ss. If the term "ox-eyed" ever applied to humanity, it is
appropriate to the Maori women, who possess this one feature in
perfection.

We obtained some noteworthy and interesting information relative to
these aborigines. For instance, they never eat salt; they have no fixed
industry, and no idea of time or its divisions into hours and months;
they are, like our North American Indians, constitutionally lazy; they
are intensely selfish, and care nothing for their dead; they have a
quick sense of insult, but cannot as a rule be called pugnacious; they
excite themselves to fight by indulging in a hideous war-dance and by
singing songs full of braggadocio, and when thus wrought up to a certain
pitch they are perfectly reckless as to personal safety. The Maori is
not however a treacherous enemy; he gives honorable notice of his
hostile intent, warring only in an open manner,--thus exhibiting a
degree of chivalry unknown among our American Indians. Money with the
Maori is considered only as representing so much rum and tobacco.
Alcohol is their criterion of value; bread and meat are quite secondary.
They live entirely from hand to mouth, to use an expressive term, and
never take heed for the morrow. As a rule they seem entirely thoughtless
and happy in the present, so long as their necessities are satisfied and
their animal pleasures are not interfered with. After all, this
semi-barbarous race are like children, who follow bad example sooner
than good. "White man drink whiskey, why not I?" said one of them to us
at Ohinemutu when we declined to give him "drink money." As a rule the
Maoris are not beggars, except for strong drink. They will importune a
stranger for rum, but not for bread. We were told by an official of the
district at Napier that it is quite impossible to imbue these Maoris
with a sense of the importance of chastity; the idea is ignored
altogether. But it is with them as with the Japanese; after a woman is
married she becomes sacred, and to treat her with unchaste violence then
is to incur the penalty of death. It would be impossible to imagine a
more immoral people, when judged by the conventionalities of our
civilization, than these New Zealand natives.

Ancient traditions are fast fading away among this people, dying with
the elders of the tribes in whose memory they are locked up. Though the
missionaries half invented and half transcribed an oral Maori language,
it is almost solely applied to a translation