To him, then, I have heard Arama discoursing on his project for the regeneration of the Maori race, talking as one chief among men may talk to another. For the ariki is thoroughly aware of the gradual extinction which is coming for his race. He sees and knows that the Maori is dying out before the Pakeha, and his great idea is how the former may be perpetuated.
Says he to Old Colonial, for example, somewhat as follows:—
"Oh, friend! What shall be for the Maori? Where are they now since the coming of the Pakeha? The forest falls before the axe of the Pakeha; the Maori birds have flown away, and strange Pakeha birds fly above the new cornfields; the Pakeha rat has chased away the kiore; there are Pakeha boats on our waters, Pakeha fish in our rivers. All that was is gone; and the land of the Maori is no longer theirs. God has called to the Maori people, and they go. The souls of our dead crowd the path that leads to the Reinga.
"Lo! the Pakeha men are very many. It is good that they should see our maidens, and it is good that they should marry them. Then there will be children that shall live, and a new race of Maori blood. So there shall be some to say in the time to come, 'This is the land of our mothers. This was the land of the Maori before the Pakeha came out of the sea.'
"Oh, friend! send your young men to Tanoa, that they may see our maidens, and may know that they are good for wives. The mihonere and the kuremata[7] have taught them the things of the Pakeha. It is good that we should cause them so to marry."
Thus does Arama propound his plan for a fusion between the races. Still more to further it, he proposes to endow certain young ladies of his tribe with considerable areas of land, in the event of any Pakeha—rangatira Pakeha—who may be acceptable to the tribe, offering to marry any of them. We have tried to urge the Little'un, or the Saint, or even O'Gaygun into some such match; but they are shy, I suppose, and do not seem to fancy taking "a savage woman to rear their dusky race." Yet it would be unfair to call the brunette beauties of Tanoa savages.
Place aux dames! Let us get on to consider the ladies.
Ema, and Piha, and Ana, and Hirene, and Mehere; there they are, the pick and particular flower of all that is beautiful, fashionable, young, and marriageable in Tanoa. Bright and cheerful, neat and comely, pleasant partners at a bush-ball are these half-Anglicized daughters of the Ngatewhatua. They can prattle prettily in their soft Maori-English, while their glancing eyes and saucy lips are provoking the by no means too hard hearts of Pakeha bushmen.
Ah! live in the bush, reader! Live and work from month's end to month's end without even a sight of a petticoat, and then go slap into the middle of a "spree" at some such place as Tanoa or Te Pahi. Then you would appreciate the charms of our Maori belles. Under the influence of music and the dance, supple forms and graceful motions, scented hair and flower-wreaths, smiles and sparkling eyes, the graces of nature not wholly lost under the polish of civilization, you would say our Maori girls were very nice indeed. And so say all of us, although the Saint and the Little'un and O'Gaygun hold aloof from matrimony—as yet.
These Maori maidens are not to be thought of as savages. Far from it. They can read and they can write, in English as well as Maori. They can read the newspaper or the Bible to their less accomplished papas and mammas. They can cipher and sew; have an idea of the rotundity of the earth, with some knowledge of the other countries beyond the sea. They are fully up in all the subjects that are usually taught in Sunday schools. They can play croquet—with flirtation accompaniment—and wear chignons. Oh no! they are not savages. At least, I should say not.