Our Maoris

(Lady Martin) Mary Ann Martin

First published by Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. in 1884

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927289-24-2

OUR MAORIS.

[FRONTISPIECE]

JUDGE'S BAY AND ST. STEPHEN'S CHAPEL, AUCKLAND.
Frontispiece.

[TITLE PAGE]

OUR MAORIS,

BY LADY MARTIN.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION
APPOINTED BY THE
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W. C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E. C.;
26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S. W.
BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 1884.

[PREFACE]

PREFACE.

GREAT interest was excited in England in many quarters by the arrival, some little time ago, of three Maori Chiefs from New Zealand. They came over to present a petition to their Mother the Queen, and to bring presents of native workmanship to her. Those who entertained them found these men intelligent and well-mannered, and keenly interested in the welfare of their countrymen whom they represented. It may not, therefore, be an unfitting time to bring before the public some notice of the Maori people, gathered from diaries kept by the writer during a residence of thirty-four years in New Zealand. There are no adventures to relate, nor stirring events to record; only a faint but strictly faithful attempt to describe them as they

were, – a people just emerging from barbarism, with many faults, but also with great capabilities. It is sometimes astounding in Christian England to hear the question asked, whether there have ever been any cases of true conversion among savages.

To doubt this is to doubt the power of the Gospel, which can raise barbarians now, as it once raised our forefathers, to the condition of Christian citizens.

[MAP]

NEW ZEALAND
1884.

CHAPTER I: FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE MAORIS. 1842-3.

OUR MAORIS,

CHAPTER I.

FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE MAORIS.
1842-3.

WE sailed from Plymouth on St. Stephen's Day, December 26, 1841. People nowadays, who make the Grand Tour round the world in four months, can have little notion what a serious undertaking the voyage to New Zealand seemed to us forty years ago. The land itself was a terra incognita. My own notions were extremely hazy. It was in the Pacific, and might have semi-tropical fruits and flowers. Some years later, a great man, preaching in London on the wants of the Colonial Church, talked of the coral reefs in New Zealand! One thing, however, had been clearly impressed on my mind by my husband, the first Chief Justice, who had sailed nine months before, namely, that the aborigines of our new country were to be cared for and worked for, and this lesson was by example as well as by precept daily brought before all of us on board by Bishop Selwyn. A year or two before, a book had been lent to me, called "Missionary Enterprise in the South Seas," which

told of the great work done by one brave-hearted man, John Williams, who was afterwards killed by the heathen in Erromanga. I little thought when I read it, and my heart burned within me, that for more than thirty years I was to live in daily intercourse with another branch of the Polynesian race.

We had a quiet, prosperous voyage in a small barque, which would be thought very squeezy nowadays. We had none of the modern luxuries required in steamers, – no fresh bread, no stewardess to wait on us, no delicate fare. But we had compensation of an unusual kind. If we had plain living, we certainly had the opportunity of high thinking. Our party consisted of the Bishop of New Zealand, his two chaplains, both men of great gifts, and other clergymen and students. There were daily classes, after breakfast, for all who wished to learn the native language. There was no printed Maori grammar, only a manuscript grammar and vocabulary, and copies of St. Matthew's Gospel, just printed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. But we had a walking dictionary in a Maori boy, who had been brought to England by a gentleman, and sent to school for two years. He was not a favourable specimen, for he had been the plaything of the servants' hall in holiday time, and had little more than superficial civilisation. He left off English habits, with his English clothes, on landing, and

never sought for instruction or Christian teaching. However, he was very useful on board, and undertook to teach correct pronunciation, especially of the nasal "nga," so hard to English tongues.

At the end of more than three months we cast anchor in the beautiful harbour of Sydney. The first people who came alongside, to our surprise and pleasure, were New Zealanders. They formed the crew of the harbour-master's boat, and were tall, fine-looking men, dressed in white duck trousers, jackets, and straw hats. They were delighted to be greeted by the Bishop in their own speech. We were detained some weeks in Sydney by damage done to the keel of our vessel, but the Bishop, his chaplain, and I got away at last in a little brigantine. On Sunday evening, May 29, we ran by moonlight along the New Zealand coast, and anchored in Auckland harbour, on a wet, dreary day, May 30, 1842, five months after leaving England. Our house, – a long, low, one-storied cottage, – was perched upon a hill, on which a number of men clothed in blankets were hoeing the stiff clay soil. There was hardly a shrub to be seen then, though a few years later we were embowered in a wealth of trees, English and native, so rapid is the growth in that genial climate.

In a few days the heavy rain ceased, and the sun burst forth as though it had been summer time. How pretty everything looked! The blue water lay

like a lake below. There was a strip of white shelly beach. The little bay was shut in by sandstone cliffs, and these were overhung by huge forest-trees. A high bank above our garden had one or two tall flax-bushes growing on it, and many ferns. The tall leaves of the flax glittered in the sunlight. To a Londoner born and bred this new home seemed like fairyland. The clear air seemed to quiver and sparkle with light. And then we needed but to go a little way up on to higher ground to see the Gulf of Hauraki stretching far away, with islands dotted about, and the pale blue distant mountains of Coromandel, and the wooded volcanic peak of Rangitoto, and mainland of the North Shore. A few months later our home was still more lovely, for by this time a foreground of grass and English annuals had appeared, and our young apple-trees and the pink flowers of the flax had come into blossom; while all day long the shrill cicala whirred and whizzed in the sun.

As soon as the weather cleared after my arrival, all the Maoris who were working on the land came up with their wives and children to inspect the Ma-nu-hi-ri, i. e., the stranger. One man especially attracted me. He was highly tattooed, and was tall and big, and had such stout legs that we named him at once the Knave of Clubs. Poor fellow, he was a faithful friend to the English; but in the war in 1863

he became an object of suspicion to the General in command, and was kept a close prisoner for a month or two. He was released when found innocent; but his old mother died insane while in captivity, and our good friend followed her a month or two later. I could by that time spell out a verse or two in the Maori New Testament, but could not understand what they were saying to one another. Only it was evident that their verdict on me was not satisfactory. "She is but a girl; she's only a girl," passed from lip to lip. They had said the same of the Queen when my husband showed them her picture; so there was no cause to be offended. All shook hands with the girl very warmly, and welcomed her to her new home. There were about thirty altogether, men, women, and children, encamped on the ground, and they paid me almost daily visits. We could not communicate save by friendly nods and smiles. They were quite content to sit or squat in the sun, and talk about me and mimic in a good-natured way my efforts to say a few words in Maori. They were specially amused because I could not pronounce the letter "r" clearly. It continually occurs in Maori words, and they would repeat after me, mimicing and softening down the "r" into "w." A worthy London tradesman had given me a box full of common thimbles, scissors, and combs as presents for the natives. Possibly he thought in his simplicity

that they would be useful to barter with. Being "only a girl," I lavished many of these things on my new friends, though few, if any, knew how to sew or to cut out clothes, and the small slight combs were not fitted to pass through their tangled mops of hair. I grew wiser in time; but perhaps it was as well to begin by being a Lady Bountiful. Our Waikato friends left us as soon as their job was completed, but other parties of natives came and went. The valley below our house, through which ran a little stream, was a favourite camping-place for Maoris who came across from the neighbouring islands and mainland to trade in Auckland. Early on every fine morning we used to watch the little fleet of canoes skim across the harbour with their sails set. Sometimes a red blanket did duty for a sail. When the wind was contrary, ten to twenty men paddled each canoe, which was heavily laden with produce. Their monotonous boat-song sounded very pleasant, and their paddles flashed in perfect time in and out of the water. Many of these crews returned in the evening to their own villages, but those who came from a distance could not get back in one day, and preferred our quiet bay to the neighbourhood of the town. We used to go down when the first hubbub of the landing was over. In a short time, the canoes were drawn up high and dry, their triangular sails set up as tents. The men would be

busy cutting fern from the hill for their beds, while the women and girls scraped potatoes for the evening meal, or waded with bare legs into the mud at low water to find their favourite shellfish. Soon a fire was blazing, and the pot put on, gipsy fashion. Children swarmed in and out of the rude tents, babies squalled, pigs brought in for sale grunted, shabby-looking curs barked at us, men and women talked at the top of their voices, but through all this confusion we were sure of friendly faces and welcoming smiles. It was pleasant to hear from our open windows the chatter and laughter of the people as they ate their meal al fresco, and, later on in the evening and in the still, early morning, the sounds of hymn and prayer.

Many English say, when they first see New Zealanders, "What an ugly set they are!" Certainly, the women, as is the case in all countries where they have hard work to do, are not beautiful; and their unkempt hair and slovenly dress in these early days impressed one unfavourably; though, even then, I have seen young girls with flowers in their hair, and a native mat wrapped round them, looking very picturesque. The men, as a rule, are well grown and tall; and their warm complexion, bright eyes, and white teeth atone for some homeliness of feature. There was much, of course, in those early days to make any one who did not attempt to learn their

language, indifferent, if not unfriendly, to the natives. Interesting savages, such as Cowper's gentle Omai and Cooper's Mohican, belong rather to the region of romance. The New Zealanders were just emerging from barbarism, and had in our part of the country only ten years before been wild, impulsive heathen. The old picturesque dress, such as we had seen and admired in Cook's Voyages, had given place to slop trousers and a blanket. A quainter spectacle one could hardly see than a party of men squatting in a half-circle, with their blankets drawn round their bodies, and hiding every part of their faces, except a bit of tattooed forehead and a pair of bright eyes. Then, whatever the habits of this people had been in their warmer ancestral home in the tropics, they eschewed much washing. Hands and blankets betokened that soap was a luxury. Their clothes had a combined scent of fish and tobacco and wood smoke. But we found them on acquaintance to be an independent, rough-mannered, merry, kindly race, often obstinate and self-willed, yet very shrewd and observant, and eager to learn English ways.

Now and then we had a visit from a real grand old New Zealand chief, and a most imposing, noble carriage he had. The richly-fringed and ornamented flax mat, thrown over one shoulder, and coming down nearly to his feet, a bunch of white sea-bird's feathers in his ear, and a carved spear or a highly-

polished greenstone hatchet in his hand, made such a man look fit to be a Homeric hero. Such a chief was old Te Wherowhero, the head of the powerful Waikato tribe. He had been a great warrior in his day, but had always shown a generous and humane spirit, and was a firm friend to the English settlers. This man, trained from childhood to command, and from childhood fed on the very best food, and cared for and waited upon, had a dignity of carriage and stateliness of manner that the ordinary Maori never attained to, and which is fast becoming a thing of the past. One of our first visitors to dinner was a Mr. William Stephenson, a Maori man, who had been for some years at school in Tasmania, and who could speak English very well. I was much amused when, on coming into the drawing-room, our guest looked round and said in a very soft voice, "Oh, ma'am, have you no piano?" Ours was still on board.

Of the town I saw little in early days, for we were two miles off, and there were three steep hills between us and it. There was not much to see. Government House was only a one-storied cottage, standing back from the road. A few wooden houses were dotted about, in which the Government officials lived. There were wooden barracks, which contained about fifty soldiers; a supreme court-house, where the Judge held his court in the week, and which on Sundays was used as a church; a milliner's shop, a blacksmith's forge,

and two or three stores. Butcher and baker were unknown in those primitive days, for the best of all reasons, – that there was no beef or mutton to sell, and no roads for carts to travel along if there had been. Our furniture, and my husband's clothes and books, had lain for months on the beach after his arrival, and all our flour, and firewood, and groceries had to be brought by boat from the town and left on the beach, till some friendly Maoris carried them up the hill on their backs. We were then, and for some years after, mainly dependent on the natives for firewood, and for pork, fish, potatoes, pumpkins, fruit, Indian corn, and cabbages. It was well for us that we soon learned to speak Maori. Our old Wiltshire gardener would spend a good part of a working-day in haggling at intervals with the owner of a pig. Time was not at all precious to the Maori. He squatted in the sun, wrapped up in mat or blanket, smoked his pipe, or had a comfortable doze; while his pig, tethered by a rope of flax, grunted and winked, and grubbed up and chumped the young roots of the fern. Very often, after long waste of time and temper, pig and his master trotted over the hills again, and our larder was left bare. But as soon as we could talk pretty freely we got the people to agree willingly to weigh or measure all our purchases.

It was a pleasant change. By nature the Maoris enjoy to chaffer as much as Italians do, but their

strong common-sense made them see the advantage of a fixed rule. The firewood was all stacked in order on the beach, and measured, and never did we find any attempt to cheat or to dispute my husband's word.

The steelyard was a settling of difficulty for all other purchases. For the first year or two we had hardly anything but pork to depend upon, and we grew very weary of it. In vain was it dressed in divers disguises, sometimes divested of its rind and served up as boiled mutton with caper sauce and Swedish turnips! Another time, as stewed veal! It was not a wholesome food, though very different to English pork, as the native pigs roamed freely about in the villages and lived upon fern roots. Butter was very scarce in the early days and cost 4s. 6d. a pound, and milk was not to be had. Our captain, whose experiences of colonial life had been confined to the West Indies, used to tell me how the coloured people would wash one's clothes beside a running stream. This idyllic picture faded away, and in its stead came a tall Irishwoman from the barracks with the conventional basket, who was ready to oblige us at the rate of four shillings a dozen. Our groceries and flour had to be got in in quantities appalling to the mind of a young housekeeper, and we had to wage constant war against rats and weevils. Very often the half-chest of tea or two hundred-

weight of sugar which had been laid in turned out to be damaged, and for months we had to bear our ill-luck philosophically. Such was the utmost amount of our colonial hardships. Other people who lived in the bush, far away from any town, were in much worse plight.

One rule we had to enforce which made us for a time as unpopular among the kinsfolk of those employed as Lord Ashley was in Yorkshire when he carried his Factory Bill. All our firewood was brought by canoes and stacked on the beach by the men. But there was still a long distance to be traversed up a steep hill to bring it to our door, and the women were expected by their husbands to undertake the carrying up of the whole load, some ten or fifteen tons. The Judge insisted that no woman should do this, whereat both men and women resented this infringement on the liberty of the subject. The latter looked on the job as a part of their perquisites. Poor creatures, their backs were bowed early enough by hard field labour.

There was much need of contrivance in those days, for servants were scarce and appliances few. But every one was young and full of life, and no one could afford to laugh at her neighbours. People who had faculty, as the Americans say, made their rooms very pretty at a small cost. Furniture was not to be bought, but packing-cases and empty boxes were plentiful. These made our dressing-tables, and washstands, and

ottomans, and lounges. A little white muslin and pink calico, and chintz cushions stuffed with scraped flax, made a handsome show.

Auckland was very gay in those early days. The Governor's wife gave a ball in the winter. The weather was very bad, and the roads (if such they could be called) were almost impassable. We heard of one chivalrous husband wheeling his wife up to Government House in a wheelbarrow. Other ladies put on their partners' jack-boots and waded through the quagmire. One friend of mine fell down on her way into a Slough of Despond; but she was not to be daunted, and, after finding refuge at a friend's and getting rid of some muddy garments, went on and danced merrily till the small hours. The hospitality was very hearty, if somewhat rough, and if people had to work all the morning to prepare for their guests, they were sure of their efforts being appreciated.

Our first Auckland newspaper was a very primitive one. For lack of a press, it was printed in a mangle. Type was so scarce that occasionally there was a paragraph in black letter, and as the Government had to borrow all their R's for the use of the Maori Gazette, that letter was lacking throughout!

Our Bishop, after staying a fortnight in Auckland, had gone up to Paihia, in a wretched little vessel, to the Bay of Islands, to await the arrival of the Toma-

tin. He astonished both the missionary clergy and the natives by the fluency with which he read prayers and preached in Maori. He came down again to Auckland in the Tomatin, after settling Mrs. Selwyn and his large party at the Waimate. She anchored on July 5th, just seven months from the time that she had left Gravesend. The Bishop stayed three weeks, and during his stay consecrated a burial-ground, the land for which was given by the Governor. It was a fine site, on the slope of a wooded valley, with a grand outlook over sea and land. In less than a month from that time our first Governor, Captain Hobson, R. N., was laid to rest there. He was a brave, just, and good man, who had won the confidence of the native people by his kindness and firmness.

"Mother Victoria," wrote the old chief Te Wherowhero to the Queen shortly afterwards; "my object in writing is, send us a Governor for us and the strangers of this island. Let him be a good man: a man of judgment. Let not a 'troubler' come here. Let not a boy come here, or one puffed up. Let him be a good man, as the Governor who has just died." It was a great cloud on the prospect of the little settlement. Both the Governor and Mrs. Hobson were people well fitted to exercise an influence for good upon society.

In the middle of September, my husband sailed in the Government brig on circuit to the southern

settlements, and as he walked back through the country with the Bishop, he did not reach home till the end of the year, – weary, dusty, travel-worn, after a journey of 800 miles, but in perfect health and good spirits.

The Bishop came a day or two later, as he had to visit a mission station on the way. It was a great treat to listen to the two friends and fellow-travellers, as they described the beauty and strangeness of the country they had passed through. The ascent up the Manawatu river, which took five days of steady poling against the stream, the river flowing down through a mountain pass between high cliffs, which were clothed with wood from the summit to the water's edge; the happy, peaceful Sunday, passed in a lovely little plain, shut in by woods on all sides save one, where a view opened on a range of distant hills, while below them in a deep valley lay the river, with precipitous wooded banks feathering down to the stream; and many more such word-pictures. They told, too, how, after a march of more than sixty miles over uninhabited country, they came to an island in a small lake surrounded by grassy downs. The whole scene was full of repose, and the barbarous people received them gladly, and brought out their best fare, – wild ducks, lake shell-fish, and potatoes. But the most wonderful account was of all that they had seen in the

lake district, with its geysers and hot springs. They described to me the many-coloured mud caldrons, the very emblems, the Bishop said, of laziness. A faint steam rose from them, and ever and anon a solitary bubble of gas disengaged itself from the surface, which then returned to its usual dulness. To my husband's mind, they recalled the dismal souls in Dante's "Inferno."

Close beside these, and in strong contrast, are the clear pools and bright-blue, boiling springs, of great depth. There they stood and saw the jets blown up from a narrow orifice in the top of an irregular cone. These cones are pinkish-white, or tinged yellow by crystals of sulphur. They got to windward of one of these cones, and heard the roaring of the caldron, and then up sprang a jet into the air, and shivered into silver foam, accompanied by a volume of white steam.

Below these wondrous cones the people clustered, to cook their fish and potatoes in the steam and in the hot water pools. The men sat, quite at their ease, in the natural baths, playing their native game of draughts, while the lads whirled round on their native swings, and the babies and children dabbled in the pools, and looked as clean and rosy as English little ones.

My husband, in the early days, was away nearly half the year on circuit, and I should have felt very lonely but for the daily intercourse with the native

[Inserted illustration]

HOT SPRINGS, ROTO-RUA

people. We saw a great deal of a fine tribe living about forty miles off in the wooded island of Waiheke. They carried on a brisk trade with the English in Auckland, and in the evening always came to camp in our bay. Our great friend was a huge, tall man, named William Jowett. He had been converted from heathenism a few years before by the preaching of some native missionaries from the North of the Island, belonging to a powerful tribe which had ravaged his settlement in old days. As soon as William was baptised his people followed his example. He and his own relatives, two brothers and one sister, were all huge. His wife was very thin and slight, and was much chaffed in consequence by her husband, who called her "Bag-of-Bones." He was a very simple fellow. I once showed him a picture of a lizard in a book published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and he uttered a yell and ran off, and I have seen him shake with disgust and horror at the sight of a living one. There are many superstitions connected with this harmless little creature. Jowett and his relations were a very hospitable, kindly set, and great favourites with our townspeople. They had all set themselves to learn to read and write. A large party of them were camping on the beach below our house when the baby boy of William Jowett's younger brother fell ill. They were all most

anxious about this child. William had no children so he was a most important little fellow. The mother was young, and ignorant, and wilful; but the father was full of tender care, and trusted us implicitly, obeying every direction. My friend (herself a mother) had the boy on her knee when the grey shadow of death began to pass over its face. Its father at once caught it in his arms, and leaped with it through the open French window, as though he felt its soul needed elbow room; and soon from below in the valley began a terrible piteous wail. The old Bible words, "He lifted up his voice and wept," become a reality to any who have heard the shrill Maori ta-ngi. Our first Governor, Captain Hobson, was quite overcome when he first heard it, and had to go aside and hide himself. It reminded him of the mournful Irish keene. Though we could not save the bonny little chief, the fame of our care and nursing spread abroad, and in a week or two a man from Waiheke was brought in a terrible state of weakness from abscesses; so a rough hut was put up to receive him. My friend and I had as yet little hold of the language, though we could read and translate fairly, and for some time we had to depend on our gardener's young son as interpreter. He had contrived to pick up a few sentences of ungrammatical Maori intermixed with much absurd broken English, which he delivered with great

assurance in a very loud voice. But our people were willing to teach us, and we wanted to understand them and make them understand us; and in a few months we could communicate readily on ordinary subjects. I did make the mistake of trying to explain the meaning of passages in the New Testament as we read together, but soon found out my folly, as some absurd blunder would set the young people off into fits of laughter.

While the Judge was still away on circuit, a man came to pay me a visit who has since become a well-known political character, and was elected a few years ago the honourable Member for Tauranga. He was a wild-looking, handsome fellow, named William Marsh. His home was in the Lake district, in the heart of the country, and this was his first visit to the metropolis. His only garment was a dirty blanket. Now, my husband had made a rule that no Maori should come into the house unless he was dressed in English clothes. Of course, they could always come into our little receiving-room for food or medicine, but they could not be admitted as guests. This rule worked well, and induced habits of cleanliness and self-respect. My friend pleaded hard to be allowed to come in and see the house, and brought forward some good reasons for relaxing the rule in his case.

"He had come from a great distance. He might

never be in Auckland again. He was a chief in his own place," and so on.

I remained firm, however, and he went away. More than a year after he appeared again, dressed in such a good suit of clothes that I did not recognise him till he reminded me of his previous visit.

"I was very much disappointed," said he, "when you turned me away; but I thought afterwards that you were like Eve, and that I was very like Satan tempting you when Adam was away."

But after he had been fed, and had seen the house and listened to the piano, as he was going away, he whispered to my husband: "Friend, what about that passage in St. James, – 'If there come in a poor man in dirty raiment'?" for so the Maori version renders our A. V. "vile."

We had a widow hiding for some time in out house. She was a Christian, named Margaret, and fled to us for protection from her own people, who wanted her to marry a heathen who was not at all acceptable to her. They probably knew where she was hiding, but did not dare to fetch her away by force from our house. After a while they agreed to leave her in peace, and she returned to her own village, which was only a few miles off. She came back in a day or two, bringing a present of Indian corn and sweet potatoes. She gave me the most minute and graphic account of her return home.

"I returned home. I go into the house of us two, my husband and mine. Then I cry, I cry all night, because he is dead. In the morning, I rise up, I go out, I faint for food; but first I call to my people, and they come, and we cry together. After that I eat." 1

An unfailing source of pleasure to our Maori visitors in those days was to play to them on the piano. The first time Mrs. Selwyn played to an old chief who had never heard of such an instrument, he wondered and wondered, and listened, and put his ear to it, and at last said, "Is there a man inside?"

One of our early friends was a heathen man from a neighbouring village. He was tall and strongly built, with a grim look on his tattooed face. He must have been a formidable foe in a fray. He was always gentle and pleasant in manner to us, and his kind old grizzle-haired wife became quite a friend of ours. The first time we saw her she did not look at her best. A canoe had been upset off the headland near our house, and one or two people drowned. She came over with some other women from the village to which they all belonged to have a "tangi" for

their dead. She cut her face with a piece of sharpened stone till blood and tears mingled, and rained down her cheeks. Old Kai-pa-ka, her husband, was quite a character. He was very much incensed at a storekeeper in town who had bought potatoes of him, and neglected to pay. He made his plaint to the Judge, who told him he must ask for payment till he got it. A day or two after he came about sunset in great triumph, with the long-owed five shillings tied up in the corner of his blanket. "How did you get paid?" said I. "Mother," said my grey-haired son, "I went in early this morning, and I sat on the step all day long, and I put my head in at the door every few minutes, and said, 'Pay me my money!' and at last they were so tired, they paid me."

He bustled up our hill one evening on his way back from town, and asked us for some large nails. When we asked what he wanted them for, he said they were for his wife's coffin. Of course, we began to bemoan the death of the kind old body. "No," quoth he, "she is not dead, but she will be by the time I get home; and, anyhow, it is a long way to come, and I want to have them ready." The nails were not given, and the wife recovered, and lived for some years longer.

At the end of this year, the Judge returned from another long march through the country, from Wellington to Auckland; and though some part of the way

could be traversed by canoe, there was a great deal of what Sir Francis Palgrave calls "travel and tramp"; yet, so exactly could the time of march be calculated that the Judge and the Bishop met on a given day beside Lake Taupo, as they had proposed to do many months before. The Judge's travelling companions this time were the Sheriff and Registrar. They had a merry party of natives, who carried a supply of flour, sugar, rice, and biscuits, and some bacon on their backs, besides blankets and a light tent. For the rest, the whole party depended on the hospitality of the Maoris, who in those days gave freely from their stores of potato and fish to the Manuhiri, – i. e., the stranger. Sometimes a pig could be bought, and the men, however heavily laden before, cheerfully carried a quarter of pork on their backs. Very quaint they looked, scrambling up the hills with a long unskinned hand or leg of "pig" dangling down behind. Great would be the feast at night. But these were rare festivities. Commonly the midday meal consisted of pancakes (minus eggs and milk), made light by the addition of scraped potatoes, and sweetened with brown sugar.

What a bustle and noise there was in the house and out of it when our travellers, with their tail of Maoris, returned! There is a delightful New Zealand word, ra-ru-ra-ru, which can hardly be done into English. It implies hurry-scurry, noise, bustle. But

then people in England do not really know what a bustle is in a native sense. There must be a native arrival to make the thing understood. First of all, every one talks at the top of his voice, and all at once. The men with their loads on their backs run in and throw them down with as much noise as possible. All their wants must be attended to at once by the mistress, for English servants were not, as a rule, over-friendly to the noisy, grimy fellows. One must give firewood, a pot to cook food in, matches, flour, sugar, tea, bread, potatoes, and pork; and, at last, the party, full of jokes and fun, would run down the hill, to eat and sleep and smoke and rest, and cat again; and there would be a little leisure to welcome the less impatient though not less hungry English travellers.

We were doubly anxious to be liberal after hearing a very good-tempered Maori man contrast the large-handed hospitality of his people to English travellers, with the "one pannikinful" of flour, – about half a pound, – doled out to him when he visited any one in Auckland.

The story of the journey made me long to have been of the party. They had visited Roto Mahana {Anglice, the Hot Lake), and slept on a little island. The rock on which they lay down was quite warm beneath them. Their food was cooked in steam, which came hissing out of the vents and crevices in

a mound of rocky fragments. Not many yards off was a pit, from which arose at intervals large blackish bubbles, sobbing as they broke, and sputtering hot mud on the sides. Below, natives up to their necks in the lake were chattering and laughing. The moon was full. As the steam from the hot pools rose out of the hollow, passing quietly upwards out of the turmoil in columns which gradually unrolled and expanded themselves in the calm moonlight, the whole scene appeared to the travellers strangely beautiful and almost preternatural.

Our new Governor and Mrs. FitzRoy began at once, on their arrival, in 1844, to interest themselves warmly in the improvement of the native people. He encouraged the writing of books for them; and a "Life of Peter the Great," and some sketches of the early British and Saxon history, were printed at the Government press and circulated among the people. About this time a short, fat, snub-nosed Maori man, with very thick, stumpy legs, came with some invalids, and stayed on, having attached himself to us, and was always ready to do any little jobs for a consideration. He was so ridiculously like Sancho Panza in "Don Quixote," that he might have sat for the picture, and was of an equally happy, contented spirit. He quite adopted the name of Sancho (I forget his own), and the servants always called

him by it. He was worthy of his namesake, for he had an insatiable appetite, and used to aggravate the maids by standing close to the kitchen window, flattening his nose against it, while he stared at them all through dinner-time. It chanced that while this hero was with us a great native feast was given by our Maori neighbours. It was only two or three miles off, the Governor and Mrs. FitzRoy were invited to be there, and all Auckland was present. Carriages were luxuries not to be obtained in those days. The Governor, his wife, and many ladies and gentlemen, rode out. Our friend, the protector of aborigines, lent me four tall, well-dressed Maori youths to carry me in a tasty little litter to the spot. It was well worth going to see. We passed between walls of baskets of potatoes piled up on each side to some ten feet in height. The baskets were all made of fresh green flax, woven by the women. After this we came to a long row of poles, on which was hung an immense supply of dried shark (the dogfish split in two), besides baskets of ku-me-ras (sweet potatoes), and other delicacies. There was a great gathering of native people scattered over the plain, and their red and white blankets and handsome mats, and the gay dresses of the English ladies, looked very bright in the sunshine. My "boys," in their white trousers, blue serge shirts, and straw hats, were most respectable

looking; but just as we reached the centre of fashion, in an unlucky moment, Sancho spied us out, and clad as he was, with only a dirty blanket above his bare, brown, legs, he rushed forward, pushed the front bearer aside, put his shaggy head between the poles, and trotted me triumphantly into the midst of the Court circle!

