times siding with one party sometimes with another, but always yielding to any appearance of force when the natives thought fit to exhibit it. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder if, in the intercourse of the two races, only the unfavourable side of the aboriginal character should have presented itself. To Europeans, the natives are grasping, covetous, false, and either cringing or insolent as the occasion demands. Among themselves they are generous to a fault, polite, kind hearted, and sincere. Their generosity, more especially, is unbounded; for although, in practice, it may be said to be merely an interchange of gifts, it frequently reduces the giver to poverty for the time, and leaves him to the chances of the world for a return. In giving, they do not sound a trumpet like the eastern nations, but carelessly fling the article on the ground before their friend; and the latter picks it up without a word of thanks. This is called ingratitude by Europeans, who do not understand refinement when they meet with it in a different form from that of their own.

On the other hand, the New Zealanders are supposed to have less natural affection than most other tribes of mankind. The mothers, though sufficiently kind and forbearing, neither fondle their children nor chastise them; although occasionally they put them to death (if females), and without the excuse of poverty as in China, or (at least in late times) of superstition as in India. The affections of individuals are bestowed upon the tribe; and there is no private or family friendship. The husband and wife are as indifferent, yet as polite, to each other as in the best circles of Europe; and parents expect and receive no more assistance from their children than from strangers.

A portion of this is explained by the system of tribes, which answer to the castes of India. A mother is of a

different tribe from her husband, and consequently from his children, and she no more dares to beat the one than the other, as the insult would be immediately avenged. The husband, on his part, is under the same restriction with regard to his wife; and hence a conventional politeness takes the place of natural affection. The children thus brought up become independent when as yet tiny boys and girls, cultivating their patches of land for their own support, and paddling about alone in their canoes-the latter, it is said, at four years of age. They are grave and quiet as befits little men and women, and the females often marry at eleven, and become old and withered at an age when their sisters of other countries in the same parallel are as yet in the prime of youth. A New Zealand fair is not courted, and the mere fact of a man leading her to his hut constitutes her his wife. chiefs are allowed a plurality of spouses, and stand upon no ceremony in planting in their harem such unmarried women as they fancy. Chastity is not reckoned a feminine virtue before marriage; but a wife is under taboo to her husband, and infidelity becomes a crime.

The

The New Zealanders, notwithstanding all that has occurred, appear to be an exceedingly gentle, tractable, and easily governed people. The work of conversion goes on rapidly among them, and the odious habits of savages disappear with their gods and idols. Their hitherto uncultivated intellect is of a high order; and in their commercial dealings, they exhibit a zeal and acuteness which would be remarkable even in Europeans. What, then, is the obstacle to the pacification of this beautiful and interesting country?

It is the fact that the New Zealanders sold their land and their fealty under a delusion. Their untutored minds were unable to conceive the idea of a great nation. They

supposed the British to consist of a few small tribes like themselves, and were willing to locate them on their lands that they might profit by their intelligence and their trade. This was clear from the circumstance of their considering the non-occupation of the estate sufficient to render the purchase void; while in other cases the chiefs made rival boasts among themselves of the ingenuity of" their white men." When they saw, however, that there was no end to the immigration, and that the Queen of this countless hive, whom they had expected to bring up the rear, was as far from making her appearance as ever, they took the alarm; and being encouraged by the indecision of the government, and the conflicting interests of the colonists, they at length appealed to the arbitrement of battle.

A war in the bush, where the hatchet must pioneer the sword at every step, may be prolonged for years, and can only end with the extermination of the natives. Would it be inconsistent with the honour of a mighty nation to yield the northern island to this handful of gallant savages?-to assist, befriend, and trade with them?-to allow its subjects to purchase such lands as they might be disposed to sell, and settle among them in friendly communities? If this is done, it may be safely predicted that their country will in time become one of the most valuable colonies of Great Britain; that they will themselves amalgamate insensibly with the new settlers; and that in a very few years this brief chapter in their history will

become obsolete.

CHAPTER III.

NEW SOUTH WALES AND TASMANIA.

THE continent of Australia is supposed to present an area of upwards of three million miles; but with the exception of the narrow rim along the line of coast, which is about eight thousand miles in length, all is one of those blanks which earlier geographers would have filled with the words terra incognita, and still earlier would have laid out in imaginary countries and impossible seas. A ridge of mountains appears on all sides to approach the shore, sometimes within a distance of only thirty miles; but what may exist within this circle it is difficult even to conjecture. In most other parts of the world there are great rivers which connect the interior with the sea, and appear designed by nature for a path by which men may fulfil their destiny in replenishing the earth; but here, among numerous anomalies almost as extraordinary, these waters either dwindle or entirely disappear before reaching the ocean. Some suppose the interior to be a vast

plain; others suspect that it may rise in steppes or terraces like Southern Africa; while the latest explorers entertain something like a conviction that an inland sea, or at the least a mighty river, will eventually reward dis

covery.

In 1609, a Spanish navigator visited Australia; and soon after the western, and a portion of the northern coast, were explored by the Dutch. In 1641, Tasman discovered Van Diemen's Land to be an island, and not, as had been previously supposed, a cape of the new continent; and afterwards, the Gulf of Carpentaria, at the north-eastern side, was explored by a captain named Carpenter. In 1777, Cook took possession of the eastern coast, which was called New South Wales.

Forty-eight years before this last epoch, George I. had established the practice of transporting convicts, by sending a hundred such persons to Virginia, where he presumed the advantage of their labour would more than compensate for the disadvantage of their vices. The system, however, was not long of falling into discredit, because the convicts were rivalled by a new class of labourers; and when the colonists found that they could get negro slaves in abundance, whom they might flog and mutilate without ceremony, their morality took the alarm. Their virtue their religion was in danger, from the infusion of so pernicious an English element into the population; and when Franklin was told that convicts must be sent to America, because they could not be suffered to remain at home, he asked if the same reason would justify the Americans in sending their rattlesnakes to England? The war of independence in 1776 put a stop, for a time, to the practice of transportation till, at its close, the accumulation of prisoners in the jails had become a very serious evil, which could only be partially