REVIEW.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1648, 2 June 1879, Page 3

REVIEW.

* FORTY YEARS IN NEW ZEALAND.

The book in which the Rev. James Buller has recorded his forty years’ experiences in New Zealand is one which will prove of profound interest to the early colonists who remain with us, as recalling events in which many of them bore a part, but of which no history has yet been published, although scattered fractions of history are to be found in innumerable pamphlets and reports. To new-comers too, anxious to obtain a knowledge of the early events of New Zealand’s settlement the book will be exceedingly useful, as nowhere else will they find that knowledge in the same succinct form. It is true that the historical portion of the work is of an exceedingly sketchy character, and does not supply all or nearly all the details of the severe trials through which the colony passed in its early years, nor does it convey, except in a few cases, any distinct idea of the men who directed its affairs. The discussion of politics and politicians was not the object at which Mr Buller aimed, and they who wish to be thoroughly acquainted with these, as they have been found in New Zealand, will still have to dig laboriously amongst ponderous blue books. The present volume is, as its title denotes, a narrative of personal experiences, and personal observations with especial reference to early missionary effort. It is consequently to a very large extent autobiographical, and will on that account perhaps be all the more valued by the large circle of warm friends in the colony. The story of an observant man, who has spent his life in assisting to raise a savage and frequently cannibal race from their degraded state into one of civilisation, is one which no man can treat lightly, and however much the reader may occasionally differ with conclusions drawn, or whatever he may find to object to, we defy him to rise from a perusal of this book with its picture of long self-devotion, modestly shadowed out as it is, without feeling surprise at how small a value, compared with their deserts, the colonials of today rate those who bore the dangers and toils ef the early settlement and missionary efforts in New Zealand, Surely if any", men deserve a public recognition from that young nation over whoso infancy they have watched, and for which they may be said to have lived, it is such men as these. And yet how few comparatively of those who reap the benefit of their labors in this new settled country, which through them became a land of plenty and peace, know anything at all about them and their arduous work ! It is not for the credit of the colony that it allows the memory of these men to grow dim while ample facilities exist for the compilation of an exhaustive history of their lives and struggles. They have indeed deserved better at our hands, and a generation hence when personal narratives, such as those which Mr Buller has given to the world, are no longer to be had, people will wonder at the indolence, not to say ingratitude of their fathers, and then it will bo that the full value of such a book as that under notice will bo appreciated. It is to be hoped, however, that the readers of that day will be provided with an edition in which the many very obvious errors and misprints of the present edition are corrected. To show that this is not an uncalled-for remark the following instances may be cited: —On page 4 White Island is described as on the south-east coast; on page 39 “ Atna” appears for “ Atua ”; on page 46 and in a number of other cases “ Tomati” for “ Tamati”; on page 10 “ cowering peaks)” are spoken of; elsewhere we have “ Orna” for “ Orua,” “ Henri ” for “Hemi,”“ Waran,” “ Wairau,” and a large nnmberof similar] mistakes which to New Zealand readers will certainly appear a considerable disfigurement to the book. The following sentence in page 442 is one which will afford very great amusement, particularly to the settlers at Eatikati and the Thames: — “ Special settlements continue to be formed—such as Mr Vasey (sic) Stewart’s and Mr Broomhall’s in the North.” Mr Buller divides his experiences into four parts, which he entitles respectively, “Personal Narrative,” “Maoridom,” Christianization,” and “Colonization.” A preliminary chapter is devoted to descriptive and introductory matter, and from the style of this it may be inferred that the book is addressed to English rather than Colonial readers. There appears to be an inclination to overpaint, somewhat, the beauties and blessings of New Zealand. Thus, if Mr Buller thought that bis principal readers would be in the colony he would certainly have modified this sentence “ Droughts are unknown, and floods are rare and local.” And surely he must have been poking fun at the present condition of the metropolitan city when he wrote :—“ No one can speak of the healthiness of New Zealand till ho has been ventilated by the southern breezes of Port Nicholson, where malaria is no more to be found than on the top of Chimborazo.” This must have been written some years ago, before the battle of the drainage engineers had commenced. In October, 1835, Mr Buller left England for New Zealand, and after staying some weeks in Sydney, then only a small place, arrived off Hokianga in the brig Patriot on April 21st, 1836. The description of their entry into the river, after some days’ waiting, is excellent. Of the kind of European inhabitants to be found there at that date, he says : —“ At nearly every bend a rude and lonely hut was standing. This was made of slabs, and thatched with grass. A boat or a canoe floated in front of it, or was lying on the beach. It was the home of some white man living in semi-barbarous style, with a Maori woman, and surrounded by their halfcaste progeny. He was perhaps an escaped convict, or a runaway sailor. About two hundred of those classes were living on the shores of the river. They worked as axemen, sawyers, &c., for the few traders who were located on their respective establishments,” He adds that they were too frequently the slaves of drunkenness. “ Happily for the Maoris,” says the author, “they had not yet acquired a taste for ardent spirits. There were from three to four thousand of them scattered over the hills end dales in this district. Among them were many chiefs of great fame. Inter-communication was confined to boat or canoe—there were no roads.” At Mangungu the author found the mission station which had been established by the