1 The Maoris after giving the first verb in their narrative in the past tense, throw it into a present form, somewhat in the way our poor people do, "I said, says I."

CHAPTER II: WAIMATE NATIVES. 1844

CHAPTER II.

WAIMATE NATIVES.
1844.

IN September, 1844, the Chief Justice had to go on circuit to Kororarika, a small English town in the north, and I accompanied him to visit the Bishop and Mrs. Selwyn, at the Waimate, thirty miles inland, where they were living. We stopped by the way at a little Mission station, where an English catechist, Mr. Kemp, and his wife had been settled for many years. A bend in the stream brought us suddenly in sight of it. Very pretty and peaceful it looked. The wild peach-trees were all in blossom, and there were huge patches of golden gorse. Just beside the house a little stream fell some eight feet over masses of rock, and kept up a continual murmur. There were eight little Maori girls living in the house. They came in to bring us tea, and looked very shy and demure at first, but soon brightened when we spoke to them in their own language, and sang hymns very prettily. Mrs. Kemp was a motherly, old-fashioned, Norfolk woman, who by her wise, loving ways contrived to win the hearts of all the women and girls around her.

We were told, many years after, that the nicest and most respectable native women in the neighbourhood were always found to be "Mother's" old scholars.

The next morning we started over the hills to the Waimate. Half a dozen strong bearers had been sent thence to carry me in an armchair slung on poles. As we travelled on, an old Maori man on horseback was seen approaching. The bearers put me down, and said, in a low voice, "It is Maketu's father." Poor old man; his son had been tried and executed for murder of an Englishwoman and her children, at the first sitting of the Supreme Court in 1842. He had been living as servant, and had some quarrel with his employer, a widow, about money. His father was a man of some position, and member of a very powerful tribe, who, had they chosen, could have sheltered him from justice. But they had no thought of doing so, and his own father gave Maketu up to be dealt with in accordance with our law. Crowds of natives attended the trial, and, as the man's guilt was evident from the first, they were the more impressed by the careful, patient investigation, and by the fact that the Crown assigned a counsel to conduct the prisoner's defence.

Months after Maketu's execution, when the Judge was travelling through the country, he heard the people telling the story outside his tent-door. They

sang about him, in a monotonous chant, as "the man who had put Maketu to death," but showed no sign of disapproval. The Majesty of the Law, unsupported by any military power, awed and impressed the native mind.

And now, for the first time, we were to meet the poor, old father. He got off his horse, held out his hand to the Judge, and then passed quietly on in silence.

The first part of the road was bare and dreary, but as we drew near to the Waimate, we passed through an old forest of stately Kauri pines. We crossed one or two clear streams, and, near to one of these, I saw, for the first time, a grand, old pine dying in the vigorous, cruel embrace of the Rata. 2 A year or two before, this Rata had been only a vine, as thick as one's little finger, clinging round the trunk of the pine for support, and now the strong branches had wound themselves round and round their benefactor, and were crushing him to death, and would soon become a huge forest-tree covered with crimson blossoms. As we approached the Mission station, we rejoiced to see fenced fields with cattle grazing, white houses embowered in trees, and beyond a church.

At the gate the Bishop met us with twelve of

his clergy and the students, in caps and gowns, and a goodly array of English and Maori boys, girls, and infants assembled with their masters, who greeted us with "God save the Queen" and many hurrahs. The infants struck up "Try, try, try again."

The Waimate was the old headquarters of the Church Missionary Society's Mission, and had quite a civilised appearance. A broad path led past the houses to the church; at a little distance was a mill-pond, with the miller's house and wheel, and a clump of pines at the back. This little wood had been "tapu" (sacred) in old days. The Maoris used to put their dead upon a wooden frame, which was hung on to the trees, and the body lay there till only the skeleton remained, and then came a solemn burying and mourning.

We often visited the native girls' school, which was under the charge of a clergyman's wife. She had taught them to spin flax, and they were very merry over their work, and sang many of our school songs amid the whirr of the wheels. The infant school was delightful, – plump, jolly Maori children, who clapped their hands and sang the multiplication-table with great glee. New Zealand children are pleasant to teach, they are so wide-awake and full of fun. I heard the Bishop catechise a large class of boys one day on a sermon which had been preached in Maori

on the previous Sunday. It was on the trials of Job, and the Bishop, who was a first-rate catechiser, drew the story from them. There was immense excitement about Job's possessions. One boy said he had a great number of horses, another cows, sheep, asses. One eager little fellow shouted out, "Thousands of nanny-nannys" (goats). Then the Bishop asked them what they would do if they were in a canoe in a rough sea, if it were heavily laden with gold and treasure, and there was fear of being upset. "Throw all the treasure overboard," was the general outcry; and so he went through the story, the boys' eyes kindling as they listened.

There was a sort of primitive school-feast one afternoon, and we all went to a wood about a mile off. It was a very hot afternoon, and we rejoiced to get under the shade of the large branches of the tree ferns. The girls gathered the long fronds and made a fairy bower, where they had their tea, and then the whole party ran shouting and leaping through the tangled bush.

In some ways a New Zealand wood is less beautiful than in the old country. One misses the ridings, and open spaces, and long vistas, and the old proverb becomes literally true, "You can't see the wood for the trees." But the luxuriant vegetation, the parasitical plants which fringe the huge trunks up to the topmost branches, the tangled

ropes of supple-jack, the giant skeletons of trees that have fallen and lie where they fall, still green with the mosses and ferns that grow on them, the tree ferns, with their chocolate-coloured, hairy stems, – all have a wondrous charm of their own. As we turned homewards the wood was lighted up by the glory of the setting sun. Soon the quiet Mission settlement came in view. The cows were being driven up for milking; the bell was ringing for even-song. These scenes of peaceful industry and Christian work made one realise the change wrought in this fierce, wild people. Only twenty-five years before, every man's hand had been against his neighbour.

There was a Translation Committee meeting day by day in the Bishop's study to revise the Maori Prayer-book. We often were admitted to listen to the animated discussion. The three revisers were the Rev. W. Williams, an Oxford man, who had joined his brother, the head of the New Zealand Mission, seventeen years before; an Irish clergyman, the Rev. R. Maunsell, an able man and a scholar, who spoke Maori like a native; and a layman, who had been brought up in the country from childhood.

There was a large confirmation of natives held while we were at the Waimate, and on the next day (Sunday) five English deacons were ordained, three of whom had long been catechists of the Church Missionary Society. Mr. Williams preached in

Maori. The church was crammed. It was grand to hear the people repeat the responses all together in perfect time. It was like the roar of waves on the beach. I had some pleasant peeps at the country around. We went one day to a wood less tangled than the last, and carpeted with moss. There were wild raspberry bushes and peach-trees growing there. Another time I rode to a "pah," or fortified village, surrounded on all sides by a high fence. At the corners of the fence were grotesquely-carved figures, with goggling eyes and tongues thrust out. There were neat little houses within, each with its patch of Indian corn and pumpkins. As we passed one of these, we heard a tangi going on for a dead child, and the mother's exceeding bitter cry, "Oh, my child, my child!" It was very touching, amid the beauty and brightness all around, to hear that desolate wail. We learned a good deal about the old habits of thought among the Maoris from a grey-haired man in deacon's orders, who had been many years in the country. He had been prepared by Mr. Whytehead, the Bishop's chaplain, before his death. The latter was a Fellow of St. John's, and a scholar and poet. The older man, though trained in a very different school of theology, sat like a disciple at the young man's feet, and always retained a most loving remembrance of his teaching, the two drawing together as good, earnest-minded men will.

He (Mr. Davis) told us that an Atua Maori, – that is to say, a man who professes to be possessed by a spirit, – had been disturbing the neighbourhood. The people, while accepting Christianity, and believing in God as the one true God, maker of heaven and earth, could not at once, any more than the early Christians converted from Paganism, give up their belief in the evil power that had so long been feared. William Thompson, – a very intelligent man, – told a friend of ours of what happened to him after his baptism. An old priest reviled him for turning away from the ancestral faith, and challenged him to hold a conference with the Maori god. William, half valiantly, half fearfully, agreed. He went into a house where the old priest was lying wrapped up in a blanket. Suddenly, as he sat by him, a shrill whistling cry came from the roof of the house. William, darted out to see if any one were outside, but no one was near. On his return, he plucked up courage to cry out: "You are a false or lying spirit, perhaps," and a low voice answered from the roof: "No, no! I am a true god!" Poor William was greatly scared, especially when the old priest warned him that this Atua Maori would destroy him. But after a while, finding he did not die, he took heart again. He, however, still thought it was Satan's voice. Our old friend, Mr. Davis, was not quite willing to receive our suggestion that the priest was a ventriloquist.

He had heard such strange things told him by grave, thoughtful men, after their conversion, of apparent Satanic agency, especially of spells and incantations uttered by the priests against enemies, and how the victim of them had withered away and died.

William Jowett had told us before of this old belief. He had a real fear of this Atua Maori, which had no shape, but dwelt within the priests, and might be heard from the roof of the house before a war expedition by its shrill, whistling cry.

We had a great gathering at the Waimate on Monday, September 22. The Maoris always came on that day to bring their wares for sale, and it was called market-day! But, unlike an English market, school and catechising were held in the chapel after morning prayers, before the traffic began. This day the people had heard a rumour of the Bishop's intention to remove to Auckland, and there was a great deal of speech-making on the subject. The speakers gathered in front of the drawing-room windows. A "powerful speaker" opened the debate. The audience seated themselves on either side of the path. The orator, a man of some standing, was dressed in a handsome native mat, and had a spear in his hand. He began by trotting slowly up and down a given space, always beginning and ending each sentence with his run to and fro. After a while he got warmed up and excited, and then he rushed

backwards and forwards, he leaped up off the ground, he slapped his thigh, shouted, waved his spear. Any one who had not understood the language, would have thought he was breathing out death and destruction, instead of urging the Bishop to stay among his people. It was very amusing to see the two brothers Williams stand up to answer him. They had lived so long in the land that they used Maori action, though they did not leap or rush about. Archdeacon Henry Williams, a stout, old-fashioned-looking clergyman, with broad-brimmed hat and spectacles, marched up and down with a spear in his hand, and elicited shouts of applause. Then his brother drew a large space on the gravel, and divided it into three parts, and asked whether it was not fair that the Bishop should live in the middle of the diocese instead of at either end. There was a loud murmur of voices, "It is just"; but all the same they did not like to lose him and his large party from among them. The relations on the whole between them had been most satisfactory. Only a few months, however, before our visit to the Waimate, a "taua," i. e., a fighting-party, had come to the Bishop's house to demand "utu" (payment) for a trespass. One of his young students had shot some wild ducks on a native preserve. An account has been given in the Bishop's life by one present, who probably did not speak the language,

and who tells it, therefore, au grand serieux. It was just at the time when John Heke, afterwards the leader of the first native war, was, with a party of turbulent young fellows, making himself troublesome. They had no intention probably to do more than "bounce," but the Bishop was equal to the occasion. He came out to the door as they were beginning to rush up and down, and make speeches, and work themselves up to a due pitch of excitement, and politely invited the few leaders into the house, saying that of course he must talk with them, not with the boys. By the time the leaders were seated on chairs in the dining-room, the power to get up steam had ceased. He then asked Heke if he was a baptised man. "Yes." "Then do you wish to go according to the old Maori law or the new Christian one?" After a little talk aside, the leaders of the fray all said, "By the Christian law." "Then," said the Bishop, "I will go by Zaccheus's rule. If I have taken anything wrongfully, I restore it fourfold. So I will pay four times the value of each duck." This was received with immense applause. A large supply of stirabout was then brought out for the comfort of John Heke and his tail, and they went off in great good-humour. 3

One more story, different in a way, though the peace-bringing result was the same, may be told here. A year or two after our visit to the Waimate there was fighting at the East Cape between hostile tribes. When both sides were exhausted, the Archdeacon in charge, the Rev. G. Kissling, a German missionary, induced them to meet at his place as neutral ground, to settle terms of peace. They appeared on the day fixed, with guns in their hands and plenty of ammunition. After a while the old hostile spirit began to manifest itself among the younger men, and the Archdeacon, fearing a fray, proposed to open the meeting with prayer. This was agreed to, and he wisely began the Litany, reading with much deliberation. As the last Amen was said, the two parties leaped to their feet, and

rushed towards each other. For a moment the good man's heart sank within him. But he soon saw that the guns were all laid aside, and the late enemies were embracing each other.

We started back at the end of October. It was an intensely hot day. The Bishop, Mrs. Selwyn, and the children were off by seven. Mrs. Selwyn and her little boy of five rode; the Bishop on foot with his infant son (the present Bishop of Melanesia) securely swathed in a plaid, which was thrown over his shoulder and wound round his waist. I followed, an hour later, in a little native litter with eight bearers. My husband brought up the rear on foot, with his Maoris carrying his bags and tent, as he meant to return overland to Auckland. Friends waved farewell, and the Maori children came swarming to the top of the lane, singing "Oh! that will be joyful." But there was little time for sentiment, for the men were in haste. They trotted up hill and down dale for two hours and a half, till we came to a little river, overhung by shrubs and trees, where the tent was pitched and the tethered horses grazing, and the Maoris stretched out at their ease. After lunch we crossed the shallow river, and the men scrambled up a steep bank with me, three holding the litter on each side. And so on again until we reached the Wai-tangi river, where a boat was to receive us. We sat under the shadow of a

tree, among some rocks by the side of a waterfall, and, on descending to the boat, soon came in sight of the grand falls. The river is very wide, and these falls are some fifteen or twenty feet deep. They looked most beautiful, and the foam had rainbow tints in the sunlight. We rowed across the harbour; and our kind old friend, Sir Everard Home, wanted us to dine on board H. M. S. North Star, which was lying at anchor there, but we could not stay, and landed before sunset at the little town of Kororarika, a sort of New Zealand Gravesend. It had been the resort of whalers in old days, and a few small wooden houses with verandahs running round them, and some third-rate public-houses were the main signs of English civilisation. But we went up to the little wooden parsonage which stood near the church, on a hill above the town, and found a garden, gay with flowers and shrubs, and some sheltering trees. We visited Paihia, a Mission station which nestles under some hills on the other side of the harbour. We went across in a whale-boat manned by natives, and landed on a shelly beach, along which lay the Mission houses, with the clear, blue water washing up almost to their doors.

The gardens were all ablaze with flowers. Honeysuckle, and passion-flowers, and cluster-roses hung in masses over the verandah, and here and there a tall aloe or native palm-tree rose towering up, and gave

a foreign air to the scene. We could see the vessels lying at anchor from the windows of the rooms, and the surf breaking on the shore. Good Mrs. Williams took me to a cool, shady room, with green hangings, and there I rested, and heard the lazy hum of bees, and smelt the fragrance of the flowers. Everything suggested peace and quiet, but there had been many a year of hard work, and privation, and anxiety, before this happy time could come, and only a few months later the horrors of war came within a few miles of the Mission station. Mrs. Williams told me many stories of her early experiences in New Zealand. She had been very delicate in England, and when her second boy was born had suffered from nervous fever, and had to be guarded from all noise. Her third child was born soon after their arrival. She was in a little hut on the beach, and was surrounded by wild people, who all talked at the top of their voices. She had no better fare than gruel which was sour, and ship-biscuits; but she throve on it, and grew strong in the fine climate. For many months she and her husband could get no vegetables but potatoes. Sometimes the Maoris would bring a basket of wild cabbage, or some large water-melons, and refuse to take any other payment than powder and shot, and with much longing she had to see the coveted food carried off again; but after a while they got some garden stuff of their own. She had a

brave heart always, and now, with her six tall sons and five daughters around her well-furnished table, in large, airy rooms, she told me that the past seemed like a dream. For it must be remembered by gentlemen of England who sit at home at ease, that these early pioneers had many hardships in their day, and witnessed many a terrible scene of heathen bloodshed and fury.

Some one pointed out to me a chimney, the first erected, which was built by William Williams. He had been seen standing on the rounds of a ladder, with a trowel and mortar in his hand, hard at work, and a Latin grammar fixed before him, while his little son went through his lessons. In the very early days the whole Mission party lived in rough native houses, and were dependent on scanty supplies from chance ships from Sydney. Mrs. W. Williams and her little flock moved to the East Coast in 1837, and I have often heard her tell of her early difficulties.

She had but two rooms for bedroom and parlour, and kitchen, and all, and had a young baby in arms, and for days and days after her arrival, people came pouring in all day long to look at her, filling up the little space in the most uncomfortable manner. Yet it did not do to offend the people whom they had come to win and help. A great amount of bodily fatigue and daily worry must fall on the missionary's wife in a wild country. She herself must wash and

cook and bake till she has trained her raw material, and when the native helps have been at last taught to work, they need constant overlooking. If she has children, she must make clothes and mend for them, and teach and nurse them, and yet manage to find time to keep school and mix medicines, and listen to long stories from people to whom time is no object.

I took a class of old Maori women one Sunday afternoon, and tried to get some of the Archdeacon's sermon out of them. But they seldom got beyond the opening, "Oh, my friends," about which they were all clear. Nevertheless, the good bodies had got hold of Christianity, or rather it of them, in a practical way. They might have said, as an old Maori woman long afterwards said to me, "Mother, my heart is like an old kete {i. e., a coarsely-woven basket). The words go in, but they fall through."

2 Metrosideros florida.

3 Years after, a delightful friend of ours, a calm, quiet man, who was acting as Native Secretary, allayed the fury of an old chief in a very original way. He had come up with a party of men from the heart of the country. A woman from his tribe had been killed by an Englishman with whom she was living. This old chief feared that the murderer would be acquitted, and he came to the Native Secretary's office with a little tomahawk in his hand, and danced about the room and nourished it over his own head and our friend's, and got more and more fierce. When his wrath was at boiling pitch, Major N. calmly said, "Ki-wi, would you like a pair of boots?" Of course our barefooted hero was delighted at such an offer, and sat down at once to try on a pair of heavy military boots. They were rather tight, and he was unused to such luxuries, and by the time he had got them on he took his leave, full of smiles and gratitude.

CHAPTER III: WAR IN THE NORTH. 1845-6.

CHAPTER III.

WAR IN THE NORTH.
1845-6.

WE were settled at home again before the end of the year, and the large party, from the Waimate, composed of English and natives, had encamped in tents till St. John's College could be ready to receive them. Early in March, 1845, news reached us of the probability of a war in the North. John Heke, of whom I spoke before, and a large party of turbulent young men cut down the flag-staff at Kororarika for the second time. It had been cut down by him a few months before, on the ground that the Queen's flag flying on it was a proof that the sovereignty of the native chiefs was at an end. Another grievance in his eyes was that, instead of the old clause in the Litany where prayer was made for the native chiefs, the Queen's name was, introduced. But it was probably an outbreak on the part of young New Zealand, who, like our forefathers, enjoyed a fray. A new flag-staff was put up, and protected by a block-house, guarded by twenty soldiers. A little before sunrise on the 11th of March, Heke, seeing that the officer on guard had

drawn off most of the men to a little distance to strengthen the entrenchment, rushed up the hill with his men, cut off the retreat of the soldiers, killed the sentinels, and took possession of the blockhouse. The keeper of the signals was badly wounded, and his wife and daughter taken prisoners. But Heke, with the chivalry that distinguished his conduct throughout (an indirect result of his Christian training), at once sent them with a flag of truce to the nearest English post, and remained within gunshot of the fort till he saw that both were safely lodged under shelter. We learned all the details of the attack from our Bishop, who had gone up two days before in his little Mission cutter to look after the Mission families and the schools. It was due to his prompt action and sagacity that our people were saved from a terrible disaster. A house on the beach had been strongly fortified as a stockade, and into this all the women and children were crowded. The Bishop saw that nothing was being done in the confusion for their safety, and went off in his little boat to shore, bringing four women and nine children to his cutter, and then induced an American man-of-war and a whaler that had just arrived in harbour to lend all their boats, and to give them shelter on board their vessels. Two hours after, a powder-magazine exploded within the stockade, and set the house on fire, where, but for his exertions, most

of these helpless creatures must have perished. One brave woman remained behind to nurse any men who might be wounded. She was found buried under the ruins, and seriously injured. Two men were carried on board H. M. S. Hazard, where they died. Several more were terribly burned, and one died on the voyage down to Auckland. But amid all these horrors it was thankworthy to see how Christianity controlled the wild passions even of those who had not embraced it. The Bishop and Archdeacon Williams went on shore again that evening to bury the dead and found to their comfort that the bodies of the soldiers were lying where they had fallen, with their clothes, and accoutrements untouched. Many of the natives who were busily plundering the deserted town were heathen; but there was no attempt to mutilate the dead bodies, or to hinder the funeral service being read over them. The scene presented some comic touches amid the tragedy. The general looting was being carried on with great composure. The insurgents neither quarrelled over the spoil nor resented any attempt on the part of the settlers to recover a part of their property. Some of the natives were carrying off casks of spirits. One young fellow good-humouredly assented to the Bishop's proposal to turn the cork, and let the contents be poured out. Others promised to drink very little. At the Waimate, whether the Bishop next went, a large

body of Christian natives came flocking out to meet him with hearty shouts of welcome. As soon as he entered his old home, the seventy little children of the boarding-school, who were all in bed, came downstairs, crowding round him and holding his hand by turns. One of the native teachers said: "Though the heavens are black around us, this is the bright spot of blue sky, which gives hope that the storm will soon pass away." They all pledged themselves to defend the missionaries and their families, and the latter were quite firm in their resolve to stay at their post.

As the Bishop rode back to Kororarika, the town was in flames. In the bosom of the dark hills, the smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace. But he found that the Roman Catholic and English Churches and parsonages had been spared. In an hour or two, the American and English men-of-war, the whale-ship, and the gallant little Flying Fish, were all under weigh with their sorrowful freight of three hundred homeless refugees, besides the wounded, and came to anchor in our harbour about midnight on Saturday, March 15th.

Auckland was in a high state of excitement the next day. Our little Irish housemaid hurried back from church to tell me the news. "Oh, ma'am, it is so awful. We heard the trucks go by with the wounded while we were at Service; and, please ma'am,

John Heke is coming to take Auckland next Wednesday. "We went up in the afternoon to St. Stephen's, a little stone church just built for the use of any Maoris who happened to be in the town. It was full of men and women, who had assembled for Scripture reading and catechising. The door stood open. All nature was in repose; not a ripple on the water; yet, just beyond the wooded headland which shut in our bay towards the town, rose the tall masts of the ships which had brought down so many of our sorrowful and suffering people. A day or two after I was alone in the drawing-room, when our huge friend, William Jowett, rushed in, breathless with excitement, to tell me that he and a large party had come to defend our house in case Heke should bring down a war-party. I laughed, and told him that the soldiers ought to defend us. But he looked very serious, and said: "No, it won't do to lean on them." "What do you think of the sailors, then?" He pondered awhile, and answered: "Well, they would do better, perhaps; but you must have us. We know best about Maori warfare." Dear old fellow, it was pleasant to see his heartiness and genuine affection for his English friends. A good deal of fear was felt for some days, and many people buried plate and other valuables. If Heke and his men, flushed with success, had come swiftly down the old war-path by which the Judge had found his way in the previous autumn,

he might have done great mischief. But all around remained quiet, and the Waikatos hastened to assure the Governor of their friendship and allegiance. We could not feel afraid, because we knew the Maoris. Mrs. Selwyn went down about this time to Otaki, in the south, with her husband, and wrote to me: "We are more completely among the Maoris than I have ever been before. Certainly, if you wish to be at ease about the people, the way is to live among them. They are extremely civil, and I am mixing medicine every day in great tranquillity. They arc so comical, and willing to take anything you give, and to think it very good; and they imagine that they know nothing, and you know everything, and they look up to you, and cling to you at all points. We had a gradually increasing tail from the time we sighted the Pah, and when we reached the house it might have put O'Connell to the blush."

The war in the north continued for a year, though we had a valuable ally in Thomas Walker, a man of great influence there, who brought a large force with him. It might not have ended even then, but for a happy chance, which obtained a bloodless victory. Heke had built a new pah, and it was invested by a large force of soldiers, Naval Brigade, and native allies. It had been bombarded for some hours on the Saturday, and the storming of it – a most perilous undertaking – was to take place on

Monday. On the Sunday morning, however, some sailors and marines straggling from our camp, found that the pah was empty. The insurgents, not expecting an attack, had all gone out, some to cook food, and the Christian section to hold service. In a short time our troops were in possession, and although the Maoris, after the first surprise, tried with great courage to drive them out, they were not able. John Heke soon after sued for peace, and all his followers went quietly home, and he remained a peaceable subject ever after. There was so much chivalry about him, that he was much admired by the soldiers and sailors. One of the naval officers spoke of him to us as a noble enemy. There were touches of generosity that reminded one of Froissart's stories. In one case, the Maoris surprised two young officers who had ridden out to reconnoitre. They took their swords from them, upbraided them for not keeping a better look-out as servants of the Queen, and then, giving them back their swords, let them go. A naval officer told us also of his going out with a small party of sailors, and suddenly finding himself on the brow of a low hill overlooking a valley, in which a large force was encamped. They were greeted at once with a shower of bullets, and were obliged to lie down in the high fern for shelter. If ever they ventured to peep over, a bullet came whistling from below. Just before sunset, our friend heard singing,

and thought that he could make out the tune of the Evening Hymn. His foes were going to have prayers. In a minute he and his men were up and running for their lives. Short as the service probably was, it gave him time to escape.

Lieutenant Philpott, a son of the Bishop of Exeter, was killed while getting up a scaling ladder, in one attempt to storm Heke's Pah. He was a great favourite with the Maoris. They admired his pluck, and used to hail him in a very friendly manner from within their stockade.

CHAPTER IV: PEACE AND ITS FRUITS. 1847.

CHAPTER IV. PEACE AND ITS FRUITS.
1847.

IT was not till July, 1847, that peace was made through the length and breadth of the land, for there was fighting in the south at intervals for nearly two years. When all was quiet, the new Governor, Sir George Grey, presented the old warrior, Te Rau-pa-ra-ha, with a gig and horse, and his son immediately set to work to make a good road to Wellington, and so the country was opened. No sooner was all quiet than the natives began almost literally to turn their swords into ploughshares, and set to work with all their strength of purpose to grow wheat. The Governor wisely encouraged this movement by presents of ploughs and horses, and by giving money towards the erection of mills.

One old chief sat up all night after the arrival of his plough-horse to talk to it and caress it. "What is the good of your doing that?" said a matter-of-fact settler to him, "he can't understand you." "Can't he?" said the old man, with a knowing nod, "then why do you say 'Gee up' and 'Whoa'?" "Daughter," wrote a white-headed man to me from

the Island of Waiheke, "ask the Governor to give me also a plough. Women's words are very powerful. You will get one for your loving son Hori – i. e., George."

But it was not mere child's play. Everywhere large tracts of wheat were grown, and the natives contributed largely towards the erection of mills. Many bought cows, and friends of ours travelling through the country a year or two later were pleasantly surprised to find home-baked bread and fresh milk offered to them in the villages, instead of potatoes only. This general stir throughout the country made us acquainted with the tribes that lived in the interior, near to the hot springs and lake district on the East Coast. The soil was not favourable for wheat-growing, but they brought scraped flax and Indian corn to Auckland. To do this they had to buy cutters or schooners. There were one or two good harbours near. It was wonderful to see the amount of patience and self-denial exercised by these wild people. No one man could obtain money enough to buy a vessel. It must be a tribal purchase, and become tribal property. Whole villages – men, women, and children – worked for months, scraping flax, till the money was raised. They made poor bargains generally, buying a worn-out tub of some trader; but they had no fears, and the little craft would run up and down the coast laden with produce till she got knocked to pieces in a gale of wind, or foundered on the rocky

coast, often with great loss of life. One poor fellow came to us in much grief. We had warned him not to buy the vessel offered for sale, but he and his people were too eager to wait, and it very soon suffered shipwreck. "Mother," he began, "my heart is as black as my trousers." Very often these native vessels were detained for a week or two in Auckland by adverse winds, and as most of the women, with their children, accompanied their husbands, there was much distress for want of food. A deputation would then be sent to us, praying for an order for flour and sugar, with many promises of payment when the next potato crops should be ripe. Of course we lectured them on their improvidence; but we always ended by giving an order for food, and most faithfully did they repay us. Months after a large party might be seen toiling up our hill, laden with potatoes or corn, and there was generally a basket or two extra in token of their gratitude.

