422 AUSTKALASIA. 



Pallia, and which was peopled by whites and half-castes. A resident magistrate 

 was appointed by the British Government with jurisdiction over the Europeans of 

 the rising colony, but without claiming any authority over the natives, who were 

 regarded as a sovereign people. 



Colonisation in the strict sense of the term, that is, with official occupation of 

 the land, began in 1840 by the foundation of the New Zeahoul Company, which 

 purchased territory from the natives and selected a site on Port Nicholson at the 

 south end of the northern island as the capital of its possessions and the starting- 

 point for the peopling of the archipelago. In the same year a French vessel 

 belonging to the Compagnie Nanto-Bordelake cast anchor in Akaroa Harbour, at 

 the extremity of the hilly Banks Peninsula, near the present Christchurch, in the 

 southern island. But when the French landed they found that they had been 

 anticipated by some British officials who had already bought the land. Hence the 

 French colonists had to establish themselves on their domain of 30,000 acres as 

 subjects of Great Britain, and the little settlement became gradually merged in 

 the surrounding English population. 



This attempt at colonial annexation in the name of France had the eiïect of 

 stimulating the action of the British Government and territorial companies. The 

 latter, without even awaiting official approval or sanction, hastened to found 

 villages along the seaboard, and to land immigrant families by the hundred. In 

 1841 New Zealand, ceasing to be regarded as a political dependency of New South 

 Wales, assumed the title of a distinct colony, and twelve years later, when its 

 white population already numbered some thirty thousand souls, it took its place 

 amongst the Constitutional States of the British colonial empire. This event was 

 followed in 1857 by the discovery of the gold-fields, which made the fortune of the 

 colony by attracting thousands of capitalists and miners. Henceforth the popula- 

 tion rapidly increased, and the archipelago now ranks as one of the leading 

 Australasian states, as well as relatively one of the most densely peopled. 



Although separated by Cook Strait the two large members of the group are 

 naturally comprised under the collective name of New Zealand, for they form in 

 reality but a single geographical unit, disposed in the same direction, presenting 

 the same physical conformation and standing on a common submarine bed. The 

 North Island, Marion's ''Austral France," is the smaller of the two, and is 

 occasionally designated by the Maori name of Iha na Maui, the " Fish of Maui," 

 in reference to a native heroic legend. Another Maori name is Aotea-roa, that is, 

 the " Great Expanse," or according to Kerry Nicholls, the " Bright Sun." 



The South Island bears the native appellation of Tevahi Panamu, which, 

 though variously interpreted, probably means " Land of Jade" (A. S. Thomson). 

 Foveaux Strait separates South Island from the much smaller but steep and 

 elevated Stewart Island (3,000 feet), which was also for a time formerly known as 

 South Island. This is the Raki-rua, or " Arid Land " of the Maoris. The 

 archipelago terminates southwards in the isolated peak of the Snares, which is 

 encircled by a few rocky islets first sighted by Vancouver in 1791. 



Many geoo-raphers have called attention to the remarkable resemblance of 



