and her mamma took their way to London with an assured and complacent confidence, and that probably the latter's next visit to Garterley would be in the interesting character of the recently-made bride.

NEW ZEALAND LEGENDS AND

PROVERBS.

THE proverbs of these brave and intelligent islanders are full of local allusions, which give them a special and peculiar colour. The animals spoken of are the rat, the moa; the fish, the whale, shark, and crayfish; the trees and plants, the all-important flax and the hinau tree. Clubwar and cannibalism are often treated of; the frequent mention of the downy blossoms of the bulrushes, and the rush-tufts of the sloughs, reminds us of the numerous swamps of the country; and the constant allusions to mountains, flax-fields, fishingstations and canoeing, recall other associations of the strange region.

Many of these proverbs, Sir George Grey, in some of his works on New Zealand traditions, has shown are lines from fables, handed down among the tribes by oral tradition. Of this the following is an example. The Maoris have a saying, "Ah! that's better, for then it will be all whole and no gaps in it." This is a line from the fable we subjoin.

An old man had an only child, a daughter, unmarried-very pretty, smart, and clever; one day her father said to her:

"My dear, your husband shall be so and so; he has good kumara gardens, and we shall have plenty of sweet potatoes to eat."

Then the little maid rocked herself to and fro, laughing, and said to him:

"Oh, father, kumara gardens can only be cultivated in seasons of peace; at other times we shall be in want of food."

Then her father said:

"Well, then, your husband shall be so and so; he has some good eel preserves, and we shall have plenty of eels to eat." The girl laughed again, and said:

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Oh, papa, eels are only caught when there is a flood; at other times we should want food."

"Well, then," said the pliant father, "he shall be so and so; for he has good fishing-grounds, and then we shall have plenty of fish to eat."

The scornful little maid rolled over on the ground with laughter at her shortsighted father, and said:

Why, father, people can only fish in calm weather, and in storms we should get none."

So her father said to this pertinacious maiden:

"Well, then, my love, your husband shall be so and so; he's a good, sturdy, industrious fellow, and we shall have, at least, plenty of fern-root to eat."

The little maid leaped up at this and clapped her hands.

"Ah! dad," she cried, "that's better; for there will be no long gaps without food between meals then."

And this wise doctrine of the brownskinned girl passed into a New Zealand proverb. In a proverb used by the people to express shame at one's own conduct, a story is also embedded. Umuku Kopaki went on a visit from his own place to the mountain range between Taupo and Hawke's Bay. The chief who welcomed him said to Umuku, "Water is the best of all foods that have been sent to support man"-a not very profound and a disputable assertion. Umuku, probably tired and cross with his mountain climb, thought this remark was a preparation for a stingy reception, and replied, "No, water isn't best; potted birds are." The host, feeling the sarcasm, and being annoyed at it, at once ordered his servants to stop up the well and give his guest no water while he remained in the house. They then crammed poor Umuku with so many potted birds that he soon wanted water, and at last nearly died of thirst. Ashamed of his mean and unjust suspicion, he composed the following proverb as he walked home:

"Farewell! I'm going home; you have entertained me; but I'll shut myself up when I get home, and you'll never see me again." It has ever since been used to express deserved mortification.

When a New Zealand master is overexacting and unreasonable with his servant, the oppressed man uses the old saying:

'Hollo, Kura, do this; hollo, Kura, do that. You don't wait until one job is finished before I have to begin another; you hurried me so that I fell from the tree where I was gathering the fruit you ordered. Oh, I wish I had been killed." Many of the Polynesian proverbs rhyme like the following:

E ma tau ruru, E ma tau wehe, E ma tau mutu, E ma tau kai.

which is a consoling proverb for farmers;

