition to the happiness of all? So I could only sit beside him and ponder—and wonder, what manner of man is this? And as I listened to the kindly voice, vibrant with emotion too sacred to mention—“ This is the cricket ground for the lads; that the shelter for the mothers, and yonder view is to be in front of them, to refresh their toilladen spirits —I had to bite my lip to stifle the happy reverence which welled and found easement at the eyes. For it was ever the young: the descendants of those whom he had assisted into the world (methinks that is why he loves them so), the descendants of those whose bitter fights he witnessed, but who went under in the great inrushing tide, for want of that which must come from within, and which no'one can supply—yea, ever the weak and the helpless. “Yonder avenue is for the ailing; see what a splendid prospect to recompense their upward toil.” And wonderful forethought for all! But just then a shower hid both far and mid-distance. Oh! it was a red-letter day, a sanctified passing of time, for it mellowed my rough-edged resentment, not against fate, but the conditions which make cark and heartache possible. And listen, my brothers; here shall neither colour, creed, or caste find barrage, or stand a wailing Peri at the gate. Think of it, sisters! Bring hither your clean but cheerless lives to be recuperated, for this spacious sanatorium is free to all! Oh! Aucklandia Felix, with your genial climate, handsome maidens, and Anak-hearted citizens! Who would not wish to live for ever, and his home be One-tree Hill?

In a recent article, “ An Appeal,” I urged that these old colonisation heroes who had relatives capable of undertaking the task, ought for the instruction of posterity to record the experiences of their early struggles. I had not then read Sir John Logan Campbell’s “ Poenamo.” Read it, my masters, for here is told in happy language where and how the early white man trod! And, reading between the lines, the wonder ceases, that this white man trod so sure, and left footprints on the sands of time which many “ a forlorn and shipwrecked brother, seeing, shall take heart again."

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And presently, in the fulness of years, he will sleep in the midst of his people; and his helpmeet also. At first, short-sightedly, I said: “ Why erect a statue? For as sure as the sun will rise on the morrow, and a spadeful of earth be left of One-tree Hill and Cornwall Park, so long will the great donor’s name be revered. But I judged in my haste, and was wrong. Should, say, a thousand new years hence, in the future participants of this colossal bounty, there be a devotee, a worshipper of great hearts, will he be satisfied with the memory of a legend? Will not his enjoyment be abundantly increased when he can walk up as to an old familiar friend, look on the kindly long-dead features, do obeisance, and, turning to the stranger at his elbow, exclaim, ‘Ecce Homo. He is dead, yet liveth!’ ”

I have read “ Poenamo ” —read it twice; not for criticism, but to ensure myself that nothing I have previously written I have in anywise exaggerated. The reading has brought back to me memories, and opened vistas of retrospect, which sob in my throat as I see them. All these emphasise my contention, that had pioneers of the sterling, broad-minded stamp of Sir John Logan Campbell been at the helm, in the varied and intricate navigation which our ship and policy of State had to negotiate, in the several crises of where the two races met, the Maori would not have succumbed to the decimation which some (and occasionally myself) have insisted to be one of Nature’s inscrutable laws. Read “ Poenamo;” nothing from cover to cover but bears the imprint of absolute truth; “ nothing extenuate or aught set down in malice.” And as you read, seek no record of lawless pruriency; seek nothing savouring of bloodshed, pitiless and unnecessary: such as sounds so exciting and reads so revolting! The author has placed before us a history of what his eyes saw, and his ears heard, with a running commentary of impressions, formed of this, that, and the other, simply told as a fireside tale, yet rich in sidelights, insights, and quiet humour, which confer the highest credit on a healthy, virile young man, whose surroundings were in each and every case a law unto themselves.

He has told us of the Maori as he saw him in his savagery, his chivalry, his objectionable customs, his honesty, his—Oh! read the book. I have, and laid it down with regret—regret that he merely touched a margin, where I could have further admired his capacity of a close observer and shrewd chronicler

