OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS. } 59 
gowns, and cotton. At times, they cut a most 
grotesque appearance in their new clothing ; as, 
how many articles soever a man may possess, he 
will frequently manage to have them all on at 
once. His trowsers, perhaps, will be tied round 
his neck, his shirt put on as trowsers, and his 
jacket the wrong way before, or turned inside 
out. The women, if they happen to have two or 
three gowns, will put them all on ; and they will 
manage so to arrange their dress, as to have some 
part of each article visible. I am now alluding, 
not to those who reside in the Mission families, 
but to those who are living in their own native 
villages. I have seen a person come into chapel, 
at whose monstrous appearance I had the great- 
est difficulty to restrain a smile. The sleeves 
of an old gown had been drawn on as a pair of 
stockings ; two small baskets fastened on the feet 
as shoes ; and one gown over another, so placed 
that you could see the flounce of one, the body 
of a second, the sleeves of a third, and the collar 
of a fourth ; with a piece of an old striped shirt 
thrown carelessly over the shoulders as a shawl, 
or a pair of trowsers hung round the neck as a 
boa ; but so arranged as not to conceal any other 
tai’ticle of dress. I have seen a person thus 
decked and adorned, enter a chapel in the midst 
of service, without exciting the slightest attention 
from the assembled congregation, to whom it did 
not appear at all strange: but it is now very 
seldom, even in the most distant villages, that we 
