the course of the great steamboat liners. He
sees several steamers at the Samoa Islands, and afterwards on his flight
to the Fiji Islands, and if the weather is overcast and stormy he leaves
his fishing-grounds in the great ocean deserts and makes for some
well-known steamer route. For in stormy weather he can find no soft
cephalopods, but from a vessel refuse is thrown out in all weathers. He
knows that the Samoa Islands are in regular communication with the
Sandwich Islands, and that from these navigation routes radiate out like
a star to Asia, America, and Australia.

He sails proudly past the Fiji Islands. He does not trouble himself to
make an excursion to the Solomon Islands and the world of islands lying
like piers of fallen bridges on the way to the coast of Asia. Though New
Caledonia is so near on the west, he is not attracted to it, as the
French use it as a penal settlement.

Rather will he trim his wings for the south, and soon he sees the
mountains on the northern island of New Zealand rise above the horizon.
Among them stands Tongariro's active volcano with its seven craters, and
north-east of it lies the crater lake Taupo among cliffs of
pumice-stone. North of this lake are many smaller ones, round which
steam rises from hot springs, and where many fine geysers shoot up,
playing like fountains.

He sees that on the southern island the mountains skirt the western
coast just as in Scandinavia, that mighty glaciers descend from the
eternal snow-fields, and that their streams lose themselves in most
beautiful Alpine lakes. He gives a passing glance at the lofty mountain
named after the great navigator Cook, which is 12,360 feet high. On the
plains and slopes shepherds tend immense flocks of sheep. The woods are
evergreen. In the north grow pines, whose trunks form long avenues, and
whose crowns are like vaultings in a venerable cathedral. There grow
beeches, and tree-ferns, and climbing plants; but the palms come to an
end half-way down the southern island, for the southernmost part of the
island is too cold for them.

Formerly both islands were inhabited by Maoris. They tattooed the whole
of their bodies in fine and tasteful patterns, but were cannibals and
stuck their enemies' heads on poles round their villages. Now there are
only forty thousand of them left, and even these are doomed to
extinction through white men--as in the struggle between the brown and
black rats. Formerly the Maoris stalked about