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of the most interesting footsteps of where the white man trod —that is, at the point where and how the misunderstandings arose, which began in murder, and ended in reprisal, and laid the foundations of that unrest and smothered bitterness which is a live factor, but hidden from sight this day! All this by the hand of an eye-witness, whose sympathies lay with his own race, but (and this the reading of “ Poenamo ” has revealed to me) in whom everything having the flavour of unfairness and over-reaching was detestable, would have delighted me beyond expression. Some would say, and have privately rebuked me, “Why dig up the ghastly skeleton? Why not leave the dead (of both) to their repose? What will its resuscitation advantage? Truly, why? But we, as faithful historians, are sitting as a coroner’s quest, to investigate nathe fear nathe favour, how they came by their death. To ascertain this we require these skeletons for examination. Are they repulsive and gruesome? Do they revolt our nice sense of smug superiority? Are we ashamed of them, or to be seen handling them and all they may reveal? It cannot be helped; they belong to history, and the truer the history be in its details, the greater will be the satisfaction of posterity, and their appraisement of these scribes. It may not seem of importance to some, but to me it is of the greatest, and is this: The Maoris know their own grievances, and also very accurately. What kind of influence would our prestige have for their betterment if, instead of truthfully admitting our errors, we either suppress them, or regarbing, and distorting , exalt them into virtues! The Maori is not yet debased enough to be a fool, and nothing appeals to his generosity as absolute unhesitating truth; and as the years go by it comes home to me, that in thus attempting to save his remnants, we do that which lies nearest to success.

On New Year’s Day I stood beside the inboard end of the gang-plank of one of the ferry boats plying to one of the bays, intently watching an aged Maori woman, also coming on board. Evidently trying to hide some facial blemish, she held her shawl so that it exposed only one eye. Presently she stumbled, and extending my hand (which she clutched frantically), I cried: “Kia u!” (grip hard), and led her to a seat. The boat was crowded, and I—with others—had to stand; but my old lady had it in mind to reward my attention, so she gave her neighbours right and left a powerfully-applied push, and pointing to the space thus cleared invited me to seat

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myself beside her. In the coijrse of our conversation I asked her: “Are you not afraid to trust yourself alone in such a pakcha crowd?” “I afraid?” And she whipped the shawl for an instant from her face, and showed me a great scald scar, and added: “When they crowd me I show them that; then those with a heart of stone glare and retire; but those having a heart of compassion move aside with the reverence due to calamity. I am not afraid. I am too old to be insulted, as perhaps one of our maidens might be, but one glance has always satisfied me whom to trust and whom to avoid.” Here the crush became denser, and my companion bracing herself against me, whispered, “Tena, aakina!” (now, push and continued: “ That is the rule of life. When the crowd presses, return the push. When (he pakeha came, and began to cramp our elbow room, we resisted, but he got the first and surest grip, and we had to give way. Ah! me, then resistance meant death; now it ends in laughter. Ohl pakeha, thou art a curious creature. No, I look him in the eye, and instantly know how to handle him.”

Why have I recorded this paltry incident? To illustrate my contention that the Maori is human, intensely and wonderfully human. And thus I wander back to “ Poenamo ” and its memories of long ago: calling like a distant voice across the dale of years. To its varied tints; its lights and shadows; its quaint-told tale of how the verdant, inexperienced athlete, stood forth with tense and willing tendons, and looking his opponent, Nature (also an athlete of fame), sternly in the eye, prepared the insuck of his breath, to meet her mighty hip-grip—and came out a champion!

And there are others whose histories are unwritten; but I warrant me one stirring episode. And others again, also unwritten! and perhaps better so! For what could they tell? The first chapter heading may be: “Willing Endeavour;” and the last: “Failure and Heartbreak,” and such were some of the footprints to be met with on the sands of where the white man trod!

Just a last word. I said ante: “Read ‘ Poenamo.’ ” I admit right here that I could not direct any wishful reader where to procure the book. My copy was presented to me by the author; together with a varied, but, to me, valuable collection of literary oddments, which have immediately widened my horizon, and which to me are cherished souvenirs of my knowledge of the donor of Cornwall Park.

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SOME OUTBACK IMPRESSIONS.

I recall two years ago, and a friendship contracted on a train ride. One party was a kindly tattooed native woman, whose many readings by the wayside and their quaintly keen interpretations endeared her to a pakeha stranger, and because he understood, and was understood by her, it became that this friendship led to devious questions and answers, so when he asked, pointing to a settler’s recent burn; “And that?” she replied: “ Koiraka nga takahanga wae wae a te pakeha.” (This is where the white man treads) ; and because it was apt I have adopted it as my motto, and while you, dear town readers, have paid for and laughed at town festive follies I have gone into the wilds and examined this white man and his treads.

