340 Notes on Sport and Travel m 



which, I have no doubt, will increase in number as 

 the world goes on and the native produces that 

 change in the air, earth, and water necessary for our 

 finer wantings. 



It is unfair to bring us to the bar under the 

 accusation of wilfully, or even carelessly, destroying 

 the earlier races ; we simply cannot help their going, 

 and the coloured race, which lives in a climate fitted 

 for the white race, must as certainly shrivel up and 

 fade away as the dwarf sensitive-plant of Ceylon 

 does before the footstep of the early morning traveller. 

 Far too much stress has been laid on the evil conse- 

 quences of the importation of fire-water and disease 

 among the brown race by the white immigrant. 

 As far as the first is concerned, the cry began long 

 ago among the Jesuit missions in Canada, who 

 were roundly accused by their own compatriots of 

 reserving it for their own advantage, being desirous 

 of cutting off the brandy trade from all but their 

 own people, — their stores, like those of some of our 

 Protestant missionaries, representing a valuable source 

 of revenue to the ' Society.' And it is a most curious 

 thing to mark how the ' religious ' of all religions 

 will do things for the good of the ' Society ' which 

 they would rather die than do for themselves. 



As far as I ever could learn, the Maori never was 

 much infected with that strange insanity for intoxi- 

 cation, which makes it a positive happiness to some 

 Red Indian tribes to sit in a ring round an inebriate 

 brother, and watch his gugglings and his gleamings. 



