When the line reached the other side of the Blue Mountains there were great difficulties in the descent, and here the engineers had to lay out zigzags of greater extent than the former. By these the trains now descend easily and safely from the tops of the mountains down into the Lithgow Valley far below.



By the southern railway to Albury, crowds of people are daily whirled in a few hours to places which, forty years ago, were reached by Sturt, and Hume, and Mitchell, only after weeks of patient toil, through unknown lands that were far removed from civilisation.

#4. Sydney Exhibition.#—So on every hand the colony made progress. Her railways expanded in scores of branches; her telegraph lines stretched out their arms in every direction; her sheep increased so that now there are nearly sixty millions of them; her wheat and maize extended to more than half a million of acres; her orangeries and vineyards and orchards, her mines of coal and tin, and her varied and extensive manufactures, make her people, now numbering a million, one of the most prosperous on the face of the earth. Her pride was pardonable when, in 1879, she held an international exhibition to compare her industries side by side with those of other lands, so as to show how much she had done and to discover how much she had yet to learn. A frail, but wonderfully pretty building rapidly arose on the brow of the hill between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove; and that place, the scene of so much squalor and misery a hundred years before, became gay with all that decorative art could do, and busy with daily throngs of gratified visitors. The place had a most distinguished appearance; seen from the harbour, its dome and fluttering flags rose up from among the luxuriant foliage of the Botanic Gardens, as if boldly to proclaim that New South Wales had completed the period of her infancy and was prepared to take her place among the nations as one grown to full and comely proportions. When the building had served its purpose, the people were too fond and too proud of it to dismantle and destroy it, but unfortunately it was not long after swept away by an accidental fire.

In 1885, the colony was stirred by a great wave of enthusiasm when it was known that its Government had sent to England the offer of a regiment of soldiers to fight in the Soudan side by side with British troops. The offer was accepted, and some seven or eight hundred soldiers, well equipped and full of high hopes, sailed for Africa. The war was too soon over for them to have any chance of displaying what an Australian force may be like upon a battle-field. There were many persons who held that the whole expedition was a mistake. But it had one good effect; for it showed that, for the present at least, the Australian colonies are proud of their mother-country; that their eyes are fondly turned to her, to follow all her destinies in that great career which she has to accomplish as the leading nation of the earth; and that if ever she needed their help, assistance would flow spontaneously from the fulness of loving hearts. The idea of this expedition and its execution belonged principally to C. B. Dalley. But the great leader of New South Wales during the last quarter of a century, and the most zealous worker for its welfare and prosperity, has been the veteran statesman Sir Henry Parkes.



CHAPTER XXII.

VICTORIA, 1855-1890.

#1. Responsible Government.#—In 1855, when each of the colonies was engaged in framing for itself its own form of government, Victoria, like all the others, chose the English system of two Houses of Legislature. At first it was resolved that the Lower House, called the Legislative Assembly, should consist of only sixty members; but by subsequent additions, the number has been increased to eighty-six: in 1857 the right of voting was conferred upon every man who had resided a sufficient length of time in the colony. With regard to the Upper House Victoria found the same difficulty as had been experienced in New South Wales; but, instead of introducing the system of nomination by the Government, it decided that its Legislative Council should be elected by the people. In order, however, that this body might not be identical in form and opinion with the Lower House, it was arranged that no one should be eligible for election to it who did not possess at least five thousand pounds worth of real property, and that the privilege of voting should be confined to the wealthier part of the community.

Along with this new Constitution responsible government was introduced; and Mr. Haines, being sent for by the Governor, formed the first Ministry. Before the close of the year, the first contest under the new system took place. Mr. Nicholson, a member of the Assembly, moved that the voting for elections should in future be carried on in secret, by means of the ballot-box, so that every man might be able to give his opinion undeterred by any external pressure, such as the fear of displeasing his employer or of disobliging a friend. The Government of Mr. Haines refused its assent to this proposal, which was, nevertheless, carried by the Assembly. Now, the system of responsible government required that, in such a case, Mr. Haines and his fellow-Ministers, being averse to such a law and declining to carry it out, should resign and leave the government to those who were willing and able to inaugurate the newly-appointed system. Accordingly they gave in their resignations, and the Governor asked Mr. Nicholson to form a new Ministry; but, though many members had voted for his proposal, they were not prepared to follow him as their leader. He could obtain very few associates, and was thus unable to form a Ministry; so that there appeared some likelihood of a total failure of responsible government before it had been six months in existence. In the midst of this crisis Sir Charles Hotham was taken ill. He had been present at a prolonged ceremony—the opening of the first gasworks in Melbourne—and a cold south wind had given him a dangerous chill. He lay for a day or two in great danger; but the crisis seemed past, and he had begun to recover, when news was brought to him of Mr. Nicholson's failure. He lay brooding over these difficulties, which pressed so much upon his mind that he was unable to rally, and on the last day of the year 1855 he died. This was a great shock to the colonists, who had learnt highly to respect him. The vacant position was for a year assumed by Major-General Macarthur, who invited Mr. Haines and his Ministry to return. They did so, and the course of responsible government began again from the beginning. At the end of 1856 another Governor—Sir Henry Barkly—arrived; and during the seven years of his stay the new system worked smoothly enough, the only peculiarity being the rapid changes in the Government. Some of the Ministries lasted only six weeks, and very few protracted their existence to a year.



#2. The Deadlock.#—Sir Henry Barkly left the colony in 1863, and his place was immediately filled by Sir Charles Darling, nephew of Sir Ralph Darling, who, forty years before, had been Governor of New South Wales. Sir Charles was destined to troublous times; for he had not been long in the colony ere a most vexatious hitch took place in the working of constitutional government. It arose out of a straggle with regard to what is called "Protection to Native Industry".

The colony was filled with vigorous and enterprising men, who had come to it for the purpose of digging for gold. For four or five years gold digging had been on the average a fairly remunerative occupation. But when all the surface gold had been gathered, and it became necessary to dig shafts many hundreds of feet into the earth, and even then in many cases only to get quartz, from which the gold had to be extracted by crushing and careful washing, then the ordinary worker, who had no command of capital, had to take employment with the wealthier people, who could afford to sink shafts and wait for years before the gold appeared. These men, therefore, had to take small wages for toiling at a most laborious occupation. But most of them had learnt trades of some sort in Europe; and the idea sprang up that if the colony prevented boots from coming into it from outside there would be plenty of work for the bootmakers; if it stopped the importation of engines there would no longer be any reason why engineers should work like navvies at the bottom of gold mines—they would be wanted to make the engines of the colony. After a long agitation, therefore, James M'Culloch, the Premier of the colony, in 1864 brought a bill into the Victorian Legislative Assembly according to which taxes were to be placed on all goods coming into the colony if they were of a sort that might be made within the colony. M'Culloch proposed to make this change because it was ardently desired by the working men of the colony, and these could by their votes control the action of the Legislative Assembly. But the Upper House, called the Legislative Council, composed of wealthy men, who had been elected by the wealthier part of the community, thought, after careful decision, that any such plan would ruin the commerce of the colony without much benefiting its industries. They therefore rejected the proposed bill.

M'Culloch tried to persuade them to pass it, but they were obstinate. He then resorted to a trick which is in itself objectionable, but which is perhaps excusable when the great body of the people wish a certain thing and a small body like the Legislative Council are resolved to thwart them. It is part of our constitutional law that all bills dealing with money matters must be prepared in the Lower House; the Upper House can then accept them or reject them as they stand, but is not allowed to alter them.

Now, once a year Parliament has to pass a bill called the Appropriation Act, by which authority is given to the Government to spend the public money in the various ways that Parliament directs. In 1865 M'Culloch put the whole of the Protective Tariff Bill into the Appropriation Act as if it were a part of that Act, though really it had nothing to do with it. The Legislative Assembly passed the Appropriation Act with this insertion. The Legislative Council now found itself in a most unlucky position. If it passed the Appropriation Act it would also pass the Protective Tariff Bill, which it detested. But if it rejected the Appropriation Act, then the Government would have no authority to pay away any money, and so all the officers of the State, the civil servants and the policemen, the teachers, the gaolers, the surveyors and the tide-waiters, would all have to go on for a year without any salaries. There was no middle course open, for the Council could not alter the Appropriation Act and then pass it.

Whether was it to pass the Act and make the protective tariff the law of the land; or reject it, and run the risk of making a number of innocent people starve? It chose the latter alternative, and threw out the bill. The whole country became immensely excited, and seemed like one debating club, where men argued warmly either for or against the Council.