* Forty Years in New Zealand, by the Eev. James Bailor. Hoddor and Stroughton, London J, T, M, Smith, Christchurch.

Messrs Hobbs and Slack in 1827. Here for three years Mr Buller remained, devoting himself during the first part to the study of the language. At the end of a year he made hi* first attempt to preach in Maori. His congregation politely told him that he had succeeded well, but he afterwards found that ho had made many ludicrous mistakes. The picture of Native life, of their anxiety to be instructed, and of the difficulties encounf e . 1 in adapting their customs to civilised nations is very interesting. The following is a kind of case with which every missionary was called upon to deal, and which must have often caused them very great embarrassment in advising their converts : “ Mohi Tawhai, a very influential chief of Waimea, had many wives. Ho was now greatly perplexed in making his choice of ‘ one wife.’ His difficulty was in deciding which of two should be his spouse. To one ho was very strongly attached, but the other was mother of most of his children. After a long struggle with himself, he elected the latter.” Of the excitements with which missionary life was varied, some idea may be gained from the chapter descriptive of tho murder of two Christian teachers, Matiu and Rihimona, by Eaitoke, the worm-eater, in 1837, and the difficulty which tho missionaries had in averting a general war amongst the Natives to avenge the death of the two men. As it was, a battle actually occurred, in which ten men were killed. Anecdotes almost without end, illustrating tho different phases of missionary life, might be gathered from this part of Mr Bailor's book, but our space is necessarily limited, and for the same reason it is impossible to trace in detail Mr Buller’s various journeys and removals, tho object of our notice being not to purloin his book and reproduce it in miniature, but to give the public an idea of the kind of information which they may find therein. It will then be a great mistake for any one to assume, on account of Mr Buller’s profession, that everything is discussed from a serious point of view. The missionary had undoubtedly a keen sense of humour, which was often tickled in his dealings with his savage friends, and he tells some capital stories. As a sample, the sad distress and happy delivery of the young man who swallowed the sacred potato may be mentioned. The youth was brought to Mr Buller in a state of abject terror. The family believed that for his act of sacrilege the offended God had entered his stomach in the form of a lizard, and was consuming his vitals. Mr Buller gave him aperient pills. This medicine, however, was not effectual, and the Natives resolved that the young man would die. And so he certainly would, of superstitious terror, had not his doctor changed the treatment. “ I sent him,” says Mr Buller, “ a blistering plaster, with directions to apply it to his chest. In less than an hour the young man cried out, ‘ It bites! It bites!’ And all said, ‘Now he will recover.’ And so he did.” There is a good deal that is sorrowful, if something ironical, in the following remarks : —“ Money was seldom seen, and was of little use. They could neither eat it, nor wear it, they said. They know its value now as well as you or I do, gentle reader. But I am writing of days that are past.” Of the sort of heme which [a missionary might in those days create for himself, and the comforts which he might obtain, a pretty description will be found on page 57. In 1838 Mr Buller moved from Hokianga to Tangiteroria, on the Wairoa, one of the feeders of the Kaipara. The following extract we need hardly apologise for printing, and when it is considered that with the alteration of names, &0., it is almost verbally applicable not only to one but to numbers of those devoted pioneers of our race in New Zealand, the missionaries, it will.be seen upon what strong grounds that claim to affectionate remembrance which is above advanced rests :—“ For more than fifteen years this solitude was my home. During that time many changes took place. There nine of my children were born and two of them were buried. We were far away from any other missionary, and seldom saw the face of a Christian friend. With two exceptions my children were baptised by their own father. When death came it was his mournful office to read the solemn funeral service by the grave side. It was at such times—times of sickness, of sorrow, of separation—that we most felt how precious would be the voice, the sympathy, tho presence of a friend! I was once laid aside by acute inflammation, caused by an unavoidable chill on one of my journeys. It seemed likely to