376 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



bagged some dozens of these birds, in very fat and heavy 

 condition. As this country, although a fine field for the 

 emigrant farmer, under certain circumstances, is literally 

 devoid of any kind of game except such as I have enume- 

 rated, and as in these short sketches I do not profess to enter 

 into any political or statistical accounts of the different places 

 through which I have wandered, I shall not detain the reader 

 with any more remarks upon it, except that I found Auck- 

 land, although a magnificent climate, an extremely dull and 

 uninteresting residence, and by no means the important 

 commercial emporium or thriving colony I had anticipated. 

 The Maoris or native inhabitants are a very fine, active, and 

 industrious race, and from English example and education 

 are beginning to get so thoroughly aware of some of the 

 injustice with which they consider they have been treated, 

 that at that period they seemed likely to give us a good deal 

 of trouble. Land speculations, and those only generally pro- 

 fitable to the favoured few who were old residents at the 

 place, and stood in well with the authorities, were the chief 

 occupation and source of profit to the foreign inhabitants, 

 and many a poor speculator who had arrived at this part of 

 New Zealand, tempted by the delusive advertisements and 

 accounts of land to be bought cheap, and in good situations, 

 had to bewail his credulity, or take himself and his capital to 

 some other part of the world. 



The settlement of Port Cowper and Canterbury is now un- 

 questionably the finest field for the industrious emigrant 

 possessing some capital, and is thriving in a proportion far 

 beyond the others. 



About this period, having received news from England of 

 the death of a friend, from whose interest I had some hopes 

 of procuring a colonial appointment in this place, I had no- 

 thing further to detain me; and as it was my intention to 

 return to England, I determined to do so by the route of 