Matters were becoming serious, when the Ministry discovered an ingenious device for obtaining money. According to British law, if a man is unable to obtain from the Government what it owes him, he sues for it in the Supreme Court; and then, if this Court decides in his favour, it orders the money to be paid, quite independently of any Appropriation Act, out of the sums that may be lying in the Treasury. In their emergency, the Ministry applied to the banks for a loan of money; five of them refused, but the sixth agreed to lend forty thousand pounds. With this the Government servants were paid, and then the bank demanded its money from the Government; but the Government had no authority from Parliament to pay any money, and could not legally pay it. The bank then brought its action at law. The Supreme Court gave its order, and the money was paid to the bank out of the Treasury. Thus a means had been discovered of obtaining all the money that was required without asking the consent of Parliament. Throughout the year 1865 the salaries of officers were obtained in this way; but in 1866 the Upper House, seeing that it was being beaten, offered to hold a conference. Each House made concessions to the other, the Tariff Bill was passed, with some alterations, the Appropriation Bill was then agreed to in the ordinary way, and the "Deadlock" came to an end.

#3. The Darling Grant.#—But, in its train, other troubles followed; for the English authorities were displeased with Sir Charles Darling for allowing the Government to act as it did. They showed how he might have prevented it, and, to mark their dissatisfaction, they recalled him in 1866. He bitterly complained of this harsh treatment; and the Assembly, regarding him as, in some measure, a martyr to the cause of the people, determined to recompense him for his loss of salary. In the Appropriation Act of 1867 they therefore passed a grant of L20,000 to Lady Darling, intending it for the use of her husband. The Upper House owed no debt of gratitude to Sir Charles, and, accordingly, it once more threw out the Appropriation Bill. Again there was the same bitter dispute, and again the public creditors were obliged to sue for their money in the Supreme Court. In a short time four thousand five hundred such pretended actions were laid, the Government making no defence, and the order being given in each case that the money should be paid.

In 1866 the new Governor—Viscount Canterbury—arrived; but the struggle was still continued, till, in 1868, Sir Charles Darling informed M'Culloch that Lady Darling would decline to receive the money, as he was receiving instead five thousand pounds as arrears of salary and a lucrative position in England. The Upper House then passed the Appropriation Bill, and the contest came to an end.

#4. Payment of Members.#—But they had other things to quarrel about. The working men of the colony thought that they never would get fair treatment in regard to the laws until working men were themselves in Parliament. But that could not be, so long as they had to leave their trades and spend their time in making laws while getting nothing for it. Hence they were resolved on having all members of Parliament paid, and they elected persons to the Lower House who were in favour of that principle. But the better-off people sent persons into the Upper House who were against it. Thus for twenty years a struggle took place, but in the end the working men carried their point; and it was settled that every member of Parliament should receive three hundred pounds a year. The two Houses also quarrelled about the manner in which the land was to be sold; the Lower House being anxious to put it into the hands of industrious people who were likely to work on it as farmers, even though they could pay very little for it; the Upper House preferring that it should be sold to the people who offered the most money for it. On this and other questions in dispute the Lower House gained the victory.

#5. Exhibitions.#—It was not till the year 1880 that all these contentions were set at rest, but from that time the colony passed into a period of peace, during which it made the most astonishing progress in all directions. That progress was indicated in a most decided way by the exhibitions held in the colony. It had from time to time in previous years held inter-colonial exhibitions at which all the colonies had met in friendly competition. But in 1880, and again in 1888, Victoria invited all the world to exhibit their products at her show. A magnificent building was erected in one of the parks of Melbourne, and behind it were placed acres of temporary wooden erections, and the whole was filled with twenty acres of exhibits. A similar show, held in 1888, was much larger, and helped, by its fine collection of pictures, its grand displays of machinery, its educational courts, its fine orchestral music, and so on, in a hundred ways to stimulate and develop the minds of the people. During recent years Victoria has been very busy in social legislation. While enjoying peace under the direction of a coalition Government with Mr. Duncan Gillies and Mr. Alfred Deakin at its head, the colony has tried experiments in regulating the liquor traffic; in closing shops at an early hour; in irrigating the waterless plains of the north-west, and in educating farmers and others into the most approved methods of managing their businesses. What is to be the eventual result no one can as yet very definitely prophesy. But the eyes of many thoughtful persons throughout the world are at present turned to Victoria to see how those schemes are working which have been so zealously undertaken for the good of the people.



Up till 1890 the progress of the colony was astonishing. Its central half forms a network of railways. Its agriculture and its trades have doubled themselves every few years; and though a period of restless activity and progress was in 1890 followed by a time of severe depression, the community, like all the other Australian colonies, has great times of prosperity in store for it.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE TIMES OF THE MAORIS.

#1. The Maoris.#—So far as we know, the original inhabitants of New Zealand were a dark-skinned race called Maoris, a people lithe and handsome of body, though generally plain of features: open, frank and happy in youth, grave and often melancholy in their older years.

They numbered forty thousand in the North Island, where the warmth of the climate suited them, but in the South Island there were only two thousand. They were divided into tribes, who fought fiercely with one another; cooked and ate the bodies of the slain, and carried off the vanquished to be slaves. They dwelt in houses sometimes neatly built of wooden slabs, more often of upright poles with broad grass leaves woven between them. The roofs were of grass, plaited and thatched.

To these abodes the entrances were only some two or three feet high, and after crawling through, the visitor who entered at night would see the master of the house, his wives, his children, his slaves, indeed all his household, to the number of twenty or thirty, lying on mats in rows down either side, with their heads to the walls and their feet to the centre, leaving a path down the middle. In these rooms they slept, with a fire burning all night, till, what with the smoke and the breaths of so many people, the place was stifling. The roofs were only four feet higher than the ground outside, but, then, inside, the earth was hollowed a foot or two to make the floor so that a man could just stand upright.

These houses were gathered in little villages, often pleasantly situated beside a stream, or on the sea-shore; but sometimes for defence they were placed on a hill and surrounded by high fences with ditches and earthen walls so as to make a great stronghold of the kind they called a "pah". The trenches were sometimes twenty or thirty feet deep; but generally the pah was built so that a rapid river or high precipices would defend two or three sides of it, while only the sides not so guarded by nature were secured by ditches and a double row of palisades. Within these enclosures stages were erected behind the palisades so that the fighting men could hurl stones and spears and defy an attacking party.



#2. Maori Customs.#—Round their villages and pahs they dug up the soil and planted the sweet potato, and the taro, which is the root of a kind of arum lily; they also grew the gourd called calabash, from whose hard rind they made pots and bowls and dishes. When the crops of sweet potato and taro were over they went out into the forest and gathered the roots of certain sorts of ferns, which they dried and kept for their winter food. They netted fish and eels; they caught sharks with hook and line and dried their flesh in the sun. To enjoy these meals in comfort they had a broad verandah round their houses which formed an open and generally pleasant dining-room, where they gathered in family circles bound by much affection for one another. The girls especially were sweet and pretty; their mild manners, their soft and musical voices, the long lashes of their drooping eyes, with the gloss of their olive-tinted skins made them perfect types of dusky beauty. Grown a little older they were by no means so attractive, and then when married they deeply scored their faces by the process of tattooing.

The men had their faces, hips, and thighs tattooed, that is, all carved in wavy lines which were arranged in intricate patterns. The women tattooed only their lips, chins, and eyelids, but often smeared their faces with red ochre, and soaked their hair with oil. Men and women wore round the waist a kilt of beautifully woven flax, and over the shoulders a mat of the same material. They were expert sailors, and built themselves large canoes which thirty or forty men would drive forward, keeping time with their paddles. Their large war canoes were sixty and seventy feet long, and would carry 100 men.

Thus they were by no means uncivilised, but their condition was in some respects most barbarous. In person they were dirty, and in manners proud and arrogant. They were easily offended, and never forgave what they considered as an injury or insult. This readiness to take offence and to avenge themselves caused the neighbouring tribes to be for ever at war. They fought with great bravery, slaughtered each other fiercely, and ate the bodies. Sometimes they killed their captives or slaves in order to hold a cannibal feast.

According to their own traditions they had not been always in these islands. Their ancestors came from afar, and each tribe had its own legendary account. But they all agreed that they came from an island away to the north in the Pacific, which they called Hawaiki, and there is little doubt but that some hundreds of years ago their forefathers must in truth have emigrated from some of the South Sea Islands. Whether they found natives on the islands and killed them all, we cannot now discover. There are no traces of any earlier people, but the Maoris in their traditions say that people were found on the islands and slain and eaten by the invaders.

One tribe declared that long ago in far-off Hawaiki a chief hated another, but was too weak to do him harm. He fitted out a canoe for a long voyage, and suddenly murdered the son of his enemy. He then escaped on board the canoe with his followers and sailed away for ever from his home. This legend declared how after many adventures he at length reached New Zealand. Another legend relates that in Hawaiki the people were fighting, and a tribe being beaten was forced to leave the island. Sorrowfully it embarked in two canoes and sailed away out upon the tossing ocean, till, directed by the voice of their god sounding from the depths below them, they landed on the shores of New Zealand.

How many centuries they lived and multiplied there it is impossible to say, as they had no means of writing and recording their history.