These Ma-ke-tu and Roto-rua natives were very unlike our first friends, the Waikatos. They have a harsh provincial accent, and a very blustering manner. One of our first acquaintances among them was a huge old Titan named Tanga-roa (Long man). His people at Ma-ke-tu had deservedly obtained the character of being very lawless, and had lately plundered a schooner that was wrecked on the coast. He handed us, with modest pride, a bit of dirty paper, which he

brought out from under his blanket – a testimonial, as he deemed, of good conduct. It was from the captain: – "I certify that Tanga-roa had nothing to do with the plundering of my vessel, because he was away at the time." A large party of Roto-rua men was in Auckland when Government House was burned down. A friend of Sir George Grey's had just arrived, who had lately been through the Kaffir war. They sat up late, talking over the condition of the Maoris. The more strongly the Governor dwelt on their good faith and loyalty, the more did the new-comer warn him to trust no coloured race.

Captain K – – – - woke up from his first sleep with a sense of oppression, and, looking out, found that the house was in flames, and saw a number of huge, wild-looking, naked men (as he supposed) sacking the place. They had gallantly volunteered to save the property, and to a large extent succeeded.

One of our Roto-rua acquaintances was a very remarkable man named To-hi. He had some years before (since our coming into the country) been concerned in an act of cannibalism. It was hard at first not to shrink from welcoming him. He was a thickset, short man, with a keen, strong-willed expression, the eyes bloodshot and fierce, but the whole expression was rather thoughtful and intelligent than savage.

The cause of his cruel raid on a neighbouring tribe was that a fine boy of his had started on a

journey to them, and was never heard of again. He was probably drowned crossing some river, or lost in the forest. In the wild, passionate grief of a father, he took up the notion that they had killed and eaten him. They had been hostile in old days. Soon this notion, confirmed by wild rumours, grew into belief, and he and his men surprised and killed a number of his old enemies, and had a cannibal feast afterwards. When the Judge spoke reprovingly to Tohi of this deed, he grew wildly excited – his eyes glowed like red embers. He took up a ruler that lay near, and striking rapid blows on the table, he burst out: "Why should I not? They took my child and slew him, and roasted his liver in the fire. Why do you condemn the practice? Beasts of prey eat beasts, birds eat birds, fishes eat fishes – why should not man eat man?" Then, suddenly softening, he said quietly: "But I know it is contrary to English ways of thinking, and it shall be done no more." After a while he looked round at the various ornaments in the room, and said: "Friend, I am a son of Mate-te Kapua" (the mythic ancestor of his tribe, and a mighty lifter of property). "My fathers, when they desired a thing, stretched forth their hands and took it. I do not do this, but the hands of my heart go forth towards them. Take my child" (a boy of ten, his only remaining one) "and teach him your ways, that neither the hands of his body nor of his heart may covet."

This wild man had good stuff in him. He put himself under Christian teaching, though he was never baptised. He became a very efficient magistrate under the Government, took the names of the Police Magistrate and the Acting Governor, and always signed his name, Beckham Wynyard Tohi. He died, fighting on our side, in the war of 1863. His wife was beside him when he fell, and directly shot the man dead who had killed him.

It often makes one shudder to hear the stale, flippant jokes about cannibalism indulged in by Christian men and women in England. We have heard young Maori men who had embraced Christianity speak with loathing of having been forced, as little children, to swallow some of the cooked flesh of their fathers' enemies. The youngest male child must take part in this deadly insult to the vanquished. Before joining in it, they were put into a state of tapu by the priest, from which they could only be released by certain spells and prayers.

"Why do your missionaries," said a clever Maori to us, "speak to us thus: 'Your sins of drunkenness, adultery, theft, and the like'? As far as I can see, English and Maoris are alike in these respects." Then he lowered his voice, and said: "One sin we had – a detestable one, which you Pakehas do not commit – but we have put that away."

It was wonderful to see how much strong common-

sense our New Zealanders had, which restrained them in times of wild excitement. They had from the beginning of the colony shown reverence for law. When the Judge was returning home through the bush, in 1843, he stayed for two days at Taupo, in the heart of the country, and had much talk with a grand old heathen chief, named Te Heu-heu. He was a man of huge size and height, and of commanding presence. He had ten or twelve wives, was a regular autocrat, and was looked up to with awe by all the people of the district. He was very civil and friendly, but did not disguise his opinion that our laws were unnecessarily cruel. "Why do you keep a prisoner for days and days awaiting his trial? If any one commits a crime here, I knock him on the head at once. Then, too, you put people in prison for such small things. Now, Judge, listen to me. If a man were to dare to take one of my wives or to take this" (pointing to a beautiful hatchet made of green stone, and highly polished, which he carried in his hand), "I should kill him, of course, at once; but if he pilfers little things, I take no notice," and he drew himself up with an air of fine contempt at our "mean white" notions of justice.

Some years after this, a party of Waikato natives came into Auckland to trade, and one young fellow, in a high-handed fashion, snatched a shirt from a shop, and ran off with it. He was at once pursued,

captured, and put into the lock-up. Now, the Waikato tribe had a very high opinion of themselves. They had, in old days, been mighty warriors, and had always, from the beginning, been staunch friends to the English. This capture, therefore, wounded the feelings of the whole party deeply, and they at once cleared out of the town, and went, in high dudgeon, to the village of some kinsfolk, three miles off. We were staying at St. John's College, and as soon as the Judge heard of the excitement, he walked down with Archdeacon Abraham to see them. As they went down the hill towards O-ra-ke-i not a sound was to be heard or a man to be seen; but, as they turned towards the village, a hundred men sprang up from the bush and began to dance the war-dance. When that was over, a speaker rose and began a vehement speech, running up and down as he spoke: "Now is a shirt for the first time become something great; now is a shirt to bring disgrace upon Waikato," and so on. The Judge waited till he had done, and then very quietly pointed out that the law must be obeyed in small matters as well as in great, and that small thefts led on to bolder deeds of violence. One or two more speakers had their say, but the tone soon softened down. In about half-an-hour, the native teacher came up with a prayer-book to the Archdeacon, and whispered: "Things are all quiet now; will you not read evening prayers?" This, of course, was done, and the malcontents joined

in heartily, and the next day returned to Auckland to trade, and left the young man to bear a short imprisonment.

There was great feeling another time about the trial of an Englishman who had quarrelled with and killed a Maori woman with whom he was living. The old chief of her tribe, Kiwi by name, came up to Auckland. He was a short, excitable, wild-looking man, and threw out dark hints to the Native Secretary that, if favour was shown to the prisoner, it might become unsafe for travellers to pass through his district. "The cliffs," he said, "were steep there, and the path ran along the top of them. Moreover, when Maketu killed an Englishman, the Maoris gave him up to be executed. Why should not this prisoner be given up to the Maoris?" He was answered, "Has Kiwi got any man in his tribe as learned and impartial as the English Judge?"

"No," said he, "we have no man like him." On the day of the trial, he appeared early in the morning at our house with a large party, and announced his intention of accompanying the Judge to Court. The Judge quietly answered that it was contrary to our law to appear to side with or show favour to either party. This the old man agreed to as a just rule. When the verdict of manslaughter was brought against the prisoner, he submitted quietly to the decision, and came to breakfast with us before he left Auckland.

CHAPTER V: NATIVE SCHOOLS. 1848.

CHAPTER V.

NATIVE SCHOOLS.
1848.

THE happiest result of restored peace in the country was the establishment of boarding-schools. The Bishop, when he had to leave the Waimate, brought down his staff of students, teachers, and native and English boys; and set to work at once to get buildings erected on a site chosen by himself and the Chief Justice, for the future St. John's College. Meanwhile the whole party encamped beside a little copse, at the head of a creek about half-a-mile off. It was a lovely spot, for the high banks were thickly wooded to the water's edge, and the rimu, which droops like our weeping willow, and the yellow kowai, abounded. The College, when the party moved up to the higher ground, was far less picturesque. The grey scoria houses stood out on the bleak, high ground, unsheltered by a single tree, and all around was fern-land. The view over the harbour was, however, magnificent, and the position a very healthy one. There were great capabilities, too, for landscape gardening, which the Bishop at once recognised. The ground sloped through a wooded

glen, full of tree-ferns, to the sea. He had winding paths cut, and the lads made flower-beds, and planted fruit-trees and flowering shrubs in the hollow. Every year saw some improvement. The sour clay soil, tilled for the first time, improved under culture; the fern gave way to grass. There were playing fields for cricket (at which the Maori boys were quite equal to their English companions and partners), and pastures for the cattle and sheep; and after a while College hall, and hospital, and chapel were built, and the place grew into working order. Year by year the Bishop went the round of his diocese in his little vessel, and never failed to bring up from the southern settlements a party of bright-eyed little lads. This alone showed the wonderful change effected by the new teaching. No Maori in old days would have dared to trust his child into the neighbourhood of enemies such as the Waikatos had been; but now the applications were more than could be entertained, through want of space in the vessel and want of funds, and these from old prejudiced, superstitious relatives, who, brought up themselves amid bloodshed and evil, desired a better training for their children. The boys themselves soon settled down cheerfully to their new life. Some learned to print, some to weave, some to work on the farm; one rather dull, heavy-looking lad, named Solomon, was set in charge of the poultry-yard, and in his weekly written list of his

work out of school entered "feeding fools." Two young married men from the South volunteered to spend a year at the College. One of them was the son of the great warrior, Te Rauperaha. They brought their wives, and made themselves quite at home. The elder one, Thompson, was, however, quite of the mind of many more civilised men. He did not see the good of working for posterity. After a hard day's work of ploughing he came grumbling to us: "One might as well be in Egypt under Pharaoh! I would not mind a bit putting in potatoes, because I should be here to eat them; but why should I toil to grow wheat for new-comers?"

It was a joyful day when the College Chapel was finished and opened. It was only a wooden building, with hip roof, but it had transepts and a double apse, with five lights in each, filled with good painted glass. A friend gave a stone font for the west end, with the words in Maori carved round it: "Go ye into all the world and baptise." The woodwork inside was varnished to a rich, warm, brown colour.

It was a grand sight to look round, and see the chapel crammed with boys and youths – English, Maori, Melanesian – all taking their part in the daily service. It brought home forcibly to the heart the old Bible truth that "God has made of one blood all nations of men." None present could forget the service held there on St. Bartholomew's Day,

1850, after the Bishop's faithful friend, Mr. Abraham (afterwards Bishop of Wellington, N. Z.) had joined him, and the first College Council was held. There was a confirmation of some of the native boys, and then the Bishop preached, and took for his text, "Bartholomew." He began by saying that all really known about the Apostle was his name, and then, with kindling eyes, he spoke of three eras in the Christian Church – first, of that happy time when there was work without talk; of the present time, when there was work going on and much talk; of the danger of a time coming, when there might be talk without work.

Remembering his silent steadfastness of purpose, always doing the work before him, whether great or small, as under the Master's eye, we listened with reverent awe. How many of his sayings have sunk into the hearts of his hearers. "If you are in any doubt what to do, do the thing least pleasing to yourself, and you will be generally right." He used to dignify all work, the homeliest and lowest, by pressing on us the thought of its being entrusted to us as stewards to be done faithfully as unto the Lord. Once, when the cutting up of meat for daily rations was an unpopular task with the students, he preached a sermon, which his friends called the sublimation of Carnefex.

He shrank from no work. I have seen the Bishop

for an hour at a time taking the dullest of the English or Maori boys, and patiently trying to draw out what they knew. He would put a question again and again, altering the form of it, helping the hearer by some illustration, and well content if he got at last an answer. He delighted in the rule of a great catechiser: "Put the facts in during one lesson, and pump them out in the next." He was trying once in chapel to get out of his Melanesian class, who knew some English, what was the meaning of the word in Scripture, "liar." After much patient questioning, the face of one of the boys lit up, and he answered gravely: "All same gammon."

After a while, boarding-schools were started in the Waikato, on the same broad outline as St. John's, and at much less expense. The Government gave head-money, the missionaries gave their services freely as teachers, the parents brought produce instead of school fees. At first it was feared that the children would dislike the restraint, and run away. A few did at first, but the elder lads, who liked the training, formed themselves into a police force, and brought the runaways back. But soon boys and girls flocked in and remained for some years. We had a large girls' school near us, built by the Government on Church land. Many of the pupils came from the East Coast, 200 miles' distance, to be under the care of their old, loved missionaries, Archdeacon and Mrs. Kissling.

We tried to get some children from Waiheke, and William Jowett and others entrusted five little girls to "Mother's" care. But after a while the mothers came up and found their girls doing some little bits of house-work, and went back in high dudgeon to say that they were being made slaves of, and must return. So the fathers came up by canoe the next morning. The children were having lessons in our house, looking bright and happy in their print frocks and white aprons, with their hair smooth and glossy. We used every argument with the men in vain, and at last I cried out in despair, "Why do you men listen to your wives in this way?" One of them, with a droll, sheepish look, caught up a bit of wood, and whittling it to a sharp point, which he prodded against his hand, said, "Mother, your words are just; but, you see, though women's words are not powerful, they are very sharp, and they go on – on – on." So we lost our scholars. Tribal jealousies kept some from sending their daughters, lest the boys from St. John's College should fall in love with them, and try to marry them, and so the wife's land would be lost to her people. And so it turned out The lads and lasses did fall in love with each other, and we had many a gay wedding. The first of these went off brilliantly. The bridegroom was a north-countryman, and had been brought by the Bishop from the Waimate. He was clever and steady, and

spoke English fluently. Years after, when Philemon was in holy orders, he not unfrequently read the lessons in English at our church, with less foreign accent than most Germans. The bride, Harriet, was a very pretty, gentle girl. We went across in boats and canoes to the College creek. There was one drawback. The bride's great friend was to have been married at the same time to another Colleger, but her relatives refused their consent. He was not of high rank enough, and of a hostile tribe. Many "committees" were held; at last the old mother and the brothers yielded, and the wedding clothes were bought, when down came a blustering heathen party, and forbade the banns. Poor girl, she came to the shore with us, looking like Cinderella in her working dress, and sat crying there, and the bride cried too, for sympathy.

A canoe, gay with red ochre and carved prow adorned with bunches of white sea-birds' feathers, conveyed the bride across the harbour. We stopped at a cottage in the wood at the landing-place. Hogarth might have liked to sketch the scene. The light streamed in through the half-closed shutters of the empty house. Some of the girls, seated on heaps of straw, were smoothing their black hair; others knelt by the bride, and tied a white satin ribbon round her head. We were met by the parents and twenty men who were waiting to escort her to

the chapel, at the door of which stood a party of English, Maori, and Melanesian lads, who had been decorating the church with flowers and tree-ferns. After the service, we went to the Hall for the wedding breakfast.

The father, William Hobson, was a man of some standing in his own place, and of yet higher position in his own opinion. He was a thoroughly good man, who accepted the new teaching as soon as it was brought to him, and lived a Christian life ever after. But he was very solemn and pedantic, and, being appointed a lay reader, he always dressed in black clothes and wore a huge white tie. He had once suggested that he should like a bishop's apron. His face was a wonderful work of art; it was tattooed all over, save one little triangular patch on the forehead, just above the nose. His wife was a quiet, gentle body, and most loyal to her husband, whom she always spoke of as "my chief."

The real chief of Harriet's tribe came to the wedding – a grand-looking old man, grey-headed, huge of limb, and with the calm dignity of one born to command. He was dressed in Maori fashion – a much more becoming one than our tight-fitting garments. The bride's little sister, a child of seven, sat on the Bishop's knee. After breakfast, William Hobson made a capital speech. He referred to the old time, when the Maoris had no light to guide

them. They had not asked the English to come among them; but now they had come, the Maoris could not but see that their ways were the best, and he, for one, meant to follow the new rule of life. Then a little man in good broadcloth bustled up from the end of the hall and stood in front of the Bishop. "He did not mean to make a long speech," he said; "only to express his approval of the new rules of life, and that he meant to abide by them for ever and ever. Amen."

There were about thirteen Melanesian boys present who had been brought from different islands by the Bishop on his winter voyage. They enjoyed the roast beef and plum-pudding as though they had been English born, and joined heartily in the hurrahs. One of the students acted as interpreter to them, and Siapo, a noble-looking young fellow from the Loyalty Islands, got up and made a very modest, manly speech, and expressed his desire that his people also should be taught and trained in Christian ways.

The Maori boys and girls between the speeches sang English glees and catches with great spirit. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the New Zealanders, when properly taught, had much musical talent and very good voices. We had noticed, from the first, the perfect time that they kept, not only when responding in church, but when singing songs as they paddled. But their native music, when they

chanted their old songs, was harsh and monotonous, and their attempts to follow our hymn-tunes most deplorable. No sooner, however, were the young people in the school taught to read music by the figure system, and trained by regular practices weekly, than we found out the gift of song that was in them. The girls used to sing some of Mendelssohn's Chorales with great spirit and accuracy. It is quite common nowadays for young New Zealanders to play the harmonium and act as organists in their native churches.

Poor Cinderella had not, after all, to wait long for her wedding. The fame of the feast spread abroad. The malcontents yielded. Forty-five men of her tribe came to the wedding, headed by their old chief, and the bridegroom was graciously received among them.

The schoolmaster was abroad all through the country, even where there were no regular schools established. Young and old set themselves to learn to read and write. One young woman whom we knew, the wife of a heathen at Ma-ke-tu, desired to be baptised. She had no one to teach her, for her husband was quite indifferent on the subject, so she determined to learn to read. It was a busy time of year, when all were scraping flax. She had no leisure in the day, but every evening she walked up to her brother's house to be taught by him. He was a

Christian teacher, and had come from a distance on a visit. Often she sat up till past midnight taking her lesson, and at the end of three months she could read very well, and was admitted soon after as a candidate for baptism. Her husband so admired her perseverance that he began to attend church with her. Another woman, who read very well, told me that she used to look over her husband's shoulder when he was reading aloud, and so learned.

It is yet more surprising how readily the adult Maoris teach themselves to write. This is the case, apparently, with all the native races. Very unlike the painful efforts of the steadiest lads in an English night school. They enjoy writing letters heartily. When the Mission vessel goes to Melanesia there is a mail-bag full from the boys and girls to their relatives.

CHAPTER VI: OUR HOSPITAL. 1842-56.

CHAPTER VI.

OUR HOSPITAL.
1842-56.

THIS title sounds very grand, and may suggest a picture of a wooden or brick building with all sorts of comfortable appliances. Ours was rough and primitive: at first, it consisted of two or three rough huts and a blanket tent, but friends from England sent us some money, and we had a three-roomed house built. Our Waiheke people took the contract, and brought uprights and much raupo (bulrush) in their canoes. When it was finished, we and they looked at it with great admiration, for there were two windows and a door supplied by an English carpenter. There were two bed places in each room, raised a foot from the ground. Instead of mattresses we had fresh-cut fern, which could be renewed with each new patient. No fear of hospital fever clinging to the walls: the wind blew freely in through the open door. Kitchen physic came from our house: in those days we rarely could get beef, or fowls, or butter, and the Maoris would not eat mutton, nor did they like milk; rice, and sugar, bread and treacle, and sometimes pork was all we could supply.

We abstained from the "twa simples, laudamy and calamy," which Sir Walter Scott's ex-horse-doctor delighted in, and used only safe drugs. For coughs we made rosemary tea with treacle and a soupcon of ipecacuanha; for dropsy, the tops of elder shoots and Spanish broom. For swelled joints we applied poultices of sea-weed, and the wild marsh-mallow for sores. Mustard plasters were in constant request. The sternest homoeopathist would have been softened by the sight of the enjoyment afforded by these irritants. If a man had one on his chest, no sooner was it taken off than he would beg leave to apply it to back or side. Often after doing much duty on his own person, he handed it on to an ailing friend.

In 1847 a Government Hospital was built, and one ward set apart specially for native patients. We could rarely, however, persuade one to go, though we dwelt on the advantage of a regular doctor and the many appliances. The homeliness of our arrangements and the simplicity of our rules, and above all the fact that we could talk Maori, made our place popular. Then, too, they were close to the sea; and on all fine days (and sometimes, to our wrath, on wet ones) they crawled out to watch the canoes skim by and to enjoy the sea breezes.

Many touching tales could be told of hopeless cases brought to us during fourteen years of hospital work. One of these was a slave lad, who had been carried

away from his home in the south by a war party, when he was a child. We had seen him before and employed him to cut firewood. He was a dull, plain-looking lad, very quiet and obliging. When he fell ill, the people of the village where he lived brought him by canoe some forty miles and laid him on the beach below our house. We could not leave him there to die, with no one to minister to him, so our native boy put up a rough shed close to us. From the first his case was hopeless: he had pleurisy and fever, the weather was intensely hot, and he lay parched and restless on his fern bed. We could do little to relieve him save to stand by and brush the flies from his face, or to give him cooling drinks or fruit. After some days of suffering borne most patiently, he asked to be baptised. My husband put some questions to him as to his knowledge of and belief in the Christian religion, and was so well satisfied with his answers that he fetched the English chaplain, who could read though he could not speak Maori. He came at once and began the service; it was a wonderful scene: the rough shed, the wasted body of the dying boy, the dim, lustreless eyes, and then the contrast. As the last words were ended and Merika was baptised by the name of William, he opened his eyes with a brightness unseen before, and, looking up steadfastly, a happy smile lit up his face, and without a struggle he fell asleep. "Carried of angels," perhaps, as such

another sufferer was. Devout men laid his body to rest in the little churchyard close by, with sure and certain hope of a blessed resurrection.

Another slave was with us till his death. He too had been carried away in childhood to the north by old Hongi, the great Nga-pu-hi warrior. After his release he came down intending to go to the south after years of absence to visit his own home and people. But he was in decline, and could not travel further; he waited on a poor old man, a stranger to him, in a most kindly way while he had strength, doing offices of love which must have been very trying to him in his weak state. As a rule the Maoris are unwilling to nurse any people not of their own tribe. Poor Stephen grew rapidly worse, and became for a while very restless; it was so desolate for him to pass away without one familiar face near him. A Christian teacher from Waikato, who had a child sick in the hospital, ministered to him in his last hours. We were obliged to have a little hut put up for him to die in; so strong is the native feeling against occupying a house in which any one has died that the hospital would have been deserted. The night before Stephen's death he was asked, "What part (or side) have you chosen?" He answered, "Christ have I chosen." "Is your heart dark?" "No, it is all light." "Are you suffering much?" "No, no pain, no sadness; this is my desire, that I may go to God, and that my

dwelling in this evil world may cease." These were his last words to the native teacher, as he left him alone for the night with a candle burning. In the morning he found him dead.

A man was brought to us one summer by canoe from the Thames District. A large abscess in the hip had so spread towards the spine that the doctor whom we consulted gave no hope of recovery. He was named Martin Luther, and was still a remarkably handsome man. His mother, a heathen woman, his wife, two little children and several friends, accompanied him, and were devoted to him. His brother, a Christian man, was a most faithful nurse. We got very fond of the poor invalid. He was so patient, gentle, and submissive. He was always pleased to be read to, and to talk on religious subjects. When he was near his end, his people determined to carry him away to his own home. We were very sorry, but could do nothing. Martin himself would have been content to die and be buried where he was, but the native feeling was too strong. He must die in his own place, and there must be a great weeping and a funeral feast.

The night before he sailed, the dying man called his relatives and the large party that had come to fetch him, and besought them to accept and to cleave to the Christian faith. He was very weak, but roused himself to speak of his own trust in God, of

his sorrow at seeing the faith of many waxing cold, and ended with the words –

"Let your hearts cling fast to Jesus Christ."

The next day he was lifted into his canoe, and only lived till they got him on shore. The two children died young, and their mother, a pretty young woman, was carried off by an epidemic. A few years after Martin's sister Mary happened to visit Auckland, and came to tell me how all were gone. As she held my hand she burst into tears, and after true native fashion coupled my name with theirs as one who had known and befriended them: "I greet you and Martin, I greet you and Sarah," and so on through the sorrowful list of her dead.

A poor heathen woman, very ignorant, but full of love for her child, brought a little emaciated girl of five from the Lake Country to us. She was dying of mesenteric disease, and having been taught in an infant school, used to say in a piteous wail, "Mother, let me go to my Lord." But the mother would answer with tears day by day, "I cannot let you go." There is a strong belief among the Maoris that they can keep back the spirit of the dying by refusing to let it depart. Sometimes relatives would be distressed when a prayer was read by their sick, lest it should be a dismissal. The mother would, however, bring her child up to me that I might pray

beside her, and one day, with the tears running down her face, she said: "Mother, I have told my child that she may go to her Lord." In an hour or two the little one was at rest, and the bitter wail came shrilly up from the valley.

While our Christian converts embraced with a child-like trust the blessed hope of the resurrection from the dead and the life of the world to come, we must not forget that the Maoris in their days of heathenism believed that their spirits would live again. The natives in the north of the island still point out the cliff from which the spirits made their descent into the sea on their way back to the Island of Hawaii, from whence their forefathers came. This cliff was called the Re-i-nga, i. e., the leaping-place. Some who lived near this spot used to affirm that on certain nights they could hear the rush of the spirits as they passed on their way. They said, too, that before these spirits leaped from the cliff into the sea, they turned round and looked back at the home where all their life had been passed, and made a ta-ngi or lament towards it. A very intelligent man from the south, who was reading for holy orders in Auckland, told us that his mother used to terrify him as a little child with the story of a hideous, ill-shaped old woman who sat in an angle of the rock waiting for the spirits to pass. If any one had in his lifetime stolen an ear-ring, or neck ornament, or stone

hatchet, or other treasure, his spirit had to carry the ata, i. e., the shadow or spirit of the stolen property with him, and as soon as the old hag spied it she made a rush at him and hurled him over the cliff, and he was seen no more. A curious story was once told to us by a gentleman who was a very good Maori scholar. It was told to him by the nephew of the woman who came back from the spirit-land. She was an old lady of rank, and after a severe illness apparently died. The body was left in the house, the window and door made fast, and her relatives departed; only they left a gourd containing red ochre and water on the floor, with which to anoint the corpse in due time. A day or two after the old lady's nephew, with some other men, passed in a canoe near the place, and to their astonishment they saw her sitting on the shore beckoning to them. In much fear they pulled to the bank, and found that the poor woman was alive. She was faint for food; and after she had eaten and revived she told them what had befallen her. Her spirit, she said, took flight to the North Cape, and reached the gateway of the Re-i-nga. Then her path lay down the steep cliff. She got down safely by the help of a long piece of supple jack. At the bottom of the cliff she found herself on the sandy beach of a river, and to her dismay she saw an enormous bird, taller than a man, coming

towards her. She was so frightened that she tried to climb up the cliff again, but, seeing an old man paddling in a small canoe towards her, she ran to meet him. The old man ferried her across, and she told him the names of her kindred and asked where their spirits lived. He showed her the right path, and she hurried along it, wondering that the look of the country, of the trees and plants, were all just such as she saw on earth. Then she reached a village, and recognised among a crowd of people her father and many relations who were dead. They wept over her, and her father asked her about the relations still living on the earth, and specially about her child. He told her that she must go back to take care of the child, and warned her not to eat anything offered to her, for that if she did she could never more return to earth. So when the spirits put a basket of baked ku-me-ras (sweet potatoes) before her she refused to eat. Some of the spirits tried to hinder her return, but her father guided her back to the river where the canoe still lay hauled up on the beach. One young man seized her by the arm. It was only by her father's help that she was released. When the canoe reached the base of the cliff he gave her two huge kumeras, and bade her plant them in her own place for his grandchild's eating, and bade her farewell. As she began to climb two spirits of children tried to pull her back by her cloak. She threw one of the kumeras

to them, and one caught it and began to eat, but the other held her fast. Then she threw the other to him, and while he was seizing it she swung herself up by the supple jack, and her spirit flew back into her body. When she awoke she was very thirsty, and seeing the gourd by her side, drank the ochre-water, and being strengthened, opened the door and crawled to the beach, and so was saved from real death by cold and hunger. Her hearers, who devoutly believed her story, felt much regret that she had not been able to bring one of the huge kumeras from spirit-land.