Who is he? Stoop your ear, and when I whisper, “A hero,” treasure the name, because your children’s children will repeat it, and bow down, and bless him. But to-day he taketh an unblenched heart, his axe, and his billy; he humpeth his bluey and setteth his face to the wilderness. He trampeth over mountains—whose road graders are yet beardless youths, but when they are wrinkled and grey they will come on their mission—through valleys of man-high fern, which he parteth aside like a strong man swimming! After weary days, at sunset, he taketh a map from his swag, and locateth his pegs; then he listeneth for the murmur of water; thither he wendeth his way, footsore and shoulder galled, but with a will as of chilled cast iron, and a hope whose bay tree greeneth for ever.

Put him in Queen Street to-day as he stands, and watch. The constable layeth a steady eye upon him! Fine ladies draw their skirts aside for fear of contagion. The larrikin stoppeth to invent appropriate blasphemy; soiled, unshorn, unkempt, seat and knee patched! Oh, he is unlovely! I doubt if a street drab seeing gold in his hand would smile for his favour! But let me hammer it into your brains: without this unhewn block for a corner-stone, there may be neither empire building nor founding of nations!

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Therefore, ye that stand by the seashore and see laden ships come and go, merchandise piled high on your wharves, vast structures arise to store and display it, reflect; who causes the ships to be filled, and the merchandise to be paid for, but he of the unshaven face and callosity disfigured hands, who in singlet and dungaree pants, in storm and shine, hews and grubs, plants fruit trees, and clothes the hills with green grasses, that beeves may be sleek, and sheep pant with the weight of their fleeces; that when your children cry for bread there be butter and cheese for a relish; who lives in a slab whare, and on a fare which his dainty collie sniffs at and rejects for its coarseness; who turns in at night on a rough slab bunk too dog-tired to think, and smokes a last pipe, listening to the gentle sob of wind-whispers; and when he sees a lone star, like a kindly eye, peer through a crack in his bark roof, toil brings its compensations: then he feels that thought transference is no myth, for he unites wind-whispers, and kindly eye, into messages from the other world, and is sure by these tokens that his dear ones at home are thinking of him, and it comforts him.

And when at mid-day the fierce sun beats down on his bare neck he says: “Never mind, I have planted a fig tree, from beneath whose shade I shall watch Frank’s and Nellie’s children chase butterflies, and call, “ Look, grand-dad.” So he spits in his hands and belts all the harder, heeding neither blistered nose nor scaly ears, raspy neck, nor aching loins, because of the rest to come, and the jubilant thought that all he achieves is his! His ! ! His !! ! And his children for ever, world without end, Amen.

But is it his? Be assured he would be the happier man if it were; that when he toils in the sweat of much labour he knew when after years rest cometh, oometh the surety also that now he is free from rent-rack and the deadly weight on the mind of whether he can raise it, or it be raised for him! —the crushing uncertainty of how much it will be raised, and the doubtful capacity of him who shall come to value and raise it.

Man trudging in backwood byeways garnereth wisdom, for he is in the presence of Krupp steel facts. He sees blemishes which armchair arguments have puttied and gilded. He balances truth and sentiment, and decides untried vagaries. The theory is noble that the State shall be the head Sheik of

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the tribe, and see (o the comfort of his retainers; to lend unto him who requires assistance from a fund to which all shall contribute by paying tithe for the land they make use of. But when Mustapha, the retainer, goes to his Sheik Ibrahim, and begs: “My ass has broken his leg, lend me therefore twenty pieces of silver that I may replace him,” where is the nobility or dignity of the theory, when Ibrahim the Sheik answers: “ Verily, I have not the wherewithal in my coffer to relieve thy supplication. Come again after three months. In the meantime I will go to the money-lender, Yusuph, and borrow from him!” Would it not he more satisfactory to Mustapha to borrow from Yusuph direct, without waiting three months, and then come hat in hand and stand at Ibrahim’s tent flap, while Ibrahim closes one eye and tries to remember how Mustapha voted at the last election of elders, and when he remembers that he voted against his nominee, brusquely bids him begone and come again after other three months?