#3. Tasman.#—The earliest we know of them for certain is in the journal of Tasman, who writes under the date of 13th December, 1642, that he had that day seen shores never before beheld by white men. He was then holding eastward after his visit to Tasmania, and the shore he saw was the mountainous land in the North Island. He rounded what we now call Cape Farewell, and anchored in a fine bay, whose green and pleasant shores were backed by high snow-capped mountains. Several canoes came off from the beach filled by Maoris, who lay about a stone's throw distant and sounded their war trumpets. The Dutch replied by a flourish of their horns. For several days the Maoris would come no nearer, but on the sixth they paddled out with seven canoes and surrounded both vessels. Tasman noticed that they were crowding in a somewhat threatening manner round one of his ships, the Heemskirk, and he sent a small boat with seven men to warn the captain to be on his guard. When the Maoris saw these seven men without weapons sailing past their canoes they fell on them, instantly killed three and began to drag away their bodies; no doubt to be eaten. The other four Dutchmen, by diving and swimming, escaped and reached the ship half dead with fright. Then with shouts the whole line of Maori canoes advanced to attack the ships; but a broadside startled them. They were stupefied for a moment at the flash and roar of the cannon and the crash of the wood-work of their canoes; then they turned and fled, carrying with them, however, one of the bodies. Tasman sailed down into Cook Strait, which he very naturally took to be a bay, the weather being too thick for him to see the passage to the south-east. He then returned and coasted northwards to the extreme point of New Zealand, which he called Cape Maria Van Diemen, probably after the wife of that Governor of Batavia who had sent out the expedition. Tasman called the lands he had thus discovered "New Zealand," after that province of Holland which is called Zealand, or the Sea-land. The bay in which he had anchored was called Murderers' or Massacre Bay.

#4. Captain Cook.#—For more than a hundred years New Zealand had no white men as visitors. It was in 1769 that Captain Cook, on his way home from Tahiti, steering to the south-west in the hope of discovering new lands, saw the distant hills of New Zealand. Two days later he landed on the east coast of the North Island, a little north of Hawke Bay. There lay the little ship the Endeavour at anchor, with its bulging sides afloat on a quiet bay, in front a fertile but steeply sloping shore with a pah on the crown of a hill, and a few neat little houses by the side of a rapid stream. In the evening Cook, Banks, and other gentlemen took the pinnace and rowed up the streamlet. They landed, leaving some boys in charge of the boat, and advanced towards a crowd of Maoris, making friendly signs as they approached. The Maoris ran away, but some of them seeing their chance made a dash at the boys in the boat and tried to kill them. The boys pushed off, and dropped down the stream; the Maoris chased them, determined on mischief. Four of them being very murderous, the coxswain fired a musket over their heads. They were startled, but continued to strike at the boys with wooden spears. Seeing the danger the coxswain levelled his musket and shot one of the Maoris dead on the spot. The others fled, and Cook, hearing the report of the gun, hurried back and at once returned to the ship.

Over and over again Cook did everything he could devise to secure the friendship of these people; but they always seemed to have only one desire, and that was to kill and eat the white visitors. One day five canoes came out to chase the Endeavour as she was sailing along the coast. Another time nine canoes densely filled with men sailed after her, paddling with all their might to board the vessel. In these and many other cases cannon had to be fired over their heads to frighten them before they would desist from their attempt to capture the ship. At one bay, the Maoris made friends and went on board the Endeavour to sell provisions, but when all was going forward peaceably they suddenly seized a boy and pulled him into their canoe. They were paddling away with him when some musket shots frightened them, and in the confusion the boy dived and swam back.

Cook sailed completely round the North Island, charting the shores with great care, often landing, sometimes finding tribes who made friends, more often finding tribes whose insolence or treachery led to the necessity of firing upon them with small shot. If he had only known the customs of these people he would have understood that to be friendly with one tribe meant that the next tribe would murder and eat them for revenge. He then sailed round the South Island, landing less frequently, however, till at length he took his leave of New Zealand at what he called Cape Farewell, and sailed away to Australia. He had been nearly six months exploring the coasts of these islands, and that in a very small vessel. During this time he had left pigs and goats, fowls and geese to increase in the forests, where they soon multiplied, especially the pigs. Potatoes and turnips were left with many tribes, who quickly learnt how to grow them, so that after ten or twelve years had passed away these vegetables became the chief food of all the Maoris.

#5. French Visitors.#—Whilst Cook was sailing round the North Island, a French vessel anchored in a bay of that island in search of fresh water. The Ngapuhi tribe received them with pleasure and gave them all the assistance in their power, but some of them stole a boat. The captain, named De Surville, then seized one of the chiefs and put him in irons. The boat not being given up, he burnt a village and sailed to South America, the chief dying on the road.

Three years later in 1772 came another Frenchman, Marion du Fresne, with two ships; this time for the express purpose of making discoveries. He sailed up the west coast, rounded the North Cape and anchored in the Bay of Islands. He landed and made friends with the Ngapuhi tribe and took his sick sailors ashore. The Maoris brought him plenty of fish, and Du Fresne made them presents in return. For a month the most pleasant relations continued, the Maoris often sleeping on board and the French officers spending the night in the Maori houses. One day Captain Marion went ashore with sixteen others to enjoy some fishing. At night they did not return. Captain Crozet, who was second in command, thought they had chosen to sleep ashore, but the next day he sent a boat with twelve men to find where they were. These men were scattering carelessly through the woods when suddenly a dense crowd of Maoris, who had concealed themselves, attacked and killed all the Frenchmen but one. He who escaped was hidden behind some bushes, and he saw his comrades brained one after another; then he saw the fierce savages cut their bodies in pieces, and carry them away in baskets to be eaten. When the Maoris were gone he crept along the shore and swam to the ship, which he reached half dead with terror. Crozet landed sixty men, and the natives gathered for a fight; but the Frenchmen merely fired volley after volley into a solid mass of Maori warriors, who, stupefied at the flash and roar, were simply slaughtered as they stood. Crozet burnt both the Maori villages and sailed away. In later times the Maoris explained that the French had desecrated their religious places by taking the carved ornaments out of them for firewood.

#6. Cook's Later Visits.#—In his second voyage Cook twice visited New Zealand in 1773 and 1774. He had two vessels, one of them under the command of Captain Furneaux. While this latter vessel was waiting in Queen Charlotte Sound, a bay opening out of Cook Strait, Captain Furneaux sent a boat with nine men who were to go on shore and gather green stuff for food. A crowd of Maoris surrounded them, and one offered to sell a stone hatchet to a sailor, who took it; but to tease the native, in silly sailor fashion, this sailor would neither give anything for it nor hand it back. The Maori in a rage seized some bread and fish which the sailors were spreading for their lunch. The sailors closed to prevent their touching the victuals; a confused struggle took place, during which the English fired and killed two natives, but before they could load again they were all knocked on the head with the green stone axes of the Maoris. An officer sent ashore later on with a strong force found several baskets of human limbs, and in one of them a head which he recognised as that of a sailor belonging to the party. The officer attacked some hundreds of the Maoris as they were seated at their cannibal feast, and drove them away from the half-gnawed bones.



Cook again touched at New Zealand in the course of his third voyage, and this time succeeded in maintaining friendly relations with the Maoris during a short visit. But when the story of Cook's voyage was published in later years the people of Europe conceived a deep horror of these fierce man-eating savages.

#7. The Whalers.#—For ten or twelve years New Zealand was not visited by white men, but the foundation of a town at Sydney, in 1788, brought ships out much more often into these waters, and before long it was found that the seas round New Zealand were well stocked with whales. Vessels came out to carry on the profitable business of catching them and taking their oil to Europe. For fresh water and for fuel for their stoves they called at the shores of New Zealand, chiefly at Queen Charlotte Sound, at Dusky Bay on the west coast of South Island, but especially at the Bay of Islands near the extreme north of North Island. There they not only got fresh water but bought fish and pork and potatoes from the friendly tribes of natives, paying for them with knives and blankets; and although quarrels sometimes occurred and deaths took place on both sides, the whalers continued more and more to frequent these places. Sometimes the sailors, attracted by the good looks of the Maori girls, took them as wives and lived in New Zealand. These men generally acted as sealers. They caught the seals that abounded on some parts of the coast, and gathered their skins until the ships called back, when the captain would give them tobacco and rum, guns and powder in exchange for their seal-skins. These the sealers generally shared with the Maoris, who therefore began to find out that it was good to have a white man to be dwelling near them: he brought ships to trade, and the ships brought articles that the Maoris began to value.