It must not be supposed that all our patients died. On the contrary, the larger number got well. Many forms of disease were presented to us in the course of our work, of which the larger number were brought on by bad food and neglect of the ordinary rules of health. Skin disease was very common, for these people, who in the warmer climate from whence they emigrated would have spent hours in the water, had a dread of washing their bodies. They suffered much from inflammation of the eyes also. This was mainly caused by the acrid smoke of their wood fires. These were lit every evening in the middle of the house, on a fire-place of rough stones, and allowed to smoulder on through the night, the door being shut and window and chimney alike luxuries unknown.

Dysentery was very common in the spring of the

year, and also in the autumn, when the rainy season began, after a long spell of hot weather and drought. In the spring it was brought on mainly through a long course of bad and insufficient food. The best of their summer crops had been sold to the English, and often the poor people were compelled to eat the seed potatoes on which their next year's supply of food depended. When things were at the worst, the women used to go out to dig up the root of the edible fern. This was boiled and pounded till all the stringy fibres could be removed, and then baked into thin cakes. The taste was not unpleasant, but it was a very indigestible food, and was the cause of much suffering. So also was their rotten corn, which was always prepared in the autumn for winter consumption. The Indian corn was laid in a pit (carefully built round with stones), well soaked with water and covered over; when opened a month or two later, the corn was all in a pulp and sour through fermentation. How disgusting! our readers will say, though after all they might not object to cheese in a decayed state, and our German cousins relish Sauerkraut. Poor folk! When we talked to them, the answer always was, "We want a relish"; and this was not unnatural, as they had no salt and rarely could get meat, and so had to live for months on very indifferent potatoes. After having eaten corn thus prepared for any length of time the people were sure to have bad abscesses.

Consumption was common, and still is, among the young and middle-aged. It often took the form of atrophy, or what our own poor call "a waste." The liver and lungs were both diseased in such cases, and the whole frame became frightfully emaciated. The natives called this "a gathering up of the flesh." If the scrofulous sores in neck or hip were too rapidly healed, the mischief at once fell on the lungs and the patient went off in galloping consumption. The Maoris suffered much from the change of dress brought in, by contact with the English. Their own native mats were warm and waterproof. It is wonderful to see what a beautiful fabric can be produced from so rough a loom. But formerly they had not only the kaitaka, made of the finest flax and ornamented by a handsome border, but a rough garment made of the coarse fibre of the flax and dyed black, through which no wet could penetrate. When blankets could be bought, these native manufactures almost ceased. The women grudged the time for weaving, when they could be growing corn and potatoes for sale, and the woollen garment seemed a great improvement on their own. The result was that the one blanket, obtained with difficulty, was worn by night and day in all weathers, to the great increase of disease. This ought to be taken into account when we hear that remark glibly repeated, that coloured races must disappear before the white. There is no natural reason

why this should be the case. The great loss of life among the Maoris at one time came mainly, as among our own poor in the middle ages, from ignorance and neglect, and from change of circumstances – e. g., in the days when every man's hand was against his neighbour the Maoris built their villages on hills, as the Etruscans did, and fortified them. When, after the reception of Christianity, wars to a great extent ceased, the people scattered themselves about on the plain country wherever they found land good for cultivation. They liked to settle in a valley near a stream, and there in the undrained hollow came low fever and ague to lay them low. At one time we had an epidemic of influenza, which attacked first poultry and pigs and dogs, and afterwards was very fatal to the natives. Some of the old men told us they remembered a similar visitation when they were children, in which half the inhabitants in their villages were carried off. Influenza is very fatal in some of the northern islands of the Pacific. We had many cases of mesenteric disease among the children, specially between the ages of two and five, unwholesome food after weaning being the main cause.

Once there was a great epidemic of measles among us, followed by dysentery. We then got to understand why measles and small-pox are so fatal to native races, as indeed they were formerly to Europeans. At St. Stephen's School thirty girls were attacked.

They were kept warm in bed and fed on light food, and did as well as English patients. Those who came to our Hospital all recovered, though through having neglected the first symptoms they had more or less sharp attacks of dysentery. But in the country districts the mortality was frightful. Some, irritated by the heat of their bodies, leapt with the rash on them into the river to cool themselves, and the disease struck inwardly. Others consulted native quacks, who gave them a compound of some very astringent bark mixed with rum. Many died in great agony after taking this. Now and then, but not often, our own patients gave us trouble. A lank, cadaverous-looking man, with frizzy, reddish hair, fell ill with colic, and lay writhing with pain. He had been fomented in the morning and was easier, but by evening he was worse than ever. After questioning him sharply he confessed that he had had wild cabbage boiled, and had drunk the water quite hot, it being considered a sure remedy.

One of our first patients had long-standing abscess in the hip, and was brought on a litter as a hopeless cripple. He recovered after many weeks of nursing and good feeding; but the limb was shrivelled. This is very unusual. On visiting, when once in England, through Sir James Paget's kindness, the strumous wards in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, I found, with satisfaction, that the treatment there

differed but little from our hedge practice. One thing struck me much, namely, that numbers of both children and adults there had the hip or elbow-joint contracted. This was rarely the case with the natives, though their sores were of frightful size and depth. Perhaps the freer life in pure air may account for this.

Our lame friend was a man of great spirit, and, with the aid of a stick, would hop briskly. Indeed, a year or two after he paid us a visit and informed us that he had been on a preaching tour. He got to a heathen village and began to repeat to them a sermon which he had heard the Bishop preach from Eph. iii. 18, 19, of the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, and that whether men were rich or poor, weak or strong, wise or ignorant, sinful or miserable, He would save them.

The heathens were very ungracious, and told him they did not want Maoris to come and teach them. They would listen, perhaps, to Pakehas. Then they began to question him what became of a man's body when he died, whither did he go after death? One man said, half-jeeringly, he should become a Roman Catholic, at which Nathanael fired up and said, the Roman Catholics worshipped idols. "Have you not heard," he began in the most confident tone, "that of old men worshipped Remphan and Moloch?" "Whose gods were they?" asked one of his hearers "The gods of Rome, to be sure," quoth he.

He did look a quaint controversialist as he sat by our drawing-room fire. He had on a pair of trousers, a check shirt, and an old mackintosh. He had carefully wrapped his bare feet in a piece of calico, – which was occasionally used as a handkerchief, – lest he should dirty the carpet. As he grew animated, he stretched his crooked, shrivelled leg out before the fire, and brandished the tongs.

He brought a huge fellow, named Mohi, who had a tiny girl with him, as a patient. The man had fever, and grew light-headed, and roamed away in the night. Our crippled friend got up at dawn of day, put the little Damaris on his shoulders, and hopped up and down the steep hills till he found the patient, and brought him back in safety.

Mohi, our gigantic friend, soon got well, but again and again he returned with his frail little Damaris. It was the prettiest sight to see the two walking up and down the garden, hand in hand. She was in a "waste," and had all the wise, precocious ways of children suffering in this way, and talked to her father in a womanly, grave way, and he, more simple than she, listened with a broad grin of delight. She only lived till she was eight years old, and was laid to rest in our little churchyard. And then Mohi clung more to us than ever, and when his hard, shrewish, heathen wife was dead he came to live altogether on our ground, only going now and then

to cultivate on his own island, and to dig up his crops and bring them over. Wild, huge, and grotesque-looking as he was, he was loved by all English children. No wonder, for he was devoted to them, and would carry them about in his arms, and play with them by the hour together. He was in constant request as out-of-door man to our neighbour, the Attorney-General. On all fine days he rowed his boat to and from town. We called him one day "Charon," and he highly approved of the joke, and would not answer to the name of Mohi when afloat. "No, no, I'm Charon." I remember once thinking what a good sketch Douglas Jerrold might have made for Punch of young New Zealand. We wanted Mohi to cut firewood, and after one or two summonses he appeared on the terrace in a coloured Crimean shirt, white trousers, and jaunty straw hat, and beaming with good-humour informed us he would come willingly, but the girls "were waiting for him to play croquet," and looking down on the white sands of our beach we saw four or five trim young English ladies, mallets in hand, waiting for their faithful cavalier.

Once, indeed, his huge figure inspired fear. Some new people had come to Auckland. Mohi, in all his braveries, was one of my bearers in a native litter when I went to call. Just before, a cruel massacre of a whole family had been perpetrated on the

north shore, and the murderer, an Englishman, had mangled the bodies with a tomahawk to divert suspicion, or rather to make people suppose the Maoris had done the deed. Mohi rang the bell, and peered about to see if no one was coming. After a while I was admitted, and the eldest daughter (a great invalid) appeared, and seemed very much scared. She apologised for not coming sooner, but the truth was both she and the servants had been terrified by the sight of a ferocious-looking Maori who had stared in at the window, and they dared not open the door. Mohi was formally introduced after that, and the lady's nephews and nieces learned from babyhood to love their simple, devoted friend and playfellow.

We had much out-of-doors dispensary work, and were often much exercised for lack of medicine spoons. We had to put a label in large letters that a mouthful was to be drunk three times a day. As may be supposed, our work was "all for love and nothing for reward." Once only an old man dropped a shilling out of his mouth, where he had put it for safety, and offered it to me as a fee. But we very often got baskets of fruit and vegetables from old patients in token of gratitude.

CHAPTER VII: BUSH JOURNEY. 1846.

CHAPTER VII.

BUSH JOURNEY.
1846.

WE started for Tauranga and the Lake District in the spring of 1846, accompanied by a faithful party of Waiheke natives. The Bishop took us all in his little cutter, Flying Fish, across the Gulf of Hauraki to the valley of the Thames. We went on board on a lovely evening, our patients and their friends all coming out to wish us good-bye and to watch our departure. We ran by moonlight between the mainland and islands. The Bishop stood at the helm steering. I lay, wrapped in cloaks, on the deck, enjoying at once the beauty of the moonlit waters and of the cliffs fringed with trees, and the deep talk of the two friends. The captain was an Englishman, a tall, handsome man, and the only sailor was an equally tall, noble-looking Maori, from the Southern Island. At a late hour we turned in to the tiny cabin, furnished with two bunks of canvas. The Bishop, wrapped in his shepherd's plaid, lay on the deck outside, and our men found some place forward. There was hardly a breath of wind stirring the next day. Long sweeps were used to propel us along, our

Maoris willingly offering their services. At sunset we put to shore, opposite to a native village called Ta-ra-ru, which nestled under the long range of wooded hills. The people came swarming down to the beach to welcome us and to crowd round the Bishop. The still evening, the water like a lake, the little ship, the boat upon the shore, the eager, upturned faces, all reminded one of scenes on another lake long ago.

Our men soon pitched our little tent on the sand, and piled up freshly-cut fern for a bed. The natives do this in an artistic way. The stems are bent underneath the branchy heads of the strong fern, so that they are as elastic as a spring bed. The smell of the fronds is as agreeable as heather; over the fern was laid a piece of waterproof and our blankets. I had heard so much from travellers of the sweetness of the notes of the birds in the bush, that I was grievously disappointed when only cocks crowed shrilly, at intervals, all night! Half the village had gathered round the tent before we emerged, and after a friendly chatter, a canoe was lent to us for six weeks on very easy terms, and we were soon paddling along the coast till we entered the wide mouth of the Waihou River, called by the English the Thames. To our right another river ran into the gulf, fringed at the mouth by an extensive wood of white pine-trees. All day, as we paddled up against the stream, we passed by villages with fleets of canoes drawn up on

the beach, or by great jungles of flax and reed-bushes. We stopped at sunset, and in a few minutes our canoe was made fast to a bush on the bank; the tent, bedding, and food box were brought on shore, and in ten minutes more the tent was pitched, our bed made, and a bright fire lit, over which our camp kettle was hung. Tea, biscuits, and a slice or two of bacon, frizzled over the hot embers, made a capital supper. The men over their fire cooked a mess of rice and potatoes, and long after we had settled for the night, we heard their merry laugh and chatter as they hunted for eels in the mud of the river's bank. We did hear the birds next morning, at sunrise, in all their sweetness, as Captain Cook had described; first, the bell bird gave its one clear, full note, and then came such a "jargoning" as made one's heart glad; and looking out at the tent door we saw the rising sun lighting up the woods and flax-bushes in ruddy glory. By seven o'clock we were in the canoe again, and paddled all day long, save when we rested at mid-day for dinner. The men did not row with the steadiness of Englishmen. They had spurts when they dashed along at a tremendous pace, encouraging one another with cries and snatches of old boat songs. Their paddles flashed in the sunlight. Then would come a season of dreamy dawdling and silence. We passed our Sunday at a little village perched on a cliff above the river. After service in Maori, the people came to the tent door; some for

teaching and friendly chat, some sick folk for medicine. I had brought a box of pills on the chance, and they received them with much gratitude and entire faith. One poor old woman prayed us to give her spectacles. The banks of the river, up to this time, had been low, without any special beauty; but on Monday morning a sharp bend brought us into sight of loveliness, such as one can never forget. The river became deep and narrow, and wound for many miles through a forest. It was spring-time, and the great white clematis and the yellow kowai blossoms hung over the brim of the river in masses of gold and silver, which were reflected in the clear blue water. We thought of the twelve princesses in Grimm's fairy stories, who saw trees with gold and silver branches. The great forest came down to the water's edge. Once we came to a little opening where a pathway had been made, just wide enough to drag a newly-made canoe down to the river. Far away up this vista, some thin blue smoke went up from a bush fire. Now and then the forest receded, and a range of hills with grassy slopes appeared instead. Some day, doubtless, stately mansions will be built there, and the park-like ground stocked with deer. As we slowly paddled past one of these ranges, one of our men pointed to a hill and said: "That is part of my property. I have got a store of potatoes up there. If we had but time to stop, I would run and get you some."

Yet it is sometimes asserted that the greater part of the country is untilled and ownerless. As far as we could learn, every man had his share in the tribal property, and knew as well as any old English squire what tracts belonged to him.

We had to stop one whole day in our encampment; there was such a steady rain. We did not find time pass heavily. We had Guizot's "Histoire de la Civilisation" to read, as a contrast to our rude surroundings; and our men sat by the fire and smoked, and were very merry. Towards evening the weather cleared, and an old man, attracted by our camp fire, came from a distance to visit us. He had learned to read, and was well disposed to impart his knowledge of Scripture and to gain more. He told us, in the most naive, graphic way, the story of the cleansing of Naaman, and made seven distinct stages in the process, till at last the leper came out with a man's skin. He might have stayed longer, had not his quick eye caught sight of a wild pig, and he went off stealthily to capture it. The next day we reached the highest point of the river that we needed to ascend. The canoe was dragged on shore and half-hid among some bushes to keep it from the heat of the sun, and the paddles stuck upright beside it. On one of these a word or two was scratched, to say to whom they belonged, and that no one must take them away. We pitched for the night at the foot of a high hill, over the face

of which a grand waterfall dashed headlong into the valley below. We encamped beside a mountain stream, which hurried down over great boulders to the river. The distant roar of the waterfall, the brawling of the stream and the hoarse cry of the night-owls made us wakeful, and by five in the morning every one was astir, as we had a long day's march before us.

We had engaged, the night before, eight bearers from a neighbouring village to carry me. Breakfast was over, prayers read with the people, and the tent taken down, when the men struck for higher pay. One of them, a tall, powerful, wild-looking fellow, began to run up and down, brandishing his spear as he delivered his speech. He spoke for himself and for his kinsmen; the way was long, the burden great, they must have higher wages. Our own people dared not interfere. I am afraid, as I sat and shivered in the valley, I should soon have given in, but my husband remained quite quiet, and after half-an-hour's vigorous declamation on the part of the insurgents, he calmly turned to our boy Josiah; directing him to go over to Tauranga, where we were bound to spend Sunday, and to bring back with him a party of men on the Monday. A stage aside from him that our meat was nearly gone and the bread running short, met with no reply; so he packed up his knapsack and blanket, and, waving his hand, began his solitary march. Before he

had gone a hundred yards, the leader of the strike burst out laughing and said: "Oh, friend, it was only fun of mine, we'll go on your terms," and in a few minutes, with good-humour beaming on all our faces, we began the steep ascent. The native litter was very light. It consisted of two thin, elastic poles tied at each end, with a light network of flax in the middle and bits of wood across for head and foot rest; a pillow and a cloak completed the arrangement; the bearers changed every three minutes, and wore pads on their shoulders. They had proposed to tie me in, but I indignantly declined, till I found myself apparently standing nearly upright in the air, with a fall of 100 feet below me, and my hands too cold to be able to hold on to the poles; when I was obliged meekly to request them to make me safe; they strapped a long rope of flax across my waist and feet, and I felt as safe as an Indian papoose in its bark cradle. We had a glorious view from the top of the hill; the river lay like a silver thread below, and far away in the distance rose the snow-capped peak of Tongariro; we could not but picture to ourselves what the stir and hum of life will be in years to come, in this well-watered plain, now lying solitary and waste. Our way down the mountain lay for many miles through a tangled forest; no word-painting can describe the beauty of the trees, their trunks green with parasitical plants and ferns, while tangled

masses of supple jack hung down from the branches; the daylight was almost shut out by the luxuriant foliage. We got on but slowly, as our track often lay down a steep, sharp bank to a clear mountain stream, the men clustering round the litter to lift me over the boulders, or over some huge tree that lay prone across the path; sometimes they had to clear away the tangled brushwood with hatchets; and so we went on again, struggling upward till we came to some sunny little opening – "places of light," as the natives call them – where the sun greeted us, and the birds sang, and the weary men laid me down among flowering, sweet-smelling shrubs; we could hear parrots screaming in the distance. My wild bearers, ten in number, were very kind; they could not make out why I wanted to look at some of the delicate little ferns which grew on the trees, but when I expressed a wish for one, they threw so many, all dripping with moisture, into my lap, that I had to cry "Enough." By one p. m. we had passed through the forest, and came out on a wide plain, from which we saw the sea and coast, stretching far away, and a mountain at the entrance of the harbour standing out against the blue sky; but our fatigues were not over: we knocked about till dark in a whale-boat on a rough sea, and when we landed the first sight that greeted us was a raging fire in the pah on an opposite hill. My bearers put me down on the

beach, and rushed off to help extinguish the flames. A kind Maori woman, whose English husband was away, received us into her house, and gave us bread and coffee, and when, after stumbling along in the dark to the crossing-place and shouting in vain for a boat, we returned to her, she brought out a pile of new blankets and made a bed for us on the floor. About midnight, however, our host, Archdeacon Brown, arrived, and soon after we reached his comfortable Mission-house. After ten nights in the bush, an English bedroom seemed a great luxury.

I stayed for three weeks at Tauranga, while my husband went on to the hot springs. The house was all of native workmanship; the outer walls were of raupo, and the inner walls and ceilings reeded after the best Maori pattern. The windows of the bedroom were overhung with roses. One hardy shoot had worked its way in through the roof, and hung down in the room. I was ill for the first week, and was tenderly nursed by a Maori woman, who, but for skin and speech, might have been taken for a well-trained English maid. Her name was Margaret, and she had lived from childhood with Mrs. Brown, and had nursed her through many illnesses. She was delighted to find that I could talk Maori with her; every morning she used to come in, duster in hand, and steal gently about the room, dusting, and folding, and arranging; and then helping me to dress with

so much care and tenderness that I used to long to show her to English people as a sample of a so-called savage. Her history is a pretty one; she was sent to be the little slave-girl of a damsel of her own age entrusted to Mrs. Brown's care. The latter, a chief's daughter, was to be taught English ways, and might sew or help "Mother" in any genteel way; but her father gave many strict injunctions as to her never preparing food or doing anything menial. So little Margaret came to do the rough work; and after a while a slave-boy was sent to Mr. Brown's school, who had nursed the little heiress in her babyhood, carrying her on his back, and waiting on her all day long. They all grew up together, and the heiress loved the boy, now grown into a man. Wonderful to say, the old father, in consideration of the lad's early care of her, consented to the match. But the course of true love never did run smooth; by a strange perversity the young man loved the maid instead of the mistress, and the maid loved him. The young mistress was very wroth when she found how matters stood, and for a long time refused her consent. At last Mr. Brown won her over by the dignity of giving a written consent to the match. She issued a sort of marriage licence, and she went to the wedding. Poor girl! she died some months after (not of a broken heart). Everything went on after such a quiet fashion, just as

in an English rectory and village, that it was strangely interesting to hear stories from the Browns of their experiences ten or fifteen years before. "Do you see those patches in these dimity curtains?" said my hostess to me one evening as she sat by my bedside. "I mended them when we recovered our property after the great Roto-rua War. They had been torn up to make garments by the spoilers. The war, which lasted for several years, and in which hundreds of lives were sacrificed and acts of heathen ferocity committed which must not be recorded, was begun through the revenge of one Roto-rua man. A powerful member of his own tribe had offended him, and others stood by the offender. The wretched man went off to Tauranga to a tribe long hostile to his own, and slew one of its members in cold blood. Of course, the Tauranga people came down with a war-party to take 'utu.' They not only attacked the Roto-rua natives, but they sacked the Mission station and burnt down the house. Not that they had any grudge against the good old missionary, Mr. Chapman, and his wife, but because they were their enemies' Pakehas. And then the Roto-ruas sacked the Tauranga Mission station." Mrs. Chapman was staying with the Browns for rest and change, for her heart was sad through the terrible sights and scenes around her, when she heard the wild shouts of a war-party, headed by the renowned Maori chief, Waha-

roa (Long Mouth), as they returned in triumph home. She saw the men rushing by, loaded with spoils. One huge fellow had her neat, black silk bonnet (his only article of clothing) stuck on his head. Another had her much-prized wedding-gown thrown as a shawl across his shoulders, and she soon found that she was houseless. Dear little woman! she had a great dread of savages when she left England; but she followed her husband without a murmur, and as long as she remained in the north at the Waimate, where all was comparatively quiet, she was timid and unsettled; but, as soon as she was called to accompany Mr. Chapman into the heart of the country among fierce heathens, her fears vanished. She became a mother to all around her, and the eyes of the roughest would glisten as they spoke of "Mother," and of her goodness to them.

The Archdeacon told me of a lame old woman far away in a hilly part of the country who had earnestly desired to be baptised. She heard of the Bishop's intention to visit Taupo, and she besought some of her people to carry her thither in a litter. She started, but was too weak and ill to bear the fatigue, and had to return after a day or two of travelling. When Mr. Brown reached her village, a deformed, squalid old woman, with tangled, grizzled hair, crawled out of a hut. At first she was too shy to answer any questions, but after a while she gave a

very clear, intelligent account of her reasons for desiring baptism. She had had no teaching but from her own people. She was baptised the next day.

For the first week of my stay, I was an object of great interest to Mrs. Brown's native girls. First they would peep in at the door or venture in to shake hands. After a while they would sit down on the floor and have a good look at me, and talk to one another about my dress and appearance. There was much blushing and laughing when I began to talk to them. When conversation flagged, they got up and walked off.

During our stay we saw a good deal of an old man, named Matthew. He was a Christian and native teacher of a neighbouring village. He was till past middle age a staunch heathen and a priest, and was so much feared for his knowledge of witchcraft, that during the war his plantations and other property were never harmed or touched by the enemy. No one dared to offend him lest he should curse them, and then their life would waste away under the power of his enchantments. When he became a Christian, and had been baptised, he called all the people together, and by one significant action showed that he had laid aside all his old pretensions. Under the old system the chiefs head, and, indeed, his whole person was most sacred; whenever he chose, he

proclaimed himself to be in a state of tapu, when he could not be touched by any one, or even put his own hand to his mouth. For such a man as this old chief to allow food or any cooking vessel to come near his head was at once and for ever to bring himself down on a level with the common herd. The old man took up a vessel in which food had been cooked, and put it on his head, and so broke the tapu which had made him so formidable in the eyes of his countrymen, counting himself but dross. It is a noble story, and contrasts well with our northern King Olaf's compromise about the horseflesh broth. I was lying on a sofa when Matthew first came to see me. He came up in a most fatherly way to me, and holding my hand in his, told me to trust only in God, Who sends sickness, and Who alone can heal. He was talking one day with Archdeacon Brown about the difference of bur modes of thinking on many subjects from native notions, and said:

"You English have several sorts of gentlemen {rangatira): you call a man a gentleman if he has plenty of money and good clothes on his back; or if the Queen makes him into one, or if he is of good family. Now we have no standard but that of good birth. Be a man ever so ragged or dirty, if he comes of gentle blood, he is a gentleman. I'm a gentleman," said he, as he wrapped his old blanket round him. And so he was, in manner, thought, and action. The

Maoris have a great respect for long pedigrees; many of the old chiefs could trace their family back through twelve or fourteen generations. They used too, in old days, to have a delight in lavish hospitality. This could be more easily done when they had many slaves, prisoners of war, to cultivate the land. Our Bishop was once remonstrating with a noble-looking young man, who was spending large sums on a feast to his neighbours. "How can I do otherwise?" he answered; "my fathers have been chiefs from the beginning of time!"

There was one woman in the neighbourhood of Tauranga whose history was an eventful one. Many years ago, a war-party from a hostile tribe came down and surprised the people of her village. Her husband and other relatives were killed, she and her infant were taken prisoners. The captors all camped on the beach, and slept by turns while one kept watch, intending to embark with their prisoner at break of day. She made up her mind to escape if possible, and lay or rather half sat with her child on her back, watching, when unobserved, the several sentinels. The last of these in the early dawn looked so stern and wakeful that her heart sank, but in time his eyes closed, opened again, and finally closed in a deep sleep. Then the poor creature began to crawl softly on hands and feet towards the door of the rough tent. All her fear was that the baby would wake and cry.

But she succeeded in passing all the sleepers unobserved, and then like a lapwing she flew along the sea-shore, over the soft sand, till she came to a thick bush in which she could hide. The war-party dared not pursue her there for fear of reprisals from her people. She was a Christian woman when I was at Tauranga, and the baby was a middle-aged married woman with children of her own. This heroine died only two years ago. She was over ninety, and lived in an island near the mainland. Every Sunday she helped her daughter to paddle across to attend church. She always brought a little basket of potatoes or other food, to cook between the services. The missionary's wife said to her: "Why do you trouble yourself to do this? I will give you dinner." "No," the old woman would reply, "I do not come to get earthly food but heavenly." When Mr. Grace, the missionary, died two years ago, the poor old body had a long ta-ngi, and then just laid herself down to die. She only outlived him a few days.

We had a pleasant journey back. The Tauranga men were used to carrying English women, and did not race up and down hill with me as our wilder "boys" had done. When we got out of the wood we met a large party of natives, and I was amused at the amount of ceremonial observed on both sides. We and they met in solemn silence; a halt was called, then my litter was set

down, and we all sat and looked at each other for some moments. Then friendly greetings were exchanged, the ice was broken, and questions and counter questions were asked with great liveliness. Finally we gave our new acquaintances some biscuits, and they gave our men some dried pork, and we went on our respective ways. Every day when we camped for dinner, as soon as the fire was lit and the pot of potatoes set on to boil, our men would stretch themselves on the ground and begin to play games of skill or chance, with sticks or bits of stone. They were always good-tempered and bubbling over with fun. We found them charming companions, and very intelligent. They had never passed their standards, but from childhood had exercised habits of observation; they knew the name of every plant, tree, shrub, bird, and insect. I have often wondered why it is that native people never speak ungrammatically. I have been corrected again and again in early days for using a wrong prefix to a noun, when asking a question (there is one for inanimate things and for animals, another for human beings). Then, too, the youngest child understands the use of the dual form, inclusive and exclusive, we two or you two, and never makes a mistake. Very different from our rustic form, "her doesn't belong to I."

We found our canoe and paddles quite safe in the spot where they had been placed five weeks before.

The Bishop's cutter was awaiting us at the mouth of the river, and after a day of very rough, lively weather across the gulf, we landed at home on a calm, lovely summer morning. In spite of all the charms of bush travelling, civilisation is very agreeable. Snowy table and bed linen, plenty of water, food well served up, are comforts not to be despised. Our garden looked quite smiling in its trim brightness, after the sombreness of bush and forest. The forest trees which overhang and fringe our cliffs were out in crimson blossom; my husband had transplanted a good many of these and other native trees into the garden and paddock, some with grey-green leaves not unlike the olive, some with bright, glossy leaves like the laurel, and here and there young elms, and sycamores, and oaks, with delicate tints, held their own among their antipodean evergreen cousins. And such wealth of English flowers! Honeysuckle and cluster roses twined up the fences, while Cape bulbs, with their pink, wax-like flowers, and fuchsias and geraniums grew like weeds.

Both on this and all other journeys we met with the greatest kindness from our men, and from any natives we met with on the way. There has been a fashion among some travellers to complain of extortion and incivility. We have heard similar complaints in Italy of the people of the country. Of course, if a stranger, who knows nothing of the Maori language,

and is unknown to the natives, suddenly appears among them and demands the use of a canoe, or horse, or the services of bearers, the temptation is great to make a hard bargain. My husband always engaged a party of men from some neighbouring village at the outset, told them what they would receive, how long we should be away and the like, and never heard one word of grumbling, however weary and wet they might be. The first and last thought all day was for us: "Are you very tired, mother?" "Are you cold, mother?" was often asked by my patient bearers.

