MALAY RACE. 



Canoe of the New Zealander. 



Nothing so much surprises the European emigrant as the physical difference between the natives of 

 Australia and New Zealand, two neighboring regions situated between the same parallels of latitude ; the 

 change in habits is likewise radical. The remark may be extended to the other territories of the Southern 

 Hemisphere which are remotely detached, and are noted for their remarkable yet dissimilar natural pro- 

 ductions ; for it will be difficult to select from the human family four nations more unlike than the Austra- 

 lians, Austral Polynesians, Fuegians, and Hottentots. It will further be observed that they severally 

 pursue the precise four ultimate methods of procuring sustenance, and may be classed respectively, as 

 hunting, agricultural, piscatorial and pastoral tribes. 



The " hunter state," indeed, is impossible in New. Zealand, from the absence of game. By an anoma- 

 lous distribution of the vegetation, the open grounds of this extensive country are almost exclusively 

 covered with fern. There is no pasturage for grazing animals ; neither, on the other hand, have any 

 woodland quadrupeds been allotted to the forests. 



Although fish enters largely into the diet of the New Zealanders, they are not an exclusively maritime 

 people like the piscatorial tribes of America, but they are diffused throughout the interior country. More- 

 over, what is a little remarkable in the Malay race, they rather avoid the sea; holding, nevertheless, occa- 

 sional communication along the coast. 



In the management of a canoe or boat, the natives by no means fall behind their Tropical brethren, as 



we had many opportunities of witnessing, even in the instance of the pilot at Sidney, who had selected 



New Zealanders for the crew of. his open boat. Unlike the Tropical Polynesians, they were not seen 



bathing, a circumstance attributed to the coolness of the water, but they are otherwise less cleanly in all 



tieir habits. Their huts, too, are very small and close, built of bundles of "rapoo," (Typha,) and roofed 



usually with leaves of the wild palm. 



(14) 



