ACTIVE HABITS, 
106 
their more northern brethren, they are a hard- 
working race. There is no effeminacy about them : 
they are obliged to work, if they would eat : they 
have no yams, nor cocoas, nor bananas, grow- 
ing without cultivation ; and the very fern-root, 
upon which they used, in former times, principally 
to feed, is not obtained without immense labour. 
In the luxurious climate of the Friendly Islands, 
there is scarcely any need of labour, to obtain the 
necessaries, and even many of the luxuries, of life. 
Blessed with a soil peculiarly rich, and which is 
fed with the superabundance of its own vegeta- 
tion — with an atmosphere remarkably humid and 
hot — all the tropical fruits and roots flourish with 
the utmost rankness, without the aid of man ; and 
the most costly supplies of food can be obtained 
without difficulty. The natives are consequently 
idle, to a proverb ; and when I was there, their 
reception of the Gospel had not excited them to 
improve their temporal condition, or to add, by 
industry, to their comforts : and since my return, 
in 1830 , the Missionaries themselves declare, that 
“ the natives will not work, and that their vagrant 
and idle habits are not at all improved.'” This is 
by no means the case in New Zealand : there are 
no fruits nor vegetables of indigenous and spon- 
taneous growth ; all they have must be cultivated, 
and tended constantly. Nine months in the year, 
a great portion of the natives are employed on 
their grounds ; and there are only two months in 
which they can say they have nothing to do. It 
