482 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



toy, and its fate was too often the same. On their journey- 

 ings it was dragged about as a valuable piece of personal pro- 

 perty, with the inevitable result. Later on it was found that 

 they were suitable for conversion into gun-wads and cartridge- 

 paper, a sad application of the power of the Word. 



It was impossible that the small New Zealand press and 

 its one printer could supply the demand of the natives for the 

 Testament. Accordingly the British and Foreign Bible Society 

 speedily stepped to the front, accepting those duties which it 

 views as peculiarly its own. In 1841 it accordingly sent out 

 to New Zealand no less than 20,000 reprints, which were 

 divided between the Church and the Wesleyan Societies ; in 

 1842 a further 20,000 copies were forwarded ; and again a 

 similar number in 1844. This noble society circulated no less 

 than 120,000 copies of various portions of the Scriptures in 

 the Maori tongue by the year 1861, at a cost to itself of 

 £6,000. An amusing specimen of pidgin-Maori occurs at the 

 foot of the title-page of the earliest copies, where " Printed by 

 the British and Foreign Bible Society " is rendered " Beritihi 

 mo te Poreni Paipera Hohaiete." 



So far but little had been accomplished with regard to 

 the Old Testament. Now the time and the man came, 

 when, in the latter part of 1835, the Eev. Robert Maunsell 

 joined the mission. He was a graduate of Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and was specially fitted by education and his classical 

 tastes to undertake the work of this translation. His head- 

 quarters were at the Waikato, where he remained for thirty 

 vears amongst his favourite Maoris. Afterwards he came to 

 Auckland, where, for the succeeding twenty years, he held the 

 incumbency of St. Mary's. He died in 1894 in his eighty- 

 fourth year. He was one of Bishop Selwyn's first archdea- 

 cons, whilst Trinity College, his Alma Mater, conferred upon 

 him the honorary degree of LL.D. in recognition of the ability 

 he had displayed as chief translator of the Old Testament. 

 To him I am indebted for much valuable information connected 

 with early history. He was, it is needless to say, an accom- 

 plished Maori and Hebrew scholar, thoroughly conversant 

 with the use of those particles and enclitics on which refined 

 Maori so much depends. In 1842 he published a grammar of 

 the language, which was dedicated to Captain Hobson, our 

 first Governor. He acquired the language whilst travelling 

 about with his Maori companions, and to insure perfection he 

 stipulated that whoever detected him in a blunder should re- 

 ceive a piece of tobacco for reward. It might seem that this 

 was rather an expensive way of learning ; but not so, said the 

 Archdeacon, for he would raise a dispute on the point, which 

 was entered into with great zest by the natives, sure to be of 

 great value, and was well worth an inch of tobacco. It 