#8. Maoris visit Sydney.#—In 1793, Governor Hunter at Sydney directed that the convicts at Norfolk Island should be set to weave the fine flax that grew wild in that island. They tried, but could make no cloth so fine and soft as that made by the Maoris out of very much the same sort of plant. A ship was sent to try and persuade some Maoris to come over and teach the art. The captain of the ship, being lazy or impatient, did not trouble to persuade; he seized two Maoris and carried them off. They were kept for six months at Norfolk Island, but Captain King treated them very well, and sent them back with ten sows, two boars, a supply of maize-seed and other good things to pay them for their time. When King became Governor of New South Wales he sent further presents over to Te Pehi, chief of the tribe to which these young men belonged, and hence Te Pehi longed to see the sender of these things. He and his four sons ventured to go in an English vessel to Sydney, where they were astonished at all they saw. On his return Te Pehi induced a sailor named George Bruce, who had been kind to him when he was sick on board ship, to settle in the tribe; the young Englishman married Te Pehi's most charming daughter, and was tattooed and became the first of the Pakeha Maoris, or white men who lived in Maori fashion. Pleased by Te Pehi's account of what he had seen, other Maoris took occasional trips to Sydney, working their passages in whaling ships.

#9. Friendly Relations.#—Meanwhile English vessels more and more frequently visited New Zealand for pork and flax and kauri pine, or else to catch seals, or merely to take a rest after a long whaling trip. The Bay of Islands became the chief anchorage for that purpose, and thither the Maoris gathered to profit by the trade. Some of the more adventurous, when they found that the English did them no harm, shipped as sailors for a voyage on board the whalers; but though they made good seamen they were sometimes sulky and revengeful, and rarely continued at it more than two or three years.

In 1805 a Maori went with an English surgeon all the way to England, and returned with the most astounding tales of London and English wonders. During the next four or five years several other Maoris went to England, while, on the other hand, a few very respectable white men began to settle down in New Zealand. They were far superior to the rough sailors and liberated convicts of Sydney, who so far had been the most frequent visitors, so that mutual good-will seemed to be established, as the Maoris found that there was much they could gain by the visits of the white men. But all this friendliness was marred by an unfortunate occurrence.

#10. The Boyd Massacre.#—In 1809 a ship named the Boyd sailed from Sydney to go to England round Cape Horn. She had on board seventy white people, including some children of officers at Sydney who were on their way to England to be educated. As she was to call at New Zealand to get some kauri spars, five Maoris went with her, working their passage over. One of these Maoris, named Tarra, was directed during the voyage to do something which he refused to do. The captain caused him to be twice flogged. When the ship anchored in a bay a little to the north of the Bay of Islands, Tarra went ashore, and showed to his tribe his back all scarred with the lash. Revenge was agreed on. The captain was enticed ashore with a few men; and they were suddenly attacked and all killed. Then the Maoris quietly got alongside the ship, rushed on board and commenced the work of massacre among men, women and children, who were all unarmed. Some of the children fell and clasped the feet of Tarra, begging him to save them, but the young savage brained them without mercy. All were slain except a woman and two children who hid themselves during the heat of the massacre, and a boy who was spared because he had been kind to Tarra. All the bodies were taken ashore and eaten. One of the chiefs while curiously examining a barrel of gunpowder caused it to explode, blowing himself and a dozen others to pieces.

Te Pehi, the head chief of the Ngapuhi, was extremely vexed when he heard of this occurrence, and took some trouble to rescue the four survivors, but five whaling vessels gathered for revenge; they landed their crews, who shot thirty Maoris whether belonging to Tarra's tribe or not, and in their blind fury burnt Te Pehi's village, severely wounding the chief himself. This outrage stopped all friendly intercourse for a long time. The whalers shot the Maoris whenever they saw them, about a hundred being killed in the next three years, while the Maoris killed and ate any white people they could catch. Thus in 1816 the Agnes, an American brig, happened to be wrecked on their shores. They killed and ate everybody on board, except one man, who was tattooed and kept for a slave during twelve years.

#11. The Missionaries.#—In spite of all these atrocities a band of missionaries had the courage to settle in New Zealand and begin the work of civilising these Maori tribes. This enterprise was the work of a notable man named Samuel Marsden, who had in early life been a blacksmith in England, but had devoted himself with rare energy to the laborious task of passing the examinations needed to make him a clergyman. He was sent out to be the chaplain to the convicts at Sydney, and his zeal, his faith in the work he had to do, and his roughly eloquent style, made him successful where more cultured clergymen would have failed. For fourteen years he toiled to reform convicts, soldiers, and officers in Sydney; and when Governor King went home to England in 1807, after his term was expired, Marsden went with him on a visit to his friends. While in London, Marsden brought before the Mission Society the question of doing something to Christianise these fierce but intelligent people, and the society not only agreed, but employed two missionaries named Hall and King to undertake the work.



When Marsden, along with these two courageous men, started back to Sydney in the Ann convict ship, in 1809, there was on board, strangely enough, a Maori chief called Ruatara. This young fellow was a nephew of Hongi, the powerful head chief of the Ngapuhi tribe. Four years before, being anxious to see something of the wonders of civilised life, he had shipped as a sailor on board a whaler. He had twice been to Sydney and had voyaged up and down all the Pacific. At length, in 1809, he had gone to London, where he was lost in surprise at all he saw. The climate, however, tried him severely, and he was sick and miserable on the voyage back to Sydney. Marsden was kind to him and gave him a home in his own house. Ruatara had many troubles and dangers to meet, through many months, before he was at last settled among his own people.

Meantime, the new Governor of Sydney refused to allow the missionaries to go to New Zealand. The massacre of the sixty-six people of the Boyd had roused a feeling of horror, and it seemed a wicked waste of life to try to live among savages so fierce. The missionaries were therefore employed in Sydney. In 1813 Governor Macquarie directed that every vessel leaving for New Zealand should give bonds to the extent of a thousand pounds to guarantee that the white men should not carry off the natives or interfere with their sacred places. Then the trouble between the two races quieted down a little, and in 1814 the missionaries thought they might at least make further inquiries. A brig called the Active of 100 tons was bought; and on board it went Hall with another missionary called Kendall (grandfather of the poet) who had lately come out. They reached the Bay of Islands, taking with them abundance of presents. They saw Ruatara, and persuaded him with his uncle, Hongi, and other chiefs to go to Sydney in the Active, and there discuss the question of a mission station. They went, and Hongi guaranteed the protection of his tribe, the Ngapuhi, if the missionaries would settle in their territory.

#12. The Mission Station.#—It was in November, 1814, that the Active sailed with the mission colony, consisting of Kendall, King, and Hall, their wives and five children and a number of mechanics; in all twenty-five Europeans, together with eight Maoris. They took three horses, a bull, two cows, and other live stock, and after a quick passage anchored near the north of the North Island. Marsden was with them as a visitor, to see the place fairly started. He was troubled on landing to find that the Ngapuhi were at war with their near neighbours, the Wangaroans, and he saw that little progress would be made till these tribes were reconciled. Marsden fearlessly entered with only one companion into the heart of the hostile tribe; met Tarra, the instigator of the Boyd massacre, and slept that night in the very midst of the Wangaroans. Wrapt up in his greatcoat, he lay close by Tarra, surrounded by the sleeping forms of men and women who, only a few years before, had gathered to the horrid feast. Surprised at this friendly trust, the Wangaroans were fascinated, and subsequently were led by him like children. They were soon induced to rub noses with the chiefs of Ngapuhi as a sign of reconciliation, and were then all invited on board the Active, where a merry breakfast brought old enemies together in friendly intercourse.

The missionaries with twelve axes bought 200 acres of land on the shore of the Bay of Islands. Half an acre was soon enclosed by a fence; a few rough houses were built and a pole set up, upon which floated a white flag with a cross and a dove and the words "Good tidings"; Ruatara made a pulpit out of an old canoe, covered it with cloth, and put seats round it. There, on Christmas Day, 1814, Marsden preached the first sermon in New Zealand to a crowded Maori audience, who understood not one word of what was said, but who, perhaps, were benefited by the general impressiveness of the scene.

In the following February, Marsden returned to Sydney, thinking the mission in a fair way of success. But all was not to be so harmonious as he dreamt; the liberated convicts, who formed the bulk of the crews of sealing and whaling vessels, treated the natives with coarseness and arrogance; the Maoris were quick to revenge themselves, and the murders, thefts, and quarrels along all the shore did more harm than the handful of missionaries could do good. Three or four times they wished to leave, and as often did Marsden return and persuade them to stay. Their lives at least were safe; for Hongi, the Ngapuhi chief, found that they were useful in the way of bringing trade about, but he was dissatisfied because they would not allow guns and powder to be sold by the white men to him and his people.

