We drove up there in the course of the afternoon, and Lady Jervois and Miss Jervois received us most kindly. We were introduced to the staff, who consisted of Mr. Pennefather, the private secretary, and Major Eccles, the aide-de-camp.
After dinner the governor went to a meeting for founding a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. C. went with him, and made a short speech, being on the council of the Society in London.
Later, we all went to a masonic ball; the grandmaster of the lodge and other masons, in their full insignia, receiving the Governor at the entrance, when we formed into procession to enter the ball-room, under the arch of intertwined masonic wands. C. met the past deputy-grandmaster, who had been entertained at the lodge of which he was master the year before last in London—so small is the world.
Tuesday, October 7th.—A tremendous storm and peal of thunder woke me at 6 a.m. Rain, storm, and wind seem to be more excessive in their quantities in New Zealand than in England.
We went to see Dr. Buller's very perfect collection of Maori curiosities, at his house on the Terrace; it is one of the finest extant. Portraits of Maori chiefs are hung round the room; there were feather mantles and native mats, the orange-painted staff of a chieftain, fringed with the white hair of the native dog, the sharp instrument used for tatooing, and some very beautiful greenstone meri meris. This meri is formed of a piece of greenstone about a foot long, and fined down and broadened out to a flat, thin edge. The merit meri is used by the chiefs to split open the skull of a rebellious subject.
At Mr. Köhn's we found another collection of Maori South Sea curiosities. He is a German, and possesses within the recesses of his back premises on Lambton Quay some very wonderful South Sea curios, brought to him by German men-of-war. He has already sold one collection for 500l., and has sent some curiosities home to the museum at Berlin, against the authorities of which he has a righteous grievance, in that they were never even acknowledged! We saw battle-axes with red and yellow handles, spears, bows, and arrows barbed with poison from decomposed bodies, strings of white and black beads for money, war masks formed of skulls, made hideous with splashes of paint, and held inside the mouth by an iron bar, shells, and cocoa-nut matting, with fringes of the same worn round the waist, and considered "full dress" by the ladies of the South Sea Islands. But the most interesting thing of all was a rough coffin, covered with a strip of parchment, containing the burnt figure of a South Sea Islander. The skull had the most peculiar pointed formation, and was exactly an inch in thickness at the back of the head. The body had been stuffed and burnt, till the skin was black and hard as brick. On the face there was a ghastly grin. Another day we went to see the Museum, which Dr. Hector has been mainly instrumental in starting. The total absence of mammalia forms a remarkable feature of New Zealand, the only indigenous animals found being a bat and a small rat. There is a fine collection of native birds. Amongst them the kea, or green field parrot. This bird was formerly a vegetarian, but it now kills and eats sheep. Sitting on the back of the animal, it picks with his long beak till it pierces and reaches the kidney fat, which it eats, thus killing the sheep.
The members of both Houses of Parliament are at Wellington, the session being in progress. The flutter of excitement consequent on three changes of ministry during the last month is just subsiding. C. met and has had much conversation with Mr. Stout, the present premier, Sir Julius Vogel, the late premier, and present colonial treasurer, Sir George Grey, and all the other ministers and prominent political men of New Zealand. One day he was present at an interview between the Governor and the two Maori representatives in the House, who sought his advice as to whether they should go to England, and endeavour to obtain the Queen's assent to the abolition of the native court, and the principle of dealing with the native laws. His Excellency showed them in the clearest way that the Maoris of New Zealand had more than equal rights of making and altering laws, appointing and deposing governments, by their parliamentary representatives, and that the Home Government left the administration of New Zealand entirely in the hands of the inhabitants, including the Maoris, on equal terms.
Wellington does not possess so good a newspaper as some of the other places. Each town and province in New Zealand has its own local paper. This is necessitated by the distance, want of centralization, and means of communication; for instance, it takes seven days by steamer from Auckland to Wellington. These papers are all pretty much alike from Auckland to Invercargill. They have the same cablegrams and English news, and the same parliamentary and general intelligence; they only differ in local paragraphs. We thought the best daily papers were the New Zealand Herald of Auckland and the Lyttleton Times of Christchurch; and the best weekly paper the Canterbury Times, which is like our Queen and Field compiled into one.
Thursday, October 9th.—There was a ball at Government House in the evening, preceded by a large parliamentary dinner. About 300 invitations had been issued, and the guests were asked from 8.30 to 12 o'clock. Long before the hour named carriages were driving up, but this was accounted for by the scarcity of flys, each having to do duty for many families that night. The married women dance as vigorously as the girls, and it must be a pleasure giving a dance where all seem to enjoy it so thoroughly.