of the Bible, and there
cannot be said now to exist any native literature. Yet, could their
legends be properly recorded, they would form a sort of barbaric
literature by no means without considerable poetic value. Sir George
Gray has attempted something of the sort, but with indifferent success.
He speaks the native tongue fluently, however, and has always
sympathized heartily with the aboriginal race, who call him their
English Father.

"Maori" (pronounced _Mowre_) is the name which the aborigines gave
themselves. If there were any human beings on these islands when the
Maoris first arrived they doubtless fell a prey to the cannibalistic
habits of the new-comers, whose insatiable appetite for human food was,
as we have seen, irrepressible. When discovered by Captain Cook, they
were the crudest of savage races; they knew scarcely anything of the
mechanic arts, their skill being limited to the scooping out of a boat
from the trunk of a tree, and the fabrication of fishing-nets from the
coarse fibre of the wild flax. They also made spears, shields, and
clubs. They had no beasts of burden, and so their women were made to
supply the place. Their agriculture was confined to the raising of sweet
potatoes and the esculent taro, while their more substantial food
consisted of fish, rats, wild fowl, and human flesh. Yet we are told by
well-informed writers upon the subject that they were of all the South
Sea tribes the most intelligent. They are physically the most vigorous
of any savages inhabiting islands south of the Equator, that we have
met. They seemed from the outset to be desirous of learning from and
affiliating with the whites,--a disposition which has led them to a
degree of improvement in domestic life, manner of living, building of
proper shelter for a home, and the manufacture of certain articles of
convenience. Wherever they are now found in the neighborhood of populous
centres, they have more or less adopted European clothing,--though we
were told some amusing anecdotes of their going back into the "bush,"
from time to time, solely to indulge in the old savage habit of nudity,
and to enjoy a sense of entire freedom from the conventionalities of the
whites.

There is not much intermarriage between the white people and the natives
in these days, although when there were fewer white women this was not
so uncommon; but the licentiousness prevalent among the native girls is
sufficient to prevent this at the present