We went once again to the Thames to stay with the missionary, whose house was perched on the top of a steep hill. The whole valley is now covered with houses, and the hills at the back quarried into for gold. When we knew the place they were covered with wood, and there were only one or two small native villages nestling at the foot of them, and a little fleet of canoes drawn up on the beach. A clear, rapid stream ran down to the sea. A party of our old friends volunteered to carry my litter across. It was amusing to watch the perplexity of my maid, a cockney born and bred, as she stood beside it, band-box in hand, and her dismay when a Maori caught her up in his arms and splashed through the water with her. We were welcomed by the teacher and his wife, in their master's absence, and we kept school for a day or two till he returned. The children were eager to

be taught – bright-faced lads like Murillo's gipsies came up daily, full of fun, and delighting in mental arithmetic. A grey-haired old Maori woman was in charge, and headed her flock, singing, "We'll all march out in order." We were not a little afraid of Bishop Hatto's fate at night, there were so many rats in the house. We quite realised the description given by a Glasgow woman of a similar inroad: "I sleppit not till four, and I was awake at the back of five, for the rats jinkit and the cats jinkit." Only we had no cat. We went to see a fine old Maori house, with wooden shutters and doorway highly carved. It would have been needful to crawl in on all-fours, the entrance was so low. There was a magnificent war canoe at the pah which would hold forty men at least. The figure-head of the richly-carved prow represented the face of an ancestor, and, considering the rough tools of the sculptor, it was a wonderful work of art. The man who could execute it had the gifts of Niccola of Pisa in him. The native teacher and his wife were charming people, and had lived on the Mission station for many years. Walthan was sent once in a very small vessel, in charge of a flock of sheep of his master's. A tremendous gale came on and threatened to drive the cutter on a rock-bound coast. When things seemed desperate, the master and a seaman (both Englishmen) took to the boat and made for the shore, leaving shepherd and

sheep to their fate. The Maoris of a village near by went off in canoes, at the peril of their lives, and succeeded in bringing Walthan and his charge safely to land. They were very indignant at the selfishness of the two Englishmen, but the good fellow said: "Let them alone; let us thank God that we are all safe." Mrs. Walthan was a big, tall, comfortable-looking woman, with very demonstrative manners. We kept up a great friendship for each other. She always embraced me when we met, and had a ta-ngi over me. She outlived her good husband for several years.

A native friend of Jane Walthan's wrote to us after her death: – "Her death was good, for she departed believing in God, and her prayer was this, 'O God, if it be good to Thee, take me'; and another prayer of hers was, 'This is my prayer for this people, that they may be kept by Thee in this world.' These were her last words."

CHAPTER VIII: WAIKATO. 1852.

CHAPTER VIII.

WAIKATO.
1852.

IN 1852 the Judge was asked to go as one of the Government Inspectors of native schools, and I gladly accompanied him. A cart was engaged to take me and our belongings for the first fourteen miles, as far as any road went. It had become very bad, and our driver, a cautious Scotchman, at every deep rut or boggy bit, would turn to me and say, "I doubt if Jimmy will do it"; and when he bravely floundered through, he would mutter, "I doubt if Jimmy'll do it going back." It was pleasant to change to the light litter; the men trotted along across the plain with me in a far easier way. When we got to a wide, well-known creek, called the Slippery Creek, from the uncertain footing, they were full of jokes, and called out to those who had already crossed to stand at ease and see our downfall into the water. The next day was very rainy, and the road was up and down steep wooded hills. The droppings from the branches came like a shower-bath on us as we pushed our way through the trees. We stopped to dine in the mid-day, and the

men lit a roaring fire in an open space, and we warmed ourselves and dried our clothes. Our way led afterwards along a narrow muddy pig track. The poor fellows slipped and stumbled with me, and I felt like a daughter of the Pharaohs to oppress them so heavily. But they were good-tempered, and never grumbled, except at the cook, whose mess of flour had been made too thin, and they chaffed him unmercifully as the cause of every slip. We halted just before sunset in a dismal valley beside a stream. A great tree lay across the path, and our men soon detected a smouldering fire within the hollow trunk, and blew it up to a ruddy glow. We walked up and down, enjoying the luxury of a foot-warmer. The rain was over by the next morning, and we ascended up a steep bank into the forest again. For about a mile we travelled under an avenue of tree-ferns. The morning sun lit up the warm stems, and delicate drooping frondes; and the gossamer webs on the branches of the trees, still wet with rain-drops, glittered like diamonds. One man had to go in front of us, and with an axe chop a way through masses of supple jack and brushwood, so rich was the vegetation. At last we emerged from the forest, and far below us lay the broad Waikato river. We had sent on a trusty native man ten days before to engage a canoe, and there he was quietly awaiting our arrival. We slept beside an old dry swamp, and had rushes

for our bed instead of fern. The place was populous with large black birds, called by the Maoris pu-ke-ko. They have a harsh cry like a corn-crake. By early dawn we were afloat, and our men paddled steadily against the rapid current till evening. We passed many villages, and the people came to the bank to hear news, and to invite us all to stay and eat. But there was no time for that, and not till after dark did we arrive at the first Mission station. Native teachers and their wives, and the whole school, boys and girls, came running to the bank to greet us, and to escort us up to the Rev. B. Y. Ashwells'. The other Government Inspectors arrived an hour or two later, and the next day the examinations began in geography, arithmetic, English and Scripture history. The girls sang part-songs in the evening with great spirit. We staid over Sunday, and attended native service in the large reeded church built by the Maoris. The church was full of well-dressed, plump-looking boys and girls, with a good sprinkling of older people from the villages around. We heard of elementary schools being kept in all of these, and of monthly gatherings of the teachers to this central station for instruction. We lingered on the verandah in the evening to admire the quiet beauty of the scene. It was spring-time, and between us and the brimming river lay a paddock full of peach-trees in blossom, with a hedge of flowering

white acacias, and on the opposite bank rose the wooded peak of Tau-piri.

We had to start again up the river in pouring rain, which lasted all day. We went on shore for dinner, and scrambled up a bank to a very miserable village. We sheltered under a ti-manga, i. e., a large square potato store set up on the top of high poles to prevent the rats attacking the food; the villagers gave us fire-wood, and we enjoyed our meal alfresco. It was hard work to get me up the slippery cliff at night, but the men were most patient and friendly. The ground was soaking and the ferns wet, but the good lads dashed the rain-drops off and lit a roaring fire. "Noah," our cook, acted as lady's maid, and dried all my wraps, and brought them back warmed, and with a strong smell of smoke (both of wood and tobacco). The total-abstainers in this country would rejoice to know that none of our party suffered from colds, though we had been sitting in the wet for twelve hours, with the exception of one, who took some brandy and water to keep off a chill; all the rest drank tea, and got up the next morning warm and unharmed. The weather had become lovely and intensely hot. Our men pulled lazily along up the Waipa river, a tributary of the Waikato, running between high wooded banks. It was a luxury to live on such a day, and to glide along past one bend after another, and watch the wild ducks rise.

While at Otawhao, the Mission station, we rode across to look at a mill which had been put up by the aid of the Government. The day was very hot, but a keen wind from the snow mountains cooled the air. Our path lay across a wide plain, and our eyes were gladdened on all sides by sights of peaceful industry. For miles we saw one great wheat field. The blade was just showing, of a vivid green, and all along the way, on either side, were wild peach-trees in full blossom. Carts were driven to and from the mill by their native owners; the women sat under the trees sewing flour bags; fat, healthy children and babies swarmed around, presenting a floury appearance. In the two villages we passed, there were wooden churches, built by the people themselves. We little dreamed that in ten years the peaceful industry of the whole district would cease and the land become a desert through our unhappy war. We went down the river to the mouth of the Waikato, where Archdeacon Maunsell's Mission schools were to be inspected. It was easy work to go down the stream. We slept one night on a little island in the loveliest part of the Waikato. There was a wood on one side. As we came back from exploring its deep shade the scene was most picturesque – our white tent by the river's brink, the canoe made fast beside it, a large fire burning brightly, round which our men were busy cooking their evening meal. It was a moonlight night, and we stood looking at the wooded

mainland, and the many islands, and the rushing river, rejoicing in the beauty all around. We heard the bittern sound his drum, booming in "the sedgy shallow" in the early dawn. The men were up betimes, and made themselves very smart, as we expected to arrive early at Kohanga. They washed their hair and stuck bunches of wild scarlet geranium in it. We found hearty work going on at Kohanga. A wooden church with aspire had just been built, and beside it were the school buildings, filled with boys from eight to eighteen, who passed a good examination. We heard Archdeacon Maunsell preach on Sunday to a large native congregation. He spoke Maori with great fluency and precision. We could not help thinking of St. Augustine's mode of teaching his Africans as we listened to the good man's illustrations and saw him pause and look keenly at one and another as he walked up and down, to elicit an answer or to keep up attention.

We passed a volcanic hill on our way back, and I told the men how the scoria which lay scattered in masses about the terraced slopes had once been liquid fire. Our head bearer listened, and then said gravely, "Mother, that's a fib of yours." He was too gentlemanly to use the stronger word, falsehood, so he took the reduplicated form of the noun, which softens the force of it. Thus was a scientific discourse quenched on the spot.

The Waikatos are a fine set of people, tall and well-made. They are remarkable, too, for the delicacy of their pronunciation. One thought of the Italian saying, Lingua Toscana in bocca Romana, when listening to their talk. Many of the men and women have hair dark brown rather than black, with a tinge of red at the tip; and some of the young people have fair skins, with colour in their cheeks. In old days these fair children were supposed to be changelings. There was a strong popular belief in fairies. They were tall and pale and sometimes a Maori fell in love with one, and wooed and won her. A man told me once that his grandmother was a fairy. Sometimes Maori children were carried off to fairyland and a changeling left in their place. There are some fanciful legends about the good people. A Waikato man told us one, and assured us it was true, and that his friend, to whom the fairies appeared, had only died a few years before we came into the country: Te Ka-na-wa had gone out one night to snare kiwis, wingless birds, that sleep by day and come out by night into the swamps in search of worms. After a while, he grew tired and crept into a hollow tree and lay down to sleep. He lit a fire outside. He was awakened by the voices of men, women, and children, as of a great host. He was very frightened, for he knew they must be fairies. They came very near, and some got on the roots of the tree to peep at him.

When the fire flashed brightly they moved away. When it smouldered they ventured near again and sang a song. After a time Te Ka-na-wa took off his neck ornament and his ear ring (made of the green stone) and spread them out at the foot of the tree. He thought to himself "the fairies are afraid of me, therefore they do not spring upon me. They only come to look at me, and I will give them these ornaments to examine." As soon as their song was ended, the fairies drew near again, and they handed them about from one to another, and when all had handled them the whole party disappeared, for the day was dawning. He found his ornaments all safe. They had only taken the shadow or spirit of them back to fairyland. Their hearts were quite satisfied with this, and they had seen the kindness of his thoughts towards them. So he went home, and told his story; he only remembered one verse of the fairy song, and it is sung in Waikato to this day!

The man who told us this story added: "Fairies are like to grasshoppers for multitude. Their appearance is like that of the English; for they are fair of skin, they have reddish brown hair, and their skin is freckled. They are not in any way like to Maoris."

Our old friend, the great chief of Waikato, Te Wherowhero, said once to a friend of ours that the

fairies wore beautiful dresses, the texture of which was quite unknown to the Maoris, and that they delighted in music. At the East Cape the natives show a hill which they love to haunt. If the wood which covers it is set on fire the fairies rush out to save their favourite trees and flowers, and with songs put the fire out. No one has seen them, but many have heard them sing!

Another story is that long ago there lived a man named Red Cloak (Kahakura) in the north of the island, and he had a great desire to go to a place named Ra-ngi Ao-whi-a. So he went and came to the sea-beach, and there he saw on the sand the remains of some fish, and he thought to himself that Maoris must have been cleaning fish there. But when he had carefully examined the footsteps on the sand, and knew by the time of tide that whoever had been there must have been there in the night, he said to himself, "This is not man's work." And he knew within himself that the fairies must have been there. Kahakura went back home, but he could not forget what he had seen, and he pondered it in his heart, and at night time he went to the same place, and, lo! there were the fairies casting their net into the sea, and they were shouting and singing, "Let the net down here; draw it up there." They were singing for joy at the draught of fishes they had taken, and were dragging the net to shore. Then Red

Cloak went and joined them. The reason the fairies did not find out that he was a mortal was that he was fair of skin like to their race. And when the dawn was at hand the fairies took the fish out of the net, and had begun to thread them on a string; and they worked very rapidly making a firm knot at one end. Kaha-ku-ra worked too, but he made a slipknot instead, and whenever his string was complete he lifted it up, and down came the fish to the ground. When the fairies saw this, one of them came to help him and made a fast knot to the string, and went back to his own work. But he untied the knots, and so it went on again and again. The day dawned, and they saw that he was a mortal, and they fled away in great terror, leaving their fish and their net and canoe behind them, and departed to their own place. Now, the canoe was made of flax, and the net was made of rushes. And Red Cloak took the net home with him for a pattern, learned how to make one, and he taught his children. And so the ancestors of the Maori people learned how to make nets.

The people still use nets woven of flax, though some of the wealthier buy from the English. I have often, with great pleasure, watched a party of native fishermen on our beach hauling in their nets. It was generally in the early morning. The red-painted canoe anchored a little way from the shore, and the stalwart figures of the men as they

paddled about and drew the net to shore full of delicate, silvery guard-fish, or red gurnets, reminded one involuntarily of Raphael's cartoon. It would have needed his gifts to paint aright the blue, transparent water and the white shelly beach, and the warm brown skins of the fishermen.

There are many grotesque and some graceful legends of the New Zealanders. A favourite one which we used to hear an old chief tell with great glee is the story of an ancient magician named Kae. When a great chief's son was born, he was sent for to perform all the proper incantations 4 to make him a brave and successful warrior. When the ceremonies were all concluded the boy's father sent for a pet whale. It came out of the water at his master's call, and he cut a slice out of its body and cooked it for the old magician. Then they offered to get Kae's canoe ready, but he would not go back, and he staid on till he had persuaded his host to lend him the whale to go home upon. The reason of this request was that he longed to eat up the whale, he had found the flesh so savoury.

Then Tinirau agreed, but he told him to be sure to jump off the whale's back on the right side as soon as they got into shallow water. When they got so

near the shore as almost to touch the bottom the whale tried to shake the magician off, but he stuck firmly on, and at last, in the struggle, the poor fish got his blow-holes choked up with sand, and he died. Then Kae and his people cooked and ate the whale and made a great feast.

Tinirau waited and waited for his whale to come back, but it never came; and at last over the sea came the savoury smell of the cooked fish, and his wrath was great because it was a pet, tamed to be his baby's plaything. So a large party of his people went across to see if Kae was the culprit. None but women went; there were forty in the canoe. Just as they were starting the baby's aunt asked "How shall we know Kae?" and her brother answered "By his over-lapping and uneven teeth." When they got to the village, Kae and all the men of the place were sitting together, and they could not tell which was he, and it is contrary to all good breeding in New Zealand society to ask any chief what his name is. They determined, therefore, to try all sorts of tricks to make the men laugh and open their mouths. The women sang and played on the native flutes; they beat time with castanets; they played on an instrument like a Jew's harp; they sang a comic song, and made the oddest faces, and shook their hands and arms about, but still Kae did not laugh. At last they got a fire stick and tied it to a piece of flax

and spun it round and round like a whirligig, and then the old man burst out laughing, and they saw his over-lapping, uneven teeth, with bits of the whale sticking in them. When night came, they set to work to weave spells; they threw Kae and his people into an enchanted sleep and carried him off to Tinirau's village and killed him there. I used to hear this story from a grave, rather solemn old man generally; but when he took a fire stick and, tying it, whirled it round and round, he got as merry as a boy.

Another favourite story was Maui's fishing the island of New Zealand out of the sea. 5 Our friend Jowett and his wife used to play a game about it. He professing to fish up something would ask, What is this? and then his wife went through the names of all the fish of the sea.

Another very popular legend is of a hero named Hatu Patu. He outwits his big brothers who tyrannise over him and wins to himself a great name. One charming part of the story is when he is caught and kept in captivity in a cave by a woman who had wings like a bird's wings, and a mouth so pointed that she could spear birds with it. He could not escape; her cave was full of tame lizards

and tamed birds, and she had a red dogskin fur cloak, and beautiful cloaks of red feathers from the native parrot, and a two-handed wooden sword, and other curiosities. Hatu Patu coveted these greatly, and one day when she had gone off on a long journey he killed all the birds save one little one, which escaped and flew off to his mistress and sang to her, "Riro-riro," 6 i. e., "gone away, gone away." So she pursued after her captive, and being a giantess with very long legs, she nearly caught him, but he knew of a charm, and he called to the rock "Open to me," and the rock opened, and he hid himself till she was past. After a prolonged chase Hatu Patu jumped over some sulphur springs, and the woman rushed in in full pursuit, not knowing the water was boiling, and was killed.

The Maoris used to tell us marvellous stories about a great sea monster called a Taniwha. It has been suggested that they brought probably to New Zealand some tradition of alligators which are still to be found in the rivers in some of the North Pacific Islands.

There was a favourite hero of theirs who jumped from a rock on the West Coast to do battle with a Taniwha. He was well armed; long and dreadful

was the combat, and he was badly wounded. But he killed the monster and dragged him to shore. When cut open, twelve bodies of men, and many women and children, were found whole inside, besides mats, hatchets, ear ornaments, and such like.

4 There were old forms of prayer both for male and female infants, a kind of Litany; for the boy, that he might be strong to fight, strong to climb mountains, strong to fell trees, &c.; and for the girls that they might be skilful to weave mats, &c.

5 This legend in one form or another is common to all Polynesia.

6 There is a little bird called Riro-riro in New Zealand from its note.

CHAPTER IX: JOSIAH. 1843-1852.

CHAPTER IX.

JOSIAH.
1843-1852.

IN 1852, our faithful native boy, Josiah, died in our house, after some weeks of suffering. The first time we ever saw him was in the autumn of 1843, when he came to us for medical aid. His arm was in a very painful state, and needed great care. He was then about twenty, short, and well made, with soft, curly black hair, of which he was very proud. He had regular features, was very neat, even dandyish, in his dress, and not a little conceited in manner. Yet there was an earnestness about him that interested us greatly. After he had been some weeks under our care, and was in better health, we gave him a letter to the Bishop, who was then at the Waimate, asking him to admit the youth into his Training-school. Josiah stayed there some months, till the whole College party removed to Auckland. As St. John's was not ready, he came to us for a while. He was very anxious to live with us; and his master, who took him with him on an overland journey to Taranaki found him so attentive and intelligent, that he was

quite willing to keep him. He was very active and energetic, doing more work in a day than many would do in two; often self-willed, and doing things in his own way, or beginning some grand work without orders, and being sorely aggrieved at having to undo it. He would put on a droll half-reproachful look sometimes when paid his wages, which were half-a-crown a week. He learnt what our old English gardener received, and would say to us, "John has one pound a week, I, half-a-crown, I can do as much work as he." When our gardener left us to go on to his own farm, it was agreed that Josiah should take his place, with an increase of wages. He was very proud and happy, poor fellow, and full of schemes for the future. His master had a small raupo cottage built for him, and he was amazingly busy and important about the plan and site. But though it was very neat, and looked quite snug with its wooden door and glass window, and had shelves within for his books, and a tidy little bedroom, where his looking-glass hung up, and his boxes – full of good English clothes – were placed, he was not content. His intention was to save money enough to build a wooden house in our paddock. This was his great ambition, and he used to tell our servants of all he meant to do, and how English-like his home should be, and that he would never marry till he could get a wife who would be a Pakeha in all her habits.

He was not neglecting book-learning during this time. He was always ready to come up after the day's work, with clean hands and face, and shining hair, to work sums, or to read English. He did not readily learn to pronounce our sounds, but his perseverance never failed, and at last he could read most parts of the Prayer Book and Psalms fluently. We did not know till just before his death, how much English he knew; for a friend of ours came over to see him, who could not talk Maori, and he entered freely into conversation with her about GOD'S love to him, and of his own hopes, and asked her to read several collects in English. He was too shy to attempt this with us. He was a regular communicant from the time he first came to us, and went always twice to church; and on the Sunday evening, he not only used to come up himself to school, but always collected as many steady young men as he could from the town, and brought them to our house; often eight or ten men and boys would accompany him home to be schooled by his master in the Epistles or Gospel.

He was very steady and consistent in his conduct, strictly honest, sober, and truthful. I never knew him prevaricate when blamed. His besetting sin was his strong temper. He would be very stubborn, and declare he was in no way to blame; but after a while, when kindly and firmly talked to by his master, he seemed penitent and ashamed.

Often it was very difficult to do justice; for the rough, rude ways towards him because he was "only a Maori," naturally roused his fiery temper. One day our little Irish housemaid came in high displeasure. Josiah had been calling her names. "What did he say?" "Oh, I don't know his language, but his look was enough." "Well, Josiah, what did you call Ann?" His eyes twinkled with fun. "I called her the little one," using a diminutive equal to our "dwarf;" and then, with a burst of anger, "Why does she call me slave?" He was a great wag, and could generally hold his own in the kitchen. "If you don't speak English, I shan't give you any dinner," said our old cook one Sunday to him. He paused for a minute, and then slowly answered, "Your son sleep in church." As the old lady had a high opinion of her sons, she did not ask for any more English. His caution towards his own people when they came to trade was most amusing. In vain did I appeal to him about prices current, or about the quality of the goods in their presence; but if I went into the house he would follow me with many words of caution. He had not many friends among his own native people. Indeed, he had only one whose society he cared for. This was Rota, a young man who had lived with the Bishop for several years, and gradually rose to be house-steward at the college, then schoolmaster, and finally

was admitted to Holy Orders. These two young men, though very unlike in character, were strongly attached to each other, and the sunny sweetness of the one, and the sturdy purpose of the other, was doubtless helpful to both.

In no way did we more see the influence of Christianity upon Josiah, than in his readiness to wait upon the sick. A New Zealander (even a heathen) will be generally kind to one of his own tribe when ill, or at least to a kinsman; but there are few who like to put themselves out of the way to wait upon a stranger. Nor was it from natural kindness of disposition that he acted, for he was of rather a hard and unsympathising temper; but the sense of its being a Christian duty, led him to do many things for the sick, very unpleasant to his taste, and especially in his often ailing state. Towards the end of one very hot summer, a poor man was brought to our bay in a little boat, in the last stage of fever. Some English people, who had employed him, quietly shipped him off when too ill to be of any more use. He lived for a week or two in a little Maori house, with no one to care for or minister to him but ourselves and our boy. He went on doing offices of mercy for him, of the most trying kind, till the poor friendless creature died, and then Josiah dug his grave. Nor was this an uncommon instance. Though sometimes he was cross and irritable about helping

others, and highly indignant if they were unthankful or disobedient to rules, yet his better principles generally prevailed.

He accompanied us on our bush journey in 1846. He had not at all approved of my going, evidently thinking that women should stay at home. When we were passing through the wood between the Wai-Rere and Tauranga, my husband, who had been ill, could not keep up with my bearers, and I insisted on calling a halt till he should come up. Josiah was very indignant. What harm could happen to him? There were men with him. But when we had rested some time, and there were no signs of the rest of the party, he aggravated me by standing up and saying in a severe dismal tone, "Did not I prophesy before we left home that this expedition would turn out badly?" When at Tauranga I became really ill he was the most faithful servant, and won golden opinions in the Mission-house.

He continued, amid many intervals of sickness, in our service till 1850, when his health finally began to give way. He had tried many means of recovery, and was sanguine about each. His letters, when away for change of air, were most loving. He used to write that his heart yearned after us; that we were, and had been, father and mother to him in his orphan state, and that he should never leave us. Poor fellow! this love towards us grew very steadily,

and was most sincere. In the early days of his stay, when angry at some affront from one of our household, he came, with tears of pride, and said, "I will go away, and ask the Bishop to take me in. It is not for you Pakehas (English folk) that I care; it is for the sake of what I can learn that I come and live with you." But this proud independent feeling changed into the most faithful love. To his master he was particularly affectionate, and rarely showed wilfulness towards him.

Once when he had been very ill and was just able to sit up, our Bishop was sailing on one of his Mission voyages to the islands. Josiah was so restlessly anxious to get up to our house to see him depart, that some men carried him up in a chair. The tears ran down his thin cheeks as his beloved teacher passed out, and spoke a few loving words to him, and gave him his blessing. None of us thought that he would live to welcome him back; but he did. It was a trial to him to give up all his work, but he never attempted again to struggle with his illness. "I shall do no more work, I must die," was his quiet remark after any little exertion. His great anxiety was to get some faithful man to take his place. He wished, if possible, that his young cousin, who had lived with him when they were heathen boys together, should come into our service, or, as he said, "to be our child." After much correspondence, the young man

came, and agreed to be trained by him in English habits and ways. It was amusing to see the eagerness and importance of the latter, and his care of his young companion. But the lad was of different stuff to his stedfast relative, he got tired of the sameness and restraint of his life; and after a few weeks, to Josiah's great disappointment, left us for his native village.

Josiah never seemed lonely, or to crave to be among his own people. He was quite happy either at our house – looking at pictures or reading English – or sitting below in the sunshine, studying his Prayer-book and Testament. His own tribe had a great respect for him, which the steadiness and consistency of his conduct well deserved. Many, too, used to appeal to him from his knowledge of arithmetic. They liked him to come when they were selling large quantities of corn or flax in the town, to see that all was fairly weighed, and would pay him for his trouble. He was still able to go to church regularly, by starting early and resting on the way. His figure will long be remembered at St. Barnabas (a wooden church built for the natives), where he always went. He rang the bell as long as his strength would allow him. His dress on Sundays was to the last exceedingly neat and precise. He always wore a black coat, black trousers, a gay yellow waistcoat, black satin stock, and glossy hat. Nor was he like some New Zea-

land and English boys, smart without being clean. His shirt and boots were spotless. His face scrubbed with soap and water till it shone. With a flower in his button-hole and his books under his arm, he travelled up the steep hill; often sitting down to pant for breath, but never forsaking the services of the church. Even when laid by all the week he would crawl out if possible on Sunday; and come to school, and bring others with him in the evening.

In 1851 he went to St. John's College, to be under medical care, and also to have thorough rest, which he would not take at home. He attended the Bishop's catechisings, and all the school teachings, with great interest. One day a dispute arose about the meaning of a Maori word, in a chapter which had been read. The natives present could not agree as to the sense, so he went up to one of the English students, and said "Can't you look out in the Greek for the word, and find the true meaning, and so settle the matter?"

The disease which had long shown itself in the neck and arm, soon after this flew to the hip, and a large abscess formed there. He was confined to his bed for several weeks, and we did not think it possible that he could again rally. He was affectionately nursed by a dear old English servant of ours. One Sunday, two or three weeks

after he had been laid by, I went down to see him, and found him in great distress of mind. Though regular in his religious duties, he had always been reserved in talking about his feelings. He told me now that he had been reading the Psalms, and that the sense of his sins, and of the evil of sin, pressed heavily upon him. He appeared much distressed. An excellent missionary clergyman, who lived close by, came several times to see him, and, after many talks together, the cloud passed away, and he was never so depressed again.

We did not know fully all his past history, till he lay a dying – for he was very reserved and shy at all times of speaking of his inner feelings. He was born at a village some twenty miles from Auckland – his mother died when he was a child, and when thirteen or fourteen, he lost his father in an affray. There was some quarrel about land, and a man of his own tribe slew him. According to New Zealand law, the boy was bound, when strong enough, to punish – and slay, if possible – his father's murderer. Josiah was a sturdy, self-willed lad, with a good deal, of character, and lived on his own land with a young cousin, of whom he was very fond. He was nearly sixteen when he first began to hear about Christianity. The Gospel had been preached and received in the North of the Island several years before; but the Ngapuhi tribe, who were first converted, were hostile

to the tribes near Auckland, and no one ventured for a time to carry the good news to them. At last, some teachers ventured their lives for their brethren's sake. They were kindly received: and some men in Josiah's village were converted. These formed themselves into a little church, and met for divine service every Sunday, and invited others to join them. The old heathen party had a great contempt for the converts. The band was very small and ignorant, but also very sincere and steadfast. Josiah soon heard of the new teaching, and had a great desire to attend on Sundays, and to understand about it, for he was of a remarkably inquiring spirit. His pride, however, as he told us on his death-bed, made him ashamed to show any interest in the matter; so he used to saunter carelessly along towards the little house where they met for worship, with a cob of Indian corn in his hand. By-and-by he would slip in and sit munching it in a corner, as if he was only there out of curiosity, and did not care or mean to learn.

