stranded, is just the sort of incident which would be remembered by an unlettered but observant people, while the further statement that one of the chiefs was so pleased with the beauty of the rata, then in full bloom, that he cast aside the red feathers he was wearing in his head-dress, to don, instead, a circlet of its flowers, is a perfectly natural act, but one, too, which would hardly have been thought of, for the purpose of record, had it not actually occurred. This legend has this further value, that it shows that the arrival of the Maoris must have been in the middle of summer, when the rata is in flower. I confess I don't see any reason why this story should not be accepted in favour of the Maori immigrants, just as readily as the notice, in the “Antiquitates Americanæ,” of the number of hours the sun was above the horizon on the shortest day in “Vinland” (i. e. Narraganset) proving as this observation does, the latitude of the country discovered by the old Icelandic voyagers to the West. * “Antiquitates Americanæ” (Rafn) Copenh. 1837, p. 32. Indeed the long persistency of the Maori traditions and their striking similarity, naturally gives much support to our belief in their general truth; while, unless the conviction of their solid foundation had been fully present to the native mind, we could have hardly conceived the possibility of what is nevertheless literally true, that, only about twenty-five years ago, a family at Tauranga fitted out and provisioned a canoe for the purpose of visiting the homes of their ancestors; † Old traditions brought by the few Maoris who first landed in New Zealand would be preserved, and, perhaps, also, accounts of some of their early wars, but the daily incidents of the expanding population in the new country would not be preserved. As a rule, the histories we learn at school are better impressed on our memories, than the historical incidents during our own lifetime. Incidents occurring in savage or uncivilized states of society, must be surrounded by romance, and elaborated by a generalizing mind, before they pass into tradition or literature. and, more than this, that this is not the only instance in which similar schemes have been entertained and in part carried out. To have thought of such a thing at all, especially as they could have had no definite idea of the direction in which they ought to steer their vessel, proves the vitality of their belief in their traditions, and shows withal no little daring and love of adventure; for the smaller canoes, now or recently in use in New Zealand, could hardly have withstood the billows of the ocean, as did the great double canoes described by Tasman in 1642. It is a popular idea that ignorance of writing tells with fatal effect against the preservation of early traditions: yet it is certain that there is scarcely any limit to the power of memory when exercised on one or a