#13. Tribal Wars.#—Hongi saw that the tribe which possessed most guns was sure to get the upper hand of all the others. He therefore contrived in another way to secure these wonderful weapons. For in 1820 when Kendall went home to England for a trip Hongi went with him, and saw with constant wonder the marvels of the great city. The sight of the fine English regiments, the arsenals, the theatres, the big elephant at Exeter Change Menagerie, all impressed deeply the Maori from New Zealand forests. He stayed for a while at Cambridge, assisting a professor to compile a dictionary of the Maori language, and going to church regularly all the time. Then he had an audience from George IV., who gave him many presents, and among others a complete suit of ancient armour. For a whole season, Hongi was a sort of lion among London society. People crowded to see a chief who had eaten dozens of men, and so many presents were given him that when he came back to Sydney he was a rich man. He sold everything, however, except his suit of armour, and with the money he bought 300 muskets and plenty of powder, which he took with him to New Zealand. Having reached his home he informed his tribe of the career of conquest he proposed; with these muskets he was going to destroy every enemy. "There is but one king in England," he said; "there shall be only one among the Maoris." He soon had a force of a thousand warriors, whom he embarked on board a fleet of canoes, and took to the southern shores of the Hauraki Gulf, where the Ngatimaru lived, ancient enemies of the Ngapuhi, who, however, felt secure in their numbers and in the strength of their great pah Totara. But Hongi captured the pah, and slew five hundred of the unfortunate inmates. The Ngatimaru tribe then retreated south into the valley of the Waikato River, and summoned their men and all their friends; a total of over three thousand were arrayed on that fatal battle-field. Hongi with his muskets gained a complete victory. He shot the hostile chief with his own gun, and tearing out his eyes, swallowed them on the field of battle. Over a thousand were killed, and Hongi and his men feasted on the spot for some days till three hundred bodies had been eaten. The victors then returned, bearing in their canoes another thousand captives, of whom many were slain and cooked to provide a share of the horrid feast to the women of the tribe.

In his bloodthirsty wars Hongi showed great skill and energy. During the two following years he defeated, slaughtered, and ate large numbers of the surrounding tribes, and when a number of these unfortunate people withdrew to a pah of enormous strength, nearly surrounded by a bend of the Waikato River, he dragged his canoes over to that river, ascended it, dashed at the steep cliffs, the ditches and palisades, and once more the muskets won the day. A thousand fell in the fight; then the women and children were slaughtered in heaps. The strong tribe of the Arawa further south had their chief pah on an island in the middle of Lake Rotorua. Hongi with great labour carried his canoes over to the lake. The spear-armed Maoris could do nothing in defence while he shot at them from the lake; and when he assaulted the island, though they came down to the water's edge to repel him, again there was victory for the muskets. Thus did Hongi conquer till the whole North Island owned his ascendancy. But in 1827 his career came to an end, for having quarrelled with his former friends, the tribe of which Tarra was chief, he killed them all but twenty, but in the fight was himself shot through the lungs; for that tribe had now many muskets also, and a ball fired when the massacre was nearly over passed through Hongi's chest, leaving a hole which, though temporarily healed, caused his death a few months later. Pomare succeeded him as chief of the Ngapuhi, and made that tribe still the terror of the island. At one pah Pomare killed 400 men; and he had his own way for a time in all his fights. But the other tribes now began to see that they could not possibly save themselves except by getting muskets also, and as they offered ten times their value for them in pork and flax and other produce, English vessels brought them over in plenty. The remnant of the Waikato tribe having become well armed and well exercised in shooting under Te Whero Whero, they laid an ambush for Pomare and killed him with almost the whole of the 500 men who were with him. The other tribes joined Te Whero Whero, and in successive battles ruined the Ngapuhi. Te Whero Whero held the leadership for a time, during which he almost exterminated the Taranaki tribe. He was practically lord of all the North Island till he met his match in Rauparaha, the most determined and wily of all the Maori leaders. He was the chief of a tribe living in the south of the North Island, and he gathered a wild fighting band out of the ruined tribes of his own and the surrounding districts. Many battles were fought between him and Te Whero Whero, in which sometimes as many as a thousand muskets were in use on each side. Rauparaha was at length overcome, and with difficulty escaped across the strait to the South Island, while Te Whero Whero massacred and enslaved all over the North Island, cooking as many as 200 bodies after a single fight. And yet the evil was in a way its own cure, for, through strenuous endeavours, by this time every tribe had a certain proportion of its men well armed with muskets; and thus no single tribe ever afterwards got the same cruel ascendancy that was obtained first by the Ngapuhi and then by the Waikato tribe. But fights and ambushes, slaughters, the eating of prisoners and all the horrid scenes of Maori war went on from week to week all over the North Island.



CHAPTER XXIV.

NEW ZEALAND COLONISED.

#1. Kororarika.#—All this fighting of the Maori tribes made them more dependent on the trade they had with white men. They could neither make guns nor powder for themselves, and the tribe that could purchase none of the white man's weapons was sure to be slaughtered and eaten by other tribes. Hence white men were more eagerly welcomed, and in course of time nearly two hundred of them were living Maori fashion with the tribes. But it was at the Bay of Islands that the chief trading was carried on. For it was there that the kauri timber grew; it was there that the pigs were most plentiful and the cargoes of flax most easily obtained; and when a man named Turner set up a grog-shop on the shores of the bay all the whaling ships made this their usual place for resting and refitting. Behind the beach the hills rise steeply, and on these hills a number of white men built themselves homes securely fenced, and defended, sometimes even by a cannon or two. But down on the little green flat next to the beach, rude houses were more numerous. In the year 1838 there were about 500 persons resident in the little town, which was now called Kororarika, but at times there were nearly double that number of people resident in it for months together. A wild and reckless place it was, for sailors reckoned themselves there to be beyond the reach of English law.

At one time as many as thirty-six ships lay off the town of Kororarika, and in a single year 150 ships visited the bay; generally staying a month or more at anchor. The little church and the Catholic mission station up on the hill did less good to the natives than these rough sailors did harm, and at length the more respectable white men could stand the disorder no longer. They formed an association to maintain decency. They seized, tried, fined or sometimes locked up for a time the worst offenders, and twice they stripped the ruffians naked, gave them a coat of tar, stuck them all over with white down from a native plant, and when they were thus decorated, expelled them from the town, with a promise of the same treatment if ever they were seen back in it.

#2. Hokianga.#—Long before this the capacities of New Zealand and the chances of making wealth there became well known in England, and in 1825 an association was formed to colonise the country. It sent out an agent, who reported that Hokianga, a deep estuary on the west coast, just opposite to Kororarika, and only thirty miles away from it, was a charming place for a settlement. The agent bought a square mile of land from the Maoris and also two little islands in the harbour. The company fitted out a ship the Rosanna, and sixty colonists sailed out in her to form the pioneers of the new colony. They landed, and liked the look of the place, but they were timid by reason of the tales they had heard of Maori ferocity. Now at this time the Ngapuhis were at war with the Arawas, and the latter were getting up a war dance, which the settlers were just in time to see. Five or six hundred men stood in four long rows, stamping in time to a chant of their leader. It was night, a fire lit up their quivering limbs and their rolling eyes; they joined in a chorus, and when they came to particular words they hissed like a thousand serpents; they went through the performance of killing their enemies, cutting up their bodies and eating them. The settlers fell into deep meditation and departed. Not half a dozen remained in New Zealand, the others went to Sydney, and so after an expense of L20,000 this association, which had been formed for the kindly purpose of putting people in lands less crowded than their own, failed and was disbanded.

#3. Settled Government.#—Between 1825 and 1835 the Maoris of the North Island were in a miserable state. Wars and massacres and cannibal feasts made the country wretched, and though the missionaries were respected they could not secure peace. But they persuaded the chiefs of some of the weaker tribes to appeal to England for protection against the conquering warriors who oppressed and destroyed their people. It was in 1831 that this petition was sent to King William, and about the same time the white men at Kororarika, terrified at the violence with which the Waikato men were ravaging the surrounding lands, asked the Governor at Sydney to interfere. The result was that although the English would not regularly take possession of New Zealand, they chose Mr. Busby, a gentleman well known in New South Wales, to be the Resident there, his business being, so far as possible, to keep order. How he was to keep order without men or force to make his commands obeyed it is hard to see; but he was expected to do whatever could be done by persuasion, and to send for a British war-ship if ever he thought it was needed.

