nearly the same conditions. Much gold has been found here in what are
called pockets, under boulders and large stones which lie on the sandy
beach of the west coast. This is popularly believed to have been washed
up from the sea in heavy weather, but undoubtedly it was first washed
down from the mountains and deposited along the shore. Official returns
show that New Zealand has produced over two hundred and fifty million
dollars in gold since its discovery in these islands.

When Captain Cook first landed here, he fully understood the cannibal
habits of the native race, and sought for some practical means of
discouraging and abolishing such inhuman practices. Upon his second
visit, therefore, he introduced swine and some other domestic animals,
such as goats and horned cattle, in the vain hope that they would
ultimately supply sufficient animal food for the savages, and divert
them from such wholesale roasting and eating of each other. The goats
and some other animals were soon slaughtered and consumed, but the swine
to a certain extent answered the purpose for which he designed them;
that is to say, they ran wild, multiplied remarkably, and were hunted
and eaten by the natives; but cannibalism was by no means abolished, or
even appreciably checked. Wild hogs, which have sprung from the original
animals introduced so many years ago, are still quite abundant in the
North Island.

About two hundred miles northward from Dunedin is the city of
Christchurch, settled first in 1850, and the chief seat of the Church of
England in New Zealand, having a noble cathedral. Littleton is the port
of Christchurch, situated eight miles below the city, and connected
with it by both river and railway. This metropolis contains about
thirty-five thousand people. In its museum there is a most interesting
and perfect skeleton of that great bird, the Moa,--indigenous in this
country and believed to have been extinct about two thousand years,
probably disappearing before any human beings came to these islands. The
Maori Indians (pronounced _Mow're_), the native race of New Zealand, can
be traced back but six or seven hundred years, and only very imperfectly
during that period. They are believed to have come from the islands
lying in the North Pacific, presumably from the Sandwich or Hawaiian
group. Even the traditions of these natives fail to give us any account
of this gigantic bird while it was living, but its bones are found in
various se