rs,--men,
women, and children; you can give a Maori maiden nothing more acceptable
to her taste and appreciation than a pipe and a plug of smoking-tobacco.
As a people, they have manifestly filled the purpose for which
Providence placed them upon these islands of the South Sea; and now,
like the Moa, they must pass off the scene and give way to another race.
So it seems to be with the Red Man of America, and so it was with the
now totally extinct natives of Tasmania.

When this capital of Wellington was first settled, the newcomers could
build their houses only of wood, the frequency of earthquakes warning
them against raising edifices of heavy material or making their
dwellings over one or two stories in height. But earthquakes, though now
occasionally experienced, are by no means so frequent as formerly.
Tremulousness of the earth and rumblings as of distant thunder are heard
now and again, in the hills that stretch inland towards the mountains,
which is quite sufficient to keep the fact in mind that this is a
volcanic region. Earthquake shocks are frequent all over the islands,
and it is believed that New Zealand was rent midway, where Cook's Strait
divides the North from the South Island, by volcanic explosion. There is
known to be an extinct volcano at the bottom of the strait, in front of
the entrance to the harbor of Wellington, over which the water is never
absolutely calm and where it sometimes boils like a caldron.

CHAPTER VII.

Auckland, the northern metropolis of New Zealand, was formerly the
capital of the country until Wellington was selected for the
headquarters of the government, as being the more central and accessible
from the several islands. So beautiful and picturesque are the bay and
harbor that one is not surprised to hear its citizens call it the Naples
of New Zealand. Before the European settlers came here this was the
locality where the most savage wars were carried on by the natives, and
where the most warlike tribes lived in fortified villages. Though the
country has virtually no ancient history that is known to us, it has a
recognized past extending back for some centuries. When the missionaries
first came here about the year 1814, the main subsistence of the natives
who lived around what is now Auckland harbor, was human flesh. The first
white immigrants, as well as the seamen of chance vessels driven upon
the coast, were invariably killed and eaten by the Maoris. Not only did
c