But the same merciful God who led him thither to seek and inquire, softened the pride of his heart, and before long he had learnt all his native brethren had to teach, and determined to cast in his lot with them, and be a Christian. He was not contented, however, to stay at his own village. He wanted to know more than his teachers could tell him, and to learn how to read and write. So he left his land to take

its chance, and went to live with an English catechist, who, by this time, had received encouragement enough from the many converts to come and settle in the neighbourhood. Whareiro – for this was his native name – was, after due preparation, baptised, and named Josiah. He continued at the Mission for a year or two and then came to us. He had always an affectionate remembrance of his first English teachers, and especially of Mrs. Fairburn's patience with, and goodness, to him – though he used to tell how she had often to rebuke, and even punish, him for his strong self-will and dogged temper. Indeed, it is a strong proof of the earnestness of his wish to become a "Pakeha" (an Englishman), that he submitted to the restraint. It was not a necessary consequence of becoming a Christian – for many natives are baptised, and live in our communion without changing their old modes of life. It is rarely, however, in such cases, that they succeed in holding themselves up. Everything in their social habits at that time was against the influences of Christianity and civilisation.

The poor fellow underwent a terrible conflict of mind about his land. By tribal law it would pass after his death to the kinsman who had slain his father. He came in one day with a plan of the property in his hand, and offered to give it to us who had been parents to him. When we told him we

could not accept it he went to the Bishop saying he should have it for Church purposes. His face clouded over when again it was refused, and the duty of forgiveness pressed on him. At last, when very ill, he sent for the old man to come. There was a short and solemn interview. Josiah shook hands with him and told him the land would be his, and after this he was in perfect peace. He shared his house with a sick relative and gave him much of his long-cherished store of goods. He told us on our return from Waikato that his "bag of wind was broken." He was moved up to our house, and never left it or his bed again. He talked very freely during this last week of his life about himself and his ground of hope. We had seen the fruits of Christianity in his life, but were hardly prepared for such clearness of views and strength of conviction. All reserve was broken down. He was never tired of speaking of the "free love of God." I use his own expression. He told us of his early youth; of his desire, to hear the new teaching; of the pride that held him back; and would again and again say, "What but the free love of God could have led me to himself." He wanted to be gone, and was greatly pleased when his clergyman, Rev. G. Kissling, read the 17th of St. John to him and spoke of his approaching end. The last morning of his life I went to him early, and began to bathe his forehead with Eau-de-Cologne. He had always liked

this; but, in his odd, practical way of looking at things he said, "Don't do it, it is a waste now." The death sweat was on his brow. His friend Rota supported him in his arms. He turned to him and said, "Hold fast to the good when I am gone." Then he began in English, Bishop Ken's "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," but the words died away, and he fell asleep without a struggle. We who knelt beside his bed could but pray for grace to live as faithfully to our much greater light, and to die as full of trust and peace as he had done.

We had no boy afterwards of our Josiah's stamp. We had a Waikato man for a while, who might have sat for the god Pan. He had the most grotesquely ugly face, with a profusion of shaggy brown hair in which he delighted to stick red geraniums. We called him Sylvan; and, really, when he lay out in the sunshine on a bed of fern, gay with flowers and beaming with smiles, he might have been deemed a Faun of the South Pacific. He could not read or write, and one afternoon came to ask me if I were very busy; if not, would I write a letter for him. So we went together into the dining-room. He began by dictating a number of affectionate greetings; then much good talk. At last he stopped and said, "Is that enough about those things."

"Yes."

"Then tell my people I won't marry my cousin."

It appeared that a mariage de convenance was on the tapis for poor Sylvan, and he was by no means agreeable to the proposed match.

His successor was a tall, thin, withered-looking man, as ugly as Sylvan, without his picturesqueness. He affected great style in his dress, and appeared every Sunday in a very tight-fitting blue dress coat, with brass buttons, a yellow waistcoat and white trousers. He abounded in wise saws. Poor Tommy, he attached himself warmly to the scion of a noble house, who was out in New Zealand on a visit. He often rowed him across the harbour, and would fetch him at night from any party. Once, when he was very tired and cold, he walked up to the verandah outside the drawing-room, and, calling the young nobleman by his Christian name, summoned him to come home.

When Lord – – – – – left Auckland, he gave a handsome present to the faithful Tommy, who was so grateful and impressed that he came to us saying that, as he had neither wife nor child to leave his land to, he should bequeath it to his generous English friend. Accordingly he drew out a very clear plan of his estate, and begged us to forward it by the next mail, with all due formality, which we did.

CHAPTER X: OLD NEW ZEALAND.

CHAPTER X.

OLD NEW ZEALAND.

THE grand breed of chiefs, such as we knew in the first years of our residence in New Zealand, is fast passing away. Christianity and civilisation have both helped to break down their position. The head of each tribe was formerly from early infancy, treated with the utmost deference. He ruled over his mother and all his slaves with despotic power. He was fed with the best of food. Slaves cultivated the ground, and snared birds for him. He had his eel preserves, which no one dared intrude on on pain of death. When he grew older and was about to go out for the first time to war, he was put into a state of tapu by the priest, i. e., was consecrated, so that for a time he must not even feed himself. He might have an unlimited number of wives, and if he chose to put one of these to death, no one dared to interfere. The natural outcome of this training was that such a man became, if of a noble nature, dignified and commanding. St. Paul's words about the heathen of his time, who, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, often came to our

[Inserted illustration]

1. ROTO-RUA MAN. Page 56.
2. THE OLD SAVAGE. Page 143.
3. MOHI. Page 88.
4. YOUNG NEW ZEALANDER. Page 143.

minds as we became acquainted with this old breed of chiefs. Some so self-restrained, grave, and courteous; others cruel, ill-bred, sensual tyrants. One such we knew who was head of all the tribes in the upper part of the Thames. He had the look of a wild beast. His eyes were blood-shot, and glared with passion on the smallest provocation, and his high birth did not prevent his being a shameless beggar. To the praise of the New Zealanders be it recorded that the chiefs, as soon as they became Christians, set their slaves free. Those who had been taken in war, as a rule, thankfully returned home, leaving their old master to till the ground for himself. He thus lost the power of exercising large hospitality, and, as wars ceased, of winning fame. Now the young New Zealand chiefs go to English schools, work for settlers, and mix on equal terms with all the nobodies in their village. We had a friend named Kawau (Anglice, Cormorant), who lived a few miles off, and was a fine type of the old Maori chief. He was very tall and big. He was a warm admirer of the Bishop, and never failed to attend any festivities at St. John's College; but he could not make up his mind to accept Christian teaching and be baptised. He had several wives, and was unwilling to give up any of them. He had too a long-standing feud with the Waikato people, and was always ready to go to war with them. The bad conduct of two of his sons, who

had been baptised some years before, was a great stumbling-block to him. But at last peace was made with his old enemies, and he fell ill; and on his recovery, after many months of suffering, he expressed great anxiety to become a catechumen. After much preparation, Kawau was baptised in the native chapel near his own pah. It was in the autumn time, calm and still, with a soft grey light over sea and sky and the distant hills. The chapel was approached through an open grassy glade in a wood, and stood, perched on a small promontory from which one commands a fine view of the harbour and the headlands around. The Bishop and some of the Clergy walked up the hill from the beach, followed by Kawau and a train of men and women. The noble old chief was dressed in a long dark blue military cloak, lined with red. There was a great discussion before the service as to what name the convert should have. The people finally decided on Abishai, son of Zeruiah, because he was a great warrior. The chapel was crowded. The old man distinctly and earnestly assented. When all was ended, the Bishop turned to the congregation and spoke strongly and solemnly to them, reminding them how their want of steadfastness in the Christian course hindered their heathen brethren, how vain it was to hope to win others to the Church of Christ when they were seen "now in, now out, obedient for a little while, then rebelling against all restraint."

Then he turned to Kawau, took his hand, spoke a few words of affectionate welcome and of warning, and, placing his hands on the old man's head, gave him his blessing. Abishai continued a faithful Christian man, and received Holy Communion many years after from Bishop Selwyn's hands on the day that he finally left New Zealand.

We often received visits from another great chief who lived on the North Shore. He was between seventy and eighty when we first knew him, and was upright and very vigorous. We could make a fair guess at his age, because he remembered Captain Cook's coming to Hauraki in 1773. He used to tell us of his going down into the cabin and having biscuits given to him. His head just reached up to the edge of the table; so he must have been five or six years old. The settlers had a great respect for this old man. He was popularly called Hook-nose. He had fine features, and when he stood up with a dog-skin mat over his shoulder, and a spear in his hand, looked a born ruler. Curiously enough, he was able to throw light on an incident narrated in Cook's voyages. It is told there that one of the natives who came on board stole a piece of calico, and got with it into a canoe alongside. Captain Cook ordered his men to fire at the thief as he paddled away. The next day the same canoe came with a large party of natives. The man who had

stolen the goods was not there, nor was he ever seen again. Cook supposed that he had been killed, and wondered that no grudge or ill-will was shown by the survivors. Hook-nose told us that he was in the canoe when the man was fired at. He died just as the party got to shore. His friends lifted the body out, and found the piece of calico underneath soaked with blood. A council was held, and it was decided that the deceased had paid the just utu 7 for his offence. So they buried the calico with the dead body, counted the whole affair settled, and felt free to continue friendly relations with the white people.

Councils used to be held on all important subjects by the elders of each tribe, and some men were noted for their powers of oratory. It was difficult for the most acute Maori student to follow one of the old men when he got warmed and excited in speech. In our days the Maoris delighted to hold committees on all subjects. The Judge was appealed to one day by a party of men who had met together to consider what Phoebe's work, Romans xvi. i, could be. Instead of "a servant of the Church," the then Maori version had "a minister." They were in great per-

plexity. What could a woman do to be spoken of thus? She could not preach, for St. Paul forbade that in another Epistle; nor might she read in public. One man had made a happy suggestion: "Perhaps she rang the church bell!"

7 Payment.

CHAPTER XI: WAR AND ITS FRUITS. 1860-70.

CHAPTER XI

WAR AND ITS FRUITS.
1860-70.

WE were in England for more than two years. On our return, at the close of 1858, we found that a great change had come over the minds of the native people. Just before we sailed in March, 1856, a deputation of thoughtful, intelligent men had come from Waikato to ask the Judge whether the Government would not take some measures to check the lawless importation of spirits (rum) into the district by traders. They spoke with shame and horror of the effects this sale was having on the whole population – men, women, and even children. They seemed to think that the only effort made for their benefit on the part of the Government was to pass laws about the sale of land. This and the increased desire to sell land to the Government on the part of some of the natives through the country led the Waikato people to desire to have a king to reign over them. One man of great influence had wisely objected to the name, saying that, to the best of his knowledge, the main work of kings was to fight. But the mind of the majority prevailed. Their only

literature being the Old and New Testament it was natural that they should wish to do as the Israelites had done in their distress. Soon after our arrival, our old friend William Marsh came to see us. He had spoken strongly against the setting up of a king, saying that the name was an ill-chosen one and might lead to trouble. But he was very quaint and clever in his talk with us.

"Why," said he, "should the Pakeha (i. e., Englishman) be so angry? Why don't they talk the matter over reasonably? My friends! listen to me. We'll suppose that I have been to England, and that some one there has given me an officer's uniform. Well, when I come back to this land, I'm very proud of my new dress and my sword, and I walk about the town in them. Up comes a Pakeha to me, looking very angry and contemptuous, and says 'What are you wearing that dress for? You are not an officer. Take it off directly. You've no right to it.' Friends, I should go home with my heart very sore and much ashamed. But suppose another Englishman meets me. He smiles and shakes hands, and invites me to breakfast. There he gives me plenty to eat, and is very chatty and pleasant. Just as I am going away he lays his hand on me and says, 'Are you an officer?' 'No.' 'Well, isn't it a pity, then, to wear that uniform? If I were you I would not do it' Then, friends," said he, "I should answer, 'Your words are

just.' And I should go back and throw the dress aside, and feel no anger nor shame." 8

In i860, to our great sorrow, the war began at Taranaki. It was spoken of at first as a local disturbance soon to be quelled, but it was destined like a bush fire to run on, now burning fiercely, now sullenly smouldering over the face of the country for nearly ten years. However, at that time things were all quiet and prosperous in our neighbourhood. The Mission-schools up the Waikato were in full work. At St. Stephen's the Bishop had built a row of cottages for the use of native teachers who were preparing for Holy Orders. These were generally married men with young families. We were in charge of the institution for two or three months during the absence of the Principal through illness. It was a very happy time, though day by day we were occupied with the homely details of Mission work. The men took charge of the stores week and week about. I used to pity the poor fellows on Monday mornings when they gave

out soap for the washing. Each Maori matron at the top of her voice declared by turns that hers was the smallest piece and quite inadequate to the wants of her small family. It needed some generalship to get the back yard kept in order. Every one was inclined to throw out potato-parings and soap-suds, and no one felt it a duty to clear up. Soup-making, too, was a daily harass. Most of the women knew as little as our poor about cooking, and were inclined to be as wasteful. When all the morning work was done, and dinner over, and the women came in for afternoon school, they appeared armed with a baby each, and there was much crowing and kicking and screaming to enliven the lessons. Often there were anxious times of nursing. It was pleasant to gather together in the large hall for evening prayers, and to know that, while war was raging in the South between the two races, this faithful band was being trained to go forth to help and teach their people.

One of our most hopeful native teachers died soon after our return home. His name was David Te Mania; we had known him for sixteen years. He looked quite a youth when he first visited us, but was then a married man with several children, and was teacher in his own village and neighbourhood. His wife was a clever notable woman. He won our hearts at once. His bright face was so full of sweetness and intelligence. He had been one of

the first to be baptised when teachers were sent into the Waikato district, and he certainly tried to lead the rest of his life according to that beginning. He was soon appointed to be a native teacher, and worked for many years most faithfully and conscientiously. He read prayers daily, morning and evening, in the chapel; kept school, visited the sick, and often travelled from place to place teaching his people. There were several such working under each English missionary. They got little pay and had to work hard to keep up a respectable appearance. Some, of course, sank back by degrees into the slovenly ways of the rest of the villagers, some pushed their way in the world and neglected their work. Some, being imperfectly taught, grew very conceited. But our dear friend, for we counted him such, was singularly humble and childlike in spirit, and faithful in the discharge of his duties. When gold was found at Melbourne, and the rush of English thither began, the price of flour suddenly rose, and the Waikato Maoris grew wheat in large quantities. They were wild with excitement, money flowed in and was spent as fast in the purchase of ploughs, horses, carts, &c. Nothing was cared for but money. But during that time of excitement David kept on his quiet course. He was not a man of many words, but he went about his work as a simple matter of business, to be done whatever else was left undone.

He and his wife had a great deal of care from time to time. They lost several very engaging children. One, a little god-daughter of ours, who died of fever, and, though little more than a baby, said to her mother, as she was dying, "I am going to my Saviour." She was buried in the churchyard near our house. I was away from home at the time. The poor mother came to me on my return, and said, "It is all right, my child is safe at home, and I am not going to sorrow, only (and then she burst out crying), I shall do so when I go back to the village and see her little clothes." A touch of feeling quite Shakespearean.

Another child, a girl of ten, died a year or two after. She hurt her spine, and had a long wasting illness. She had her father's bright look and upright figure, and we all were fond of the child. Her mother was acting matron at St. Stephen's; the little maid had been one of the scholars there. She was a most patient sufferer, and to the last she would greet us with a pleasant smile. A few years more and they were called to lose their only boy. They were living then at St. John's College, that David might get further instruction, and Rebekah was foster-mother to the baby of an English officer and his wife in the neighbourhood. She was very proud of her fair and dark-skinned babies, but her husband's delicacy shewed itself in most of the children, and a rapid inflammation carried their boy off in a few days.

When the Judge was very ill, and we were about to sail for England in 1856, David and his wife came to bid us a loving farewell. He was in good health, working for the support of his family, and yet finding, or rather making, time to do his work as teacher. He was very particular, for his children's sake, to live a little way out of the village; for in those days it was very hard to keep up good habits in the Pah. It was community life there without any rules. The cooking was done in one large native oven. The people sat round on the ground to eat their meals, with pigs, dogs, and babies clamouring for a share.

Our dear friend was one of the first to welcome us on our return to New Zealand; but it was a sorrowful meeting. His days were evidently numbered. He had been in the Colonial Hospital for some weeks, suffering from glandular swellings in the neck, and from cough and oppression of breath. He gave us a sweet bright look of welcome as he tottered into the room. He would come to see us, though quite unfit for the exertion. He was too much exhausted to return that night to the hospital; and, as it was very full, and the weather hot and trying to him in the crowded wards, Archdeacon Kissling kindly gave him a large airy room at St. Stephen's. His wife and children could be with him there, and it was so close to our house that we could have the comfort of seeing him daily. He rallied wonderfully

for the first month or two, and we began to hope he might be spared for a while. The oppression at his chest ceased, his appetite improved, he could walk about on sunny days, and even joined the men in their school work. He was soon tired of writing, but his active mind and desire to learn more made him disregard fatigue. We were away part of the summer, and only saw him occasionally. He was always bright and happy, welcoming me with a sunny smile when I came into town, and making loving inquiries after my husband's health. His wife, though very anxious about David, was obliged to be away part of the time to get in their potato-crops. In the old heathen days, a man of his rank would have had several slaves to work for him, besides three or four wives, who all, except the head wife, would have had to cultivate the ground.

As the cold autumn winds set in, our friend began to droop. The last time he came out was about six weeks before his death. He came to join us in Holy Communion at St. Stephen's Chapel, the Bishop being celebrant. He could hardly struggle up the little hill on his way back, and had a violent fit of coughing ere he reached home; but he greatly enjoyed having been there. He had a sharp attack of pleurisy soon after, and, though he rallied for a time, he spoke constantly of his coming death. A little boy was born to him, the first since Willy's death. He was

exceedingly proud of his baby, and would sit with it in his arms, calling it his treasure and the gladdener of his heart. His wife told us how he prayed through the long watches of the night – prayed for her, for his children, for his people. He called for his child, and talked a long time to him, telling him he would never know his father; but not to grieve, for he had a heavenly Father who would love him and care for him. He was wasted with low fever, and was unable to get rest in any posture, though his wife was most helpful and attentive to him, arranging his bed or easy-chair in all parts of the room by turns. We saw him almost daily, and can truly say we never heard one impatient or murmuring expression. He always looked smilingly at us, and if too weak to talk he liked us to read psalms to him. The 23rd, 103rd, and 121st comforted him, as they have comforted many a Christian lying sick and weary. One afternoon, when he could only speak with great difficulty, he asked my husband to read to him out of "Pilgrim's Progress" the story of Christian's fight with Apollyon, and his overcoming him in the valley of the Shadow of Death. The book has been translated into Maori, and delights our imaginative native people. We wondered whether there was or had been any struggle in his mind, any conflict of which we knew nothing, which made him select this. Looking at his peaceful, quiet face, the words used always

to come to one's mind: "Mark the just man and consider the upright; for the end of that man is peace." He never talked much about his feelings or hopes; his words were few and simple. "He was willing to bear this sickness, because God had sent it." He had no anxiety about his children; God would take care of them. His was the spirit of a little child "clinging to his Father's breast in perfect rest."

But he was very anxious about his people, and sent for the native teacher who was taking his place in the village, and they had a long talk. The clergyman of the district, who had known David for twenty years, told us he knew of none like-minded to fill his place. Poor Rebekah used to make her wail aside to me, "Mother, who will care for the sick as my husband has cared? By night and day he went to them, taking them food and praying by them." And then she dwelt on his unselfishness; how he rebuked her when she bought anything expensive for him. He would give largely towards Christian works. He gave £2 towards a church in a neighbouring village, just before his illness, and afterwards begged his wife to give £2 more. This was equal to £50 from many of us.

One day when he was a little stronger, he asked my husband to explain the meaning of the verses in the eighth of Romans. He could not under-

stand about the "creature being made subject to vanity."

An old chief and kinsman, Ta-ma-ti Nga-po-ro, often came in to visit him, and stood godfather for the baby boy. To my pleasure and surprise they both (the father and mother), asked me to be godmother, though I had stood for the little boy that died. But they had no superstitious fears, saying, It was God's will that that child should die.

And so the weary days passed on. As a rule the visits of kinsfolk and acquaintance harassed him. The continual gossip about crops and prices, and sale of lands, was quite out of harmony with his peaceful surroundings. He was playful, though, when a little easier, and would stroke my riding-jacket and admire it, or watch with amusement his baby's merry ways. Early in July (our midwinter), we gathered together a little band of native and English friends to receive Holy Communion with him. It is at such times that people realise the mighty power of Christianity in drawing together into one family all nations, and kindreds, and tongues. The dear fellow rallied, though we had thought him dying. The day before his death, August 2nd, we were troubled to hear that he was earnestly desirous to return to his own place. He wanted to go to Onehunga, about six miles off, by cart, and then by canoe the remaining twelve, across the harbour. It

was a lovely day, warm and bright, and he had a feverish fancy that he should revive if he could but breathe the fresh air once more. Of course, all his friends urged him to remain quietly where he was. He was so emaciated and weak that he would probably have died on the journey. He was very good and submissive. It is very common for Maori sick people just at last, when dying in English houses, to wish to go home. Any one less patient than David would have persisted in going. It is very natural. The Maoris live a much freer life; and even a large room seems close and dark to those, who, when ill, are carried out of doors and lie and look up at the blue sky. He was moved into the verandah as a half measure, and very much did he enjoy the sight of sea and sky. There was a lovely view in front, a grass plot and large masses of white arum flowers, and in the background purple wooded hills and islands, and the glittering sea. His three merry little black-eyed girls jumped and ran about out of doors, all unconscious of their great approaching loss. He did not like us to leave him, though he could not talk, but said, "stay a little longer," with the earnest look of one who knew his end was coming. His oppression was sad to see. He let the cold air play across his chest and panted for breath.

We saw him the next day and he told us it was well he had stayed. One of us brought him some

water, and he repaid us with a bright sweet look of thankfulness. In the evening, without a sigh or struggle, he fell asleep as one of his native friends knelt by him in prayer.

As the Maoris say of such deaths, "he had arrived at home." Very peaceful and smiling the lifeless body looked. It was laid to rest in the little churchyard close by the sea, where three of his children had been buried. The chapel was quite full of native and English mourners. We had feared that David's people might insist on carrying off the body to be laid among his own tribe. It was his own and his wife's earnest desire that his body should be laid to rest among the friends who had cared for him to the last. The Bishop read the service. The day was glowingly bright, and all nature spoke of resurrection.

The widow remained for a long time at St. Stephen's. She used to speak often with thankfulness about her husband's release, and then end with the words, "But the pain of my heart is so sharp." It was touching to hear her talk to the bright-eyed boy of the father whom he would never know. One day I found her standing, with him in her arms, before the picture of a widowed friend of ours, which had been just sent us from England. She was talking to it, "How she too knew all about the pain and sorrow of widowhood." It is a sad ending to this story, but

a true one, that, after all, our friendship with this poor woman was broken through the miseries of war. Just before our invasion of Waikato, where Rebekah was then living peaceably in her own village, supporting herself and her children by doing washing and needlework for settlers in the neighbourhood, she came in one evening to our house, breathless with fear and excitement. She had come across the harbour to the little port of Onehunga to do some shopping, and the tradespeople had told her that the troops were soon coming to put down the Maoris. We calmed her fears, and assured her that the Government would not attack the Waikato natives unless they rose against us. Unhappily, two or three days later, on a Sunday morning, General Cameron crossed the river with a large force and the war began. Rebekah fled with her children and the rest of her people up into the King's country for refuge. There, removed from Christian influences and surrounded by malcontents, her excitable temperament made her, after a while, believe herself to be a prophetess. Once only she wrote to me, and they were bitter words about our English people, though full of expressions of personal regard. A house had been set on fire after a skirmish, and one or two Maori women and children were, as it was believed, burnt. Of course, the men who did this only supposed the house to be a lurking-place for the enemy. She

asked me whether it was part of our Christian religion to burn women and children alive.

Poor soul, she died before the war was over. We made many efforts to get hold of our little godson, now a boy often or eleven years old. After much delay and many difficulties, he was brought to us and put to school at St. Stephen's, where a large native boys' school was supported by the Government. David was singularly like his father in face and disposition, and we had good hopes of his future usefulness as a Clergyman among his people. But the seeds of consumption were in him and grew with his growth, and after a long illness, borne most patiently, he died at sixteen, and was laid beside his father.

At first, as has been said, the seat of war was confined to the Taranaki district, but as time rolled on the full painfulness of the struggle began to press upon us. One by one the large flourishing schools on the Waikato and Wai-pa rivers had to be closed, with their branch village schools under native teachers, which had become centres of light. The fine country which we had seen covered with wheat crops became a battle-field; the mills were closed, the churches built by the natives were often used as barracks for the troops. In the towns the English got frightened by the wild rumours afloat of intended attack and surprises. We had to advise old faithful friends, who came in to trade as usual, not to

venture into Auckland, so our bay became deserted. No invalids were brought to be nursed, no canoes heavily laden with produce skimmed across the harbour. It seemed as if the pleasant intercourse with the Maoris, which for twenty years had made our lives so bright, was at an end. And, instead, came almost daily news of war and its attendant miseries to both races. It was time of sore trial to faith and patience. It dimmed one's enjoyment of the fair natural beauty all around, "The land was defiled." We had 10,000 troops in the Waikato. After heavy loss on our side the pah at Ra-ngi-ri-ri was taken in 1863, and 120 of the bravest fighting men on the Maoris' side made prisoners. For many months these fine fellows were kept on board a coal-hulk in the harbour.

The Officers, both naval and military, had a great admiration of the Maoris for their wonderful pluck and courage. I heard a young officer tell the story of Orakau at a dinner table, and he jumped up with kindling eyes and with a quiver in his voice that did him honour. For, indeed, the action of this little band of so-called savages was as heroic as any recorded in the brave days of old. A body of 300 men, and as was afterwards found of some women also, had thrown themselves into a strong pah. The General, determined to avoid the risk of terrible loss of life by storming,

invested the pah. For three days the besieged endured the want of water. They were called on to surrender, but they refused. On the fourth day the gates of the pah opened, and a compact body issued forth, the strongest and bravest in front and rear, the old men and boys and women in the centre. There was no hurry or wavering; they came at a steady trot across the plain, hoping to break through the lines. They might have escaped, so sudden was the movement, but the mounted volunteers came up and cut them down. Some few got away. The soldiers went about helping the wounded and carrying them to the hospital. One sergeant saved the life of a very pretty half-caste girl, who was badly wounded in the arm. When she recovered he wanted to marry her; but she refused him. Our dear old Bishop, who was up at the camp, looked after her and brought her safely into Auckland. He stopped by the way at a little store to buy a trimmed hat to cover her closely-cropped head. She is married to a Maori man, and has a large family of sons and daughters.

One promising young man, trained at St. John's College and married to one of the St. Stephen's schoolgirls, fell in fair fight. He was not unfriendly to the English, but was drawn into the contest, as many were, through love for his own people. He was in the fight at the gate pah where numbers of our officers were killed and wounded. All night,

at peril of his own life from soldiers and the insurgents, he kept watch over the wounded Englishmen. After his death a little book of prayers was found in his pocket. He had compiled these and used them daily with his people.

We got hard hits from our allies sometimes in these troublesome times. One old man came to see us at the beginning of the war. He was a clever, shrewd, man, and used to read with interest a magazine printed monthly by the Government for the instruction of the native people. There had been a very sensible article written in Maori on the folly and evil of tribal wars, which generally begin about land. The old native proverb is "Women and land; these are the causes of the destruction of men." The writer of the article urged the Maoris to go to the law-courts to settle all disputes instead of taking up arms. I was making tea in the kitchen for my old friend, and he began in a low voice, "Mother, have you read that article in the Messenger?" "Yes," said I. "Don't you think it very sensible?" "Yes." "Then, why" – and he lowered his voice to a whisper – "didn't Governor go to law about Wai-ta-ra?" The Maoris never realised that Governor meant a responsible ministry. I was obliged to turn my attention to the tea-table and say that women did not meddle with politics.

