These, however, are thrown into the shade by some of the courageous attempts of the two Forsters, Cook’s naturalists, at the names of native birds.  It must have taken some imaginative power to turn pi-waka-waka into “diggowaghwagh,” and kereru into “haggarreroo,” but they achieved these triumphs.  Their chef-d’oeuvre is perhaps “pooadugghiedugghie,” which is their version of putangi-tangi, the paradise-duck.  After that it is not so easy to smile at the first sentences of an official statement drawn up by Governor King, of New South Wales, relative to the carrying off to Norfolk Island of the two New Zealanders before mentioned, which begins: 

“Hoodoo-Cockoty-Towamahowey is about twenty-four years of age, five feet eight inches high, of an athletic make, and very interesting.  He is of the district of Teerawittee ...  Toogee Teterrenue Warripedo is of the same age as Hoodoo, but about three inches shorter.”

Poor Huru, poor Tuki!

While the missionaries were slowly winning their way through respect to influence in the northern quarter of the country, and were giving the Maori a written language and the Bible, very different agents were working for civilization further south.  From the last decade of the eighteenth century onwards the islands were often sought by whaling-ships.  Gradually these came in greater numbers, and, until about the year 1845, were constantly to be seen in and about certain harbours—­notably the Bay of Islands.  But not by the utmost stretch of charity could their crews be called civilizing agencies.  To another class of whalers, however, that title may not unfairly be given.  These were the men who settled at various points on the coast, chiefly from Cook’s Straits southward to Foveaux Straits, and engaged in what is known as shore-whaling.  In schooners, or in their fast-sailing, seaworthy whale boats, they put out from land in chase of the whales which for so many years frequented the New Zealand shores in shoals.  Remarkable were some of the catches they made.  At Jacob’s River eleven whales were once taken in seventeen days.  For a generation this shore-whaling was a regular and very profitable industry.  Only the senseless slaughter of the “cows” and their “calves” ruined it.

Carried on at first independently by little bands of adventurers, it in time fell into the hands of Sydney merchants, who found the capital and controlled and organized whaling-stations.  At these they erected boiling-down works, shears for hoisting the huge whales’ carcasses out of the water, stores, and jetties.  As late as 1843 men were busy at more than thirty of these stations.  More than five hundred men were employed, and the oil and whalebone they sent away in the year were worth at least L50,000.  Sometimes the profits were considerable.  A certain merchant, who bought the plant of a bankrupt station for L225 at a Sydney auction, took away therefrom L1,500 worth of oil in the next season.  But then