CHAPTER XII. 



(1.) Acquisitions of England. — (2.) Nevv Zealand. Discovery. Geography 

 — (3.) Harbors and Towns. — (4.) Soil. Climate.— (5.) Population. Gov- 

 ernment. — (6.) Natives. Character. Houses. Dress. Customs. — (7.) 

 Botany and Zoology. — (8.) Commerce and Manufactures. — (9.) Voyage to 

 Tongataboo. 



(1.) It has been well said that England girdles the world 

 with a chain of fortifications. At home, though small and 

 diminutive in area, she bristles with bayonets, and forts, and 

 armaments, and from her prolific hive sends forth army after 

 army of soldiers ; yet the vicissitudes of climate, and the 

 chances of war, seem never to diminish the supply. Her 

 vessels, too, are dispatched to every clime, and when new dis- 

 coveries are made, they are promptly occupied by her people. 

 Her indomitable will and untiring energy are rarely foiled ; 

 and whatever spot on the habitable globe, in the possession 

 of a weaker race, excites her cupidity, or appears to be ne- 

 cessary or convenient for the accomplishment of her projects, 

 it is doomed, sooner or later, by peaceable or forcible means, 

 to fall under the dominion of her flag. 



In the East Indies she is supreme, and in China her power 

 has been felt, and is now tremblingly acknowledged. In the 

 Eastern Archipelago she knows no rival ; and from the Lion's 

 Rump at Cape Town, she looks forth over the broad ocean, 

 with the air of a conqueror, whose superiority none question 

 or dispute. She has planted herself firmly on the coasts of 

 Africa, and of North and South America ; and the best of the 

 West India islands are hers. Malta is no longer held by the 

 knights hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, but the pride of 

 the Mediterranean has passed into the hands of the Briton 



