Personal Appearance of the New Zealanders. 1 09 



their traditions, as well as their laws (^tikanga) and religions 

 ceremonies. The persons thus educated supplied for them 

 the place of annals, books of laws, or written precedents. 



Both Taylor and Dieffenbach incline to the opinion of 

 older authors respecting these twin islands, namely, that 

 at the period when these immigrants from the north arrived 

 there, they were inhabited by another dark race of a different 

 descent. Against this hypothesis, however, there is to be 

 urged that not the slightest vestige of any such race can be 

 produced, in addition to which there is but one language 

 spoken throughout the extent of the islands, with dialects few 

 in number and hardly differing from each other. In none of 

 the many Maori legends is any mention made, either express 

 or implied, of any such circumstance, which one would think 

 would hardly have been passed over in silence, had the 

 islands at the first landing of the emigrants from Hawaiki 

 been inhabited by another race. The great disparity in 

 physical frame between individuals, recalling now the Malay, 

 now the Chinese type, and even the African and Jewish as 

 well, is much more probably explained by tlie intermixture 

 of tlie New Zealanders with the inliabitants of the various 

 island groups, which they visited at the period of their 

 migration. 



The Maories are on the whole a handsome race of men, 

 well-built and powerful, generally not less in stature than 

 the Europeans, whom they resemble somewhat in tlieir com- 

 plexion, which gives the idea rather of being embrowned 