There was a delightful speech made at a great

meeting near Napier, during the war, by a very faithful ally of the English Government. "We have heard a good deal," said he, "about Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem, and we were very willing to receive him – nay, we opened our tent-door and said, 'Come in, Japhet.' But what we do not like is this: 'Now Japhet is inside, he spurns us,'" and Renata struck out with his foot as he spoke, "and says, Get out, Shem." "You English," said he, "are very like that monkey-engine," and he pointed to a machine that was at work near, driving piles into the ground with heavy thuds. "You beat our heads down to the earth."

The war had the unhappy effect of separating us from one special old friend who had for years been in the habit of coming in, every few weeks to see us, and often sleeping at our house. He was a younger brother of the old Waikato chief, Te Wherowhero, but was a very different type of man from his huge, grand-looking kinsman. He was short and thick-set, and his face so artistically tattooed all over that hardly a bit of the natural skin was to be seen save a little triangular space on the forehead.

He was an exceptionally cautious man, a born diplomatist. He would ask any number of questions, but never commit himself to the expression of an opinion, and his talk abounded in dark sayings and proverbs. As soon as the Gospel was brought to

Waikato he and his wife and daughter became Christians. They were all well conducted and steadfast, and Ta-ma-ti (Thomas) Nga-po-ro was much respected and looked up to by his people. He lived at a place about fifteen miles across the Manakau harbour, and acted as native teacher for many years.

In 1850 he became very anxious to build a stone church in his village. Up to that time the services had been held in a raupo building. 9 He and his people had to work very hard and to endure many privations to raise the needful funds. I remember well his coming to see us in the spring of 1853. We asked if he and his people had got their crops planted, and he answered, "No, the carts and horses have been all at work carrying stone and timber. When our last year's stores are used up, we must do as we can"; which really meant suffering for lack of sufficient food for months to come.

"But," he added, with one of his rare bright smiles, "the building will be finished by the end of next year. I thought that I should be the David to collect only for this work, but God has let me be the Solomon to complete it." The church was built, and services were held there regularly by Tamati for many years.

Just before our troops crossed the boundary-line

into the Waikato district, this old man was suddenly called upon with many others to sign a paper declaring formally his allegiance to the Queen. As a younger brother of old Te Wherowhero, and as uncle to the so-called Maori king, he was looked upon with some suspicion by the then Government. It is not to be wondered at that the wary old man refused to sign the paper without taking a long time for deliberation. He had been always friendly to the English, and had been a magistrate in Government employ. As a native magistrate, he had been very active in the cause of temperance, and had levied so many fines that he had. £100 to give towards church expenses.

On Ta-ma-ti's refusing to sign the paper put into his hand, all his people followed his example. They were then ordered to remove at once from their village, which was on our side of the Waikato river, into the Maori border. Winter rains had set in, the roads were bad, and their horses and carts, and the larger part of their stock of provisions had to be left behind. Poor old man! he went for refuge into his nephew's country, where he has lived ever since.

His property was used or destroyed by the troops, and the church which he had built with so much cost and toil was used as barracks for some years. He is still alive, and remains in the King's country. He is friendly to the native clergyman, who visits

the people there from time to time; but he has never visited Auckland again, though sixteen years have passed since he fled in hot haste.

Early in 1865 came the terrible news from the East Cape, of the Rev. Carl Volkner's murder by the fanatical Hauhaus there, and of the detention of the Rev. T. Grace in captivity by them. It was a shock to all friends of the Mission. For nearly fifty years English missionaries had dwelt in safety among the New Zealanders even in the wildest days of heathenism, and now after long years of Christian training and by a people who had been lovingly taught and helped by their kind-hearted pastor and his wife, Mr. Volkner was hung within sight of his church and home. Many things were said and written in England and in the colonies which implied that the Mission had been a failure, and that the Christian religion never could have really taken root in the land. Such speakers and writers forgot that deeds as revolting have been done again and again in Christian countries under similar circumstances. The outbreaks and ferocity of the Anabaptists in Munster, the Jacquerie in France after the English had desolated the country, the horrors of the Thirty Years' War in Germany may well be quoted as parallel cases of cruelty and revenge following a long season of trial and misery.

Perhaps a few facts as to the condition of the

Opotiki people, where Mr. Volkner worked, may best explain the cause of this fanatical outburst. These East Cape natives had not had much oversight for some years, till Mr. Volkner was sent down in 1859 to live among them. They were a quiet set of people, and received him gladly; the work grew in spite of the usual hindrances, a church was built, and a Mission-house with school close by. Then came the Waikato War, in which the East Cape Maoris took no part. But after a while it spread to Tauranga, and when fighting had been going on there for some time they were drawn into the fray. How could they do otherwise? they were allied to the Tauranga tribe by ties of blood and friendship; and, moreover, they knew that the Ro-to-rua tribe, their old enemies, were fighting on the English side. So a large party from Opotiki, in 1864, went to the seat of war and took part in an engagement with Colonel Greer's men of the 67th Regiment, and suffered most severely. On the return of the remnant of the war party, there was a great meeting called to weep for the dead. Mr. Volkner went over at once to condole with the survivors, and with the bereaved mothers, and sisters, and widows. As he drew near he heard a ta-ngi going on, for these barbarians still "lift up their voices and weep," when bowed with sorrow, as in the patriarchal days. It was just when the excitement, passionate grief, and exasperation

against their old enemies was at its height that two men of that tribe were seen quietly coming down the hill from the southwards towards the valley of weeping. These two men had been on a visit to friends in the south and knew nothing of what had been taking place. But the sight of them stirred up some of the women who had lost relatives in the late fight to fury, and they urged with imperious gestures that these Ro-to-rua men should be slain as utu. Amid the uproar an old widow got up, who had just lost her only son, and claimed to be listened to. "My friends," said she, "your words are not right. They would have been right in the old days, when we had no light and followed the longings and desires of our Maori hearts. But we have received the new law and we must abide by its teaching. Let these men, who have done no wrong, come and go in peace." Her words prevailed. Mr. Volkner told us this band of mourners received the two strangers in solemn silence, put food before them, and sent them unharmed on their way.

This happened less than a year before. The winter was coming on, and the great loss of life and the excitement and restlessness of the remainder of the tribe had hindered the planting of crops, and in the early spring fever broke out among the half-starved, dejected people, and raged with fatal effect for two or three months. Mr. Volkner, who had sent his

wife to Auckland, nursed them with unwearied care. He gave all his little stock of wine and scanty store of comforts and medicines to the sick, and for a while they were most thankful, and patient; but the continued mortality began first to depress them and then to excite their suspicions. They refused to take food or medicine from his hands, and at last, finding that his visits were no longer acceptable, he thought it better to come away for a time. Unhappily, in his absence their minds were further poisoned against him by a foreigner, then resident in the district, who told them that Mr. Volkner was a friend of the Government, and had advised the sending troops to Tauranga.

Our good friend could not long be happy away from his work and flock, and as the summer advanced he determined, against the advice of some steadfast native men from Opotiki (who came up to see him), to go back and look after his scattered people. He thankfully accepted a gift of wine for the sick, while expressing his doubt whether they would take it from him, and sailed with the Rev. Mr. Grace in a little vessel. Only a short time before his arrival at the East Cape, a man, calling himself a prophet, had come from Taranaki to ferment and kindle strife. He was a clever man, who had seen mesmeric performances, and by the power of fanaticism exerted great influence over his countrymen. He proclaimed a new religion, though indeed it was a mixture of

wild applications of Old Testament history with spells and incantations. A pole was set up in the pah, round which the people danced. They drew in their breaths all at once, somewhat in the way paviours used to do. This deep groan at the end of each sentence, "Hau," gave a name to the fanatical movement which lasts to this day.

The women flung themselves prostrate on the ground in a sort of excited trance. Just at the height of their madness the little vessel was seen, and they decided that if she should make her way up to the settlement the prophet would take it for a sign that the Lord had delivered their enemies into their hands.

It is touching now to remember that Bishop Patteson accompanied the Primate and Mrs. Selwyn when they went to break the news to the widow. She listened quite calmly, and said, "Then he has won the crown!"

We had had Mr. Volkner with us only a fortnight before; he was a fair-haired, blue-eyed German, very young-looking; almost our last sight of him was beside the grave of a sweet young girl, a missionary's daughter, laid to rest in the churchyard above our house. It was sunset, our Bishop was reading the Burial Service. It was grand, indeed, to hear him read it. The light of the setting sun lit up his beautiful face and glinted

on the fair hair of the future martyr as he stood with bowed head. Below us lay the sea like a burnished mirror. We little thought that in so few days Carl Volkner's body would be cast out dishonoured by the people whom he had gone to help and minister to, and that his companion, another great friend of ours, would be in the hands of the fanatics. Mr. Grace's wife and little children were living close to us, and had to wait, hoping against hope for days and days, till our Bishop went down in a man-of-war to try to rescue him, and brought him back in triumph to his home. And now the three are in paradise together.

8 This wearing of such a dress would not have seemed in any way out of place, for the Maoris had still much of the mind of children, and liked to dress up. A dear old missionary friend in the South told us some time after this of the trial he underwent in church. There had been a sale of stage properties at Wellington, and a respectable member of his native congregation bought a harlequin's dress and appeared in it at morning service. He lent it moreover to a very fat friend in the afternoon.

9 A native rush.

CHAPTER XII: ROTA WAITOA. 1866.

CHAPTER XII.

ROTA WAITOA.
1866.

IT was while the war was still raging in the neighbourhood of the East Coast that the first native clergyman, Rota Waitoa, came up from thence for rest and change, and (though we did not at first realise the dangerous nature of his illness) to die among his old friends. He was quite a youth when he volunteered to accompany the Bishop overland to Auckland in 1842. He was then a broad-shouldered, broad-faced, merry-looking lad, with something of the African type of features, and much of the warm, generous, trusting nature of the negro in him. He attached himself greatly to the Bishop, and for the next ten years never left him, nor returned to his home in the South, save for a short visit to his kinsfolk. He rose from one post of usefulness to another – was native schoolmaster at St. John's College, then house steward, and being found faithful in all his ways, and blameless of life, was ordained deacon at St. Paul's Church, Auckland, in 1852. Many hearts were stirred by the sight of this brown-faced man – the first deacon of the

Maori Church. The few words spoken to him by the Bishop in his own language were words of joy and thankfulness, mingled with solemn fatherly warning.

After his ordination in 1852 he went down at once to take charge of a village at the East Cape and soon began to win golden opinions from his own countrymen, and from the settlers in the neighbourhood. A naval officer, whose vessel was on the coast, went over to see him in his parsonage, and found him with his wife and child living quite in English fashion. He had married a girl trained at St. Stephen's School. At the end of eighteen months he came up at his own desire to St. John's College on a visit. To use his own words to his people when they asked him why he was leaving them, he came to "fill his seed-bags again, having sown all he took down with him the year before." He landed in our bay, and it was pleasant to see his good-humoured, honest face again. He looked very clerical, and was warmly welcomed by all his old friends. It was the time of the Crimean war, and he was asked to preach at St. Barnabas' Native Chapel on the day set apart as one of humiliation. He took the whole service, and preached a very good sermon, and soon turned the discourse to the subject of Maori wars and land quarrels, and spoke of the need of humiliation and prayer for all Christian men.

He had asked the native girls at St. Stephen's in the morning what they were going to church for, and one of them naively answered: "We are going to church to pray that the Russians may be killed." Rota stayed for some time at the College, reading with Archdeacon Abraham, and taking great pains to improve his knowledge of Scripture. His people had been plying him with many quaint questions. One was: "Whether the serpent which St. Paul shook off his hand into the fire was Satan?" &c. Many of the natives delighted in figurative explanations. We used to find it very difficult with some of the converts to extract, when teaching them, the plain meaning of a text or passage of Scripture. They would throw themselves back in their chairs, half close their eyes, and begin to "spiritualise." Dear old Rota had been too well and accurately trained to favour fanciful interpretations. A friend wrote of him during his visit: "I wish you could see the perfect ease and simplicity of his manner, without the least assumption or forwardness. You would have been much struck by this, could you have looked in at our social group of an evening after tea – Rota would sit and watch the English boys playing at chess, or learn to play himself – or have seen him after prayers talking of his parish with my husband, and bringing forward any difficulty that occurred to him."

After a few weeks he went back with his fresh bag of seed-corn, and years passed on in happy, useful work. He had a school of boys and girls in his house, and a large district under his charge. Some of the villages were eighteen or thirty miles distant, and to these he rode on alternate Sundays, with his surplice in a saddle-bag. We kept him well supplied with white cravats, and his wife took great pride in getting these up. He came up from time to time for more teaching, and once after his wife's death, which was followed by the loss of a much-loved little girl. After a while he married again, a pretty, young, half-caste orphan. Just before the birth of her little daughter, Rota had been reading with great interest a translation of Robertson's "Sketches of Church History," and was specially delighted with the account of Perpetua and her companions, and of their martyrdom at Carthage. He tried to persuade several of his flock to give the martyr's name to their infant daughters; but they thought it a newfangled one, and declined. When his own baby girl was born she was baptised Perpetua. He might have passed for some old African Presbyter as he stood at the font with his daughter in his arms, his brown face lit up with fatherly pride and love. Troublous times were at hand. War was desolating the district. His people were in a state of confusion; but he remained at his post comforting, teaching, warning,

till one Sunday he was laid up through a severe fall from his horse. The Bishop invited him to come up to Auckland with his wife and children. He was looking very ill, and, though as affectionate as ever, had lost much of his brightness. As he did not rally, medical aid was called in, and he was found to have aneurism of the heart. We were summoned in on our way back from church in January, 1866, to St. Stephen's, by the tidings that dear Rota was dying. It was a pitiful scene. He was lying on a mattress on the floor in extremis. The sac of blood had burst. Beside him knelt his pretty young wife, sobbing, and in her arms was the merry little Perpetua cooing and laughing, all unconscious of her great loss. A kind old Scotchwoman – the matron – was in the room; she had nursed Rota faithfully during the last days of his illness. We could not help smiling at her form of praise, though pleased to hear her hearty appreciation of our first Maori clergyman: "He was a gude mon, was Mr. Rota, a gude mon. I never knew a better mon." And then as a climax – "I never knew a better Scotch-mon."

His body was laid to rest in the St. Stephen's churchyard, and a cross, with his name engraven on it, put up in memoriam. Rota's widow was married again, after a year or two, to an excellent native clergyman in the North. The little Perpetua, when

old enough, was received into the St. Stephen's Orphan Home. She was a pretty, bright, fair child, with black, curly hair. She inherited her father's sunny temper, and was the pet and plaything of the school. She died two years ago of consumption. She was wonderfully bright and patient through her long illness, and was the general peacemaker. No cloud dimmed her trust in God. The funeral was at St. Stephen's, and the orphans, mostly English children, were all present, and sang beside her grave, "Safe in the arms of Jesus."

CHAPTER XIII: MELANESIAN MISSION, KOHIMARAMA. 1861.

CHAPTER XIII.

MELANESIAN MISSION, KOHIMARAMA.
1861.

IT may seem out of place here to tell of the beginning and growth of this Mission, and yet it is hardly possible not to refer to it, as the Maori and Melanesian scholars were for some years trained side by side, and in both we saw the power of the Christian religion displayed.

It was in the winter of 1849 that Bishop Selwyn made his first voyage to the Melanesian Islands. He had indeed gone on a cruise in H. M. S. Dido the year before, acting as naval chaplain, for the purpose, but her course lay more to the eastern than to the northern groups of the Pacific. He landed at several Mission stations in the Friendly and Samoan groups, where the Wesleyan and London missionaries had long been at work. He was received everywhere most cordially, and used to say that at parting he felt like a prima donna, for the school children crowded round him and threw flowers over him as he embarked. The Bishop also saw the work going on under the Presbyterian missionary at Anaiteum.

But he had no desire to enter into other men's labours, or to confound the minds of the native people by showing to them our unhappy divisions; more especially when the islands to the north lay unoccupied and in heathen darkness. He had been greatly pleased, while at Anaiteum, by his visit to the Sandal Wood Station of a certain Captain Padden. He saw that this man, by fair dealing and kindness, had succeeded in getting men from other islands to come and work for him, and to live at peace with one another; and at once felt that this same plan might be carried out for higher objects than commerce, and that boys from many islands might be gathered to a central school, and sent forth in time to be the evangelisers of their countrymen. He always used to speak of Captain Padden as "his teacher." On the 1st August, 1849, he sailed from our bay, which was henceforth to be the scene of so many partings and joyful returns. It was a moonlight night when he left us and bade farewell to his brave wife. It did seem indeed a venture of faith – the little schooner Undine, of twenty-one tons, was to carry him to unknown seas, among wild, barbarous people. He took with him Burney's "History of Discoveries in the South Seas," which proved most valuable to him, and his own patient study of navigation stood him in good stead. There were no proper charts of many of the groups, and the Bishop was the maker of

several, which were afterwards thankfully accepted by the Admiralty.

Months passed without any possibility of knowing how he had sped, when one night between ten and eleven we heard the firm, well-known step of our dear friend in the hall, and he appeared with a party of five boys from New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands. I was ill, and did not see them that night, but could hear their timid whispers of surprise and admiration at the first sight of an English house. A New Zealand youth from St. John's College, whom the Bishop had taken with him, carried them over to the kitchen, where the maids made much of them, and then they walked by moonlight to the College, and were awe-struck at the sight of cows and horses in the fields. They had never seen anything bigger than a pig before. One of the boys was a pleasant-looking lad from Lifu, entrusted to the Bishop by his old father and mother. He was about twelve years old, and became a great favourite with every one – the more so that he got a chill in the spring, and had inflammation of the lungs. His first step towards recovery began when some yams and cocoa-nuts were obtained for him, through the kindness of an old Wesleyan missionary, from a trading schooner. He was as particular about the cooking and toasting of the yams in thin slices as any fine lady could be over her dry toast.

It was a pretty sight to see this delicate, bright-eyed child, lying wrapped up on the sofa in the study, with the Bishop's little son (now Bishop of Melanesia) perched beside him, showing off his toys and treasures. They were fast friends, and managed very soon to understand each other, and to amuse each other by the hour together, while the Bishop stood at his desk, engrossed in College accounts or letters, never disturbed by their prattle and bubbling fun, and ready with his skilful hands (for he was a born nurse) to arrange the pillows or to lift the little invalid when it was time for him to have food or medicine.

Every winter after this the Bishop went on his island voyage, and brought back his old scholars and new ones attracted by their accounts of New Zealand. We used to try to get the Bishop to tell the story of his adventures immediately after his return, while it was still fresh in his memory. He would tell the names of the many islands which he visited, and seem as familiar with them as a London curate is with his courts and alleys. He was greatly pleased, on his visit to the Isle of Pines, a small island south of New Caledonia, with the hospitality shown him by a kindly old couple there. Wassum was the old man's name. It was like the story of Baucis and Philemon, for they brought forth of their best to do honour to their guest. They wore no clothes, but they had a

store of calico and blankets, which they brought out to make a bed for the stranger. They had a variety of miscellaneous articles – what the American traders call "notions," and which may include anything, from clothes-pin up to a Sam Slick clock – which they had obtained by barter from traders. These were hung from the roof, and were much prized. A huge New Caledonian, introduced by the captain of a trading vessel as one "Bassett, a very respectable man for a savage," was most friendly, and took the Bishop round the harbour, and some way up a river in a canoe, manned by a wild but not unfriendly crew. They passed wooded hills and some fine cascades. The yam cultivations were carried up often to the top of these hills. He was much struck by the careful irrigation of the yam grounds, by means of troughs made of bamboo. Some of the yams measured from four to five feet in length. The Bishop landed at a populous village, and saw earthen cooking vessels, such as Captain Cook had described, mounted on three stones. He longed to bring several boys away, but only one was allowed to come. His grey-haired father placed him in the Bishop's hands. Then another time he went to the Island of Fate, where were Samoan teachers, who, having themselves become Christians, were desirous to carry the Gospel to others. Every year many such unknown martyrs died of illness or by the hands of the heathen.

Everywhere the new-comers met with a friendly welcome from the barbarous people.

On one voyage he brought back a dear little fellow, of ten or eleven, whom he found at the Island of Erromango, tending a sick and diseased sailor. His heart was stirred within him when he saw this heathen child ministering, "all for love and nothing for reward," to the miserable Lazarus, one of our many de-civilised waifs, who showed small gratitude. However, both the ministered to, and he who ministered, found a blessing. The Bishop brought the poor sufferer to Auckland, to the Colonial Hospital, where he was carefully nursed till his death, and jolly, round-faced Umao was trained at St. John's College, and was baptised there. He used to be dressed in duck trousers and shirt, like a Jack tar, with a clasp knife fastened by a string round his neck. We had him in our house just before the third voyage for three days, and nursed him through a sharp attack of ague.

The whole party was about to embark when a furious north-east gale blew up with heavy rain, and the Bishop and his eleven lads were all weather-bound in our house. The boys were quartered in our kitchen. Our good old cook, a sergeant's widow, was not the least put out by this invasion of her domain. She pronounced them all to be very nice lads, and they repaid her petting by doing all the work for her that they could. Two of the party were Australians,

whom our Bishop had brought from Sydney. In spite of all that has been said and written about the impossibility of teaching the Australian blacks, these youths read and spoke English readily, and one had been apprenticed to a boot-maker, and brought a high testimonial from him as to skill and steadiness. It was a delightful bit of human nature that the Melanesians developed when they first saw these new-comers. Their verdict was, "No good, too black!" We had presented our little Umao, who lay shivering on the dining-room sofa by the fire, under many blankets, with a huge black cat. It bore the name of Bushranger, and, worthy thereof, it escaped the night before he sailed. Both were losers thereby. Umao wept bitterly, and had a fresh attack of ague in consequence, and Puss was hung some months after by a neighbour for stealing his pigeons.

Umao died of fever when about sixteen, and was buried at sea.

A year or two later Captain Erskine, of H. M. S. Havannah, brought from Sydney four Melanesian lads whom he found adrift there, to be taken care of by the Bishop till he should return to the island whence they came. They were pleasant fellows, though more or less spoiled by the side of English life with which they had been familiar. The eldest of them was a Solomon islander, where in due time long after, the Melanesian Mission had a station.

He was a quaint youth, and stood up for the glories of his own land in a very amusing way. No pictures of animals we could ever show him, lion, wolf, or crocodile, but he would gravely say, in his broken English, after a long, patient inspection, "Plenty such Lydia." Lydia was the name given by traders to his island. We used to tell him to find a wife on his return home and then bring her back to St. John's to be taught and trained, but his answer was always, "No! no good clothes Lydia woman, no walk fast." Such was his philosophy of clothes. Meste was taken one day, with a party of Maori and English boys, to see a forest of pine-trees some miles off. He was struck with the height of these noble trees, and a week or two after, when affronted at some rebuke, he walked off, leaving word with his companions that he was going to the wood. Of course the alarm was great when at tea-time the lad was missing, as one night's exposure in our forests, even in the summer-time, would probably have caused his death. However, the truant's practical wisdom showed itself again. He walked five miles along a good road to our house, and I found him seated by a good fire in the kitchen, with all sorts of delicacies piled on his plate by our hospitable old cook. After his substantial meal was over we sent him back to the College, well wrapped up, in charge of a tall, strong Maori man. His five miles' walk back in the moon-

light cooled his wrath, and he never again talked of running away.

On the next return voyage the Bishop was asked to bring two Loyalty Island girls, that they too might get some training, and be examples to their countrywomen. The Captain of the Mission vessel was well used to cutting out and making blouses and trousers of white duck for the boys, but he did not feel qualified for the task of dressmaking. Our Bishop, however, was equal to the occasion. He could easily contrive petticoats; and then remembering something of the shape of old-fashioned capes, called canzous, he managed to make a very respectable outfit for them. The only English words the lassies knew on coming on shore were "ready about," which they had heard the sailors use while beating against contrary winds, and they used them on all occasions. But they soon learned to chatter with the Bishop's little son, and amused us all by saying one evening as they came into the hall before the lamp was lit, "What, all in the dark? hurrah!" These girls spent a month with us in the summer, and were most tractable, amusing companions. They had small, pretty hands, and when they washed up breakfast things their dainty fingers never let the cups slip or break, as our wild, noisy Maori girls would do. And they moved about in a quiet way, very unlike their Polynesian sisters. But then they had not half their fun and spirit. Once

only they went off the ground without leave, and I was clucking about the garden, like a hen after ducklings, when they came running down the slope from a kind neighbour's house, breathless and penitent, saying, "Man, gooseberry," and surely that must be a sufficient excuse. They used to be very much puzzled at this gentleman's remaining unmarried, and said to us, "Man – money – house – no wife," as if the problem was too hard for them.

Our Bishop was once in great peril, as he himself owned. He was cruising off the Santa Cruz group, and sailed up what he believed to be a strait dividing two islands. He ran up with a fair breeze, only to find that he was in a "blind alley," for there was a reef running all across, and barring his exit. There was nothing to be done but to sail back again. Unhappily the wind fell light, and as the little schooner slowly made way, forty to fifty canoes, each manned by twenty or thirty strong-built natives, armed with huge bows and arrows, put off from the shore and gave chase. It needed but half-a-dozen such to make a Saint Sebastian of the Bishop. He made his crew sit down out of sight as much as possible, while he, as old Odysseus might have done, stood at the helm. When the canoes drew near, to his great satisfaction he heard the cry from every voice of "to-ki, to-ki," the Polynesian word for an axe, and so found that they were bent

on friendly barter. He thought it too great a risk to allow the men to come on board, so he lowered a line at the stern, and attached to it various small gifts of fish-hooks, &c. One old man caught hold of this line, and made it fast to the prow of his canoe, that he might keep up with the Undine. The wind freshening, the line snapped. The poor old man wished honestly to restore this bit of property, and paddled with might and main to keep up with the vessel, and succeeded. Years after, the Bishop and Mr. Patteson visited the main island, and met with a most friendly reception. They had the volume of Burney open before them, which contained the narrative of the old Spanish Admiral in the sixteenth century. They were delighted with the faithfulness of the descriptions. No change had been made in the habits of the people. There were the careful cultivations, with walls of coral lime dividing the holdings; the same rude looms in which the fine mats and scarves of Santa Cruz are woven. They saw, too, some remains still standing of the fort built by the Spaniards during the time of their occupation, which ended so fatally.

Once he found a party of men who had been blown out to sea in their canoe, and driven to a strange island. The Bishop managed to communicate enough with them to learn whence they had come, and took them all back in his vessel. The people came crowding

down to the shore; the wives, who had thought never to see their husbands again, uttering shrill cries of joy. The outcome was that he was presented with a testimonial in the shape of a large pig – a very acceptable present to those who had to live on salt junk and hard biscuit.

In 1859 we stayed at St. John's College, where Mr. Patteson was in charge of a large party of Melanesian scholars, for three or four months. Some of the Loyalty islanders there, were very fine-looking young men; among these, conspicuously so, was John Cho, a chief of some position from Lifu. He was a noble-looking fellow, and very anxious for the improvement of his people. He was married, and had one boy. Others from the Solomon Islands were very wild-looking. They have a fashion of boring a hole in the lobe of the ear when very young. They insert plugs of larger and larger size into these holes, till a small tea-cup could be stuck in with ease. When the lads have no ear ornament (and anything is counted such, from a padlock, pipe, shark's tooth, &c, up to a huge bunch of sea birds' feathers), they loop up the thin, narrow base of the lobe over the upper ridge of the ear. These Solomon islanders were in build a great contrast to the well-knit, well-grown Loyalty Island men. They were short, thin-legged, thin-armed, spare, and slight. Some of them used to stick thin ornaments of wood or feathers into

their frizzy hair, till their heads looked like a pincushion. Their hair was often of a reddish tinge from continued use of coral lime as powder; their eyes were fierce and restless; and they stalked about with bows and arrows of a harmless sort in play-time, always keenly on the look-out to shoot small birds. There was nearly as much difference in the character of these several islanders as in their outer man. The two Polynesians from Mae – sleek, comfortable lads – were as sleepy and indolent as their speech was soft. They had a vowel termination for every word; while the Loyalty Island men strode up and down with a look of energy and determination which suited their speech, which has all our English consonants and a good many harsh sounds besides. The stealthy, thin-legged Solomon islanders were a light-fingered set, and managed to get iron bolts off the gates, and to secrete them in a way that would have baffled a detective. One of the party was a man about forty years of age. He had had an exceeding desire to come and see foreign parts, and the Bishop and Mr. Patteson very unwillingly agreed to take him. As soon as he found himself on board ship, out of sight of land, he repented of his rashness, and became so wild and excited that he had to be kept under constant watch day and night, lest he should leap overboard. He recovered his wits on landing, but never took kindly to the new mode of life.

Mrs. Selwyn and I used to assist Mr. Patteson and his two young helpers to the best of our powers. We overlooked the writing of the younger classes, copies being set for them in their several languages.