"Two years of parched crops, two seasons of scarcity, two seasons of failure, two seasons of abundance." Here is another of their proverbs, founded on an historical story. When Ruaputhanga ran away from her husband, she at last reached a rock on the west coast of the middle island; and just as the tide rose and barred the passage, her husband arrived in hot pursuit. "You may as well go back again," she cried, tauntingly; "the surf breaks on the cliffs of Raku, where open-eyed sharks look out for their prey. This is an obstacle, my husband, you cannot overcome." Some of these proverbs are very long, and are founded on allusions to some familiar objects, as for instance the following one on the choice of a wife, which is all summed up in four short lines in the native language:

"My son," says the supposititious father, "when you build a store-house do not choose a fine, brand-new post for the centre. Rats, seeing such a post, will climb it and look for food; and you, knowing this, will always be anxious about your provisions. Take, therefore, an old second-rate post, and you will then be easy and secure.' The meaning of this is: Do not marry too young and beautiful a wife; for you will be freer from jealousy and happier with one less young and fair.

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The plants and animals of New Zealand supply many metaphors for these proverbs. If a man is always complaining of the cold, they say, "Shall I cover you up with a cloak made of green ground parrot skins?" "Her face is as white as the under part of the wharangi-leaf." "Her hair is as long and shining as the rimurehia" (a sort of seaweed, which they make into a jelly). "She is fair as the ivoryshelled cockle; smooth as a flax-leaf;' "soft as the upper edge of a canoe; "beautiful as the belly of the avaara (a kind of fish). A great traveller is compared to the bounding gar-fish. A large and well-governed tribe is likened to an old tree, with the soft light wood outside and the hard unyielding heart in the centre; the light wood being the young warriors, and the heart of the tree the chief. Cowards are compared to canoes made of the pukuta or kokehoe trees, the wood of which is soft and perishable. A person who deserts his children is compared to the bronze-wing cuckoo.

The New Zealand proverbs contain many allusions to the past wars and history of Polynesia. There is a saying,

referring to a great defeat of the NgatiAwa tribes of the Waikato, near Otawhao: "This is the first time I have laughed since the battle of Hinga-Kaka." The battle derived its name from a fish-net, for as into a net the conquered men fell that day. And here is another, referring to a famous warrior of old times, the moral being that a brave man never despairs: "Our great ancestor, Rangitihi, when his head was split by an enemy's club, bound it up with a creeper of the woods, called akatea, and rallying his retreated men he led them back to the battle, and won a victory." There is also a proverbial story about the hero Turamgatoa. A young warrior once asked him before a battle began, "I say, Turamgatoa, does a wound hurt much? The veteran answered, "Wait a little, and you'll see." Soon after the lad was struck with a spear, and the old soldier said, "Ah! you thought what Turamgatoa had had so much of was a trifle, didn't you?' There is another proverb also about this old chief. The lad says to him, "I say, Turamgatoa, what shall we do now, we can't cross here?" The chief replied, "Don't be afraid, every river has its fords." "Eat the little green parrot at once, well done or underdone;" this is a proverb for a war-party, which has no time for elaborate meals. Another birdproverb is: "Snare the sparrow-hawk, but let the falcon fly." The kingfisher also supplies a proverb: "So you are watching us at our meal to get a bit, are you, like a kingfisher on a high bough watching for its prey?" The New Zealanders believe that the large parrots always carry a small sea-shore pebble in one claw, which they constantly nibble, so the saying to travellers is, "Take no more food with you on your journey than the large parrot carries in his claw." When a chief refrains from his food till his friends begin, the proverb used is, "The white heron examines its food before it eats it."

Now and then one hears in New Zealand a dialogue proverb, such as "The Shark and the Lizard." Says the shark : "Let's be off to sea." Lizard : 'You may go to the sea, and become a relish for a basket of cooked vegetables if you like it." Shark: "You can go on shore, and be smothered in the fire of dry fern if you like it." Lizard: "I'll go on shore and frighten people, and then they'll gladly get out of my way."

There are proverbs anong the New

leaf. There is something very sharp and observant in this sarcastic simile. If a generous man invites a party of passing travellers, and his people grumble at his extravagance, he pushes this proverb at them: If you throw a spear of wood at me I can parry it, but I cannot parry the darts of your bitter words."

