THE MAORI MESSENGER. Auckland, November, 22 1849. NATIVE HOSTELRY.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 24, 22 November 1849, Page 1

THE MAORI MESSENGER. Auckland, November, 22 1849. NATIVE HOSTELRY.

A few days, since, in passing Mechanic's Bay, our attention was arrested by a building, in rapid progress towards completion, there. This, upon enquiry, we learnt was inteii'lcd as a Hostelry, or House of Accommodation, for natives visiting, or bringing produce for sale to Auckland. Such an asylum lias long been greatly wanted, anil we rejoice that his edifice lias been constructed upon at u scale sufficiently, extensive to meet every demand likely to be made upon it for a temporary home. The Hostelry, which is a neat, weatherboarded, building, form*'three sides of a square, tlm fourtli side being designed to be e nelosed by a palisade which will, in turn, fence in a spacious court yard of forty feet square. The back range of building is sixty-seven feet in length by some tliirteen or fourteen feet in breadth; —the wings extend to a distance of forty feet and are of equal bredth with the back section. Windows are placed at suitable diatances in the internal area of the square wnd sufficient ventilation will be preserved by leaving tlie eieling the cniire height of the roof-iree, It has been deemed ad visable not {0 lay any boarded lloors, but every pains will, we understand, be taken to render the carthcrn lloors hard and dry. No fire places are to be constructed, but. as a substitute, it is intended to form a broad and well gravelled esplanade around the exterior of the square where cookery, in all its branches, mav be carried on at pleasure. In front of the palisading, of which we have spoken, an open shed iorty feet long by fourteen feet wide is intended to be erected. Here the various articles of native produce arc expected to be exposed for sale, and here, therefore, will be the commenchment of the first market lor Auckland. The arrangements are primitive, it may be but they are adequake to the occasion that has called them into existence, and we feci convinced that every well-wisher of our native friends will rejoice to sec them thus comforiably housed, instead of being exposed to the inclement blasts of the winter's gale, squatted upon a damp and stormy bench and shivering beneath the flimsy "shelter of a pervious tent. The architect who designed the Auckland Hostelry must, we imagine, havcta-

ken n hint from the plan of construction of the Caravanserais of the Kast. "The Cnravtmseru, or Caravansery," says an eminent writer, "is a large building or inn for the reception of travellers and the caravans. The building commonly forms a square, in the middle of which is a spacious court, and under thcuredics or piiuzos which surrornd it, there runs a bank, raised soma feet above the ground, where the merchants and travellers take up their loiMngs, the benst9 of burden being tiod ticiUo the foot of the bank. In the upper part, there are generally private apartments, the use'of which is costly. In many of them, however, the hospitality is gratuitous, it being by no means uncommon for a pious Mussulman to establish, during his life or by will oae or more of these Canwaivscrics;"