considered them as good friends both to himself and the Government, and therefore left them to act as they saw best without further pledge, for he felt fully assured, if the chief (who had addressed him) should go to this gathering he might feel as if his own right hand were there, and everything therefore would result entirely as he could wish." Unhappily these anticipations were not realized, but on the contrary a war burst forth out of the long-despised movement, of such dimensions, and of such terrible cruelty, that the results of the civilization of the last twenty years have been seriously imperilled, and the original Maori, divesting himself of the whitewash of superficial Christianity, has become suddenly visible in all his savage thirst for blood. We do not indeed believe that the whole race have been seized with this much-to-be-lamented proclivity towards their old barbarism, nor that the application of the proverb (parodied from the celebrated mot of Napoleon), "Scratch the Maori and you will find the savage beneath," receives its full illustration here; but neither, on the other hand, can we resist the conviction that a long continuance of hostilities will foster old customs, and that a war waged with ever-increasing animosity must ultimately result in the decay and extinction of the New Zealand aborigines.
Independently of this, there was visible, even during the former days of peace and tranquillity, so marked a falling off of the Maori population, that the Colonial Government felt
called upon to institute most minute inquiries as to the supposed causes of this lamentable feature. In a very exhaustive work upon this subject, by Mr. F. D. Fenton,[42] we find for example that the proportion of births and deaths among the entire population—the former of which in England is 1 : 59, and the latter 1 : 34, and among the white settlers of New Zealand is 1 : 136 and 1 : 25—gives among the aborigines the following startling results,—deaths 1 : 33.04, births 1 : 67.13. The cause of this appalling decay of the Maori race, which has been steadily going on since 1830, is not alone due to the contact of the natives with civilization, but chiefly to the sanguinary wars between the various races, of which New Zealand was the theatre for a series of years, and the natural results of those wars. For it was not merely that in their constant battles the flower of their respective tribes lost their lives,[43] but the mothers, to facilitate their own escape, put to death most of the female infants at the breast. Upon this followed, apparently in consequence of the great privations of their wandering life, through hard work and
want of nutritious food, a serious sterility among the female sex. Whereas, according to Muret, out of 487 women only 20 (or 1 in 24) are barren on the average, the proportion among the Maori amounts to 155 in every 444, or 1 in 2.86.
The want of nutritious and wholesome food, their diet consisting mainly of salt-fish, roots, and fruits, the absence of clothing, or any care for the body, their wretched abodes, and exposure to the weather, all these causes must greatly contribute to the diminution of the race, as affecting the conditions of sound health of the present generation, and tending to produce those forms of disease, such as scrofula, pulmonia, phthisis, &c., by which the Maories and their offspring are at present decimated. Dr. Fenton also adduces the intermarriage of near relations among the New Zealanders as one prominent cause of their disease and physical degeneracy. These near alliances, however, at least among the lower classes, do not seem so frequent as Dr. Fenton imagined, as is apparent from the surprising diversity of physiognomy and colour of skin. The chiefs indeed of the tribes, who migrated from the north some four centuries since, may indeed have so frequently intermarried that they now constitute little other than a large family connection, but the populace have most undoubtedly made frequent alliances with the inhabitants of the adjoining island groups, as they are to this day accustomed to do with the whites, from which
latter cross results the unhappy bastard race Paketa-Maori, which, like the quadroons of Louisiana and the mulattoes of Hayti, or the mestizoes of the Indian races of South America, despising the pure blacks and looked down upon by the whites, are the sworn foes of both.
It seems to us too hazardous a speculation to go into minute investigations as to the decay of the Maori race, and the most suitable means of averting that disaster, at the very moment when their foreign conquerors, in order to strengthen their power, are actually engaged in a war of annihilation with the aborigines.[44] It is much more important, and will better repay our time, to enumerate the advantages which must accrue to European, especially German, immigrants into a country where the natives have played out their part.
As already remarked, there are few countries beyond the limits of Europe which are so favoured as regards climate,
fertility of soil, natural wealth, and geographical situation,[45] or hold out such excellent prospects of ultimate comfort and prosperity, as New Zealand. The mean temperature of the whole islands for the year is 56° Fahr., and is 5° less at the south, and in the north about 4° higher, so that, for example, Auckland possesses the same temperature as Florence, Rome, Marseilles, or Toulon.[46] Gales are frequent along the coast, and the damp south winds known as "bursters" are exceedingly disagreeable and oppressive, but they do not on the whole affect the health of the inhabitants. According to Dr. Thomson's observations, it would seem that of every 1000 soldiers in the various British military stations 8.25 die in New Zealand, 14 in Great Britain, 18 in Malta, 20 in Canada.[47]