I asked a farthest outback his tenure; “Well,” and he lingered on the “ well,” “ mine is perpetual lease, and an easy way it is to get a bit of home together, but it has its drawbacks. If I want to borrow a little to buy stock or seed, or put up a decent cottage, what am Ito do? Government loan to settlers? Yes, and, my God, it’s worth it to get it. It’s like dragging an eel through a keyhole! Writing, waiting, valuing, jawing—yah” and he spat in the impotence of word selection. “Then you are not satisfied?” I asked. “I’ve got to be or go without, all the best land is tenured in that way, and don’t you forget it! If you want your way made a bit easy for you, you’ve go to be the right colour; just get in arrears a bit and see! Your vote is ear-marked, and if it goes into the wrong pen look out for the dogs. Besides, it’s human nature, after years of work, to think, ‘ This is mine.’ Another point: My wife and I slave and rave and wear our strength out; suddenly she breaks down, and to save the only thing on earth I care for I’ve got to leave the district. I give the Department notice, who send along some valuer, whoknows as much of anxiety and hard graft and their work as a Portuguese. After a lot of waiting and jawing you get what the chap with a billet to keep shies at you; but what about our spent years?” He was getting out of hand, so I hinted, “ But all have not sick wives!” “ Neither have I, thank God. But a mate of mine has, and (he way he was served made our chaps swear they never would have sick wives! ”

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This article is not a critique on land tenures, but a simple record of impressions collected during some days of outback exploration, and one point obtruded itself with unblushing frequency, viz., that land administration is a handy political thumbscrew. For instance, the present Cabinet distinctly favours State control, as represented by the leasehold, and wherever lands are offered to the public the best, consequently the most desired, is reserved for this special tenure.

From ominous straws in the wind, the next election will pivot on two great issues: Land tenure and prohibition; for (he reason that both are violent interferences with the natural inclinations of a free people, following instincts which have built up a nation—a great nation, which utterly repudiates irresponsible phantom hunters, and the forcible attempts by the few to dictate what is best for the many. We shall see who is to wim—those who recognise that a nation’s natural laws are the best safeguards for its continuance, and only need modifying when they grow into excesses, or those narrow dreamers who, having no knowledge of natural laws, with arrogance—the pet child of ignorance—pretend that they can cure all ills by violently stamping out their opponents’ rights, and substitute fads of their own in their place, and I hope the nation’s best instincts will win.

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A HOME IN THE WILDERNESS.

By eye-metry the house measures iOft. by 20ft.; the walls and roof are of split palings, bush-carpentered, but storm-exclud-ing. Its style is the undecorated early colonial: two front rooms and a lean-to—that is, the lean-to in being suggests two front rooms when the eyes are closed; inferential additions when the bush shall be felled and the stock be paid for. A slab chimney, if put there for ornament, is a mistake, but otherwise the blend is perfection.

Between it and the rough cattle track, dignified into “ our road,” half an acre is laid out in phalanxes of potatoes, onions, cabbages, and that diversity of garden-growth which the thrifty wife will insist upon, even if the stumping and delving means overtime groping by moonlight—because the thrifty wife is a priestess of craft: She knoweth, as no man may dare, that hard work, pure air, and an abundance of garden-wrack defleth the doctor. From the front door a plain, weedless pathway, barraged on each side by a double row of bow-trellised supplejacks, leads down an easy grade to the front gate (slip-rails).

By a code of animal telepathy my horse divines that I am thinking, and stops, and, resting his chin on the upper bar, surveys the interior with a contemplative yearning to enter. I had just decided to continue our travel when an irresistible breath of sweetness floated to us from a variegated mass of bloom-radiance, which filled the interspace of trellis-work like two borders of glory; homely flowers—iris, sweet pea, geranium, stocks—but declaring that, no matter where she foundeth her queendom, the pakeha housewife reigneth supreme, and these are her faithful retainers.

Before we could assimilate and take a second indraught of Eden, a barelegged fawn, in spotlessly clean rags, leaped out from beside a clump of hollyhocks and battered at the front door: “ Mummy, quick, here’th the mailman 1” Upon which a hurrying woman in a man’s soiled cabbage-tree hat, drying soapsud arms on a flour-sack apron, came round the

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corner, and when she saw my leather haversack, quickened her pace down the path, brilliant with a smile of welcome to the bearer of news from Home and the outer world. But when I had to tell her that I was no deputy-mailman, only a vagrant collector of wilderness flotsam, my heart filled with an infinite compassion to watch the beam of gladness give place to a dull, anxious look of hope disappointed! But it were an incomplete soul that would brave hardship and solitude, in a heroic dare-all to share her children’s father’s toil to build up a home in the virgin bush, yet peevishly quail because the expected envoy is an unconscious impostor! So with one hand at her throat to strangle a sob, with the other she let down the rails and hospitably bade me enter and rest. Moreover, where a margin of second-growth cocksfoot invited temptation, she tethered my horse and led up to the house.

Even here, among the black stumps and gaunt, charred logs, which will disappear with ebbing youth of the feller, and when the now firm hands shall be knotted and twisted, a woman’s soft trick of rounding harsh angles, a deft touch here, a magic twist there—nay, her mere corporeal presence transforms this barbaric chaos into a semblance of home. And, as she points to this rough makeshift, that rude contrivance, yonder (laughingly) failure; to hollow-log chicken coops, and scooped-out-of-the-bank fowlhouse; to apple, plum, pear, and gooseberry slips, some in leaf, some halting between pine and promise, and explains (apprehensively of male brain lack) that bush comforts sprout from kernels, and are of slow growth, and is withal so limitlessly optimistic and recklessly cheery and hopeful—but-—1 There is a “but,” of which, later.

“Doll-ie!” “ Yes, ma.” “Is the kettle boiling?” “Yes, ma."

Just two rooms content these humble giants—three, if a small space for two children, curtained off with a shawl, deserves the distinction. The walls up to the rafters are lined with palings, and to shut out winter draughts are papered with “ Weekly News ” picture sheets, neatly mended along cracks, where the shrinking wood has torn rents. In the centre stands an immovable table, because its legs are four stakes sunk in the earth, and when the rough floor was laid the builder notched the slabs where they met the stakes, and adzed off the ridges to prevent foot-traps. Over the

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tunnel-mouth of a vast fireplace an uncouth split tree forms a ledge to display a clock, whose pendulum, in long and short licks, complains that the slab has warped and is no longer level. But it diligently tolls its hours regardless of solstices or solar meridians! They don’t use chairs in the wilderness, the floors are too uneven; besides, there is no time to idle except at meals, when the father and mother at each end sit on a block sawn off a log and rough-hewn into the shape of an hour-glass. The children’s seat is a slab resting on two outriggers hung in wire loops stapled to the table stakes, whence they can be withdrawn out of the way. In each corner a broad, triangular slab has been fitted for a corner shelf, covered with paper, scalloped on its overhanging edge. One enthrones the wedding-gift teapot; another, the nickel-plated Rochester with crimped pink paper shade, against which two absent friends lean for support. Pioneer life has no use for drawingroom display; the daily hip-grips wth stern Nature leave no leisure for vapid trivialities. If she tends to abase high standards, it is because she speaks truths sufficient for the task in hand; and thrice blest are those whose training has been to the end that they can understand her language.

Of such was my hostess; therefore I confided to her that my mission was a closer contact with the brave hearts who, undismayed by herculean labour and privation, lay the best years of their lives at the feet of the ages to come, a willing sacrifice—white men to the core, whose tread is broad and firm and everlasting. “ Are you ?” “ Yes, I am.” “ Then you must stay over-night.” The invitation was insidious. I peered out at my horse, and doubted my right to disturb him. “ Now do.” I looked at her frankly. She understood, and replied by pointing to a wonderful slab settee. So I said, “Yes.” And later, when I had learnt how pioneer heroines unravel land tenure tangles, my reward was sufficient. Later, also, a hairy Anak strode in-—tired, grimy, the stoop of toil in his shoulders; a drawn tan on his cheeks, telling of inward gloom and mind-worry, which he confessed to me over a last bed pipe the why to be—his wife and children out here at the beginning and end of nowhere; no road and no immediate hope of one! “ Settling people on the land? Oh! the sinful mockery of the vile boast! Sometimes—in winter —I curse the disgusting selfishness that deluded them here; but she would come, God bless her.” And I, with a full heart, said “ Amen.”

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But she, true helpmeet, simply introduced me and flitted first here, then there, waving- her magician’s wand, without fuss, making no silly exousings of this want and the other shortcoming—true, loyal soul—the elder girl helping, and the other a fast-sworn friend on my knee. So a goodly meal was laid out and—; but a too bland faith in wire-strung, outrigger seating contrivances, with my added weight, laid our side crash on our backs! This intervener brushed away the last barriers of constraint, for the settee, blankets, pillows, laughter and jokes only added zest to our meal. I say again; true, loyal soul, and that evening she laid it bare that all might see; not for parade, but because she needed comfort, and what will not duty forbear in the hour of its testing? The profundities of abstract isms and political shibboleths confuse her; but in that which concerneth her brood and its nurture, ah! me, her instinct surpasseth men’s wisdom!

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A PLEA FOR THE PIONEER.

When the inhumanly buffeted pioneer prays for ameliorations —roads, freight concessions-—and when the rent coffer is deficient of the quantum sufficit—forbearance; moreover, when he toils in the heat, and bears the burden of initiating all things, and he asks for an ultimate freehold, purviewing the vast issues of which he is the inaugurator, I inquire: Is he exorbitant in his appeal? Do not the privations he has of necessity to endure —brutal roadless exile, during that part of his manhood when the companionship of his fellows and the relish of social intercourse are surpassingly covetable; affiliated to housing which no city dweller would for an instant tolerate; to coarse starvation rations; to rheum fertilising exposure; to abscission from culture, yes, culture, which reads and re-reads the advertisement columns of three months’ old parcel wrappers, until the brain and soul contract to the metier of his dismal surroundings; to severance, if he is married, from sacred home ties, and harassing doubts of their welfare—l ask again: Do not these tribulations qualify him for relief?

But the State answers: “No; he is paid for them. He will receive full value for his labour should he tire of his holding. It will be honestly valued, and the assessment paid in coin.” This is less than partly true. I may even say, from some valuers who have come under my observation, absolutely impossible. They may calculate to a fraction the cold items of felling, grassing, fencing, building, but the valuer is yet unborn who shall gauge the worth to himself of a man’s life, the best years of which have been sacriflcially laid on the altar of the Mighty Moloch—the State.

Per contra, this is Just what he will be recompensed for if he is a freeholder. Super-added to this, he will receive a value miscalled the “ unearned increment.” Miscalled, because he has indirectly earned every brass farthing of it, and in this wise: Were he on an island alone there could be no “increment”; he would produce no more than sufficient

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for his own consumption. But presently immigrants of various occupations arrive, and at once “ increment ” appears. They require his productions and he theirs; and his holding and labour, before enough for himself, have increased in the ratio value of his extra exertions, and the goods he can dispose of. And, as they thus mutually assist in satisfying each other’s wants, and have consequently raised values, where does the “ unearned ” come in? Concatenately, having contributed his share, why shall he not receive back its equivalent, should he tire of the locality, through illness in his family, or old age, and can dispose of it to another who is willing also to pay a trifle for goodwill, which is here represented by the readiness to hand of what our pioneers bore earlier hardships to attain? This is important; The incomer compensates the outgoer for the unoonsidered trifles which may not be catalogued, yet make up the sum of what has gone out of his life. And this State control dictators expect my pioneer to present gratis to that State which, until just before the triennial scramble for seats, shuns him for a leper! Space is valuable, but I am in the humour to show that what the State may gain by this “ increment ” is not within thousands sufficient to salary the cohorts of inspectors, valuers, overseers, and hangers-on this ghastly system seems to require.

Inclusive, there is another reason why the freehold should be encouraged, and I argue in this style: A nation with a fortunate climate and fertile soil must be prepared to resist outside aggressions, and to exert resistance to its utmost tension each unit must have a direct stake to defend. This may consist of: Language, common interest, the sentiment of combination, pride in its symbol—the flag—religion. These are the more easily understood; but when the day of stress demands incomparable strenuosity for defence, which think ye will the conflict exhibit the most reckless immolation? Will it not be the homestead and those sheltered there? And does it not imply that the nation composed of a large salting of freehold homesteaders will be the staunchest and strongest, and following the law of heredity transmit the quality to their children? Are my premises and deductions fallacious? Possibly they are; but we have yet to test whether abstract theories of universal brotherhood, or even State coddled or harassed tenants will prove the surer nation builders. Nature declares against abstract theories,- -riHg;

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abhors them. Her delight is to set two of her creatures by the ears, while she callously looks on and awards her prize to the doughtiest. And until we can improve on her designs, prudence advises that we keep a cautious eye on the indicator quadrant of her test-lever, and close our chain-links with good sound welds.

When Mr. Bellamy’s delightful phantasia, “ Looking Backwards,” came into my hands I built many a Spanish castle out of its materials; but after my altruistic emotions, excited by its reading, had subsided, and I came down to bedrock Nature, my castles crumbled, and “ folded their tents like the Arabs, and as silently stole away.” And so long as she commands that there shall be strife, and the fittest survive, State-owned brotherhood will remain a pleasurable myth, and a dalliance for loose thinkers.

