He evidently viewed it with distrust.
This helped to fill up the time, until our Church of England clergyman—who was to perform the ceremony—arrived, and we all repaired to a structure erected by the Maoris for the occasion, and made of Nikau palm leaves plaited together. The inside was very tastefully decorated with ferns and cabbage palms, and really did great credit to their artistic taste.
An "Ancient and Modern" hymn, in which the natives heartily joined, having been sung, the ceremony was performed in Maori, and a second hymn closed the service.
The bride and bridegroom then led the way to another construction of Nikau leaves, where the wedding breakfast was prepared. The happy couple took the head of the table, and the "Pakehas" (i.e., the white men, literally "strangers"), were invited to first sit down, the Maoris waiting on them. The feast was ample, and consisted of wild pig, beef, vegetables, and plum pudding. When the Pakeha visitors had eaten their fill of the good things, the Maoris had their innings, and then the health of the bride and bridegroom, who still retained their position at the head of the table, was drunk in Gilbey's Castle A Claret, the toast being proposed by our local J.P., and translated by an interpreter to the Maoris. The bride's father returned thanks, and every one present shook hands with the loving pair and retired. Some horse-jumping competitions among the natives brought the afternoon to a close, and I returned home very pleased with my day with the Maoris.
Giving place to their Pakeha guests, and seeing them duly satisfied before partaking of anything themselves, struck me as showing a very keen sense of true hospitality and politeness. They have also, I believe, a true appreciation of justice—at least I have often heard so, and in the only case which has come under my personal observation, the Maori concerned showed it in a marked degree. It occurred in connection with the race for horses owned by Maoris, run at our last meeting. The jockey of the leading horse—an Englishman—in coming up the straight for the post, deliberately pulled right across the second horse, thereby nearly causing an accident. A protest was entered by the owner of the second horse, and the evidence having been heard by the committee, it was unanimously decided to disqualify the leading horse, the second was declared winner, and the jockey censured. The leading horse could easily have won, and much sympathy was felt for its owner, who had lost the race through the bedevilment of his jockey.
When I handed the money to the Maori whose horse was pronounced the winner, I explained to him, through an interpreter, that he had won it simply through the misbehaviour of the leading jockey, and expressed my opinion that it would be fair to divide the sum with the Maori who had been so badly treated. He seemed to see the justice of the case at once, and without the least hesitation paid over half the money.
Civilisation has done, and is doing, great things for the Maoris. Among others it has taught many to drink, to swear in English, and to wear English slop clothes, which are quite unsuited to them and their habits, and to the use of which, many medical men attribute the pulmonary complaints so rife in their midst. They are constantly wading through streams, and getting wet through by rain, and they let their clothes dry on them (as they were accustomed to do when their skin formed the principal part of their garb), and thus sow the germs of disease, and hasten the inevitable day when the Maori will have been improved off the face of the earth.
No cannibalism exists, I believe, among them at the present time, though there are natives living who have indulged in it, and smack their lips at the thought. They say white men are too salt to be much good for the table, though young Pakeha children they pronounce to be "Kapai."