llowed, committed on both sides, and it is no wonder
that, though Cook represented the advantages of the island for
colonization, it was not considered a desirable place in which to settle.
The cannibalism of the Maoris especially made people shy of the country.

Intermittent communication took place between New Zealand and the new
Colony of New South Wales, and at last, in 1814, Samuel Marsden, a
clergyman of the Church of England, who had seen Maoris in New South
Wales, landed in the Bay of Islands with other missionaries. This
fearless and noble-minded man obtained the confidence of the Maoris, and
a commencement of colonization was made.

It was not, however, until 1840 that the New Zealand Company was formed
to definitely colonize. They made their station at Wellington.

In the same year Captain Hobson, R.N., was sent as Lieutenant-Governor.
Landing first at the Bay of Islands, he transferred his headquarters to
the Hauraki Gulf in September 1840, where he founded Auckland, which
remained the capital until 1876, when the seat of Government was
transferred to Wellington.

The North Island, in which all these occurrences took place, contained by
far the greater number of the natives, and it seems strange now that the
first efforts to settle were not made in the Middle Island, which has
proved equally suitable for Europeans, and where the difficulties of
settlement, from the existence of a less numerous native population, were
not so great. It is not necessary here to follow the complicated history
of New Zealand in later years, which unfortunately comprises several
bloody wars with the Maoris.

The present prosperous condition of this great colony is well known, but
it has not been effected without the rapid diminution of the natives, who
have met with the fate of most aborigines in contact with Europeans,
especially when the former were naturally bold and warlike.

The Maoris have retained the tradition of the original arrival of their
race in a fleet of canoes from a country called Hawaiki, which is by some
supposed to be Hawaii in the Sandwich Group. As we have seen, the
language was practically the same as that of Tahiti, and there is no
doubt that they came from some of the Polynesian islands. The date of the
immigration is supposed to be the fifteenth century.

Each canoe's crew settled in different parts of the North Island, and
were the founders of the different great tribes into which the New
Zealande