December 9.  Wellington.  Ten hours from Wanganui by the Fly.  December 12.  It is a fine city and nobly situated.  A busy place, and full of life and movement.  Have spent the three days partly in walking about, partly in enjoying social privileges, and largely in idling around the magnificent garden at Hutt, a little distance away, around the shore.  I suppose we shall not see such another one soon.

We are packing to-night for the return-voyage to Australia.  Our stay in New Zealand has been too brief; still, we are not unthankful for the glimpse which we have had of it.

The sturdy Maoris made the settlement of the country by the whites rather difficult.  Not at first—­but later.  At first they welcomed the whites, and were eager to trade with them—­particularly for muskets; for their pastime was internecine war, and they greatly preferred the white man’s weapons to their own.  War was their pastime—­I use the word advisedly.  They often met and slaughtered each other just for a lark, and when there was no quarrel.  The author of “Old New Zealand” mentions a case where a victorious army could have followed up its advantage and exterminated the opposing army, but declined to do it; explaining naively that “if we did that, there couldn’t be any more fighting.”  In another battle one army sent word that it was out of ammunition, and would be obliged to stop unless the opposing army would send some.  It was sent, and the fight went on.

In the early days things went well enough.  The natives sold land without clearly understanding the terms of exchange, and the whites bought it without being much disturbed about the native’s confusion of mind.  But by and by the Maori began to comprehend that he was being wronged; then there was trouble, for he was not the man to swallow a wrong and go aside and cry about it.  He had the Tasmanian’s spirit and endurance, and a notable share of military science besides; and so he rose against the oppressor, did this gallant “fanatic,” and started a war that was not brought to a definite end until more than a generation had sped.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice. 
—­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

Names are not always what they seem.  The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwep is pronounced Jackson. 
—­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

Friday, December 13.  Sailed, at 3 p.m., in the ‘Mararoa’.  Summer seas and a good ship-life has nothing better.

Monday.  Three days of paradise.  Warm and sunny and smooth; the sea a luminous Mediterranean blue . . . .  One lolls in a long chair all day under deck-awnings, and reads and smokes, in measureless content.  One does not read prose at such a time, but poetry.  I have been reading the poems of Mrs. Julia A. Moore, again, and I find in them the same grace and melody that attracted me when they were first published, twenty years ago, and have held me in happy bonds ever since.