end in death; certainly I thought so. We had no doctor; but what was worse, there was no one out of my own family to lament by my bedside, and offer words of prayer, but a pious Native teacher; it was, perhaps, in answer to his fervent petition that I was raised up again. At another time three of my children were down together with typhus fever. No medical adviser was at hand, nor any kind counsellor. With trembling hands we used remedies that we knew of, and it pleased God in his great mercy to give them the desired effect. More than once my wife seemed to be at death’s door. One of my little ones by a fall had a fractured arm; more by accident than by skill, I set it right, and it became whole.” For the remaining incidents of Mr Buller’s autobiography, his journey overland to Port Nicholson, the fate of the Sophia Pate, the wreck of the Alcemene, his unpleasant intimacy with the custom of “ muru,” and his labors in Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury we must refer readers to the book itself. In 1866 Mr Buller revisited the mission station of Hokianga, and this is how he describes it:—“ Returning from Mangamuka, we landed at Mangungu. This station was abandoned during Hoke's war. How affecting were tho reminiscences which the sight of the old place called up. It was the first spot on which my feet trod in New Zealand. I knew it in its halcyon days, and what did I now see? ‘The glory was departed.’ Near the site of the old mission-house there were trees of luxuriant growth—pears, apples, peaches—which Mr Hobbs had planted, and pines and oaks and acacias; but these were but silent witnesses of things that had been. The old church was standing, bu forsaken and empty. I looked within —it was traced with cobwebs. * * * My fancy would re-people tho silent station with its crowds of Natives; but all was changed. I left the place with a sigh as I thought of days that could never be reckoned.” Of the state of the Natives in this district at that date, he says that their heartless indifference was very discouraging, and he was very sorry to hear of the alarming prevalence of intemperance amongst them. “ As much as £I2OO was annually paid by the Government to Native assessors, few of whom were of any service. It was one of the phases of the ‘ flour and sugar policy ’ —as bad in policy as it was wrong in principle.” That which was Mr Buller’s experience on his return to Hokianga, was the experience of many others in Taranaki, on the East Coast, and in Wellington. The troubles of the wars, the time of Hauhauism, the Ring movement, tho land league, all did much to wipe out the influence and teaching of the early missionaries, and it is unmistakable, though often denied, that the whole of these troubles, the whole of this retrogression, were due primarily to injudicious or unauthorised deafings with the Natives for their land. Then, as now, the land was the Native difficulty. Mr Buller concludes his personal history with a brief reference to the rise of the Thames goldfield, and to the initiation by himself of the first New Zealand Conference, held in Christchurch in 1874. In 1876 he embarked for England, having within a few weeks completed his forty years in New Zealand. The second part of the volume under notice is devoted especially to tho Maoris, and their prospects, Mr Buller does not agree with Dr, Oolenso that “ it would have been far better for the New Zealanders as a people if they had never seen a European.” He believes it is not too much to hope that they may yet increase and multiply. “ And may it not be,” he asks, “ that at a future day families of distinction with all the pride of princely pedigree, will trace up their descent to some famed old Maori chief, whose name is linked with savage customs, bloody wars, and cannibal feasts ?” Such things no doubt may be, but such pride will not be of a particularly noble character, and tho advantage is not apparent. As to the origin of the Maoris the author adopts the well-known Hawaiki legend, but thinks there is reason to conclude that the immigrants found a people already living in New Zealand, whom they easily subdued. As to tho views of those who would assign a more remote date for the appearance ef the Maori in New Zealand, Mr. Buller says“ Data for an ancient pedigree are adduced in the persons of the old moahunters, tho discovery of supposed rock paintings, etc., but none of the speculations I have mot with give firm footing for my belief. I prefer the|guidance[of their own traditions.” Chapters are devoted to Maori language, poetry, and legends of which several samples are given. Their mythology, religion, morality, habits, and government f *e discussed at con-

