A REMARKABLE MAORI MANUSCRIPT. 283 



were an educated people, and had numerous libraries; 

 but when the British took possession of their islands, hav- 

 ing heard that they were devourers of books, their great 

 ariki made a decree that all books and manuscripts should 

 be totally destroyed, with the view of starving the Brit- 

 ish and driving them back to their own islands. The 

 decree was faithfully executed, but this one document 

 seems to have escaped destruction; and this old Maori re- 

 luctantly lent his aid in translating it into English. 



It will be noticed that the ancient civilization of the 

 Maories was exceedingly analogous to that of the modern 

 United States many of the facts stated presenting a 

 most astonishing parallel. This circumstance gives new 

 plausibility to Mr. A. H. Keane's recently propounded the- 

 ory that the Polynesian race is really a modification of 

 the Mediterranean.* 



The British have a foreboding that the New Zealander 

 will one day stand on the ruins of London Bridge and 

 moralize over the magnitude of the civilization gone to 

 decay; but here the visitor from London Bridge may well 

 contemplate with astonishment these traces of a vanished 

 Maori civilization, which only by a mere chance has es- 

 caped from absolute oblivion. 



The governor of New Zealand having sent me the 

 translated document, I have the honor of being the first 

 to bring it to the attention of the world. It possesses 

 great archaeological and ethnological interest. It reads 

 as follows: 



*On this, see Journal of the Anthropological Institute, London, February 

 1880, Nature xxiii, 199-203 et seq. 



