Chap. ILL DEPUTATION TO THE GOVERNOR. 56 
their food ; estranged in disposition, because isolated on 
principle from the white people ; and thinned by dis- 
eases which are generated and confirmed by the want 
of ventilation, warmth, and comfort in their huts. 
The native pas, and the beach near them, remain to 
this day an eye-sore to the cleanly town of Wellington ; 
they are nurseries for the virulent cutaneous diseases 
and pulmonary complaints which decimate the inhabit- 
ants every year ; they are schools for idleness, igno- 
rance, and therefore unfounded suspicion and jealousy 
of tlie white man ; and they present glaring pictures to 
remind the settlers themselves that an obstinate and 
unprofitable obstruction to the agreeable progress and 
amity of both races is loudly encouraged and carefully 
perpetuated by the authorities. Consisting entirely of 
low, miserable, thatched sheds, with fires inside and no 
chimneys, leaning against dry wooden fences, these in- 
habited dunghills are dangerous to themselves and to 
the rest of the town, in case of accident by fire ; they 
harbour troops of half-starved mangy mongrels, which 
rush out day and night upon every horse and foot 
passenger; and, although the inhabitants adhere very 
strictly to the forms of religion, the pa, like Alsatia of 
old, is a terra incognita under no supervision, which 
serves to conceal many a scene of the very worst 
debauchery. Such, however, is the acknowledged 
system on which the aborigines of New Zealand are 
now protected, and doomed to a progress which can 
only be likened to that of a lingering and pestiferous 
cancer. 
Several deputations waited upon his Excellency during 
his stay, to present memorials on various subjects, such 
as the proposed corporation measure, the duties to be 
imposed on spirits, the providing for the reception of 
foreign oil in exchange for refreshments furnished to 
