"galloping"
consumption. Skin disorders, rheumatism and a severe kind of influenza
were other ailments.

In the absence equally of morality and medical knowledge among their
unmarried women, it did not take many years after the appearance of
the Whites to taint the race throughout with certain diseases. A
cold-blooded passage in Crozet's journal tells of the beginning of
this curse. Though not altogether unskilful surgeons, the Maoris knew
virtually nothing of medicine. Nor do they show much nervous power
when attacked by disease. Cheerful and sociable when in health, they
droop quickly when ill, and seem sometimes to die from sheer lack
of the will to live. Bright and imaginative almost as the Kelts of
Europe, their spirits are easily affected by superstitious dread.
Authentic cases are known of a healthy Maori giving up the ghost
through believing himself to be doomed by a wizard.

There are, however, other evil influences under which this attractive
and interesting people are fading away. Though no longer savages, they
have never become thoroughly civilized. Partial civilization has been
a blight to their national life. It has ruined the efficacy of their
tribal system without replacing it with any equal moral force and
industrial stimulus. It has deprived them of the main excitement of
their lives--their tribal wars--and given them no spur to exertion
by way of a substitute. It has fatally wounded their pride and
self-respect, and has not given them objects of ambition or preserved
their ancient habits of labour and self-restraint. A hundred years ago
the tribes were organized and disciplined communities. No family or
able-bodied unit need starve or lack shelter; the humblest could count
on the most open-handed hospitality from his fellows. The tribal
territory was the property of all. The tilling, the fishing, the
fowling were work which could not be neglected. The chief was not a
despot, but the president of a council, and in war would not be given
the command unless he was the most capable captain. Every man was a
soldier, and, under the perpetual stress of possible war, had to be a
trained, self-denying athlete. The _pas_ were, for defensive reasons,
built on the highest and therefore the healthiest positions. The
ditches, the palisades, the terraces of these forts were constructed
with great labour as well as no small skill. The fighting was hand to
hand. The wielding of their weapons--the wooden spear, the