THE MAORI MESSENGER. Auckland, February 15, 1849.
UNKNOWN course of our efforts to instruct and to UNKNOWN we shall have many countries, many UNKNOWN and many places to speak about. It UNKNOWN to convey to you a just idea of •ies, or people, or places, without first vouring lo niiike vou acquainted with ,e e tion in the wor <1 of the countries of " ra we may speak, of the nations by wl.oin iahi
they are inhabited, .and of the remarkable towns, cities, rivers, mountains, buildings, and any other famous object they may possess. To do so, intelligibly, we must strive to give you a plain and general knowledge of geography. What is geography? you will, very naturally, inquire. To which we answer, —geography is an art, or science, by which wise and thoughtful men have been able to lay out the surface of the earth and the ocean in such a manner that each portion may be known to the inhabitants of different quarters; and that ships and sailors may be able to find their way, through long and dreary seas, from one end of the world to the other:—such, for example,—a 3 from lingland, which is at one end, to New Zealand, which is at the other. If you were children, and had to be taught from the very beginning of knowledge, geography would form one of the more advanced articles or subjects of information, such as your boys and girls will learn at the institutions which have been founded by the Queen's government with the express purpose of rendering your sons and daughters as well informed as the sons and daughters of the Englishmen who have conce to buy your lands, and to reside among you. Hut, you are not children ; and, although you are, necessarily, ignorant of the manners and habits of civilized life and of the many and difficult acquirements of people who have become wise and great, step by step, through a long course of years,—yet, you are by nature, and by the especial endowment of God, : an nculo, an intelligent, and a thoughtful people. You have niauy vices, and you have many virtue*. You are what the people of Europe, did they know you thoroughly, would call a race of intellectual savages. We, in common with your friend the Governor, and ninny others who look upon you with feelings of affection and ■ ".teoin —wo think you are gifted with such n.-tiiral powers of perception, that we aie most nhxioujs to elevate you from barbarism ; and to show to the world at large that the savages of New Zealand (ns Europeans are pleased to call you) nrej a race of intelligent, honourable, anil Jnblc-minded muii ; anil that Englishmen are far more anxious to reclaim you as brothers, than to oppose you as enemies. You "ill see how very difficult it is for men who, nlmost from infancy, have been learning on-? piece of knowledge after another, to impait to you the intelligence they have acquired with'so many years of labour and study. There is, we lear, much that we may write which you will, at first, find very difficult to understand. You must, howevrr, inquire of each oilier, and do your best to discover what wc mean, and, if you- fail in that, then go to your good friends tli2 missionaries, and ask them to explain the; meaning find the object of the papers which we shall, time after time, place before you. You will thus, by degrees, become more and more a educated, and as you do so, you will bo able to perceive that the whin; man will love and rospect you in proportion to the advances you make in that eivilizili>n in which he prides himself so much above you.
Enough. We said we would endeavour to iimtrurt you in geography. But, before doing so, it will be necessary lo acquaint you of the shape and size of the liirth which we and all mankind inhabit.
In the remote ages of antiquity, that is to say, many, many hundred years ago, the earth was supposed to be a flat, round, body, floating on tho waterperhaps you think so, at this moment. If you do, you are mistaken. You are, like people in former times, deceived by the eye. Men—thftt is, nien of thought—who reflected on the great distance that could he travelled, began to perceive tliatf the earth was shaped like nn orange or a ball, but rntliqr flatter ill the middle. You will say, I how can that be possible, when it is full of deep valleys and lofty mountains? We reply that those mountains and valleys are ol no more importance to its roundness, than are the iinevennesses on the skin of the orange to the rotundity of that fruit. You will ask, perhaps, how this rounclnrss of the earth has been ascertained 1 Wo will give you sjnie proofs of the accuracy of that knowledge. If, fur example, you are walking upon a largo
and open plain, and there should be a tall tree, or anypnrliculnrly high bhject at a great distance from you," you will pee the top of that object long before yon I'ah discover tlio foot ofit. Or, if you are upon the sea in a canoo, you will see the highest sails in a ship, but not the ship herself, which is climbing the Tound of the watery world, showing her lv>»'y larger and laiger the nearer bliu come.; to your canoc. T/ir.ten. Mark, how a gontleman .in>lnioteil his niece of the motion ol the woild liy an apple. - " •\ gentlrm.in not long since took up an j t ,-iple-to show, a niece, sixteen,, yearj of age, who*'hail*'studied geography several years, something'about the shape and motion of the earth. She looked at him a few minutes, and •jaid -withmnch eatnestness; "'Why, nnclc;you " don't mean (hat the earth- really turns round, : do youl". .lie replied, " But did you not learn that several years ago 1 ?" " Yes, sir," she replied, " I learned it, but I never kneto it before." Now, it is obvious that this young lady bad beeji labouring several years on the subject of geography, and groping in almost total darkness, because some kind friend did not show her at the outset, by some familiar illustration, that the earlh really turned round.
