was rescued by a passing ship, the
"Admiral Cockburn," bound for Van Diemen's Land, whence he visited New
South Wales and New Zealand, returning again to Sydney. In pursuance of
his original resolution to visit India, he left Sydney in "The Rainbow,"
touching at the Caroline Islands, Manilla, and Singapore. After spending
some time in Madras, where he executed many original drawings, which were
afterwards copied and exhibited in a panorama, he set out for England by
a French vessel, which was compelled by stress of weather to put into
Mauritius, where she was condemned. Mr. Earle ultimately reached England
in a vessel named the "Resource," but, being still animated by the desire
for travel, he accepted the situation of draughtsman on His Majesty's
ship "Beagle," commanded by Captain Fitzroy, which in the year 1831 left
on a voyage of discovery that has been made famous by the observations of
Charles Darwin, who accompanied the expedition in the capacity of
naturalist.

The notes which furnished the materials for this book were made by Mr.
Earle during his first visit to New Zealand, in 1827. They are valuable
as setting forth the impressions formed by an educated man, who came into
the primitive community then existing at Hokianga and the Bay of Islands,
without being personally connected either with the trading community,
the missionaries, or the whalers. It should not be inferred from the
reflections Mr. Earle casts upon the missionaries that he was himself an
irreligious man, because the journal of his residence on Tristan d'Acunha
shows that, while living there, he read the whole service of the Church
of England to that little community every Sunday, and his diary in many
places exhibits a reverence for Divine things. It may, however, be said
in extenuation of the lack of hospitality on the part of the missionaries
of which he complains, that many of the early residents and European
visitors to New Zealand were of an undesirable class, and that they
exercised a demoralising influence upon the Maoris. It was not easy for
the missionaries to consort, upon terms of intimacy, with their
fellow-countrymen whose relations with the Natives were such as they must
strongly condemn. Earle's narrative is interesting because it conveys a
realistic description of the Maoris before their national customs and
habits had undergone any material change through association with white
settlers. In dealing with Maori names, Mr. Earle, ha