The first war-ship that thus came over did more harm than good. Its visit was caused by a disastrous wreck. The whaling barque Harriet, under the command of a man named Guard, a low fellow who had formerly been a convict, was trading among the islands when she was wrecked off the coast of Taranaki. The Maoris attacked the stranded ship, but the crew stayed on her and fired into the assailants, and it was not till after quite a siege, in which twelve seamen were killed, that the rest fled from the wreck, leaving Mrs. Guard and her two children in the hands of the Taranaki tribe. Guard and twelve seamen, however, though they escaped for a time were caught by a neighbouring tribe, to whom he promised a cask of gunpowder if they would help him to reach an English ship. This they did, and Guard reached Sydney, where he begged Sir Richard Bourke to send a vessel for the rescue of his wife and children. Bourke sent the Alligator, with a company of soldiers, who landed and demanded the captive seamen. These were given up, but the captain of the ship supported Guard in breaking his promise and refusing to give the powder, under the plea that it was a bad thing for natives. The Alligator then went round to Taranaki for the woman and children. The chief of the tribe came down to the beach and said they would be given up for a ransom. The white men seized him, dragged him into their boat to be a hostage, but he jumped out of the boat and was speared with bayonets. He was taken to the ship nearly dead. Then the natives gave up the woman and one child in return for their chief. After some parley a native came down to the beach with the other child on his shoulders. He said he would give it up if a proper ransom was paid. The English said they would give no ransom, and when the man turned to go away again, they shot him through the back, quite dead. The child was recovered, but Mrs. Guard and the children testified that this native had been a good friend to them when in captivity. Nevertheless, his head was cut off and tumbled about on the beach. The Alligator then bombarded the native pah, destroyed all its houses to the number of 200, with all the provisions they contained, killing from twenty to thirty men in the process. This scarcely agreed with the letter which Mr. Busby had just received, in which he was directed to express to the Maori chiefs the regret which the King of England felt at the injuries committed by white men against Maoris.

#4. Captain Hobson.#—But there were many difficulties in securing justice between fickle savages and white men who were in general so ruffianly as those who then dwelt in New Zealand. The atrocities of the Harriet episode did some good, however, for along with other circumstances they stirred up the English Government to make some inquiries into the manner in which Englishmen treated the natives of uncivilised countries. These inquiries showed much injustice and sometimes wanton cruelty, and when a petition came from the respectable people of Kororarika, asking that some check should be put upon the licence of the low white men who frequented that port, the English Government resolved to annex New Zealand if the Maoris were willing to be received into the British Empire. For that purpose they chose Captain Hobson, a worthy and upright sea-captain, who in his ship of war, the Rattlesnake, had seen much of Australia and New Zealand. It was he who had taken Sir Richard Bourke to Port Phillip in 1837, and Hobson's Bay was named in his honour. After that he had been sent by Bourke to the Bay of Islands to inquire into the condition of things there, and when he had gone home to England he had given evidence as to the disorder which prevailed in New Zealand. He was sent in a war-ship, the Druid, with instructions to keep the white men in order, and to ask the natives if they would like to become subjects of Queen Victoria and live under her protection. If they agreed to do so, he was to form New Zealand into an English colony and he was to be its Lieutenant-Governor under the general control of the Governor of New South Wales.

Hobson reached Sydney at the end of 1839 and conferred with Governor Gipps, who helped him to draw up proclamations and regulations for the work to be done. On leaving Sydney, Hobson took with him a treasurer and a collector of customs for the new colony, a sergeant of police and four mounted troopers of the New South Wales force, together with a police magistrate to try offenders, and two clerks to assist in the work of government. It was the 29th of January, 1840, when he landed at the Bay of Islands. Next day, on the beach, he read several proclamations, one of which asserted that all British subjects, even though resident in New Zealand, were still bound to obey British laws; and another declared that as white men were tricking the Maoris into selling vast tracts of land for goods of little value, all such bargains made after that date would be illegal, while all made before that date would be inquired into before being allowed. It was declared that if the Maoris in future wished to sell their land the Governor would buy it and pay a fair price for it. All white men who wished for land could then buy from the Governor. Three days later the respectable white men of Kororarika waited on Captain Hobson to congratulate him on his arrival and to promise him their obedience and assistance.

#5. Treaty of Waitangi.#—Meantime Hobson had asked the missionaries to send word round to all the neighbouring chiefs that he would like to see them, and on the 5th of February, 1840, a famous meeting took place on the shore of the Bay of Islands near the mouth of the pretty river Waitangi. There on a little platform on a chair of state sat the new Governor, with the officers of the ship in their uniform, and a guard of mariners and sailors; while beside the platform stood the leading white men of Kororarika. Flags fluttered all round the spot. At noon, when Hobson took his seat, there were over five hundred Maoris, of whom fifty were chiefs, in front of the platform. Then one of the missionaries rose and in the Maori tongue explained what the Queen of England proposed. First, that the Maoris, of their own accord, should allow their country to be joined to the British Empire. Second, that the Queen would protect them in their right to their land and all their property, and see that no white men interfered with them in it, but that if they chose to sell any of their land, then the Governor would buy it from them. Third, that the Queen would extend to the Maoris, if they so desired, all the rights and privileges of British subjects and the protection of British law.

When these proposals had been fully explained the Maoris were asked to say what they thought of them. Twenty-six chiefs spoke in favour of accepting, and so bringing about peace and order in the land. Six spoke against them, declaring that thus would the Maoris be made slaves. The natives seemed very undecided, when Waka Nene arose and in an eloquent address showed the miseries of the land now that fire-arms had been introduced, and begged his countrymen to place themselves under the rule of a queen who was able and willing to make the country quiet and happy. The Maoris were greatly excited, and Hobson therefore gave them a day to think over the matter. There was much discussion all night long among the neighbouring pahs and villages; but the next day when the Maoris gathered, forty-six chiefs put their marks to the parchment now always known as the treaty of Waitangi.

This treaty was taken by missionaries and officers from tribe to tribe, and in the course of two or three months over five hundred chiefs had signed it. On the 21st May, Hobson proclaimed that the islands of New Zealand were duly added to the British Empire, and that he would assume the rule of the new colony as Lieutenant-Governor. Meantime houses had been built at Kororarika for the Governor and his officers; a custom-house had been set up, and taxes were levied on all goods landed, so as to provide a revenue with which to pay these and other Government expenses.

#6. Auckland.#—But the people at Kororarika had bought from the natives all the level land in the place, and thinking their town would soon be a great city, and the capital of an important colony, they would not sell it except at very high prices. Now Captain Hobson had seen at the head of the Hauraki Gulf a place which seemed to him to be more suitable for the capital of the future colony. To this lovely spot he changed his residence. He bought from the natives about thirty thousand acres, and on an arm of the gulf, where the Waitemata harbour spreads its shining waters, he caused a town to be surveyed and streets to be laid out. In April, 1841, after he had reserved sufficient land for Government offices, parks and other public purposes, he caused the rest to be offered in allotments for sale by auction. There was a general belief that now, when the islands were formally annexed to the British Empire, New Zealand would be a most prosperous colony, and that land in its capital would go up rapidly in value. Many speculators came over from Sydney. The bidding was brisk, and the allotments were sold at the rate of about six hundred pounds per acre. A few months later a sale was held of lands in the suburbs and of farming lands a little way out from the town. This was again successful. Houses began to spring up, most of them slender in structure, but with a few of solid appearance. Next year ships arrived from England with 560 immigrants, who rapidly settled on the land, and before long a thriving colony was formed. The little town was very pretty, with green hills behind the branching harbour that lay in front, dotted with volcanic islets. The whole district was green; and the figures of Maoris in the grassy streets, their canoes bringing in vegetables to market, their pahs seen far off on the neighbouring hills, gave the scene a charming touch of the romantic. A company of six soldiers with four officers came from Sydney to defend the settlers, and barracks were built for them. The name chosen for the city was Auckland, after a gentleman named Eden, who had taken for half a century a deep interest in colonising experiments, and who had been raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Auckland.



#7. New Zealand Company.#—Meantime another part of New Zealand had been colonised under very different circumstances. The English association, which in 1825 attempted to form a settlement at Hokianga and failed, had consisted of very influential men. They had not given up their plans altogether, and in 1837 they formed a new association called the New Zealand Company. That restless theorist Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who had already sent out the settlers who had just founded Adelaide, joined this association, and impressed the members with his own idea already described on page 67. It was arranged that a colony should be sent out to New Zealand on the plan of a complete little community. There were to be gentlemen and clergymen and teachers; so many farmers, so many carpenters, so many blacksmiths; every trade was to be represented so that everybody would have something to do, and there would be none too many of any one kind. A bill was brought before Parliament for the purpose of establishing a colony after this fashion, and at first Parliament was inclined to favour the bill. But the missionaries in New Zealand were hostile to the proposal. They were steadily converting the Maoris to Christianity. They hoped to turn them into quiet, industrious and prosperous people, if white men did not come and take away their land from them. Parliament, therefore, refused to pass the bill. But the company had gone too far to retreat. It had already arranged with many settlers to take them and their families out to New Zealand, and had begun to sell land at so much an acre, nobody knew where except that it was to be in New Zealand. They therefore quietly purchased and fitted out a vessel named the Tory to go to New Zealand and make arrangements. The party was under the charge of Colonel Wakefield, brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield; and he took with him surveyors to lay out the land, farming experts to judge of the soil, and a scientific man to report on the natural products. This vessel sailed away quietly in May, 1839, hoping to reach New Zealand unnoticed. The English Government heard of it however, informed the company that its action was illegal, and immediately afterwards sent off Captain Hobson in the Druid, as has been already described, to take possession on behalf of the British nation. The New Zealand Company then apologised; said that they would direct their agents who had gone out to New Zealand to obey the Governor in all things, and promised that the new settlement should abide by the law.

