SOME ANECDOTES OF THE MAORIS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1216, 12 August 1884, Page 1

SOME ANECDOTES OF THE MAORIS.

In the early days the Maoris had an unbounded admiration for the p»keha ladies' white skins, and one told me she could not imagine what it was touching her bared shoulders with his dusky finger, ami he explained gravely that he wanted to see if her fair skin, so like snow, melted at the' touch. The taste for human flesh in the Maoris was satisfied in the early days of the colony. Tn the wars with the British the owners of the dark impregnable forests of New Zealand were not tronb’ed',- as were our troops, as to how to live in the ravelled impenetrable animat-less bush of these islands. The natives, whenever they killed a straggling iredcoat, naively said the English Government were kind, for it supplied them with- clothes, arras, ammunition and fresh tueat. Cricket they like too, but the gay croquet-balls infatuated them. A friend told me that one day she was present at a cricket match near an Out-of-the-way northern river in New Zealand. There were very few pakehasin the district, and they played against the Maoris. The ground was the only level piece at hand, and was guarded by,cutting grass culled t.ois-tois, Only one of the Maoris had boots, and he preferred to play bare-footed. Whenever , the ball landed in these Itnife-like blades of grass, a cry arose f< tr “the man with the boots,” and whd » he d-© * them on the -pakehas * scored, .and the M-oris near y wept with excite, ment. —Cassells Saturday Journal..