[CONTENTS]
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CONTENTS.
Chapter I.
THE DISCOVERY.
Chapter II.
THE COUNTRY.
Chapter III.
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS.
Chapter IV.
THE MAORIES IN THEIR HEATHEN STATE.
Chapter V.
MISSIONARY TRIALS.
Chapter VI.
MISSIONARY SUCCESS.
Chapter VII.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE COLONY.
Chapter VIII.
EARLY STRUGGLES.
Chapter IX.
GROWTH OF THE COLONY.
Chapter X.
COUNTRY LIFE.
Chapter XI.
TOWN LIFE.
Chapter XII.
RELIGIOUS ASPECT.
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CONTENTS.
Chapter XIII.
NATIVE SUSPICIONS.
Chapter XIV.
APPOINTMENT OF A KING.
Chapter XV.
TARANAKI WAR.
Chapter XVI.
A LULL IN THE WAR STORM.
Chapter XVII.
CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES.
Chapter XVIII.
RE-COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR.
Chapter XIX.
THE WAR IN WAIKATO.
Chapter XX.
THE TAURANGA CAMPAIGN.
Chapter XXI.
THE WEST COAST HOSTILITIES.
Chapter XXII.
THE PAI MARIRE DELUSION.
Chapter XXIII.
WAR WITH THE HAU HAUS.
Chapter XXIV.
MILITARY SETTLEMENTS.
Chapter XXV.
A FRESH OUTBREAK.
Chapter XXVI.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
[PREFACE]
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PREFACE.
SUPPOSING that the British public must be more than ordinarily interested in the events of New Zealand, where so many brave men of all ranks have found a soldier's grave, where so many representatives of every county in Great Britain and Ireland have fixed their home, and where the hopes and fears of the friends of Christian missions have been so strongly excited,--the author has prepared the following pages for the press. In doing so he has endeavoured to place the Mission to the Native people in a fair and honourable point of view; and the trying circumstances to which the Maori race were exposed by being brought into contact with colonization, the hopes which they raised and the reverses of their subsequent history, will be found truthfully described. The remarks on the fitness of the country for British colonization, the various features of colonial life, including its religious characteristics, with suggestions for intending emigrants, will he hopes be accepted as satisfactory and useful. In writing on the war he has had no object beyond placing this unhappy subject fairly before the public--a subject the importance of which will be admitted, when it is remembered that the insurrection will always form a necessary chapter, although a melancholy one, in the history of New Zealand.
No pains have been spared to obtain correct information for this work. The long residence of the author in
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the colony, the post of observation he has occupied throughout the war, the more valuable from the fact that he was a non-combatant, and his freedom from partisanship of any kind, are considerations which entitle his pages to respect and authority. Some discrepancies may possibly be found in the military department, between the statements here given and the reports of the Newspaper press. This need not cause surprise; for the excitements of the battle-field are not favourable to correct information. Nor have official dispatches been always the most reliable, as subsequent information has sometimes modified their statements.
If this volume exhibits an intelligent view of the "New Zealand Question," if it presents such a picture of colonial life as may be distinctly understood in England, if it be found serviceable to the intending emigrant, and if it places fairly before the friends of Christian Missions the work which has been done, and the work which remains to be done,--the object of the author will be accomplished.
R.W.
INTRODUCTION.
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INTRODUCTION.
THIS splendid volume is almost exhaustive on New Zealand Life. The author makes no pretensions to high literary culture and finished style; but these deeply interesting sketches are chastely, tersely, graphically, and eloquently written. This book is not a mere missionary journal of denominational enterprise. The author's broad Christian sympathies are unfettered and unconfined by any sectarian peculiarities, characteristics, and ecclesiastical lines of demarcation. He is a true Christian gentleman, one of the "highest style of men," a truly apostolic missionary, of whom any Church in Christendom might be justly proud. For more than a quarter of a century he has been the faithful and able representative of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society in New Zealand. In the spring of 1871, he visited his native land for a short time, to relate the story of his glorious missionary apostleship at the antipodes.
This book will be found to possess more than missionary interest. The geographer, the ethnographer, the philologist, the linguist, the botanist, the mineralogist, the geologist, the ornithologist, the naturalist, in fine, the most profoundly learned savant, may peruse and study its pages with great advantage. From the ample and varied MSS. in our possession, we might have added considerably to the sketches and data of this work, but its pages are, we opine, sufficiently bulky, copious,
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and multifarious. If this volume meets with the appreciation and patronage which it merits, a second will be published, at the earliest possible convenience, of equal interest. Many works of travel and adventure, are light, superficial, desultory, and ephemeral. In this work we have indications of thoroughness, intelligent observation, careful research, calmness, and soundness of judgment, and a masterly grouping of character, fact, and incident, from sources the most reliable.
In the chapters that relate to the Maori war, the author often rises to the true dignity of history. We have the clearness and comprehensiveness of Livy, the burning force of Tacitus, and we have a naturalness, a chasteness, a picturesqueness of descriptive power, reminding us occasionally of the splendid sketching of Macaulay and Bancroft, so far, at least, as this volume claims to be historical. It will be seen that its records and details are brought down to the latest possible date, A.D. 1870, a short time prior to the author's visit to his native shores, for the last time. Since the completion of this work for the press, during the past two years, several events worthy of note have transpired in relation to New Zealand pacification, progress, and prosperity. One of the most notable is the submission of the Maori king, Wiremu Kingi, who, twelve years ago bearded Governor Browne, and raised the standard of revolt at Waitara, near New Plymouth, and thus became the typical embodiment of Maori discontent.
The ferocious Kereopa has been arrested, dragged to justice, and expiated his horrible crimes on the scaffold. It is a pleasing fact that some hundreds of the Maories who about four years ago were burning villages, and murdering the out-settlers, are now helping to make
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roads into their very fortresses for Government wages, and working as railway navvies.
There are four Maori members of the House of Representatives, men of high ability, so popular that it is now proposed to admit native members to the Legislative Council, and also to the Executive Council. According to the recent census, the total population of the various provinces of New Zealand is, 256,393: males, 150,356, females, 106,037. This is exclusive of aborigines. Live stock, sheep, 9,700,629; head of cattle, 436,592; horses, 81,028; pigs, 151,460; poultry, 872,174. Dairy produce, in 1871, 5,199,072 pounds of butter; 2,547,507 pounds of cheese.
The Taranaki iron sand has been proved by Government experiments to be extremely useful, and is capable of yielding the finest steel. Among the isles of the vast Pacific that "wait for God's law," not the least in importance and moral glory, are, Eaheianowmawe and Tavia Poenamoo, the rudely euphonious names by which the splendid islands of New Zealand were first known to the Maories.
We have given the MSS. and printed proofs the most careful revision; but such is the range of the matter forming the twenty-six chapters, so varied and ample the data and details relating to persons, places, and historical dates, and so frequent and numerous the recurrence of Maori names and phrases, that we fear that some inaccuracies may be discovered undetected by us. We therefore solicit the intelligent reader's kind indulgence. An imperative sense of duty to--in many respects--a great man, and a great work, influenced us to undertake the risk of this publication. We have expended considerably more than we contem-
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plated in the first instance, in order to do full justice to the talented author, and his splendid book--one of the best books extant--on that once most barbarous and interesting people, among the ashes of whose horrid cannibal fires our holy Christianity has built its altars and fanes, blunted the points of their battle-spears, split their murderous clubs, and tamed their savage, hostile passions.
THOMAS LOWE,
Primitive Cottage, Alford, Lincolnshire,
WILLIAM WHITBY,
19, Grove Street, Retford, Notts,
Editors.
August 21st, 1872.
