PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 133. 



Hawaiki. The legend runs that a chief of Hawaiki left tin; Island after a civil war, landed 

 in New Zealand, and returned thence to Hawaiki with marvellous accounts of all that In- 

 had seen in his adventurous career, and of the richness of the new country he had 

 visited. The traditions differ as to the name of this chief, but whether tin; adventurer 

 was known as Kupe or Ngahue the legends concur in making him the leader of the 

 expedition that planted the Maori race in New Zealand. When Cook landed he found 

 the Islands apparently crowded by a dense population. This appearance was, however, 

 misleading, and arose merely from the tendency of the Maoris to cluster along the shore- 

 line and at the mouths of rivers. It has since been computed that the total num- 

 ber of Maoris at that time could not have been more than about one hundred and 

 fifty thousand, which lessened to eighty thousand by 1840, and has now further shrunk 

 to considerably less than half that number. Cannibalism existed in New Zealand from 

 the earliest periods known to Europeans, and sailors belonging to the expeditions of 

 both Tasman and Cook met their fate in this way. The custom of eating the bodies 

 of enemies killed in battle, obtained up to a very late period. The practice of tattooing 

 was general in the early days among the Maoris, but is now rapidly dying out. Many- 

 singular customs are still retained by the Maori people of the present day, among others 

 the very curious one of "rubbing noses" when friends meet, just as Englishmen would 

 shake hands. The remnant of the Maori race is now comparatively civilized, and some of 

 the wealthier representatives of the people occupy honourable positions in the colony. 



FLORA. 



J^HE vegetation of Australia, when sketched according to the regional distribution of 

 the species, commences naturally with the Flora of the South-western Colony, 

 because there the endemism is most strongly expressed, and the richness of specific 

 forms is there rendered most remarkable by their typic singularity and by the multitu- 

 dinous display of highly ornamental features. In this respect, extra-tropic Western 

 Australia surpasses even the exuberant and gay Moral fields of the south-east part of this 

 Continent, and has its only rival in the most southern portion of Africa. 



It would be a vain endeavour to present in detail, within the scope of a purposely 

 limited essay, a complex of floral forms so vast ; but particular allusion might here be 

 made at once to the marvellous variety of " Heath-Myrtles," chiefly comprised within the 

 genera Darwinia, Calycothrix, Llwtzkya, Tliryptonicuc and Bccckca : and further to the 

 " Fringe-Myrtles," all referable to ]'crticordia, and hardly represented elsewhere, some of 

 which, though strangers yet to horticulture, have an incomparable beauty of their own. 

 The myrtaceous order, so vastly developed in South-western Australia, comprises there 

 also magnificent species of Bcciitfortia, Regclia, Calothamnus, and Mclalcnca, reminding one 

 of the famous South-eastern " Bottle-brushes ;" while, in the glorious colouring of their 

 flowers, they participate in the brilliancy of some Eucalypts, the congeners of which 

 elsewhere appear mostly in sombre floral hue. But more astounding are the gigantic 

 dimensions reached by the Karri-Eucalypt (E. dircrsicolor}, which species and our South- 

 eastern E. amygdalina may be counted perhaps as the tallest trees of the globe, though 

 they cannot compare in massive compactness of ramification with the colossal Sequoia 



