Ngatewhatua and queen of Maori beauty! how am
I to describe the opulence of your charms, your virtues, and your
accomplishments? How am I to convey an idea of what you really are to
the dull and prejudiced intellects of people in far-off foggy Britain?
Yet have I sworn, as your true knight, O beautiful Rakope! to noise your
fame abroad to the four corners of the earth, with the sound of shouting
and of trumpets!

Prepare, O reader! with due reverence, with proper admiration, to hear
of our Maori paragon.

For she is a beauty, our Rakope; and more, her intelligence amounts
almost to what is genius, by comparison with her companions. You can see
it in her broad, low brow, in her large, clear, liquid eyes, shaded with
their black velvety fringe of lashes. Her features may not be good,
judged by Greek art standards; but what do we care about art and its
standards here in the bush? We can see that Rakope is beautiful, and we
know that she is as good as she is beautiful.

Her colour is a soft dusky brown, under which you can see the blood
warming her dimpling cheeks. Her figure is perfection's self, ripe and
round and full, while every movement shows some new grace and more
seductive curve. Her rich brown hair reaches far below her slender
waist, and when it is dressed with crimson pohutakawa blossoms, the
orange flowers of the kowhaingutu kaka, or the soft downy white feathers
that the Maoris prize, then it would compel the admiration of any London
drawing-room. And what is it in Rakope's cheeks and chin, and rare red
lips and pearly teeth, that makes one think of peaches and of rosebuds
and of honey, and of many other things that are nicest of the nice?

Away, away with your washed-out, watery Venuses, your glassy-eyed Junos,
your disdainful, half-masculine Dianas! Away with all your pretended and
pretentious beauties of the older Northern world! We will have none of
them. Give us our Rakope, our Rakope as she is, glowing with the rich
warm colour, the subtle delicacies of form, and all the luxuriant beauty
that is born between the South Sea and the sun!

And is she not clever? Words fail the schoolmaster when he attempts to
sound her praises; for she has learnt nearly all that he can teach her.
She is the apple of his eye and the crown of his labours. To hear Rakope
sing is to believe in the Syrens; to chat with her and receive her looks
and smiles, to dance with her--ah!

She is the pet of the tribe. Men and women,