ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1921, Page 3

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

AN INTERESTING BOOK. A copy is to hand from, the publishers (the Brett Printing and. Publisliing Company), of Major Cruise’s narrative of the visit which he paid to New Zealand bn board H.M.S. Dromedary in the year 1821. It i<s appropriately entitled “One HuncTFed- Years Ago,” and gives a pjain, unvarnished description of life in the northern parts of New Zealand in those far-away days. The Alaori of 1821 was a savage and a cannibal, and some of the incidents related by Major Cruise are as revolting as they are striking. The writer gives a first-hand account of the massacre of the cfew of the Boyd in Whangaroa harbor and the burning of the vessel. Incidentally he paints some vivid pictures of life in the northern harbors, and refers to the noble work of Samuel Marsden and the early missionaries, who bothered not about roads in those days, but took to Alaori canoes and braved the open sea in order to reach the southern natives and give them the “glad tidings.”

No library dealing with the life and history of New Zealand is complete without a copy of “One Hundred Years Ago,’’/'and the Brett Publisliing Co.'are to be commended, for reprinting such a valuable contribution to the history of ‘the early life of the Dominion.