INTRODUCTION. 
7 
the richest wares are thrown overboard, one bale follows 
another, the least required for the preservation of life go first, 
and those only which are essentially necessary are preserved. 
Again, one tribe is driven away by another more powerful ; 
weakened in numbers, and disheartened by constant defeats, 
it continually retires from its foes, until, at last, without 
means of preserving its first state, it sinks lower and lower 
in the scale of existence : this will account for the degraded 
state of the original inhabitants of the Chatham Isles ; 
driven from the mainland, they fled to islands possessing few 
natural productions; can it therefore, be wondered that they 
should be less advanced than the natives who conquered them; 
hence their inferiority in their garments, houses, and canoes. 
They present an instance to what a sad state man may fall, 
when cut off from the rest of his race, and mind is deprived 
of the benefit of "fellow mind ; how unable is it to bear up 
against such accumulated evils; how forcibly does such a 
state remind us of the prodigal, who, from being clothed in 
fine apparel, with a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet, 
and from being fed with the choicest viands, when he left 
his father's house, fell step by step, morally and physically, 
until he would fain have filled his belly with the husks which 
the swine did eat. May not that beautiful parable have its 
literal fulfilment in the history of the Maori. In it we may 
perhaps behold a race who, having abandoned the service 
of the true God, and cast aside his word, fell step by step 
in the scale of civilization ; deprived of a fixed home, became 
nomade wanderers over the steppes of Asia, and gradually 
retreating until in the lapse of ages they reached the sea, and 
thence, still preserving their wandering character, from 
island to island driven by winds and currents, and various 
causes, they finally reached New Zealand, and there fallen 
to their lowest state of degradation, given up to the fiercest 
passions, consumed, and being consumed, they are at last 
enabled to reflect, repent, amend, and resolve to arise and 
go to their Father. 
Even after the New Zealand race had sufficiently increased 
to colonize the two islands, there was no bond of union 
