he carries on his back. Very few words have been adopted from the
vigorous and expressive Maori. The convenient "mana," which covers
prestige, authority, and personal magnetism; "whare," a rough hut;
"taihoa," equivalent to the Mexican _manana_; and "ka pai," "'tis
good," are exceptions. The South Island colonists mispronounce their
beautiful Maori place-names murderously. Even in the North Island the
average bushman will speak of the pukatea tree as "bucketeer," and
not to call the poro-poro shrub "bull-a-bull" would be considered
affectation. There is or was in the archives of the Taranaki Farmers'
Club a patriotic song which rises to the notable lines--

"And as for food, the land is full
Of that delicious bull-a-bull!"

In Canterbury you would be stared at if you called Timaru anything but
"Timmeroo." In Otago Lake Wakatipu becomes anything, from "Wokkertip"
to "Wackatipoo"; and I have heard a cultured man speak of Puke-tapu as
"Buck-a-tap."

The intellectual average is good. Thanks in great part to Gibbon
Wakefield's much-abused Company, New Zealand was fortunate in the
mental calibre of her pioneer settlers, and in their determined
efforts to save their children from degenerating into loutish,
half-educated provincials. Looking around in the Colony at the sons
of these pioneers, one finds them on all sides doing useful and
honourable work. They make upright civil servants, conscientious
clergymen, schoolmasters, lawyers, and journalists, pushing agents,
resourceful engineers, steady-going and often prosperous farmers,
and strong, quick, intelligent labourers. Of the "self-reverence,
self-knowledge, self-control" needful to make a sound race they have
an encouraging share. Of artistic, poetic, or scientific talent, of
wit, originality, or inventiveness, there is yet but little sign. In
writing they show facility often, distinction never; in speech fluency
and force of argument, and even, sometimes, lucidity, but not a flash
of the loftier eloquence. Nor has the time yet arrived for Young New
Zealand to secure the chief prizes of its own community--such posts
and distinctions as go commonly to men fairly advanced in years. No
native of the country has yet been its Prime Minister or sat amongst
its supreme court judges or bishops. A few colonial-born have held
subordinate Cabinet positions, but the dozen leading Members of
Parliament are just now all British-born. So are the leading doctors,
engineers, univ