Ill Mannino^'s ' Old New Zealand ' 351 



suspect, than he is to part with me. I think him 

 most curious and worth studying from every side ; 

 he, I am afraid, has got the idea into his head that 

 there is nothing very remarkable about me, but that 

 I am a very commonplace individual, who has merely 

 got the better of him by having better tools, remark- 

 ing very truly that my people are given to use these 

 tools in such an idiotic manner as to nearly destroy 

 their value, and give rise to the suspicion that we 

 did not invent them ourselves. Indeed, he says so 

 clearly, and those who wish to study his wise utter- 

 ances are referred to Manning's translation of Heki's 

 War. But let him say what he likes, we Pakehas 

 did manage to discover things ages ago which he 

 has never been able to get into his brain at all, — he 

 never, in fact, having had any great amount of in- 

 ventive talent. He never got beyond, if he ever 

 reached, the higher Neolithic period. When we 

 found him he was in the kitchen -midden state, 

 feasting on cockles or pepis, Venus's ears, and such 

 like, which he often carried thirty miles or more up 

 country, in order to enjoy a great gorge on the 

 quiet. 



Fighting -man as he was, he never developed 

 brains enough to discover the mystery of the bow 

 as a propelling power, nor did he rise to the throw- 

 ing-stick of the Australian blackfellow, or that strange 

 and wonderfully clever ' hitch ' made out of the fur 

 of the flying-fox, and so deftly used by the New 

 Caledonians (one of them is round the head-dress of 



