"L'Aube," one of the French squadron maintained for the purpose of looking after the interests of the French whalers in the Pacific seas, arrived at Akaroa from the Bay of Islands to act as tender or convoy to the expected emigrant vessel. What must have been the intense chagrin and annoyance of her commander, Captain Lavaud, to find that H.M.S. "Britomart," Captain Owen Stanley, had anticipated him by four days, and that the British flag was floating and British authority already established! The fact was that immediately on learning the mission of the French war-vessel Captain Hobson despatched on this service the "Britomart," then lying at anchor in the Bay of Islands. That old and well-known settler Captain William Barnard Rhodes-familiarly known as Barney Rhodes ". did a good service at that time which should here be recorded. In November, 1839, he and his partners, Messrs. Cooper and Holt, who conjointly traded between New South Wales and New Zealand, sent several head of cattle to Akaroa. Receiving private information that the French emigrants might be expected there, Captain Rhodes lost no time in erecting a large flagstaff on the spot now known as Green's Point, and gave instructions to Green, who had charge of his cattle, that when the French arrived he was to hoist the British flag, drive the cattle under it, and inform the officer on landing that the South Island had been taken possession of for the Queen by Messrs. Rhodes, Cooper, and Holt. Whatever may or might have been the legal value of such precautions taken by a non-official subject of Her Majesty it is needless to discuss; but they, at any rate, exhibited patriotism, foresight, and ingenuity. Probably the deeds of both Captain Stanley and of Captain Rhodes were really unnecessary, inasmuch as Colonel Bunbury had taken formal possession of the South Island at Cloudy Bay on the 17th June, 1840, two months previously.

Long ago has the warm sentiment of mutual respect and friendship dissipated the envy and ill feeling which once disfigured the great French and British nations. Now they are close friends and allies, and through the long future may there be but one rivalry between them-that of best helping forward whatever advances the progress of humanity and knowledge.

ART. XIII.-The Passing of the Maori: An Inquiry into the Principal Causes of the Decay of the Race.

By ARCHDEACON WALSH.

[Read before the Auckland Institute, 8th July, 1907.]

THAT the Maori is gradually though rapidly passing away there can be no doubt. Any one who has lived for even a few years in the Maori country, or who has visited the Native districts from time to time, has the fact forced upon him. The large kaingas have shrunk to a fraction of their former size; many of the smaller ones have disappeared altogether; tribal gatherings that ten or twenty years ago mustered thousands now barely muster hundreds; the Native contingent is less and less conspicuous at the race meetings, agricultural shows, and other country gatherings; while the picturesque groups and figures that once gave such interesting variety to the city and town populations are now the exception rather than the rule. In spite of various statements, based on census returns and on local personal observation, that the Maori is holding his own, or even increasing in numbers, the fact is patent that, taking it as a whole, the race is fast dying out, and that, if the decay continues at the present rate, a comparatively short time will witness its extinction, though perhaps for a few generations some gradually diminishing traces of mixed blood may be observable in the white population. The object of the present paper is to try and trace some of the principal causes that have combined to produce this wholesale and rapid decay.

MAXIMUM POPULATION.

Most of the present Maori tribes trace their origin from the great heke or Polynesian migration which occurred some five hundred years ago; but there is abundant evidence that the country was already occupied by a numerous population, with whom sooner or later the Polynesian immigrants came into collision. These original inhabitants seem to have been of a peaceable disposition, and tradition states that they were often the victims of a wholesale slaughter. As is usual in such cases, once the strength of the beaten party was sufficiently broken the remnant of the able-bodied men would be taken for slaves and the women for wives, when the aboriginals would be absorbed in the invaders, who increased and multiplied until they

practically occupied all the open fertile land of the North Island, as well as a considerable portion of the South.

At what period this mixed race to which the present inquiry is confined-reached its maximum it is quite impossible to say, nor can we even approximately guess the number they may have reached. Doubtless the population was at all times a fluctuating one; and as the tribes grew in strength, a natural desire for expansion, a dispute over territory, or some other cause would bring them into collision, and the quarrel once started would often develop into a war of extermination. In these disputes allies would be sought on either side, combinations of adjacent tribes would be formed, and the fight would go on to a finish, or until both sides were exhausted, and by the time the final battle was fought, or a truce arrived at, a whole district would be almost depopulated. By degrees, however, the tribes that were not wholly extinguished would be nursed up again new alliances would be formed, and in time, under favourable conditions, the population would be brought up to, or might even exceed, its former numbers.

Captain Cook estimated the Maori population at the time of his visits to New Zealand (A.D. 1769-74) at about a hundred thousand; but his estimate is no more than a rough guess based on very imperfect data. It must be recollected that his observations extended only to a very partial acquaintance with the coast-line, that he never penetrated inland, and that even on the coast he entirely missed some of the most populous districts. Waikato, the Hot Lake country, the Auckland Isthmus, Kaipara, Hokianga, and many other places teeming with population had for him no existence, and any information he might have acquired from Native sources would be too vague to form the basis of an opinion.