#8. Wellington.#—Meantime the Tory was ploughing the deep on her way to New Zealand. Her passengers first saw the new country on the west coast of the South Island. They were then very much disappointed, for the shore was high and wild, the mountains were close behind it, and their lofty sides were gloomy and savage. The whole scene was grand, but did not promise much land that would be suitable for farming. They turned into Cook Strait, and anchored in Queen Charlotte Sound, a lovely harbour, but surrounded by high hills clothed in dark and heavy forests. When they landed, they were amazed at the depth and richness of the black soil and the immense size to which the trees grew. Such a soil could grow all sorts of produce in rich abundance, but it would cost forty pounds an acre to clear it for ploughing. Boats were got out, however, and parties rowed up into all the branches of the beautiful harbour, but without seeing any sufficient extent of level or open land. Then they crossed the strait, and sailing in by a narrow entrance, viewed all the wide expanse of Port Nicholson. It was a great harbour with a little wooded island in its middle; it opened out into quiet arms all fringed with shelly beaches, and behind these rose range after range of majestic mountains. The trouble was that here too the land which was fairly level was too limited in extent to satisfy the colony's needs; for already in England the company had sold 100,000 acres of farming land, and the purchasers would soon be on their way to occupy it. After examining the shores with care they chose the beach of the east side as the site for their town. Behind it stretched the beautiful valley of the Hutt River, enclosed by mountains, but with broad grassy meadows lying between. Here they started to build a town which they called Britannia, and they made friends with the Maoris of the district. A Pakeha Maori named Barrett acted as interpreter. The natives went on board the Tory, were shown 239 muskets, 300 blankets, 160 tomahawks and axes, 276 shirts, together with a quantity of looking-glasses, scissors, razors, jackets, pots, and scores of other things, with eighty-one kegs of gunpowder, two casks of cartridges and more than a ton of tobacco. They were asked if they would sell all the land that could be seen from the ship in return for these things. They agreed, signed some papers and took the goods on shore, where they at once began to use the muskets in a grand fight among themselves for the division of the property. It was soon discovered that the site of the town was too much exposed to westerly gales, and the majority of the settlers crossed Port Nicholson to a narrow strip of grassy land between a pretty beach and some steep hills. Here was founded the town called Wellington, after the famous duke.

By this time the settlers were arriving thick and fast. The first came in the Aurora, which reached the settlement on 22nd January, 1840; other ships came at short intervals, till there were twelve at anchor in Port Nicholson. The settlers were pleased with the country; they landed in good spirits and set to work to make themselves houses. All was activity—surveyors, carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, every one busy, and rapidly a smart little town of some hundred houses rose behind the beach. The Maoris came and helped in the work, getting three or four shillings a day for their services, and proving themselves very handy in many ways. All were in sanguine spirits, when word came from Governor Hobson at Auckland that, in accordance with his proclamation, all purchases of land from the natives were illegal, he having come to protect the Maoris from imposition.

#9. The Land Question.#—Now Colonel Wakefield had fancied that he had bought 20,000,000 acres for less than L9,000 worth of goods, and he was assigning it as fast as he could to people who had paid L1 an acre to the company in England. Here was a sad fix. The Governor sent down his chief officer, Mr. Shortland, who rode across the island with the mounted police, and told the settlers not to fancy the land theirs, as he would ere long have to turn them off. Disputes arose, for it seemed absurd that fifty-eight Maori chiefs should sell the land on which many thousands of people dwelt, the majority of these people never having so much as heard of the bargain. The settlers talked of starting for South America and forming a colony in Chili, but more kept on coming, so that they had not ships enough to take them across. And, besides, they had paid a pound an acre to the company and demanded their land. Colonel Wakefield went off to Auckland to talk the matter over with Governor Hobson, who left the difficulty to be settled by his superior, Governor Gipps, at Sydney.

Wakefield then went to Sydney to see Governor Gipps, who said that the whole thing was irregular, but that he would allow the settlers to occupy the land, supposing that every Maori who had a proper claim to any part of it got due compensation, and if twenty acres of the central part of Wellington were reserved for public buildings. These conditions Wakefield agreed to, and, very glad to have got out of a serious difficulty, he returned with the good tidings. Shortly afterwards Governor Hobson himself visited Wellington, but was very coldly received by the settlers there.

In the next two years 350 ships arrived at Wellington, bringing out over 4,000 settlers. Of these about 1,000 went up into the valleys and made farms; but 3,000 stayed in and around Wellington, which then grew to be a substantial little town, with four good piers, about 200 houses of wood or brick and about 250 houses of more slender construction. More than 200 Maoris could be seen in its streets clad in the European clothes given as payment for the land. In all there were about 700 Maoris in the district, and for their use the company set apart 11,000 acres of farm lands, and 110 acres in the town. Roads were being made into the fertile valleys, where eight or ten thousand acres were occupied as farms and being rapidly cleared and tilled. Parties were organised to go exploring across the mountains. They brought back word that inland the soil was splendid, sometimes covered with forests, sometimes with meadows of long grass or New Zealand flax, but always watered by beautiful rivers and under a lovely climate. The Maoris were everywhere friendly throughout their journey.

#10. Taranaki.#—In the beginning of the year 1840, an emigration society had been formed in the south-west of England to enable the farm labourers and miners of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset to settle in less crowded lands. The Earl of Devon was its president, and Plymouth its headquarters. They chose New Zealand for the site of their colony, and understanding that the New Zealand Company had bought half of the North Island they gave that company L10,000 for the right to select 60,000 acres of it. It was in March, 1841, that the pioneers of this new colony arrived at Wellington under the guidance of Mr. Carrington, a surveyor in the ship William Bryant. The exploring party had just come back, and its report of the Taranaki land was very tempting. Immediately after receiving that report Colonel Wakefield had gone off to purchase it. He found a few natives left there, the remnant of the tribes whom Te Whero Whero had either destroyed or carried into slavery. These few people had taken refuge up in the awful solitudes of the giant Mount Egmont, but had come back to dwell, a sorrow-stricken handful, in the homes of their fathers. Barrett was left to arrange a bargain with them, and in return for a quantity of goods they sold all the land along sixty miles of coast with a depth of fifteen miles inland. This was the land which Wakefield recommended for the new settlers, and he lent them a ship to take them round. There they landed, and in spite of their disappointment at the want of a safe harbour, they set to work and built up their little town, which they called New Plymouth.

In September of the same year the main body of settlers arrived for this new colony, and were landed at Taranaki, when they immediately scattered out over the country, as fast as Carrington could survey it for them. But there was now a difficulty. For Te Whero Whero and his tribe had released many hundreds of the Taranaki natives who had been carried off as slaves. Whether it was because they had now become Christians or because the slaves were more in number than they could use, it was not easy to determine; but at any rate, in that very month of September when hundreds of white men were arriving to occupy the land, hundreds of Maoris were coming back to re-occupy it. They begged the settlers not to fell their big trees, but were very mild in their conduct. They chose places not yet claimed by the white men, and there fenced in the land on which to grow their sweet potatoes.

Meanwhile there was another complication. By Maori custom a warrior had the ownership of the lands he conquered. Governor Hobson therefore regarded Te Whero Whero as the owner of the Taranaki land, and gave him L400 for his right to it. Hobson declared that the Auckland Government was the owner of this land, and that all settlers must buy it from him. Eventually the trouble was cleared up for the time being, when Hobson allowed the company to keep ten miles of coast running back five or six miles, the rest to belong to the Government, which would set aside a certain part for the use of the Maoris. In December, 1842, a settler claimed a piece of land which a Maori had fenced in; he pulled down the fence; the Maoris put it up again. The settler assisted by an officer pulled it down once more. A young chief who brandished a tomahawk and threatened mischief was arrested, and carried into New Plymouth where a magistrate liberated him, and declared the action of the settler illegal. Matters for a time kept in this unfriendly state, ominously hinting the desperate war that was to follow.

#11. Wanganui.#—Meanwhile the settlers in the Wellington district were finding that by crossing difficult mountains they could get sufficient level land for their purpose, and at the close of 1840 two hundred of them sailed 150 miles north to where the river Wanganui falls into Cook Strait. The land was rich and the district beautiful. Colonel Wakefield supposed that he had bought the whole of it, though the natives afterwards proved that they sold only a part on the north side of the river. Here, about four miles from the mouth of the stream, the settlers formed a little town which they called Petre, but which is now known as Wanganui. The natives were numerous; on the river banks their villages were frequent, and up on the hills, that rose all around like an amphitheatre, the palisades of their fortified pahs were easily visible. But the fine black soil of the district, in places grassy, in places with patches of fine timber, proved very attractive to the settlers, and soon there came half a dozen ships with more colonists direct from England. The natives were friendly to white men, and gave them a cordial welcome. Down the river came their canoes laden with pigs, potatoes, melons, and gourds for sale in the market of the little town. All was good-will until the Maoris found that the white men had come not merely to settle among them, but to appropriate all the best of the land. Then their tempers grew sour and the prospect steadily grew more unpleasant.

