104 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



family is late, or the baby has fallen into a mud- 

 hole and requires a precipitate change of garments 

 no penalty is imposed in the way of a burned 

 meal ; for the stew having been cooked or the soup 

 boiled, they simply remain there as in an oven, 

 keeping nicely hot, but suffering no extra scorching 

 as a result of the delay. And as for the Monday 

 clothes washing, why it is simply a question of 

 kneeling beside one of the big hot pools and sousing 

 the garments until they are as white and clean as 

 new. True, both clothes and dinner may savor 

 more or less strongly of sulphur, but who so fastid- 

 ious as not to be able to cultivate a taste for sulphur 

 as well as for any other spicy flavor? 



The Maori, I say, is of a thrifty race, yet that is 

 the least of his attributes. No black man possesses 

 more personal and national pride, more true dig- 

 nity, fearless bearing, honorable and faithful in- 

 stincts, and cheeriness of temperament. In New 

 Zealand he is on a level with the white man and 

 feels it : there is no fawning, no bowing and scraping 

 in his attitude towards the colonizers of his coun- 

 try, and all his dealings are marked with straight- 

 forward manliness. Mentally he is keen, physically 

 superb. I know of no more stirring a sight than the 

 Haka war-dance, in which the most powerful men 

 of a village, stripped to the waist to give better play 



