126 Voyage of the Novara. 



lar tissue. Moreover the uniform, uneventful life of the 

 Maories by no means tends to the development of muscular 

 strength. 



Dr. Thomson justly remarks that the foregoing facts com- 

 pletely demolish the arguments of those who find a pleasure 

 in representing the world as degenerating, and mankind as 

 much less powerful and free.from blemish than in former ages, 

 ere trade and civilization had exercised their unpropitious 

 influence ujjon the habits and manners of mankind. For 

 here we have the New Zealanders, living up to the present 

 century a life of the most primitive simplicit}^, yet evidently 

 in respect of mere corporeal strength lagging far behind the 

 denizens of a country, where culture and machinery have 

 brought about social changes of such magnitude, as no other 

 civilized people on the globe can show. 



Of few races inhabiting the southern hemisphere, have the 

 proverbs, poetry, songs, and traditions been the subject of such 

 zealous study as those of the Maori, and no one has made 

 more careful investigation into this interesting feature than 

 the present Governor, Sir George Grey, who set on foot 

 most minute inquiries into the older history of the Maori, 

 which he published in a variety of valuable works,* although 

 several of the missionaries, as also educated settlers of many 

 years' standing in the colony, have extended our acquaintance 



* Of these the most important are : — " Pol3'nesian Mythologj-, and ancient tradi- 

 tional History of the New Zealand Race, as furnished by their Priests and Chiefs. 

 London, 1855." " Proverbial and Popular Sayings of the Ancestors of the New 

 Zealand Race. Capetown, 1857." 