#12. Nelson.#—The emigration spirit was at this time strong in England; for it was in the year 1840 to 1841 that free settlers chiefly colonised both Victoria and South Australia. New Zealand was as much a favourite as any, and when the New Zealand Company proposed in 1841 to form a new colony somewhere in that country to be called Nelson, nearly 100,000 acres were sold at thirty shillings an acre to men who did not know even in which island of New Zealand the land was to be situated. In April of the same year the pioneers of the new settlement started in the ships Whitby and Will Watch, with about eighty settlers, their wives, families and servants. Captain Arthur Wakefield was the leader, and he took the ships to Wellington, where they waited while he went out to search for a suitable site. He chose a place at the head of Tasman Bay, where, in a green hollow fringed by a beautiful beach and embosomed deep in majestic hills, the settlers soon gathered in the pretty little town of Nelson. The soil was black earth resting on great boulders; out of it grew low bushes easily cleared away, and here and there stood a few clumps of trees to give a grateful shade. The place was shut in by the hills so as to be completely sheltered from the boisterous gales of Cook Strait, and altogether it was a place of dreamy loveliness. Its possession was claimed by Rauparaha, the warrior, on the ground of conquest. With him and other chiefs the settlers had a conference, the result of which was that a certain specified area round the head of the bay was purchased. But the white men regarded themselves as having the right of superior beings to go where they wished and do with the land what they wished. Finding a seam of good coal at a place outside their purchase they did not in any way scruple to send a vessel to carry it off, in spite of the protests of the Maoris.

#13. Death of Governor Hobson.#—These things hinted at troubles which were to come, but in 1842 all things looked promising for the colonies of New Zealand. There were altogether about 12,000 white persons, most of them being men who wore blue shirts and lived on pork and potatoes. Auckland the capital had 3,000 but, Wellington was the largest town with 4,000 people. Next to that came Nelson with 2,500; New Plymouth and Wanganui were much smaller but yet thriving places. They had no less than nine newspapers, most of them little primitive sheets, but wonderful in communities so young. In October, 1841, Dr. George Selwyn was appointed to be Bishop of New Zealand; and he left England with a number of clergymen who settled in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth. Churches began to spring up, and schools not only for white children, but also for Maoris. An immense change for the better had appeared among the Maoris. The last case of cannibalism took place about this time; and though they still fought among one another, it was not with the same awful bloodshed that had characterised the previous twenty years.

On the 16th November, 1840, the Queen declared New Zealand an independent colony. Hobson was then no longer Lieutenant-Governor merely, and subject to the Governor at Sydney. He was Governor Hobson, and of equal rank with all the other Governors. He now had a Legislative Council to assist him in making for New Zealand such laws as might be needed in her peculiar circumstances. In that council the Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor-General, the Attorney-General and the Protector of the Maoris had seats. But Hobson did not long enjoy his new dignity. He had had a difficult task to perform, and his duty had led him into conflict with many people who wished to purchase their land from the natives at ridiculous prices. In the midst of his worries he had several strokes of paralysis, of which the last killed him in September, 1842; and he was buried in the cemetery at Auckland. He had lived, however, to see New Zealand colonised, and had died much liked by the Maoris, without seeing any of that bitter struggle between the two races which was soon to shed so much blood and waste so much treasure.



CHAPTER XXV.

WHITE MEN AND MAORIS.

#1. Govenor Fitzroy.#—When Governor Hobson died, his place was taken by his friend Lieutenant Shortland until a new Governor could be sent out. The English people were at this time very anxious to see that the natives of new lands which they colonised should be fairly treated, and for that purpose they chose Captain Fitzroy to be the new Governor. Up to this time he had been the captain of a ship and had made himself famous in surveying and mapping little known shores in his ship the Beagle, in which he had visited New Zealand on a trip round the world, and he was therefore called to give evidence as to its condition before the Committee of the House of Lords in 1838. He was well known to have shown much consideration to native tribes, and his strong wish to deal justly by them had often been shown. This was the main reason for his appointment. He landed in November, 1843, and found the colony in a state of great depression, the public treasury being not only empty but in debt. For many officials had been appointed, judges, magistrates, policemen, customs receivers and so on; and to pay the salaries of these every one had relied on the continued sale of land.

But in 1841 there had come out the first Land Commissioner, William Spain, who began to inquire into the disputes about land which had arisen between white men and Maoris. Out of every ten acres the white men said they had bought he allowed them to keep only one. This was but fair to the Maoris, who had been induced very often to make most foolish bargains; but the settlers ceased to buy land when they were not certain of keeping it. Hence the land sales stopped; the Governor owed L20,000 more than he could pay, and so he was confronted with troubles from his very first arrival.

#2. Wairau Massacre.#—Just before he came an incident had happened which deepened the trouble of the colony. At the north of the South Island, not far from Nelson, there was a fine valley watered by the stream Wairau, which Colonel Wakefield claimed, alleging that it was part of the land he had bought with the Nelson district. Rauparaha and his son-in-law, Rangihaeata, claimed it by right of conquest, and they had a couple of hundred stout warriors at their back, all well armed with muskets. Mr. Spain sent word that he was coming to settle the dispute, but, in spite of that, Captain Wakefield sent surveyors to measure out the land for occupation by the settlers. The surveyors were turned off by Rauparaha, who carried their instruments and other property carefully off the land and then burnt the huts they had put up. The Maoris did no violence, and were courteous though determined. The surveyors returned to Nelson, and Captain Wakefield induced the local magistrates to issue a warrant for the arrest of Rauparaha and Rangihaeata. To execute this warrant Mr. Thompson, the police magistrate, himself went in a small vessel, and with him went Captain Wakefield, seven other gentlemen, and forty labourers, in all a party of forty-nine, of whom thirty-five were armed with guns.

When they landed at the mouth of the Wairau River, Piraha, a Christian native, met them and begged them not to go on, as Rauparaha was ready to fight, but they paid no attention, and after marching eight miles up the pretty valley they saw the Maoris about 100 in number standing behind the stream, which though only waist-deep had a rushing current of chilly water. Rauparaha said: "Here am I. What do you want with me?" Mr. Thompson said he must go to Nelson; and an irritating conversation ensued. Rangihaeata drew up his tall form, his curly black hair setting off a face of eagle sharpness, and from his eye there gleamed an angry light. Behind him stood his wife, the daughter of Rauparaha, and near them this latter chief himself, short and broad, but strong and wiry-looking, a man with a cunning face, yet much dignity of manner. When the handcuffs were produced by Mr. Thompson, Rauparaha warned him not to be so foolish. The magistrates gave the order to fix bayonets and advance; as the white men were crossing the stream a shot was fired by one of them. It struck dead the wife of Rangihaeata. Thereupon the Maoris fired a volley and the white men hesitated on the brink of the water; a second volley and a third told upon them with deadly effect, and the labourers, who carried arms but had neither martial spirit nor experience, turned and fled.

Five of the gentlemen with four of the labourers stood their ground, and when the Maoris crossed they surrendered. Rauparaha called out to spare them; but Rangihaeata, mad at the loss of a wife he loved, brained them with his tomahawk one after another, while the young men hunted the labourers through the trees and slew such as they overtook. Twenty-seven white men reached the shore and were carried quickly in the boats to the brig, five of them badly wounded. Twenty-two lay dead alongside of five natives whom the white men had slain.

Rauparaha feared the vengeance of the white man. He had few resources in the South Island, while the Nelson settlers could send 500 armed men against him. He crossed in his own war canoes, over a stormy strait in wild weather; weary and wet with spray, he landed in the south of the North Island, roused his countrymen by his fervid oratory, to which he gave a fine effect by jingling before them the handcuff's with which he was to have been led a prisoner to Nelson. A day or two after the massacre, a Wesleyan clergyman went out from Nelson to Wairau and reverently buried those ghastly bodies with the cloven skulls. Not one had been mangled, far less had there been any cannibalism.

#3. Effects of Wairau Massacre.#—The Maoris were clearly less ferocious than they had been, and more than half of them had become fervid Christians after a fashion, but in some respects they were getting their eyes opened. The missionaries had told them that the white men were coming for their benefit; yet now they began to see that the white men were soon to be the lords of the soil, and that the natives must sink back into the position of servants. If a white man visited a Maori village he was received as a man of distinction and entertained. If a Maori chief went to a white man's town, he was allowed to wander in the street; or if at all accosted it was with the condescension of a superior race to a race of servants. The Maori blood was firing up. The story of Wairau made them change their mind about the white man's courage. The whalers had been hearts of daring; these new-comers had run and bawled for their lives. The natives were anxious also as to the result which would happen when all the lands near the shore should have been occupied by white men, and they themselves hemmed up in the interior.