But I have not done yet. Among its several objectionable features the most truculently ugly is that the State, in being supported by admirably honest simpletons, can use force to bestraddle its iniquitous experiments on the backs of our patient landless colonists, and laud the abomination as so many “people settled on the land!” These are hard words? But I feel hard! I met a filth-smothered woman on foot leading packhorses, that thereby she might do her share to keep their end up. I was paralysed with amazement. “We wouldn’t mind it so much,” she wailed, “if there was a prospect ahead of its being our very own at last! My husband has spent pounds of our hard-earned savings tailing over the country after a bit of land, and ” (clutching her throat) “ this is what it has come to.” With a taste of gall in my mouth I laid a hand on each shoulder and husked out; “ I will mention your case. I will speak a word for you. Cheer up, Mrs. Blank; yours is the better part. You and your like may go to annihilation, but your names will live in the Pantheon of posterity. Think of it, like the donor of Cornwall Park, to be remembered for all time.” So she dried her tears, and peered shrewdly through a wintry smile; “ Much good that will do us!”

And finally— But there can be no finality to a system of inspector, valuer, and rangerships; where coercion is Juxtaposed to bare compliance; where the tenant looks upon the land as a cow, to be milked dry on starvation fodder; where “ good enough” is labelled on loop-hanging wire fences,

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despondent cowsheds, dogleg stockyards, wire-hinged fieldgates, paint-famished housesides, and incentive cries: “ Oh! make it do;” where cold commercialty shores up with makeshifts that which pride of ownership by abnegation creates into things of beauty and joy eternal.

No one need harry among abstruse speculations to determine simple propositions. Why do successive travellers in a forest follow the same line, even though the previous left no traces? Because it was the one of fewest obstacles. To decide what is acceptable to the many, one has merely to ask himself the homely question: “What would I like?” And by the law of humanity’s averages it will be found that the reply shocks no one, and is consummated in the command to do unto others as we would they should do unto us. It is because the importance of these simple but golden precepts is persistently ignored that our beloved New Zealand has become a statute-depressed, experiment-sick nursery for perennial innovations, and our Parliament has degenerated into a laboratory where irresponsible cranks, having vague notions to test, recklessly touch and waste precious equipments acquired at great cost for legitimate research, and juggle with the lives and liberties of man—a joke for the triflers, a gibe for the ribald, and a Westinghouse brake on development.

This is not vindictive unreason. I am angry. I promised my mud and filth covered friend leading packhorses on foot that I would say a word for her; and ye that are gifted to read between lines, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

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A LAST WORD.

Before I close these necessarily condensed sketches of backwoods pioneering, together with the pardonable unrest which pervades land occupation, some persistent facts bearing upon and elucidating this unrest may not be ignored, therefore I will record them. Since our legislation has made it impossible for the capitalist to acquire immense tracts of first-class lands to the detriment of close settlement, it is only the comparatively poor man who is willing to bear the privations which founding a home in the wilderness entails. It has been my pleasure to meet him face to face, to watch him at work, and listen to him by the campfire, in his own terse language describe his difficulties, his vexations, and how they could be amended. On a general average, he is from 20 to 35 years of age, a good fellow (who hears of crime in the backwoods?), brave, a shade impatient, but kindly; apt at badinage; ready to proffer the entente cordiale to all but the professional loafer, whom he loathes in language of conspicuous malignity; but to the honest hard-down-on-his-luck he is forbearing, and does not look upon him as one of Nature’s failures, only an uneven soul out of bounds. He is a slogger who fondles his axe and slash-hook with the affectionate ease of familiarity. It is dangerous to test him in a horse-swap, because, though not a liar, he regards a successful deal as legitimate traffic in skill! Oh, I love his ingenuous smile and mischievous wink! An honest, hardy, sterling, striving, cheeky, cheery overflow from the family home-brook, compelled by back pressure to scour out a channel for himself, and endowed with every requisite to do battle with trouble but cash! He is one of a large family whose parents interpreted the command to multiply and fill the earth in no spirit of niggard cheeseparing!

