Morris. — On the Tracks of Captain Cook. 511 



is set down : " Among the tribe that lived at Mercury Bay 

 when the ' Endeavour ' put in there was a boy, a little fel- 

 low of about eight years old, but possessing the name of 

 Horeta Taniwha (red-smeared dragon) — no less. The child 

 lived through all the changes and chances of Maori life 

 and warfare to more than ninety years of age. In his 

 extreme old age he would still tell of how he saw 

 Kapeue Kuku — Captain Cook.* Once he told his story 

 to Governor Wynyard, who had it promptly taken 

 down. Another version is also printed in one of Mr. John 

 White's volumes. They do not differ in any important 

 particular." It is hardly necessary to give further quotation 

 from a book so well known in New Zealand. Mr. Pember 

 Beeves adds, " A more delightful child's narrative it would 

 be hard to find." It will be noticed that he adduces two 

 authorities. Where is the story as told to Governor 

 Wynyard? A search through the bibliography of New 

 Zealand gives no clue. Questions asked of librarians also 

 drew a blank. Can any reader of this paper furnish the 

 exact reference ? It would be instructive to institute a 

 critical comparison between the two accounts. The passages 

 in White's " Ancient History of the Maori "t do not suggest 

 that the author possesses a keenly critical faculty. He gives as 

 two different accounts what is manifestly the same story, nor 

 does he drop the slightest hint that the two are one. It 

 would be certainly passing strange that two little boys should 

 be living at Mercury Bay, one of whom was called Hore-ta-te 

 Taniwha and the other Taniwha-Horeta ; that both of them 

 lived to be nearly ninety, and told yarns about Captain Cook 

 closely resembling each other. Each tells the story of the 

 man shot by Lieutenant Gore for cheating, one on page 127 

 and the other on page 130. If there had been two natives, 

 and not one, it would surely have been noticed by the English 

 who came into contact with them — as, for instance, by Colonel 

 Mundy. Mr. John White brings forward no authority. The 

 whole of his fifth volume is full of stories as if taken down 

 from the lips of Maoris, and yet he never mentions who took 

 them down, whether the Maoris gave them forth as con- 

 tinuous narratives, or whether some Englishman asked ques- 

 tions and afterwards wove the answers into a continuous 

 story. In order to test the value of the evidence we ought to 

 know the questions and who put them. After reading Mr. 

 White with a critical eye a profound mistrust of all the 

 stories came upon me. A child of seven sees a sight, and he 



* In White's "Ancient History of the Maori," p. 128, it is "Pene 

 Kuku." 



t Mr. Reeves quotes vol. v., p. 128 ; it should be pages 121 to 131. 