Once an apron was stolen from the kitchen. Nobody, of course, knew anything about it; so Mr. Patteson set the classes the awful words, in Lifu, Bauro, Mae, and other languages – "Who stole cook's apron?" At the end of morning school we used to gather all, young and old, together, and teach them to sing, "We'll all march out in order." Nobody delighted in this more than poor old Arauna. He would bustle up to the head of the class, and beckon to us to begin, and then march out with edifying docility.

One evening Mr. Patteson came back from Auckland, whither he had walked with a party of Loyalty Island lads, and told us a charming legend which the Lifu men had told him, on his asking the reason why the yams in their island were so large and fine: –

"One day a man named Larona appeared among them. He had a small piece of sugar-cane in his hand. The people asked him for some, and he went on dividing it among them, and it grew no less. Then some said: 'This is a great chief; let him be our king.' But others said: 'He is an evil spirit; we will kill him.' While they were talking, he disappeared. Another day he came, and he had a cocoa-nut in his hand.

The people asked him for some of it, and he went on dividing it among them, and yet it grew no less. Then some said: 'Let this man be our king.' But others said: 'No, he is an evil spirit; let us kill him.' So they caught him, and put him into a large basket (with a narrow neck, used for catching fish), and let him sink into the sea. After a while they went to the basket to draw it up to see if he were dead. But it was full of fish, and they heard a voice from the cliff, laughing and crying out: 'Don't meddle with my fish.' When they looked up the man was standing on the cliff. Then some said: 'This is a great chief; let us make him our king.' But others said: 'No, he is an evil spirit; we must kill him.' So they ran and caught him, and dug a deep hole, and put him in, and covered in the ground over him. Then they planted a yam at the top. 10 When the season for taking up yams came, they went to the place where they had buried him, and lo! the yam plant was exceedingly large and fine. As they began to dig it up, they heard a voice underground crying out: 'Why are you meddling with my yam?' So they took the earth away from the top of the hole, and there was the man alive, and he came out. Then some of the people said: 'Let us

make him our king.' But others said: 'No, he is an evil spirit; we must kill him.' So they began to beat him with their clubs; and they hit him on one side, and hit him on the other, but they could not harm him – he only laughed. At last Larona said to them: 'If you really wish to kill me, go and get a reed, 11 and touch me with it, and I shall die.' Then they went and got a reed, and as soon as they touched him he sank down on the ground and died, and his blood flowed out; and it is his blood which has made the island of Lifu fruitful unto this day."

One of the Lifu lads was ill in hospital during our stay, and was tenderly nursed by Mr. Patteson. He had been baptised the year before, and had been very steady and consistent in his conduct ever since. He became very melancholy while ill, and we all supposed that he was home-sick. But one day he opened his grief to his loved teacher: "You know, Patteson, that before I ever came to you I was living like other heathen, and did many evil things. Then you came and taught us, and I believed what you taught, and after my baptism I put away all thoughts about my old habits. They were part of heathen life, and I did not trouble myself any more about them. But now that I lie ill here, they come back to my mind, and I see how sinful sin is."

A young lad from the same island had been brought years before to New Zealand by Bishop Selwyn. He was a bright-faced, merry lad, high-spirited, and careless about his health – so full was he of boyish fun. He caught cold one spring through some imprudence, and fell into a decline. He delighted when ill to lie and look at a picture of the Good Shepherd with the sheep around Him, and would whisper to himself: "Maori sheep, Lifu sheep, Bauro sheep." He was very fond of the Bishop, who nursed him as though he had been his own child. Apale was baptised while he was lying sick. One day he turned to the Bishop with a shy smile on his face, and said in broken English, giving his old heathen father's name: "Chem father, Bishop father, God father." When he was dying he dictated a letter to Chem: "Alas! my father, farewell. Father, do not be angry – I came here to seek for good words. Mourn for me; come to New Zealand to see my grave." George Apale's body was laid to rest in the St. John's Chapel churchyard, which slopes toward the sea. The funeral was at sunset. Just below a flock of sheep was grazing, which suggested many thoughts as this first fruits from Lifu was commended to God's care till the great Day. The old father and mother cried bitterly when the Mission vessel arrived in the winter without their boy, but no ill-will was shown, and other boys were

sent as before. We heard by those present that the Bishop went up to the poor old mother, and wiped the tears away that were streaming down her face.

After a while the headquarters of the Melanesian Mission were transferred to a warm, sheltered valley, close to the sea. St. John's College was found to be too bleak for the tropical frames, and through Miss Yonge's bounty substantial scoria buildings were erected out of the proceeds of the sale of her "Daisy Chain." The native name of the valley – Kohi-ma-ra-ma – was of good omen, for it meant "gathering in of light."

We went to stay, in 1861, in a little wooden, three-roomed cottage close by; the garden stretched to the shelly beach, and had large prickly pear trees as a hedge, and a few minutes' walk across fields brought us to the school-house and chapel, and the little quadrangle with its lawn and white paths and garden-beds, in which masses of scarlet geraniums blazed in the sun. It was a happy, peaceful place. At 7 a. m. the chapel bell rang, and all the party – the baptised and catechumens – assembled. "Now that the daylight fills the sky" was sung daily to Tallis's Ordinal, in Mota, the whole school joining heartily. By twelve o'clock, after school and work was over, the boys, fifty in all, would come rushing down to the beach – some to bask in the sun, some to fish

from the rocks, or to cook the shell-fish which they groped after in the mud over tiny fires, some to shoot up and down the calm blue water in a native canoe. One ugly little fellow from New Caledonia was always afloat on fine days. He had a tiny canoe, with two triangular sails and an outrigger, and he sat on a seat not much bigger than a dinner-plate, looking like an Indian Puck. His pretty toy skimmed like a bird across the bay. Woe to the unfortunate Englishman who thought he could manage it! I saw one venture out on it, and in a few minutes the canoe was upset in deep water, and our clerical friend came swimming back to shore, amid the derisive cheers of the Melanesians.

While at Kohimarama, we used to see a good deal of a nice young couple from the Loyalty Islands. They had been married from our house some months before, and a very pretty wedding it was. We twined wreaths of fuchsia round Mary's glossy hair. She was not at all pretty, but a gentle child-wife she became to her tall, well-grown husband. When we saw her again she was in a decline. I was going one day with some little delicacy to her, to tempt her failing appetite, when I heard gentle laughing and whispering, and stopped at the doorway to see a charming sight. Harper, Mary's husband, had been up to Auckland by boat, and had bought a tiny "pork-pie" hat for his wife, and a gay ribbon. He

was on one knee beside her, making a table of the other, and the little wasted fingers were skilfully, though languidly, engaged trimming the hat. And then one of Mary's friends, at her request, got up and led me away to another room where their boxes were kept, and brought out, with much pride, four huge poke bonnets, Sunday's best, which had been given them long ago by some good women, members of the London Mission. There was a great amount of heavy, broad, mud-coloured ribbon. The girls evidently looked on them as great works of art and treasures, but never thought of putting them on. How odd their soft little, mousey faces would have looked within such mighty structures. Our cottage was close to the well, where every morning the boys came to draw water, and on Saturdays they washed their clothes close by. They were astir by five in the morning, and no sleep could one get after that. Each island seemed to have some unaccountable cry, or yell, or shrill trill of its own, and the laughter, and shrieks, and fun that went on made us laugh for sympathy.

They chattered, and clicked, and burred, and gave sharp sounds of inquiry or of surprise, and amid the marvellous din came peals of merry, boyish laughter.

We had a tea-drinking one evening, and the Mota boys sang monotonous songs with a pleasant, musical

refrain. They were telling about the first arrival of the Mission ship, and of their wonder and alarm; how some of the old men thought that a great ancestor had come back to visit them. After tea the Bishop showed a magic lantern. It was not a very good one, but the yells and unearthly whistles and cries of surprise from the audience showed that they approved of it. The story of the old man, the boy, and the donkey, specially delighted them, and when the slide was exhibited with the donkey slung on a pole on the shoulders of man and boy, the fun grew "fast and furious." A scientific man has written that savages understand no more the meaning of a picture than a dog can. I wish he had been there to judge for himself. Once Bishop Patteson showed to a Mota man who had only lately joined the Mission a fine view of Oriel College, Oxford, through a stereoscope. The poor fellow was so overcome by the wonderful reality that he fainted away, and remained in a swoon for nearly half-an-hour. No doubt he thought there was witchcraft. The last entertainment on the evening of the tea-drinking was a fire balloon. The boys were frantic with excitement – they yelled, and rushed down the beach after it, and as it sailed majestically on over the sea, they took water like so many ducks.

Our next visit to Kohimarama was in the summer of 1862 – just before the terrible time of sickness,

when so many Melanesians were attacked by dysentery. Poor fellows, one by one, they fell ill, and lay silent and patient; and soon we had to give up the quarters we were in to be used as a hospital – and there for weeks Bishop Patteson and Bishop Selwyn (who would walk three miles across the sandy flat at low tide after his day's work to help nurse the lads) used to minister with their own hands to the many sufferers, and perform every office of love through the long night-watches. Everything had to be done by the Mission party, even to the digging of the graves, and the carrying of the wasted bodies between them to their narrow bed. It was a rare freshening of these good men's spirits when they could read the words of hope and comfort over the graves of the Christian dead.

We had occupied a cottage belonging to the Mission, which was empty for a while. It was of the usual thin box type of wooden house, but it was two-storied, and over our head slept some seven or eight lads. I was not well at the time, and more easily disturbed by noise in consequence, and I had abundant opportunity of pondering over the blessings of peaceful civilisation. These boys never seemed to lay them down in peace and take their rest. Though there was no enemy to fear, the early habit of watchfulness was upon them. They would sleep for an hour or two, then all wake up and begin

to talk; then with wary steps down the ladder they came, first one, then another, to prowl about a bit in the clear summer night, and then there would come a time of sleep again, but soon broken; and so it went on all night till, between four and five, the whole party was astir, and the Babel of sounds began once more.

10 It is a custom among the Lifu people to plant a yam over the graves.

11 A sort of reed which grows by the seashore at Lifu.

CHAPTER XIV: LAST IMPRESSIONS: 1874.

CHAPTER XIV.

LAST IMPRESSIONS: 1874.

THE clouds had lifted. The war, which had smouldered sullenly since 1862, was at last ended. All the troops had left the country, never to return. The deep depression in trade, consequent on the long struggle, was relieved by the discovery of a gold-field thirty miles from Auckland. A railroad was just begun from Auckland towards the Waikato. Instead of having no place to worship in but the Court-house, as in the early days, churches and chapels abounded. The fern had given place to grass, post and rail fences to hawthorn hedges, which give a pleasant, home-like look to the neighbourhood.

We saw much to fill our hearts with thankfulness before we bade farewell to the land and people whom we had loved so well.

A week or two before we sailed we had a gay wedding at the Cathedral Library, when the daughter of the Rev. Philemon Te Karari and Harriet Hobson, whose marriage at St. John's College has been described, was married to a Maori

layman of good position. The bride wore white poplin, and had a white veil, and orange flowers, and a bouquet, in approved young New Zealand style, and had her half-dozen bridesmaids, English and Maori, all dressed in white. The tall, good-looking bridegroom had his best man, and had ordered three carriages to drive the happy pair and their friends down to the wharf, where they embarked by steamer for their house at the Thames.

The old order changes, and gives place to new. We had seen three generations of the bride's family: her old tattooed grandfather, who, receiving the light in middle life, had walked in it faithfully to the end; his gentle, pretty daughter, who was trained at St. Stephen's, and married to one of the first native clergy – a good wife and mother – and now our young orphan Catherine, her daughter, brought up from childhood under Christian influences, and in an English home – a well-educated girl. She inherited her father's gift for music, and could sing "Ah! che la morte," and "He shall feed his flock," and many another song with great pathos and sweetness.

Sixteen of the native clergy came up to Auckland to wish their beloved friend and teacher farewell before we sailed. Some had entered into rest. Sunny-faced Rota, and dear Levi te Ahu, who, when he lay a-dying, said to his wife on the Sunday afternoon: "Do not stay with me, go to the small

congregation to pray; I am going to the great congregation above." 12 Philemon Te Karari was also dead. He was drowned by the upsetting of a canoe when visiting his people.

But we had a goodly gathering. Heta from the Waikato. He remained at his post all through the war, like a good shepherd watching over and ministering to the scattered remnant of his flock. His sweet, good face, and honest, simple manner, made him a great favourite among the English. Even the old General, who was naturally suspicious as to the intentions of the native people, sent for Heta to his tent, examined him through an interpreter, and dismissed him with the words: "He is an honest man, let him remain at his post." Philip Pataki came from the North, a favourite pupil of Bishop Selwyn's, and of the Judge's. They were both struck with his likeness to the old busts of Socrates. He had found the true wisdom after

which the Greek sought. And gentle Renata, who has the heart of an English parish priest, came; and others not less hopeful, though more recently ordained. One of these, a beautiful-looking young man named William Pomare, had been ordained deacon the previous autumn at St. Paul's Church, when George Sarawia, the first Melanesian clergyman, was ordained priest. There was a large luncheon party afterwards at our house – native and English clergy, Melanesians, Maori girls, &c. William Pomare, when there was a lull in the conversation, which was being carried on in three languages, looked up the table to his host, and calling him by the shortened title of affection, said in Maori: "E Tenga, it is the Gospel that has done this, is it not? But for the Gospel we should be hating and despising each other."

A loving address was drawn up and presented to Sir William by the native clergy and laity before we sailed. It expressed their deep regret at his departure, and their gratitude for all his work through many years for their temporal and spiritual good; but they quite recognised it was just and right that the old man should go back to his own land to die among his own people. They had been sorely grieved at their first Bishop's departure, and in their farewell address to him said that the Queen, their mother, was acting too much like the rich man in

Nathan's parable; she must have many in England to select from, why should she take their one treasure from them? On Sunday, April 13th, our Maori brethren received Holy Communion with us from the Bishop's hands, and the next day accompanied us to the ship.

12 Very different to this firm hope were the words of a dying chief up the Waikato, who remained a heathen to the last. He begged to be carried out of doors, and looking up to the clouds said, with the natural poetic fancy of his people: "O cloud, even thou remainest stationary, but I am swept away by the current"; or the pathetic words of a young man who had been a native teacher and had fallen away. He was mortally wounded in a fray, and when his clergyman, who had baptised him, came to see him, he said mournfully: "Who knows if you and I shall ever meet each other in that world?"

CHAPTER XV: HAS CHRISTIANITY REALLY BORNE ANY FRUIT IN NEW ZEALAND?

CHAPTER XV.

HAS CHRISTIANITY REALLY BORNE ANY FRUIT IN NEW ZEALAND?

THIS is a question which, directly or indirectly, has been often asked of us. Has not the Mission been a failure? – Have we ever known any one case of genuine conversion among the native people? – Then probably follows the threadbare axiom, repeated till it is believed to be a fixed law of the world, that coloured races must disappear before the white man, and so the subject is dropped.

If any such questioners had been in New Zealand sixty years ago, when a handful of brave men and women went out in faith to win it for Christ, and could contrast the state of things then with the condition of the people and the status of the Native Church now, they would be compelled to own that real work has been done.

Forty years ago, when we landed, the horrors of cannibalism and of infanticide had ceased; but we heard terrible stories, from those who had been eyewitnesses, of the scenes of heathen fury and revenge.

A missionary's wife in the North told us of the return of a war-party with prisoners, whom they intended to keep as slaves; but some of the women of the place, whose husbands and sons had been killed, rushed down to the beach like furies and slew them before they were out of the canoes as "utu," i. e., payment for their dead. A clergyman, who brought his young wife out at least fifty years ago, told us how he tried to keep her once from looking out of the window when a wild war-party, all naked, came rushing by, kicking the heads of the enemies they had slain in battle in triumph before them.

It was to such men and women that the Gospel was preached – and it prevailed. Nothing touched the hearts of these fierce barbarians as did the story of the Cross. "My heart has been as hard as a rock," said an old warrior, "but I repent"; and he came to be baptised. And, as we have said, they did give a very practical proof of their sincerity, by letting their slaves go free. One by one the chiefs, who depended on those over whom they had exercised despotic sway for the cultivation of their lands, freed them and let them return to their own homes. This noble act of manumission told, in time, very unfavourably on the position of the New Zealand chiefs. They lost much of their prestige by having to work with their own hands, and they lost the power of exercising the large hospitality which had made their names great in the land

It is to be regretted that the French word "sauvage," which simply means "wild," should have acquired such a different sense in English. A savage suggests to many of us a cruel, crafty creature, treacherous and degraded, who excites at once feelings of fear and contempt. If the kindlier word "barbarian" were substituted, we might bethink us of the barbarous people at Melita, who showed the shipwrecked party no small kindness, or of our own wild Teutonic forefathers, whom the Roman historian Tacitus describes so vividly. His sketch of them would in many ways do for old New Zealand. "The children running about naked and covered with filth; the men, who, when the excitement of war was over, spent their time between eating and sleeping." What a kindly contempt the cultivated Roman gentleman had for the ancestors of Schiller and Gothe, and for their miserable barley-brew, "fermented into a certain similitude of wine."

Would that our Polynesian women had been as chaste of life as the German matrons!

But we should remember that Roman colonists must have found the Briton as rough and unwashen and self-willed and prejudiced as the Maoris, and that it has taken more than a thousand years to bring us to our present form of civilisation.

It may be well to contrast the progress made in New Zealand in half a century with a somewhat

longer period, as told by Maclear in his "History of Christian Missions."

He is speaking of Anskar, the great missionary to Denmark, who laboured there for forty years: – "That Anskar's success was partial and confined to narrow limits was the natural result of the times..... The whole North was in confusion. His successor, Rimbert, contrived to keep the flickering spark alive..... When the work, commenced so nobly by Anskar, was resumed (sixty years after his death) its effect was limited to a great extent to the mainland, while the islanders long persisted in their old rites and still continued in some places to offer human sacrifices." Our troubles and hindrances, it must be remembered, have not arisen from the incursion of heathen, but from the inconsistent lives of more civilised Christians, and from the almost inevitable conflict when two races not speaking the same speech live side by side.

Some people in England suppose that our natives gave up Christianity when they formed themselves into the sect called "Hau-haus." It was only embraced by a certain number in the middle and south of the northern island, and grew up, as has been shown, when the people were maddened by defeat, disease, and by confiscation of their land. It had a political significance. Their King Tawhio became a spiritual power. But, wonderful to say, they never went back

as the Northmen, to the worship of Odin, or, as the British, to Druidical rites. There was no calling on Papa, the earth-mother, nor Rangi, the sky-god, nor on Tane, who protects the forests. From the Bible, which was their only literature, they got their phraseology. The men who excited and guided them were prophets; Jehovah was to fight for them; the arm of the Lord and the sword of the Lord were on their side, to drive the English into the sea. There was wild talk about angels and much superstition, but no relapse into heathenism pure and simple. This sect is gradually dying out. In its headquarters, the King Country, the Rev. Heta Tarawhiti, who had worked faithfully for twenty years in the Lower Waikato district, has been invited to come and hold services and to open schools for Christian instruction. In the north of the island, the original seat of the Mission, the Native Church grows and prospers. There are ten Maori clergymen at work there. In the report of the Diocesan Synod, December, 1882, the Bishop of Auckland reports, that good progress is being made in the work of the Church among the native race by the Maori clergy and lay readers. Two new churches have been built by the Maoris. Many young men and women have received the rite of Confirmation. At St. Stephen's School there are forty-eight boarders. The literary work is reported to be good, and the results of the last examination

prove "the knowledge possessed by the boys to be very sound and accurate."

We must not forget that much self-denial and personal exertion is needed on the part of the Maoris in the undertaking to build a church. It is not the case of a subscription list to which each person puts down a sum which may involve no pinch at all.

Some years ago a party of natives were induced by an English adventurer to accompany him to England. He intended to make money by exhibiting them as great chiefs. The enterprise failed, and the poor fellows were in great misery, till a lady, who has ever since been the great friend and benefactress of the Native Church – Miss Dorothea Weale – took them to her house, till she raised funds enough to send them home. One of these, a thoughtful man, called his people together on his return. He told them that he had seen much to pain and shock him in Christian England – much drunkenness, much vice; but that he had been greatly impressed by the number of churches, and that he wanted them to join with him to build one in their own village. They responded heartily to the appeal; but how were they to raise funds? He had counted the cost, and though he was in very delicate health, he and all the people, young and old, went out in the summer to collect kauri gum from the half-dried-up swamps in the neighbourhood. This commands a high price in the

market, but is a very trying and unhealthy employment. They went on with their work till they raised nearly, £200, when they bought sawn timber and employed skilled labour. Another summer came, and they went on with the same work to get money for paint, glass, and nails. When these were at last obtained from Auckland, the men carried the heavy boxes on their backs from the coast without a murmur. The simple, earnest-hearted mover of the good work died before the church was finished. There is an inscription in it, that "This church was built to the glory of God, by Reihana Te Taukawau." For nearly twenty years Native Church Boards have been established in all parts of the northern island, which meet as our English Diocesan Synods do, every year. Laymen who are communicants are elected from each district in the archdeaneries, and with the native clergy, and the Bishop or the Archdeacon as president, discuss the several matters of business in a practical, orderly way. Each clergyman brings to these Church Boards his report of the number of communicants in his parish, of baptisms, candidates for Confirmation, the numbers of children in the schools, subscriptions towards the churches, &c. Only two years ago, Catherine Poutotora, the daughter of one of the native clergy and wife to a very intelligent Maori layman, a member of the Church Board, thus wrote in English: –

"We went to the steamer which was to take us to Riverhead. There were ten clergymen on board, twelve laymen (all, of course, Maoris), and Bishop Cowie. On landing we took tickets for the train to Rewiti. This looked a dreary place as we climbed up a steep hill to it. It is a new 'kainga' (village), and the people have built a new church. It was growing dusk, and when we had rested we went to church for evening prayer. Hare Peka 13 gave us a short sermon, taking for his text, 'Behold how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity.' He spoke so warmly on the subject, and on the blessings of Christianity – how it brought 'ngaiwi' (tribes) from all parts; there we were, as of one 'iwi.'

"The next day was Sunday. The young women and old all well dressed, but with such gaudy colours – blue, pink, scarlet, all the colours of the rainbow. We had a grand service, and quite a nice little choir, with bass, tenor, and alto – all the clergy with their surplices on sat on each side of the pulpit. A new clergyman, Te Wiki, gave us a beautiful sermon. He took the story of the fig-tree. His style of preaching was so simple, and yet well studied – word for word so carefully given, I am sure it would be no disrespect to say that he

reminded me much of Bishop Patteson, and his voice had the same ring."

One remarkable proof of the strength of character of the Maoris must be given in conclusion. A few years ago drunkenness prevailed to a frightful extent in all parts of the country. It has, to a great extent, ceased. In the North, thanks to the steady efforts of the native clergy, the people have, almost to a man, returned to their old habits of sobriety, and white traders with their casks of rum can no longer obtain an entrance.

The parting words of the first Bishop of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn – words half prayer, half prophecy – are even now being fulfilled: "The remnant is taking root downwards, and bearing fruit upwards."

13 A Native Clergyman, Rev. Charles Baker.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

The Ordination of Rota, the first Maori Deacon, St. Paul's Church, Auckland, Trinity Sunday, 1853.

Oh! kneeling at a Christian shrine,
Within thine own unconquer'd land,
May God, the Pakeha's 14 God and thine,
Anoint thee with His grace divine,
And touch thee with His wounded hand!

Weep'st thou? Ah, weep not, He has trod
The dark and toilsome path before;
With bleeding brow, with feet unshod,
The Omnipotent One, the world-wide God,
Stood on the Roman's marble floor.

He stood forsaken and alone,
But 'twas to wash thy sins away, –
To claim thee, clasp thee as His own,
And from a victor's golden throne
To stoop and wipe thy tears to-day.

The simple robe of spotless white,
The elements of bread and wine,
Speak to the inward, hidden sight:
Oh, may the sevenfold Spirit bright,
Deep-searching, rouse and waken thine!

My soul is bow'd in speechless prayer
For thee, thou dark-brow'd man;
God lead thee by the rivers fair,
And should thy spirit faint with care,
Refresh thee, for alone He can.

His latest heritage thou art,
Foretold of yore by sage and king,
When all earth's farthest isles shall bow,
And bend the knee, and speak the vow,
Rich gifts and glad Hosannas bring.

Perchance the martyr-deacon might,
Amid his glimpse of harp and throne,
Have seen that brow and eye of night,
That dark form girded for the fight,
And hail'd in distant times his own.

Auckland, June, 1853. E. ST. GEORGE.

[This appeared in an English paper a day or two after the ordination. ]

A MAORI SERMON.

The following translation of Rev. P. Patiki's sermon, preached at the ordination at Waimate on Jan. 20, 1878, will interest readers of the Gazette (2 Cor. iv. 6): –

I have chosen these words of Paul as being appropriate to the present occasion, showing how God had commanded the light to shine out of darkness, in giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Some had said that Paul was not an apostle. Peter, James, John, and others were, but Paul they would not acknowledge. This is why he said that God had revealed His light to him. We are told that the world was in darkness until God said "Let there be light" – night first, the evening, then the morning. Light was the first work of creation, the other works following after. The same God called the apostles to light – Paul, Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, all receiving light in the face of Jesus Christ. "He chose me," says Paul; and did not the Lord say to Ananias respecting him, "He is a chosen vessel unto Me to bear My Name before the Gentiles and Kings, and the children of Israel, and I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name's sake." Being thus called, then, he was content to suffer persecution for the Name of Jesus. The afflictions enumerated by him in the nth chapter of this Second Epistle to the Corinthians were the marks of an apostle, evidence that he was a chosen vessel. Our Saviour's marks – the print of the nails in His hands and feet, and His wounded side – were tokens of His mission into this world, and were shown by Him to His disciples in proof of His resurrection. We who were formerly in darkness have received light; let us, then, walk in the light.

Although I speak to all who are present, I now address myself more particularly to the Deacons who come this day to receive Priests' Orders. "Ye were once in darkness," as Paul laid to the Ephesians (Eph. iv. 18). We were all in darkness until the light came to us with the Gospel. Go not back into darkness. Light was essential to the world; so it is to our hearts, and in order to retain this light we must continue in prayer for the help of the Holy Spirit, to enlighten our hearts, to aid us in our work and to direct us aright. My brothers, let us be united; let us remember that the flock of Christ's Church

is committed to our care. When you return each to his station, remember that you have a flock to care for. The Prophet tells us we are messengers, and so we are; but we are more, we are watchmen. The duty of a messenger, as we understand it, is to convey a letter or a message entrusted to him, and when accomplished his duty is discharged; but is our duty discharged when we have delivered our message? No. We have to watch the effect of the message upon our flocks; we have to watch and guard them against the attacks of the enemy, for we are watchmen. We are the shepherds of the flock, and must endeavour to guard them from the attacks of wolves; we must ever be on the watch. When the Jews were rebuilding Jerusalem, some kept watch while others worked; so we must ever be on the alert, for if the shepherds sleep what will become of the sheep? What said the Lord by the mouth of His Prophet? (Ez. xxxiv. 2): "Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves!" Should not the shepherd feed the flocks? Remember, also, that talents are given to each of us to be used in God's service. All may not have the same abilities; one may have five talents, another two, and another one; but all are in some way gifted, and bound to account for the gift.

Would you, my brother, possessor of the one talent, wish to see it taken from you and given to him who has the five talents, and yourself pronounced to be an unprofitable servant. No. Let us then be energetic in carrying on the work which has been given us to do; so shall we make good use of the talents entrusted to us, and at the last be enabled to give a good account of our stewardship.

I will now say a few words to our wives; although my own wife is not here, I will address those who are present. Paul speaks with a certain sound, "Wives be in subjection to your husbands"; and again, "What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?" A minister's wife should conduct herself circumspectly, be an example to other women, and a help to her husband. A ship's mast will not stand without rigging; – you must be the rigging for the mast, you must act as stays, and endeavour to support your husband. Let not your conduct hinder his work, – do not bring reproach upon him, but assist him all you can, and by your conduct recommend to others the religion you profess.

WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.

14 Maori word for the English – lit., foreigner.

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Users are not permitted to download our ebooks, texts, and images in order to mount them on their own servers for public use or for use by a set of subscribers. Individuals and institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at ENZB, subject to our conditions of use. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections, add tags, add images, etc. on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users.

These texts can potentially be used as the basis for additional TEI tagging or for some other etext or ebook project, but we ask that you let us know before you start, so that we can coordinate work on that text and make sure that we are not working on it simultaneously. We would like a copy of the improved text for our collections.

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