school, and was at first inhabited by a superior set of

emigrants.

Dunedin is an extensive town built on the sides of steep hills. The jail there must be well managed, for last year the work of the prisoners more than paid their expenses, though they seem to have been well-fed, as their work was hard. They had each day 8 oz. of maize, 20 oz. of bread, 16 oz. of meat, 16 oz. of potatoes, and were employed in dredging the harbour, reclaiming the swamps, and making roads.

Wellington is on the southern edge of North Island, and was founded in 1840; it is the seat of government, but is inferior to Christ Church or Dunedin. At Nelson the harbour is beautiful and well sheltered. Auckland is a pretty town, with luxuriant plants creeping over the balconies; but it is deficient in public buildings.

New Zealand has one great advantage over Australia, it has numerous rivers, and water is to be found everywhere. When it was visited by Captain Cook in 1769, no animals were to be seen. Plenty have been imported by the English who settled there; but one reason given for the horrible custom of the natives eating their prisoners was, that they had no other animal food. A bone was found there which some one showed to Professor Owen in London. He knows more about natural history than almost any one living, and from the sight of that one leg bone he felt sure that it had belonged to an enormous bird without wings, called a dinornis, and he drew what he supposed would be the picture of one, though neither he nor any one living had ever seen one. Some years afterwards a whole skeleton

was found, and you may look at it if you ever go to the British Museum; it turned out. to be exactly what Professor Owen had drawn. It is twelve feet highthat is twice as tall as your father-with two very long, stout legs, like a four-footed animal, and no wings. There is a tradition amongst the Maories that such birds had been seen with very bright feathers.

The great difficulty in New Zealand arises from the Maories, as the natives are called. If you look at reports of them, written about ten years ago, you will find them described as a very fine race of civilized men, converted to Christianity. Some had come to England, and had been welcomed by some of the best people here. The Church Missionary and other societies had sent out teachers, who hoped that they had made a strong impression upon them. But there had always been occasional bursts of barbarism, and lately a horrible frenzy has possessed many of them, called the HawHaw belief, which causes them to murder Christians to whom they were apparently much attached, and in some cases to eat their bodies. There seems to be no country where it is so easy to plant or so difficult to maintain Christianity. Of course such conduct cannot go unpunished, but it is most difficult to subdue them.

The Maories are crafty, and understand fighting in the bush much better than we do. They will come in the dead of the night, and murder a whole English family, father, mother, children, and servants, and will escape before any one knows what they have done or who did it. They can live upon raw fern root that they dig up, and hide in caverns and holes amongst the mountains. Then they work them

selves into a sort of madness with their war dances. They swing from side to side till they are beside themselves, stiffen their legs, claw and snatch with their fingers, and snort like maddened horses, throwing off their clothes as they go on; and some of their dresses are astonishing. One Wanganwi chief wore huntingtrousers and high boots, with a long, black mantle, which was the skirt of the riding-habit of his half-caste wife. Another chief, Hunia, rode dressed as a gentleman rides in a steeple chase.

The English there declare they are not safe unless the mother-country will send them soldiers to protect them from these terrible Maories. But the old farmer of whom you read, when his children left him, only promised to come to their rescue while they were too young to defend themselves. Old England has enough to do with her money, and says she cannot go on levying taxes to pay armies all over the world. The New Zealanders, she thinks, ought to be able to hold their own against not half their number of savages. We do not yet know how it will end, but certainly the English will not be tempted by gold-digging or sheep-keeping to stay in a place where it is likely they will be killed, cooked, and eaten.

No doubt, however, the Maories are not all bad, nor are there as many hypocrites amongst them as this account might lead you to suppose. They are very ready to imitate any new customs, just as monkeys will do whatever they see others do. They act very much from impulse, and probably did sincerely believe Christianity when they professed to do so; but when provoked with real or imaginary wrongs they thought they

had a right to retaliate by taking vengeance into their own hands.

Perhaps we do not make sufficient allowance for the feelings of the natives, who see us take possession of the land they have considered their own. They made little or no use of it, and we are willing to pay them for it; but they cannot understand the possibility of parting

with it.

It is a curious fact that New Zealand does not possess one native quadruped. Two kinds of bats were the only animals of that sort found there. There are neither hornets, wasps, earwigs, nor ants, which must in that respect make it a pleasanter residence than England. They have some queer birds; one, called the ka-ka, very like a parrot, the Maories cook in a new way; without picking off its feathers, it is rolled in wet clay, and patted round so as thoroughly to cover it. Then it is put amongst some red-hot wood ashes, and when the clay becomes red-hot also, it is taken out, and the case broken; then out comes the bird cooked ready for eating, the feathers all sticking in the clay. Suppose you try this plan with the next rook you can get hold of.

PITCAIRN ISLANDERS.

In the year 1787 the English Government sent out a ship named the Bounty, commanded by Captain Bligh, to the island of Otaheite, in the South Pacific Ocean, for the purpose of getting plants from the bread

fruit tree, for the use of our colonies in the West Indies.

This tree is like an oak, and the fruit is the size of a penny loaf, and when eaten fresh is very like our bread. Captain Bligh succeeded in obtaining the plants, and remained on the island twenty-three weeks. It is supposed that many of his sailors wished to return there, having become attached to some handsome Otaheitan girls whom they wanted to marry. There must have been some

reason for their wicked conduct, since about three weeks after leaving the island, Captain Bligh was awoke early one morning, surrounded with armed men, his hands tied, and a gun pointed at him, till with only his shirt on, he was forced into a small boat, and told that if he was not quiet he should be instantly shot. Eighteen men, who would not join the mutiny, were thrown into the same boat, and pushed off, with scarcely a chance of their lives.

Strange to say, however, they were saved, but they went through horrible sufferings from hunger and thirst. Once they caught a bird the size of a pigeon; it was divided into eighteen bits, and eaten raw, bones and all, with a little bread, with salt water for sauce. They were very thankful for drenching rain, as they then wrung out their clothes to obtain fresh water, soaked them in sea-water, and put them on wet, which they found prevented their catching cold. Many of the men, however, were cramped and afflicted with shivering and pains. Captain Bligh seems to have been a religious man, and he frequently read a prayer to the wretched sufferers round him. It was not till the 28th May