dogs, rats, the gourd and taro root, and the
invaluable kumara or sweet potato. The karaka tree, whose glossy,
almost oily-looking leaves were in after days to be seen in every
village, was another importation. With these tradition ranks the green
parakeet and blue pukeko or swamp-hen, two birds whose rich plumage
has indeed something in it of tropical gaudiness, at any rate in
contrast with the sober hues of most New Zealand feathers. The Tainui
canoe was said to have found its last resting-place near the mouth of
the Mokau river. A stone still lies there which is treasured by the
natives as the ancient anchor of their sacred craft. Some years ago,
when a European carried this off, they brought an action against him
and obtained an order of the Court compelling him to restore it. Not
far away stands a grove of trees alleged to have sprung from the
Tainui's skids. Certainly Sir James Hector, the first scientific
authority in the Colony, finding that these trees grow spontaneously
nowhere else in New Zealand, named them _Pomaderris Tainui_. But
though, for once, at any rate, science was not indisposed to smile
on tradition and Maori faith triumphed, and the unbeliever was for
a while confounded, it unhappily seems now quite certain that the
congener of _Pomaderris Tainui_ is found only in Australia, one of the
few lands nigh the Pacific which cannot have been Hawaiki.

It will be safe to say that the Maori colonists landed at different
points and at widely different dates, and that later immigrants
sometimes drove earlier comers inland or southward. More often,
probably, each small band sought out an empty territory for itself. On
this tribes and sub-tribes grew up, dwelling apart from each other.
Each district became the land of a clan, to be held by tomahawk and
spear. Not even temporary defeat and slavery deprived a tribe of its
land: nothing did that but permanent expulsion followed by actual
seizure and occupation by the conquerors. Failing this, the right
of the beaten side lived on, and could be reasserted after years of
exile. The land was not the property of the _arikis_ or chiefs, or
even of the _rangatiras_ or gentry. Every free man, woman and child
in each clan had a vested interest therein which was acknowledged and
respected. The common folk were not supposed to have immortal souls.
That was the distinction of the well born. But they had a right to
their undivided share of the soil. Even when a woman marrie