siderable length, and much valuable information conveyed; although, perhaps, colonists who have taken an interest in the Natives will find little that is new. Tho following expression of an ancient Native lady’s love for her slave, whose emancipation Mr Warren, the missionary, had endeavored to obtain, is characteristic: —“ So you want me to sell him ! Is that your gospel ? Who ever heard of an English lady selling the man that she loved ? Have I not loved him dearly P Did I not run after him and catch him when he was no longer than my arm-—when we killed and ate bis father and his mother in the Waikato ? Did I not bring him part of the way home on my own back ? and ever since, whenever I fed my pig, did I not always throw him a potato at the some time ? And now lam asked to sell him ! No; never! never! I’ll die first.” On the subject of courtship, Mr Buller says :—“Contrary to our customs, courtship often began with the young woman, Ropa, or squeezing the hand, was the token.” Some exception may, perhaps, be taken as to the author’s generalisation respecting “our customs,” but the kopa certainly affords a singular example of coincidence in customs between distinct races. In mentioning Native amusements, Mr Buller refers to drafts as a game at which they were all experts. This clearly refers to a time subsequent to tho advent of Europeans. The following is more likely to have been an aboriginal acquirement, and indeed is probably common to the whole human race. Referring to tho women’s amusements the author says : —“All were adopts in maminga, or poking fun, from the merest joke up to the most complete simulation.” Of the capacity of the Natives for learning Mr Buller entertains a very high opinion. And indeed the opinion of almost all who have been intimately connected with them is unanimous on this point. This, however, must be taken as referring rather to intellectual than moral capacity. As to the latter aspect of their character, we shall find many who hold that it will only be by very slow degrees that any high excellence will be attained, and it would certainly be a surprise were it otherwise. Our author says “ they were naturally vindictive, cruel, and deceptive. . . . They had no word in their language to express their gratitude. They were not incapable of this, but it was a rare virtue.” On the whole, considering the state that the Maoris were in half a century ago, and the kind of education they have since been subjected to in many parts, the surprise is not that they have advanced so little, but that they have attained to so much. It must, however, always be borne in mind in discussing such points that it is manifestly unfair to generalise about the whole race, as though the conditions under which the Natives have been brought into contact with civilisation were the same throughout New Zealand. The variations in the circumstances have been as wide almost as was possible, and the consequence is that very different results have been attained. It is as easy to produce highly favorable as highly unfavorable examples of the effects of European intercourse upon the Natives : and the Natives, if they cared about it, would have just cause of complaint that those who undertake to describe them are too apt to adopt an extreme view, one way or the other, and apply it to the whole race. From this fault Mr Buller’s book is generally free, and the|conclusions fairly supported by argument and example. Such bias as there is, is naturally in favor of the Maoris, and in tho direction of anticipating for them a future more favorable, we fear, than is likely to be realised as events develop themselves.

The third portion of the book contains a notice of some of those who took a leading part in the efforts to Christianise the Maoris, and the names are all those of men who ought to occupy prominent positions in the history of New Zealand, whenever the compilation of such a work is undertaken by competent hands. The temptation to quote freely from this part of the work is great, but space forbids. The following citation from an address by Bishop Selwyn may, however, be properly requoted, as illustrating one influence which has been highly adverse to the success of missionary effort in New Zealand : —“ When I asked a New Zealand chief why he refused to become a Christian, he stretched out three fingers and said, ‘ I have come to the cross road, and I see three ways—the English, the Wesleyan, and the Roman. Each teacher says his own way is the best. lam sitting down and doubting which guide I shall follow.’ ” Under tho head of apostacy an account is given of the Pai Marire and Hauhau fanaticism. As to the present condition and future prospect of Christianity amongst the Maoris, Mr Buller refuses to despond. “ There is enough,” he says, “to try the faith and patience of the zealous missionary, but there is hope for the future.” Tho final chapters are devoted to a running narrative of the progress of colonisation in New Zealand from the year 1825 to tho present time. Mention is made of the specific work accomplished during the time of each of New Zealand’s several Governors. The account is, however, too brief to be of high value to New Zealanders, although it will be useful as a compendious history to English readers. So far as it goes this synopsis is reliable, although the opinions expressed as to the effect of certain lines of action are no doubt open to discussion by politicians of different views. It may be mentioned that Mr Buller bears an emphatic tribute to the beneficial effects of the public works and immigration policy. The last chapter on emigration we could wish had been omitted, not because it is untrue, but because it is so directly an advertisement of “ Wanted-emi-grants,” that it can almost be imagined that it was written by one of our own emigration agents at Home. Had Mr Buller been occupied in obtaining immigrants his remarks would have been highly appropriate, but in a work of such serious pretentions as that which he has given to tho world, and which is so full of merit in other respects, they are out of place, and tables of average wages are incongruous. We conclude our notice with the following citation on society in the|colony, which, it is to bo feared, will have to be excised from future editions of the work, unless they are published very quickly. Contrasting colonists with the dwellers in the old country, our author says : —“ There is less class distinction, which is one of the charms of colonial life to sensible people. They do not offer incense on the shrine of fashion, nor worship the goddess of conventionalism, as is the case in antiquated communities.”