The earth, at one time, was supposed to be a fixed body : but a great man, called Coper- • : .oh, determined that it was in constant mowhirling from West to East. _ By this .unit it is, tliat day and night, winter and .summer, succeed 0110 another- Some of the wise men of old times imagined the world to In; shaped like a drum; but otheri, as knowledge becamo more general and perfect, discovered it to lie formed like a globe or an orange, as wo have already explained.
The reasons given for the belief that the world is round, aro these. All the appearances of the heavens, at sea and on shore, are the same as they would be if the earth were a globe or a ball. Many sailors, Capt. Cook, amongst others, have sailed quite round th.it globe, going, as if in a straight line, to the south and west till they came to the seas not far from New Zealand, and returning north and west to England, from whence they set nut, making a complete circle of the world, or thus O—the exact shape, which any of you who have been at 'sea will know the ocean presents from the deck of the ship in which you may 'lave sailed.
All these, arc facts which the wise men of Ivngland, France, Germany, and other nations of liulope have provqd. They have, also, been able to discover the size of the earth. It is twenty five thousand miles round about, and it is inhabited by an infinite number of people, both white and black, such as far surpass your powers of calculation. We fear that, simple ns we have endeavoured to render our explanations, they will be rather difficult for you to understand. If, however, we were to attempt nothing', you would still be left in ignoranco and in error.
Bear this in miutl that the sea 9 ■which seem to surround lile earth are but n portion of it They are but lakes of a larger kind, than Roto Run and others known to yourselves in your own country. Those sens only fill Jarger holes, and are seemingly larger than the dry fends in which they are placed. There are thousands of interesting matters connected with the earth, of which even welleducated English people know nothing. To talk of tliem therefore to you were folly; but, as it is necessary before attempting to give you an idea of geography, to make you acquainted ■with the shape and size of the world of which you form n part,—we have endeavoured to supply that information in the simplest shape. In our next, we shall proceed with our first lesson in geography.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MMTKM18490215.2.4
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 4, 15 February 1849, Page 1
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,508THE MAORI MESSENGER. Auckland, February 15, 1849. Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 4, 15 February 1849, Page 1
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Tūnga manatārua: Kua pau te manatārua (i Aotearoa). Ka pā ko ētahi atu tikanga.
Te whakamahi anō: E whakaae ana Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa The National Library of New Zealand he mauri tō ēnei momo taonga, he wairua ora tōna e honoa ai te taonga kikokiko ki te iwi nāna taua taonga i tārei i te tuatahi. He kaipupuri noa mātou i ēnei taonga, ā, ko te inoia kia tika tō pupuri me tō kawe i te taonga nei, kia hāngai katoa hoki tō whakamahinga anō i ngā matū o roto ki ngā mātāpono e kīa nei Principles for the Care and Preservation of Māori Materials – Te Mauri o te Mātauranga : Purihia, Tiakina! (i whakahoutia i te tau 2018) – e wātea mai ana i te pae tukutuku o Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand.
Out of copyright (New Zealand). Other considerations apply.
The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa acknowledges that taonga (treasures) such as this have mauri, a living spirit, that connects a physical object to the kinship group involved in its creation. As kaipupuri (holders) of this taonga, we ask that you treat it with respect and ensure that any reuse of the material is in line with the Library’s Principles for the Care and Preservation of Māori Materials – Te Mauri o te Mātauranga: Purihia, Tiakina! (revised 2018) – available on the National Library of New Zealand’s website.