Hill. — The Maoris To-day and To-morrow. 173 



ties such as have no doubt been cast from the mountain 

 at different times and of which the Eangipo Desert bears full 

 testimony. These legends concerning the volcanic area, which 

 might easily be increased, imply a long residence in the 

 country, for clearly great changes must have taken place in 

 the surface features of the entire district extending from the 

 Bay of Plenty to Euapehu, and even to Taranaki, and yet 

 everything is embraced in the period since the arrival of the 

 tohunga who led the " Arawa " canoe to the shores of New 

 Zealand. 



But, notwithstanding the long residence of the Maoris, 

 they do not appear to have ever reached in population the 

 numbers to be found in a third- or fourth-rate town in 

 England. The Eev. Mr. Yate, in " An Account of New 

 Zealand," published in 1835, says (page 164), "The popula- 

 tion of the whole northern island may, perhaps, be taken at 

 one hundred and sixty thousand, though possibly there may 

 be more. Twenty-eight thousand would, perhaps, be the 

 utmost extent of numbers from the Bay [of Islands] , taking 

 in all tribes connected with it, down to the North Cape. 

 . We know the total number of fighting-men in 

 the northern island to be about forty thousand, and the 

 number in the neighbourhood of the Bay and northward 

 to be about seven thousand. What number there may be in 

 the southern island we have hitherto had no means of ascer- 

 taining." 



As far as I can trace, the first estimate of the native 

 population based upon a division of the Island into districts 

 was made by the Eev. James Hamlin in the year 1812. 

 His purpose was to show the actual number of fighting- 

 men in the North Island, and he bases his estimate upon 

 the number of births that had come under his immediate 

 notice as a missionary and the number of those who sur- 

 vived in a certain hapu with which he was intimately 

 acquainted. Knowing all the men and women of the hapu, 

 he took careful count of the number of births and deaths 

 during a given period, and then made an estimate of the 

 fighting- men that would be available from the hapu, and 

 then, dividing the whole of the Island into twenty-one dis- 

 tricts, he gave an estimate of the population and of the pro- 

 bable number of fighting-men in the country. The informa- 

 tion supplied by Mr. Hamlin appears to me as being of 

 much public interest in connection with the Maori race ; 

 and, as the information is not easily available, I shall quote 

 the facts here for the benefit of future students with a turn 

 for statistics bearing upon the natives. "Perhaps," says 

 Mr. Hamlin, " the number of families I have written down, 



