My New Zealand Garden 107 



thoroughly prepared food that their services are 

 scarcely required. This sounds to me more prob- 

 able than that, as some maintain, they have imbibed 

 from the soil or water something of a preservative 

 nature. Possibly the natives did not over-indulge 

 in vinegar, which in its action upon the teeth 

 the Book of Proverbs uses as a symbol of some- 

 thing unpleasant and harmful ' as vinegar to 

 the teeth and as smoke to the eyes.' That they 

 have good appetites I know, from what I have 

 witnessed at a Maori feast, where some of the 

 ladies were helped in buckets instead of plates, 

 and did ample justice to the contents. Consider- 

 ing what a huge repast it was, the gentlemen 

 indulged in a very moderate siesta before giving 

 us a war-dance. Cinematographs probably show 

 these dances now, but not the accompanying 

 snorts and ejaculations, and the thundering of 

 their powerful, well-timed stamping. The women 

 go through a pretty and curious performance called 

 the ' poi ' dance. Its chief feature is the excellent 

 time that they keep with their * pois,' or inflated 

 bladders, held by strings and thrown about with 

 the utmost precision to their weird, droning 

 notes. 



One does not now see much nose-rubbing for 

 ' How do you do ?' at least, in the towns but a 

 very mechanical shake of the hands instead. Their 

 dress is more or less European. The women often 