There is abundant evidence to prove that Captain Cook's estimate was far too low. This evidence lies chiefly in the marks of occupation which the Maoris have left in the multitude. of fortified positions and in the immense area of land bearing traces of former cultivation. The number and size of the pas throughout the length and breadth of the North Island is amazing. Judge Maning states that from the top of one pa he had counted twenty others within a range of fifteen or twenty miles, and along the Oruru Valley a range of hills four or five miles long has nearly every summit scarped and terraced, some of the works being so extensive that it would take a thousand men to hold the position and probably a far greater number to construct the works. In regard to the area of land formerly

*"Old New Zealand," Chap. xiii.

under cultivation, practically all the open fertile country of the North Island shows unmistakable signs of agricultural operations. The clay hill-sides of the north are covered with surface drains, the volcanic plains of Taranaki are perforated with the ruas or storage-pits, all over the Waikato delta the pumice land has been excavated for sand to spread over the kumara plantations every narrow river-valley, every little shingle patch along the coast, and every sheltered nook under the sea-cliffs has been utilised; even on the rocky scoria flats the loose stones have been laboriously gathered into heaps to clear the ground for the early crops.

It is not, of course, to be supposed that anything like the total number of the pas or the entire area of cultivated land were occupied at any one time. Tribes would be driven off, and whole tracts of land would be deserted, perhaps, for a long period; and, even where the inhabitants were unmolested, the land would be temporarily worn out and new pieces brought under cultivation. Many of the pas, moreover, were built only to serve some temporary purpose, while many more would be deserted for a new site to suit the varying fortunes of the occupants. If the fighting strength of a pa was much reduced, a large fortification would be untenable, and a new one of more modest dimensions would be constructed on another spot; while if the numbers greatly increased, a more roomy situation would have to be found. Still, taking all this into consideration-and even allowing that many of the pas may have been of preHawaikian origin-the traces of occupation are so extensive that it is safe to estimate the population before the decay commenced, not at one, but at many hundreds of thousands.

COMMENCEMENT OF DECAY.

Some writers, in attempting to account for the rapid disappearance of the Maori, have put forward a theory that the race was already in an advanced stage of decay by the time of Captain Cook's discovery. It is, of course, possible that a period of internecine strife of more than common intensity may have occurred which for the moment would have reduced the population; but the Maoris were a healthy, vigorous, and prolific race, and a season of comparative political rest would have soon brought them up to their normal numbers. They had not yet entered on that condition of decadence whose lines are gradually though surely converging to a vanishing-point. However humiliating to the self-esteem of the white man, it must be confessed that it is the contact with European civilisation that has proved the ruin of the race. From the moment that the pakeha found a footing in the country, by an inevitable chain of causa

tion the thousands have dwindled into hundreds, and the hundreds to tens, until the dying remnant, of lowered physique and declining birth-rate, are the sole representatives of perhaps the finest aboriginal people the world has ever produced.

FIREARMS.

One of the first steps towards the extinction of the Maoris was the acquisition of firearms. Two or three guns made a war-party practically invincible when the enemy was unprovided with these weapons. When the Maoris heard the report, and saw the warriors fall without apparently being struck, they thought that some of the atuas, or ancestral deities, had come down to join in the fight, and a wild panic and general stampede would ensue, when they would be butchered without resistance with the spear and mere. "We can fight against men," they said, "but who can fight against the gods?"

The first recorded instance of the use of the new weapon in Maori warfare was in the case of a small party of Ngapuhi who, with only two old flint-lock guns, made a raid down the west coast of the North Island in about 1818. After every battle they stopped to feast on the slain, and took care that no survivors were left to carry the alarm to the next settlement. About the same time another party of the same tribe made a similar expedition along the east coast as far as Tauranga. But these adventures were as nothing to those carried out a few years later by the great chief Hongi Ika, who about this time became head over the various branches of the Ngapuhi, who extended from the Bay of Islands to Hokianga.

Hongi was well acquainted with the ways of the pakeha, and had already witnessed the effect of his weapons. If he could only secure a sufficient supply of arms and ammunition he could make himself supreme ruler of the whole Maori race. He had helped to welcome the Rev. Samuel Marsden to the country, and had taken the infant mission settlement at Rangihoua under his protection; and when in 1820 one of that bodyMr. Thomas Kendal-proposed to go to England to help in bringing out a Maori dictionary and grammar, he volunteered to accompany him and assist him in the work. On his arrival Hongi was presented to King George IV, and made the acquaintance of a number of influential persons, who were greatly taken with his intelligence and his professed desire for the improvement of his people. His modest request for a bodyguard of twenty soldiers was discouraged, and his attempt to procure any quantity of weapons met with no success. The King, however, made him a present of a suit of armour, while the good people who credited his benevolent intentions gave him a