Literary Extracts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 21, 14 September 1848, Page 4

Literary Extracts.

The congregation (in the Lutheran Chapel of Langen. Schwalbach) were chanting a psalm to very much the same sort of drawling tune which one hears in England; yet the difference in this performance of it was very ten arkable. As all were sinking »baut ai loud ai they could, the chorus was certainly too much for the church ; indeed, the sound had not only filled lis walls, but, streaming out ot the doors and every aperture, it had rolled down the main street, where I had met it long before I reached the chuicb. Yet, though it was certainly administered ia too strong a dose, it was impossible to help acknowledging that it proceeded from a peasantry who had a gift or natural notion of music, quite superior to anything one meets with in an English village, or even in a Loudon churGb. The song was simple, and the lungs from which it proceeded were too stout i in short, there were no bad faults to eradicate—no nasal whine—no vulgar tremulous mixture of two notes—no awkward attempts at musical finery—but in every bar there was tune and melody, and, with apparently no one to guide them, these native musiciaus proceeded with their psalm in perfect harmony and concert.— Bubblet from H« Bnmnen.

Anions; the many points of resemblance which may be traced between Maori and Asiatic customs, is one suggested by an expression in the twentieth chapter of Proverbs, " Be not among wine b bbers ; among riotous eaters of thefesh .-" and by the subjoined note in explanation of it. It will be remembered that the Natives use animal food but rarely, excepting at tbe "reat feasts, where the consumption is carried to excess. "To us this seems a singular expression. But it will be recollected that flesh isnot AairluatVt/eatenliutbe East, and there ate many who rarely indted taste it; but when they do get enough of it, they indulge in it most intemperately, and manifest a degree of hilarity very mnch like that which would attend the consumption of strong drink in our Northern chma'es. We have the Arabs more especially, but not exclustvely in vrew ; for tbe present expression has on several occasions been biought forcibly to our recollection on witnessing the strong and irrepressible satisfaction with which these people would receive the present of a live sheep, the haste with which it was slaughtered and dressed, the voracity with which it was devoured, and the high glee, not unattended with the dance and aong, which crowned the feast."