When a Maori dies the watchers of the corpse say to the man's son, to draw his tears freely: "Now, boy, if your father had been a house and had fallen down we could build him up again, and he would be all right; if he had been the moon, which waxed old and died out, then the new moon would have risen in its season."

The complimentary way to speak of an ugly man among the natives is to say "Oh, his ugliness is only the ugliness of Auripo," a famous chief of old. Of a house the Maoris sometimes say, as of a fine large canoe, "Ah! this is Tane" (the god of forests) "heaped up." If a village is extravagant with its crops, eating when they should store, the proverb that goes out is: "The people of Te Puku have long since eaten all their wild turnips, though the people of Onewa have not yet finished last year's crops." In one part of New Zealand, Tireki, there are no stones to put in the ovens to cook the food; and they say of a barren place: "Why, this is Tireki, where there is nothing, and travellers have to bring stones to cook their food." Orntai is another barren place, and therefore they say of all lean things: "Oh, that's from Orntai." If a man is seen eating dirty food or leavings, the proverb is: "Hey! hand them here for the dusthole." If a labourer is unable to lift a heavy weight, the employer has an old proverb ready for him: "Ah! he's about as strong as a rat." Of a coward or runaway in battle it is said: "The pulp of the tawa berry is easily crushed; but when a warrior is stubborn with club and spear, his fellows call out, "Well done, O tough stone of the tawa berry." When a man talks fast and tells lies, the Maori proverb is slung at him, "He who talks till he splutters is sure to tell lies." If a chief is too fond of war the proverb to use is: "The warrior often gets but the wanderer's scanty meal; the husbandman eats the full portion of the industrious man."

When a Maori will neither do his fair part in the common work, or fight hard against the common enemy, his friends

say at meal-time, so that he may hear, "It's a waste of victuals to give them to pot-bellied Wata iur; or some one says to him, face to face, "Why, to judge from your gullet, you can swallow as much as the God Uenaku," the strong god of war; or, "Why, surely, the God Rongomai" (the god of vegetable food) "must be in your gullet!"

The Polynesian mythology is as wild and chaotic as might be expected among such an isolated people, with whom flaxgrowing and war were the only employments for century after century. Rats and fern-roots could not feed very creative or thoughtful brains, though they wired the arm for club fighting and spear throwing. Perhaps of all the wild and curious legends we could select, the most interesting and original is their tradition relating to the origin of the human race. Man, they say, sprang from one pair of ancestors, Rangi and Papa; and heaven and earth were the source from which all things originated. Darkness, in the early days, weighed upon earth and heaven, till they both clave together; and the children who were born wondered what light meant and how it differed from darkness; so the old religious books say: "There was darkness in the first division of time unto the tenth, to the hundredth, to the thousandth." At last the children of heaven and earth, wearied with the continual darkness, began to rebel against Rangi and Papa, and consulted together, saying, "Shall we slay them or rend them apart?" Then spoke Fuinamenga, the fiercest of those children, and cried, "It is well, let us slay them!" But then rose up TaneMahuta, the father of forests, and all that inhabit them, and said, "Nay, not so; it is better to rend them apart, and then the heavens will rise far above us, and the earth will lie under us. Let the sky, brothers, become as a stranger to us, and the earth remain our nursing mother."

The brothers all consented to this decision except Tawhiri-ma-tia, the father of winds and storms, who, fearing that his dominion would now be overthrown, grieved greatly that his parents should be torn apart. Five of the brothers were for separation, but this one refused his consent. Hence the saying in the ancient prayer, "Darkness, darkness; light, light; the seeking, the searching; in chaos, in chaos;" and this refrain signified the long striving for some way that human beings might increase and live, and the debate

whether the children of heaven and earth should slay or not slay their parents.

