Ill Manning s ' Old New Zealand ' 353 



ing him awake at night when the day's fighting was 

 done, and he wanted to prepare for the fighting of 

 the morrow — kicking up a row and kilHng nobody), 

 he altered his simple fortifications so as to permit 

 the former to pass through without exercising the 

 slightest breaching power,^ and built himself such a 

 perfect set of bomb-proofs, that the 6 8 -pounders sent 

 their splinters in every direction except his own. As 

 for his rifle-pits, they were marvels ; and altogether 

 he was a marvellous soldier. Pity that we could 

 not have utilised him, and prolonged his existence, 

 by keeping him as a useful Pagan warrior, as we 

 have done with the Indian Mohammedans, instead of 

 destroying him by turning him into a Christian farmer. 

 As it is, our poor Maori has been a failure and 

 * died young,' in spite of the enthusiasm he raised in 

 the hearts of the missionaries and philanthropists, 

 who fancied that at last they had got hold of a metal 

 really ' convertible.' The old wine proved, as it 

 always will, too strong for the new human bottle ; 

 and after fancying that the Maori was capable of 

 being taught everything, from the art of cheating at 

 tossing coppers, to holding the plough and building 

 the schooner, those who know are obliged to confess 

 that the whole business has been an expensive and 

 disastrous failure, and that if the Maori has not gone 



1 I believe that the British (commonly called Roman) fortifications 

 must have been exactly like the Maori Pahs, ditch and ridge, sur- 

 mounted by wattled palisading, the life also much the same, provision- 

 grounds at the foot of the hill, and food and water borne in every 

 night — and the story of the colouring by woad, was not that tattooing ? 



2 A 



