From Capetown to New Zealand.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 128, 26 March 1901, Page 3

From Capetown to New Zealand.

- ■— By C. A. Wxlsok. {Continued.) I The "exhibition buildings .and grounds in,Melbourne are a source of pleasure to some, and the visitor who climbs to the dome is rewarded by a splendid and extensive view of the city. Very fine public gardens abound, and there is not the slightest trouble in passing the time pleasantly, the only drawback is that the necessary is often lacking in quantity. I had a passing glance through the vast museum and art gallery, but one soon wearies of this as an amusement. To go through a museum with any profit requires a good deal of time and care, besides some knowledge of the specimens exhibited. Quite a museum apart is the Anthropological room, devoted largely to specimens of native Australian manufacture. This room interested me greatly in several ways. '1 he first was because I had always hoard that the aborigines of Australia were exceedingly low down on the human scale. I therefore expected little art or even resource in the making of thei l ' weapons, dress and fishing implements. Judge of my surprise to find them on a par in j -every way with our mneh-vannte ■ ! Maoris. Their bows and arrow ■canoes, boomerangs and spears wer fashioned with great care and tb tips were, in numbers of case.-, formed from the roughly smelled iron, probably surface outcrops o; ore. The Maoris may have had an iron age, but I have not beard of it, and in any case greenstone was ! too beautiful, durable, and easily obtainable to warrant a change. The Australian specimens of canoes were very fine, and their fishing lines and nets, made from the fibre of the naid jo plant, (the seeds of j which also supply them with meal for their bread) were equal to anything we can buy. Some mantles male of dressed skins were covered with tbe feathers of variously*htied cockatoos and paroquets held on by a few drops of blood, the result being an exceedingly artistic and useful garment. In the making of their axes and chisels, the handies were put on very ingenious!}", fhe ■ flint, after being chipped to the required shape was tied into the. cloto end of a stick. An incision was made in a tree at the proper s -ason. and the exudation of gum allowed to flow over tbe split par -. Tins became gradually solid, and held the head immovably. 1 hose naiives have their own religious beliefs and tbe root of them, as of almost all religions, is fear—fear of the unknown. This being so, they seek in their way (as we do in ours) to propitate the being time had evolved into possessing supernatural powers and their many devices to atiaia this end caused them to carve numerous and divergent chains. Some of these are of wood and are a yard long, but they take all shapes, sizes and materials. lam touching as briefly as possible on these subjects, as I do not wish to bore readers who do not take so much interest in these subjects, but I would like it puiced on record that the Australian aboriginal, so far from being a useiess animal man, is a man of great patience and ingenuity, and in regard to manufacture of his required tools and ornaments, not one whit behind oar own aboriginal race. There is one very interesting point also in common with the natives of Australia and the earlier race of Yew Zealand natives. They have almost identical rock writings with those of the Moriores, the race anterior to the .Maoris. These writings are usually found on limestone cave walls, and are red and black, the dye being obtained by burning a certain earth to form red ochre and then mixing this with the fat of animals or birds. Many of these writings may be seen at T)nnt 'ooii, and they are in a good’state of preservation, notwithstanding the fact that they mast be nearly four hundred years ol I, for of them the Maoris have no legend and no knowledge. The hierogbyphics of Egypt and Babylon have been read, and it is to be hoped that those of New Zealand will receive more Attention from scientists and become intelligible. Before closing this subject I would like to mention that I saw clearly one considerable source of revenue to explorers. There were a number of cabinets containing various stone implements, most of them having recorded the place of discovery and the discoverer, and I noticed that a few palaeolithic, or weapons of the very early stone age, and consequently little more than roughly broken flint, bad been given by Sir H. M. Stanley and other eminent explorers, while numbers of neolithic or newer and more finished stone implements had been purchased from the same sources. Evidently the possession of scientific knowledge sufficient to discover these-articles had been a profitable thing for the discoverers—aa it should be.

{To be continued,)