JOURNEY

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume VI, Issue 22, 31 October 1859, Page 5

JOURNEY

TO HAURAKI, THAMES, TAURANGA, OPOTIKI, ROTORUA, MAUNGATAUTARI, WAIPA, AND WAIKATO. My Friends,—l have lately returned from a visit to the above named places which occupied me five months, and I now lay before you some of my thoughts respecting what L have heard and seen. My talk shall not be long, lest fatigue arise and you fail to attend. Listen, then. On the27«h April, 1859, I sailed to Coromandel, the place where gold has been found. I landed and visited Arakuri, a chief of Kapanga, who was verv kind to me and my companions, as he is \o all Europeans; his name is therefore held in great respect by us. He pressed me to stay at his house, which is a wooden one with two rooms. In the sleeping room I found a bed, table, chair, glass, candles, brush, comb, towel, soap, and everything necessary for comfort, like a house in the town. Let others follow this example and have good houses with chimneys to them, and separate apartments for the men and women. The want of chimneys is very injurious to the eyes, and sleeping altogether in one apartment is the cause of many evils which need noi be named. The other houses ore quite unfit to live in. I was not surprised to see

this, on finding that so much drunkenness prevails amongst the young men. Their one desire is for spirits, which they obtain from Auckland and Wailreke, as well as from soiiie ol the resident.Pakehas, and they care little lor good food, clothes, houses, or anything else. Hence their cultivations remain uii fenced, and are trampled underfoot by cattle. The only grow enough food for their own consumption, and therefore are very poor, the produce of their timber being also spent in drink. In consequence of all this they will soon disappear, and as there are but few children to take their -places the lands will be left without anyone to look after them. Is not this very sad / And yet they can only blame themselves; it is not the wish of the Europeans to have all the land, but to live and work together with the Maories. The natives have two good wooden chapels, but their ministers and teachers are grieved to see so few worshippers. Let the people of Waiau awake from their sleep and return again to the right way, and work the works of God. I found the people greatly in debt, and advised then) to get free as soon as possible, for debt is a very discouraging thing, and is always increasing. Some of their debts are 10 and 15 years old and ought to be cleared off at once. They can obtain money by working at limber for the saw mills, instead ol idling away their time at the Kamga-Maori. Let all the natives make haste and pay their debts, and never take credit again, lor Solomon says "The borrower is servant to the lender." Prov. 22,7. (To be continued.)