With the hospitality of his kind he invited me to his whare, and seated me in the seat of honour—the slab bunk—while he made shift with the übiquitous kerosene case storeall, and unbent: “ You want to know what made me come out here? There are nine of us. lam (he second eldest. Ours

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is a dairy farm south. The youngsters milk, so the old man said to me, * Look here, my lad, we can manage now; suppose you take up a section and do as we did.’ I had finished a fencing job, so I came and had a look at the country, and liked it, and here I am. Oh, I don’t mind hard work; I was brought up to it. What I don’t like is the tenure. Our home was deferred payment; all free now. A God’s blessing on the man who invented the plan. Dead, is he? The Hon. W. Rolleston dead? Well, he’s all right. It’s a nest as you may say to shelter the chicks till their wings grow. A girl? You bet I have, and willing to marry me now and share graft. Here, read that.” (I hesitated.) “ Oh, read away, no flummery-gush to be ashamed ofl” And while I read how an affectionate woman viewed self-sacrifice he stared into the embers and pensively whistled “ The Old Folks at Home.” When I returned it he said, proudly, “ That’s the sort of girl she is.” (I thought so too.) “If it was deferred payment now, or right of purchase, I’d put up a decent shanty and have her here like a shot! Look at mother and dad; pulled the old waggon uphill together, now they can spell-ho. Stands to reason; they took a good grip; hard nips here and there; wheels wanting grease and such-like! What did they care? Every tug brought them nearer home, and they did it. But you don’t catch me marrying on this racket! No, sirree! If I don’t see trumps turn up, I throw down my hand and walk out! Wasting time? Not a bit of it; you’ve got to step carefully these times! You don’t know what new patent our cranky law-makers will fix on your back. The old man thinks so too, now; read that: says when he and mum set in their stakes they knew where they were setting them, and that nothing on God’s earth but death should shift them! Chaps on both sides of me are on the same lay. You take me, you’ll never see a petticoat drying on my fence until we have roads and can make the place pay its way. May be years? No ‘ may ’ about it; it will be years! And you think I’m to bring a young wife into this style of diggings, and this tenure? Not much! Decreasing population? Whose fault is that? I see they lay it to patent medicines and such-like! I read it as plain as print! D the population riddle! My girl is not to spoil her life, much as she wants to, guessing of it. Things are so unsafe, ‘ ’e dunno where ’e are,’ till the Parliament doors are safely locked for another year! And that’s how I look at the thing!”

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All the above is just as my bush friend uttered it; and more, which was equally to the point, and because it reveals important phases I have selected this.

That the comparatively poor man should displace the holder of large estates has furnished shallow economists with inexhaustible themes for lament, but their wails of breeding a race of paupers, frightening away capital, and like jeremiads, experience has triumphantly refuted; and just by stock which bred my bush friend, on soil which it looked to one day owning in fee simple. It is his kind, unhampered by Stale interference with natural laws, and culminating in a paradoxical impasse—it was the ultimate home for his children which stiffened the aching back and reinvigorated a heart which no exposure to adversity could bleach, that has elevated Our Land into the envied by-word of fortune among the nations this day.

But my friend’s discourse unveiled a skeleton whose dissection may explain the recurrent lamentation that our young settlers will not marry. Of course, one line of masculine chivalry blames the maids, whose la-di-da upbringing, they say, shrinks from backwoods civilisation; that town vapidities have so decayed the grit inherited from their heroic mothers that it is worthless as a factor of tussle! That to a limited extent is possibly so; but the town girl is not the subject of debate: the right girl is waiting to be wooed and won, and willing to follow wherever her lord may lead. It is a libel which my friend’s sweetheart’s letter absolutely rebutted, or I have yet to learn plain English! I myself have the friendship of a smart desirable maiden (don’t blush, dear), who has an assured income in a Government office; her young man is on the survey, and a prospective settler; and this is how she humbled my wit: “I go where he goes. I don’t want to be a cypher in an office £ll my life.” No, my friend’s explanation adjusted the dispute frankly, as it touched him; and in speaking for his chums ampliAed its application.

But paramount is the sentiment which derives its nourishment from the axiom that an Englishman’s house is his castle, which even the law must not enter unless armed with a magisterially signed warrant. This may be a Action of Magna Charta, and in these days of sweeping away timehallowed cobwebs ought to be ruthlessly ignored: but it exists, and is cherished with an idolatry surpassing the worship of woman. Neither can wordy garnituring in perpetual lease.

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nor lease in perpetuity, hide its repelling identity. There is much to be said in favour of State-owned and guardianed property, but the management of so vast a project presumes a familiarity with, and expert knowledge of, conditions which the State must yet prove that it has acquired. And it grates on the nerves to be continually singled out for experiment! It also interferes with the innate human craving to own the rewards of its backaches.

These are some of the more salient points. Of others I have dealt in a previous article. Individually, perhaps, they call for no more than a passing attention; yet collectively they make up the sum of the seething discontent which perennially manifests itself in clamours for redress. They indicate that speculative anticipations of State controlled everything, in our present social economy, are the fictions of a faddist.

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