3 54 Notes on Sport and Travel in 



altogether, those who remain seem only to do so 

 from a spiteful desire of proving that the law of the 

 ' survival of the fittest ' is not without its exceptions. 

 I suppose, as I have said, that he was full-grown 

 when we found him, and incapable of further training. 

 It took some little time for the good men, who did 

 their best (half of which doing might have raised a 

 million of Englishmen permanently from the mud), 

 to find out that the gentle Maori was only playing, 

 in a monkey-like manner, at what he saw the Pakeha 

 do, supposing that all sorts of wonderful things would 

 ensue, more particularly from the religious part of 

 the business ;^ and finding from experience that 

 ploughing himself was harder work, with less result, 

 than making his women dig for him, and that his 

 ' religion,' for which he paid enormously in hard 

 dollars, made him no more successful in war than 

 the old cheap services of a Tohunga, he gave them 

 both up, turned the plough over into the nearest 

 ditch, piled his hymn-book and prayer-book and 

 Bible (so carefully printed for him by the mission- 

 aries in a language invented by them) into a heap 

 in the middle of his chapel, defiled them, stuck a 

 skull on the top, told the missionary that if he did 

 not clear out his would join it, and wrapping his wet 

 blanket round him, gave up all hope, except for a 

 short moment, when the dream of the Joshuistic 

 Hau-Hauism flashed across his brain, and so went 

 to his Niflheim. 



1 Races, like individuals, are apt to become pious when moribund. 



