374 Essays. 
high artificial civilization, where everything natural is studiously concealed, 
and common matters, which may not be openly mentioned, are freely talked 
of secretly, the more copiously, perhaps, in accordance with the well-known 
law of our nature, from the fact of restraint being laid upon them. With 
the New Zealander all was open and unconcealed from his birth ; so that a 
host of common things of every'day occurrence, any one of which to a highly 
civilized European might be a cause of distress and unpleasantness, or to 
another of evil thoughts and desires, was not so to him. Many such sights, 
sayings, and doings were to the New Zealander as if they were not; simply 
from being always used to them. It was just that kind of difference which 
exists between the aged grave-digger in the old church-yard, the old pro- 
fessor in the dissecting room, the phrenological philosopher in his study,— 
and the highly civilized but uninitiated gentleman. New Zealand men often 
went naked, without any breach of modesty or decorum, but a New Zealand 
woman never did so. Keeping in mind the “well-known law” above 
alluded to, and remembering that the New Zealander kept no secrets—with 
him everything was known—there is good reason for believing that their 
immorality was really less through the promiscuous dwelling and sleeping 
together of the sexes in one house, than if they had been made to dwell and 
sleep separately. Adult brothers and sisters slept together, as they had 
always done from their birth, not only without sin, but without thought of 
it. Incest and other high crimes were scarcely known, even by name; nor 
was it likely to be by a race among whom the marriage of first-cousins has 
always and justly been viewed with great disgust, as “ weakening the shoot.” 
Whatever the New Zealand girl might be before marriage, after marriage 
she was faithful; and even before marriage, the betrothal, when made, sup- 
ported by the żapu, in the majority of cases, kept her from going astray. 
Adultery on the part of the wives, generally punished with death, was by 
no means common among the same sub-tribe or village. In fact, such could 
not be among the suspicious, revengeful New Zealanders. A chief going 
anywhere confidingly left his wife or wives behind in his brothers’ or 
relatives’ charge ; generally speaking, such a thought as their faithlessness 
during his absence never entered his head. Of course, the writer, in thus 
giving his firm belief as to the immorality of the New Zealanders, wishes to 
be understood as speaking of it as practised by a race among themselves. 
The grosser and more frequent immoralities, which have been caused by the 
arrival of the “ superior” man among them, is no more to be charged as a 
vice to their account as a race, than is that of their selling an estate for a 
musket or a jew's harp, or a large pig for a stick of tobacco. There is still 
one more glaring vice of theirs to be noticed, namely, ingratitude. This, it 
must be confessed, did everywhere exist, and that to an extent almost 