Separation at last being resolved on, Rongo-ma-tane, the god of the cultivated food of man, rose up to rend apart the heavens and the earth, but he could not rend them. Then came Tangaroe, the god of fishes and reptiles, and he struggled to rend them, but he could not. Then came Haumia-tikitiki, the god of the wild food of man, and he struggled also, but ineffectually. Tu-Matuenga, the father of human beings, also failed. Then, last of all, slowly uprose in his strength and majesty, Tane-Mahuta, god of forests, birds, and insects, and he struggled with his parents, and strove to rend them apart with his giant hands; now he paused, and then, with his head planted on the earth, he rested his feet on his father, the skies, and strained his mighty back with a gigantic and stubborn effort. Then, then indeed, though slowly, Rangi and Papa were torn apart, and cried and shrieked, "Wherefore slay you thus your parents? Why commit so dreadful a crime as this, and rend us apart." But Tane-Mahuta | cared not, and slowly, far beneath him, he crushed down the earth; and far, far above him, with outstretched hands, he thrust back the skies.

No sooner had the light been poured on the earth than a multitude of human beings were discovered, the children of Rangi and Papa, who had concealed themselves with their bodies.

But all was not yet peace and light, for it had entered into the mind of the fierce Tawhiri-ma-tia, the father of the winds and storms, to wage war with his brothers, who had rent apart their common parents, and he followed his father to the aërial realms, and hid in the sheltered hollows of the clouds; and he sent forth his children, the winds, to all corners of the world, and with them whirlwinds, and hurricanes, and cloud, and thunder. Then he swept down on the forests of his brother TaneMahuta, and tore and ravaged them, and reduced them to desolation. Next he bore down swooping on the seas, and drove before him Tangaroe, his wife, and his two children, Ikatere, the father of fish, and Tuite-weihweni, the father of reptiles. When Tangaroe fled, Ikatere and Tuite-weihweni disputed. The one said, "Let us fly inland;" the other, "Let us fly to sea. No one would obey any orders in their terror, so the-god-offishes party took to the sea, and the reptile

party to land. The fishes warned the reptiles that when caught they would be cooked, and their scales singed off with wisps of dry fern; and the reptiles warned the fish that if caught in the sea they would be used as relish for the landsmen's basket of cooked vegetables; but the fish fled to the sea nevertheless, and the reptiles to the forests and the scrubs.

Tangaroe, enraged at the desertion of his children, has ever since made war on his brother Tane and his forests. Tane supplies the children of his brother with canoes, spears, wooden fish-hooks, nets woven from fibrous plants, to destroy the children of Tangaroe; while Tangaroe, with equal alacrity, overwhelms canoes by his surges, and swallows up land, trees, and houses.

Tawhiri-ma-tia then wished to attack his other brothers, the gods of cultivated and wild food; but Papa, to save these, caught them up, and hid them so that the angry god sought for them in vain. Having thus vanquished all his other brothers, the god rushed on Tu-Matuenga, but he could not prevail for a moment. He stood unshaken and erect on the bosom of mother earth, till the god of storms grew tranquil, and his passion began to assuage.

Then Tu-Matuenga, the fierce god, began to rage, and turned to punish his brothers, who had left him to contend alone with the raging Tawhiri-ma-tia. He would first revenge himself on Tane-Mahuta, so he began by twisting leaves of the whanake tree into nooses, and hung them in the forest so that the children of Tane fled before him wherever he came. He then cut leaves from the flax-plant and made nets, with which he hauled ashore all the children of Tangaroe. He then sought for his brothers Rongo-ma-Tane and Haumia-tikitiki. He soon discovered each of their peculiar leaves, he then made a wooden hoe, plaited a basket, and dug up all the plants with edible roots, and threw them to wither in the sun. One brother alone, Tawhiri-ma-tia, he could not vanquish or destroy; so he was left an enemy to man to attack and devour him by storms and hurricanes.

The great fury of this god led to the submerging of a great part of mother earth, but from this time clear light came upon the earth, and all the beings who were hidden between Rangi and Papa multiplied upon the earth. The first children of Rangi and Papa were not