60 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



When the New Zealanders were first taught to read and write by the 

 missionaries, and for (at least) twenty to thirty years after, they almost in- 

 variably in writing a letter or note, began it, after the introduction, with a 

 few words from a song, which also served to indicate (especially to them- 

 selves) what was about to follow, or what was particularly meant. As 

 this peculiarity had not been in any wise taught them by Europeans, it is 

 highly characteristic of their strong abiding national taste. 



No doubt their common practice of using songs Avhen at their various 

 works and labours, especially the very heavy and continuous ones, origi- 

 nated with them as a means of beguiling their length and wearisomeness, 

 and was wisely and politically used and encouraged by their chiefs. 



During the first ten years of my residence in New Zealand I resided in 

 the Bay of Islands, where almost every visit from home had to be made by 

 sea in a boat ; and not unfrequently either in going or returning up or down 

 the long tidal arms or rivers (as Waikare, Kawakawa, and Kerikeri), or in 

 visiting the shores of the outer bay (Paroa), I should be many hours at a time 

 in my boat, — sometimes nearly all night, — owing to head wind, or strong 

 adverse tide. At such times, and when my faithful Maori rowers were nearly 

 exhausted, for one of them to strike up a simple canoe- (or boat-) song, 

 would act as a charm upon their spirits, and give them fresh vigour,* I 

 am sure that by such means — the wonderful powers of simple song — we 

 have sometimes overcome, or passed through, no small difficulties and even 

 dangers. 



Having already in a former paperf written on their various kinds, or 

 classes, of poetry, I shall not again repeat the same. Such, however, may 

 be easily inferred from what I have just mentioned ; as, of course, their 

 poetry and its music ever varied with the subject : — 



" From grave to gay, from lively to severe." 



and utter a mournful wailing." A singular effect of the imagination is also given : — " A 

 Greenlander came from a distant and quite healthy place to visit his sister in the Mission 

 Station ; they were deeply attached to each other. Before the boat came to land, he 

 thought he saw her apparition flitting along the shore and beckoning him to come. The 

 Greenlander paused on his oar, and gazed intently on the spot ; his companions saw 

 nothing but the rocks and the ice-hills. But there, he said, she was standing, like the 

 dead, and he refused to go near her. They rowed back directly. Overcome with the 

 fright, he fell sick the very day of his return, and infected the people where he dwelt." — 

 Life of Hans Egede. 



* If I recollect aright, Captain Sir James Boss, Dr. Hooker, and the other officers of 

 the Antarctic Expedition, informed me, in 1841, that when they had to raise the deep- 

 sea lead (in this case made up to 751bs.) from their deepest soundings of 4,600 fathoms, 

 the labour was so great that they were obliged to have recourse to the aid of music ! A 

 sailor perched on the capstan played on the violin, 

 t In " Essay on the Maori Races," § 46.—" Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vol. I., p. 47 of Essay. 



