TBOXSOWS NEW ZEALAND."
IF the history of New Zealand is not as well known as it ought to be, it is not for lack of a liberal expenditure of ink and paper. The bibliography appended to Dr. Thomson's valuable work shows that there are extant, upon that much bewritten colony, ninety volumes, two hundred pamphlets, and nearly a. hundred weight of parliamentary papers. Among all this mass of pub- lications there was not one which contained a general history of the colony ; several of them professing to be accounts of New Zealand treat only of one settlement and one race ; others were written to serve special interests, and not a few of them are mer- cantile puffs. Noting this want at the outset of his connexion with the colony, Dr. Thomson at once set about supplying it, and made good use of the opportunities afforded him to that end during a residence of eleven years. He saw much of the country, held intercourse with representative men, sojourned for months among the aborigines in the interior, consulted official papers, many of them unpublished, and was kept informed of the native version of current history by an intelligent chief who resided for several years in his house. With the materials thus gathered, he has composed an agreeable and judicious book, which is quite un- rivalled as a eompendium of the physical, social, and civil history of New Zealand.
In all her Majesty's dominions, there is no climate more adapted to the constitution of Englishmen, than that of New Zealand. It is even held by persons who have ample means of comparison, that people of our race can work exposed to the open air of the island without injury, during more days in the year and more hours in the day than they could do in any other country. Our settlers multiply fast by births, and die slowly from disease, and the mortality among the troops is remarkably low, being less than one-third of that which occurs among infantry soldiers sta- tioned in the United Kingdom. But this excellent climate has, like many other things, been wronged by injudicious praise. " It has been styled delightful and pleasant, terms which convey the idea of an atmosphere rarely disturbed by wind or rain, whereas there are few countries on the globe where wind and rain are so frequent and uncertain." The fertility of the country is due in a great measure twits abundant moisture, and its mild and even temperature.; and its remarkable salubrity to, the latter cause, and to the constant agitation of the atmosphere by winds, which, from whatever quarter they blow, are tempered by their passage over a wide expanse of ocean.
Before the fifteenth century, New Zealand was without human inhabitants, and its only native land-mammalia were two small species of bats. Instead of indigenous quadrupeds, the islands possessed a gigantic race of birds destitute of wings, by the Na- tives called moos, the largest of which (dinornis elephantopus) averaged thirteen feet in height. They became extinct in the seventeenth century, about the same time as the dodo, which Bon- tius saw alive in the Mauritius in 1658.
"According to native tradition, moss were decked out in a gaudy plumage ; and the present New Zealanders describe a Cochin China fowl as what, they conceive to have been the shape and appearance of moas. One rather per- fect egg of this gigantic bird was found with a human skeleton. It was nine inches in diameter, twenty-seven in circumference, and twelve long; and numerous other portions of eggs have been discovered, sufficient to show that. a mares hat would not have been a large enough cup for a moss' egg..
The ancestors of the Maori, or native New Zealanders, were Malays from Sumatra, and it appears very.probable, according to Dr. Thomson's investigations, that the migration was completed about 440 years ago. The Maori equal Englishmen in bodily weight and girth of chest, and almost equal them in stature, but have longer bodies and arms, with shorter legs. The lengthening of the arms occurs below the elbow, and the shortening of the legs below the knee, the amount in the latter case being an inch and a half. These slight peculiarities cause such a singular dif- ference in the figure of the two races that no one can behold New Zealanders clad in European apparel without at once detecting that they are not Englishmen. In a trial of strength, native men raised on an average 367 pounds an inch from the ground, and Englishmen 422 pounds. The former outrun the latter in a hun- dred yards, but are left far behind in a mile race. Compared with the white settlers, the Maori are an unhealthy race ; they are deeply tainted with scrofula and their numbers are rapidly declining. This decay is attributed to six causes, two of which, inattention to the sick, and infanticide, have somewhat impeded the increase of the Maori ever since their arrival in the country, and are more or less prevalent among the Malay race wherever they live. All the rest have come into operation within the last seventy years ; these are, sterility, new habits, new diseases, and last and worst of all, intermarriage with blood-connected scrofulous persons. " Twenty generations back, the aboriginal settlers were under 1000 souls ; in seventeen generations they multiplied to 100,000, during which period cousins married cousins, uncles nieces, nephews aunts' and other blood- connected kindred. The result i131 that the whole of the .,reneration are closely intermingled; chiefs living widely apart, and formerly hostile, can trace without difficulty blood-connexions with each other, while among the lower orders of the people, this breeding in and in is still more apparent ; and, as women decrease in number, intermarriage between scrofulous kin- dred will become every year more frequent. - "Breeding in and in among the human species indirectly produces scrofula and sterility, and aggravates the intensity and frequency of all other diseases. Such, indeed, are the natural punishments resulting from the violation of natural laws; and no stronger proof can be given of the baneful effects of such violation on the whole New Zealand race, than the fact that • The Story of Nero Zealand : Past and Present—Savage and Civilized. By Arthur S. Thomson, M.D., Surgeon-Major 5Sth Regiment. In two volumes. Published by Murray. one out of every three native couples are barren, and the children of the the fruitful are sickly and scrofulous, while only one iu five of the unions of native women and European men are barren, and the half-caste offspring of the prolific are numeroue,singailarly healthy, and seldom scrofulous.It is ray opinion, drawn from statistical and other evidence, that the New Zealanders ha--e, from the causes enumerated, sustained during the last thirty years a continuous decrease of 1 per cent per annum, a rate of mor- tality which, if it goes on unchecked, must soon blot out the race from the land. Peace, trade, civilization, and the use of animal food and wheaten flour, have during the last ten years lessened the tendency to scrofula, and other diseases, and may also have some influence in lessening the evils which breeding in and in produces on the human system,—the blight prevalent in every New Zealand hamlet, from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Stewart's Island."
Judging from present appearances, nothing can preserve the Maori blood from entire extinction but its amalgamation with that of the superior race. The late Reverend Mr.' Lowry, super- intendent of the Wesleyan missions in the South Seas, states that,. " the New Zealanders are, melting away," but that " they are not lost, they are merging into another and a better class. In this process there lacketh not sin, but Providence will overrule this, ; and bring forth a fine new race of civilized mixed people, which. shall be better for the world, better for the Church, and better for the new race." The half-castes .already number two thou- sand souls, and they are physically a.noble, beautiful, and healthy race.
"With regard to physical appearance, the law of amalgamation is that the type cf the less numerous shall be lost in that of the greater number. Thus the Franks and Normans, although they gave names to Gaul and Eng- land, did not materially alter the character of the people ; the Lombards im- pressed their name on a portion of Italy, but the aboriginal population has remained unaltered in blood and features. As the Anglo-Saxon settlers in New Zealand must soon outnumber the aborigines, the features of the Maori race will disappear from among the half-castes, although traces of their blood will occasionally be seen in families after many generations. Haughty Spaniards in South America boast of their descent from the Incas ; two of Montezuma's children founded noble Spanish houses ; Gareilaso the his- torian's epitaph at Cordova records that his mother was sister to the last native emperor of Peru; and respectable Virginian families are proud in tracing a connection with the ancient rulers of the country. The same feel- ing in a few generations will develope itself in New Zealand, and gettlerS will yet boast of having in their veins the blood of Hongi, Potatau, Raupa- raha, Heke, Walker Nene, Rangthaeata, Te Hen lieu, Kawiti, and other Maori warriors. It may savour of romance, but it is every day becoming more probable that the once visionary hope of the illustrious Gibbon will be realized, and the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere spring from among the cannibal races of New Zealand."
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