Discovered by Tasman in 1642, England only commenced to take an interest in the islands more than a century and a quarter later, when Cook surveyed the coasts. The missionaries came first, in 1814, and a British Resident was appointed in 1833. All this time a desultory colonisation was going on, and the natives were selling parcels of their best lands for a few cast-iron hatchets or muskets, shoddy blankets, or rubbishy trinkets. In 1840 a Lieutenant-Governor was appointed from home, and his presence was indeed necessary. The previous year a corporation, calling itself the New Zealand Company, had made pretended purchases of tracts of the best parts of the country, amounting to one-third of its whole area! The unscrupulous and defiant manner in which this company treated the natives and the Government brought about many complications, and led to very serious wars with natives not to be trifled with. The New Zealand Company was “bought out” by the Government in 1852 for £268,000. During 1843-7, and in 1861 and after, England had to fight the Maories—foes that she learned to respect. At last, weary of war, all our troops were withdrawn, and the colonists, who of course knew the bush and bush life better than nine-tenths of the soldiers, were left to defend their homes and property, and in the end to successfully finish the fight. The natives now are generally peaceful and subdued, while many are even turning their attention to agriculture and commerce. Nine years ago they numbered 37,500, but are fast dying out.
Physically and intellectually, the Maories are the finest semi-savage natives on the face of the earth. Mr. Trollope is an author and traveller whose words carry weight, and he has given us the following concise summary of their qualities and character:—“They are,” says he, “an active people, the men averaging 5 feet 6½ inches in height, and are almost equal in strength and weight to Englishmen. In their former condition they wore matting; now they wear European clothes. Formerly they pulled out their beards, and every New Zealander of mark was tattooed; now they wear beards, and the young men are not tattooed. Their hair is black and coarse, but not woolly like a negro’s, or black like a Hindoo’s. The nose is almost always broad and the mouth large. In other respects their features are not unlike those of the European race. The men, to my eyes, were better-looking than the women, and the men who were tattooed better-looking than those who had dropped the custom. The women still retain the old custom of tattooing the upper lip. The Maories had a mythology of their own, and believed in a future existence; but they did not recognise [pg 52]one supreme God. Virtue with them, as with other savages, consisted chiefly in courage and a command of temper. Their great passion was revenge, which was carried on by one tribe against another to the extent sometimes of the annihilation of tribes. The decrease of their population since the English first came among them has been owing as much to civil war as to the injuries with which civilisation has afflicted them. They seem from early days to have acquired that habit of fighting behind stockades or in fortified pahs which we have found so fatal to ourselves in our wars with them. Their weapons, before they got guns from us, were not very deadly. They were chiefly short javelins and stones, both flung from slings. But there was a horror in their warfare to the awfulness of which they themselves seem to have been keenly alive. When a prisoner was taken in war he was cooked and eaten.
“I do not think that human beings were slaughtered for food in New Zealand, although there is no doubt that the banquet when prepared was enjoyed with a horrid relish.
“I will quote a passage from Dr. Thompson’s work in reference to the practice of cannibalism, and will then have done with the subject. ‘Whether or not cannibalism commenced immediately after the advent of the New Zealanders from Hawaiki, it is nevertheless certain that one of Tasman’s sailors was eaten in 1642; that Captain Cook had a boat’s crew eaten in 1774; that Marion de Fresne and many other navigators met this horrible end; and that the pioneers of civilisation and successive missionaries have all borne testimony to the universal prevalence of cannibalism in New Zealand up to the year 1840. It is impossible to state how many New Zealanders were annually devoured; that the number was not small may be inferred from two facts authenticated by European witnesses. In 1822, Hougi’s army ate three hundred persons after the capture of Totara, on the River Thames, and in 1836, during the Rotura war, sixty beings were cooked and eaten in two days.’ I will add from the same book a translation of a portion of a war-song:—‘Oh, my little son, are you crying? are you screaming for your food? Here it is for you, the flesh of Hekemanu and Werata. Although I am surfeited with the soft brains of Putu Rikiriki and Raukauri, yet such is my hatred that I will fill myself fuller with those of Pau, of Ngaraunga, of Pipi, and with my most dainty morsel, the flesh of the hated Teao.’ ”
Mr. Laird testifies to their cleanliness, but states that they are, like most savages, and for that matter, most white men, very improvident. If a bad potato or other crop occurred, they would eat it all at once, and half starve afterwards.
The same author tells a good story of the nonchalance of a leading Maori chief who was invited to dinner at Government House during the visit of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. After dinner the Duke’s chief bagpiper came in and played. The chief was asked how he liked the music. He replied briefly: “Too much noise for me; but suit white man well enough.”
And now we are approaching that great continent which has had, has, and will increasingly have, so much interest for the emigrant, who must be, more or less, a voyager and man of the sea. Australia, a country nearly as large as the United States, must be for many a day to come a very Paradise for the poor man.
The American steamers from San Francisco land one at Sydney, of which charming place Mr. Trollope says:—“I despair of being able to convey to my readers my own idea of the beauty of Sydney Harbour;” he considers that it excels Dublin Bay, Spezzia, and [pg 53]New York. And the colonists, left to themselves—for England maintains no troops there now—have fortified it strongly. Mr. Trollope tells us of five separate armed fortresses, with Armstrong guns, rifled guns, guns of eighteen tons’ weight, with loopholed walls and pits for riflemen, as though Sydney was to become another Sebastopol. “It was shown,” says he, “how the whole harbour and city were commanded by these guns. There were open batteries and casemated batteries, shell-rooms and gunpowder magazines, [pg 54]barracks rising here and trenches dug there. There was a boom to be placed across the harbour, and a whole world of torpedoes ready to be sunk beneath the water, all of which were prepared and ready for use in an hour or two. It was explained to me that ‘they’ could not possibly get across the trenches, or break the boom, or escape the torpedoes, or live for an hour beneath the blaze of the guns. ‘They’ would not have a chance to get at Sydney. There was much martial ardour, and a very general opinion that ‘they’ would have the worst of it.” New South Wales and Victoria have about 8,000 volunteers and a training-ship for sailor boys; while an enormous monitor, the Cerberus, presented by the mother country, forms its war-fleet of one.
VIEW IN COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA.