THE NATIVE GATHERING AT CAMBRIDGE.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1349, 22 February 1881, Page 2

THE NATIVE GATHERING AT CAMBRIDGE.

'» Our Cambridge correspondent; -writes : The student of natural history and character would meat with a rich ••tore for research just now in Cambridge. Maoridom flouriihesin all its glory. I hare just been witness to one phase of its proceedings, it was the arrival of a contingent fresh, from their native wilds. The uproar and hubbub created was nther bewildering. They were greeted in the first instance by their country-men, who turned out en nurne, with a kind of surging howl similar to that set up by the Newhaven fish wife on the return of a herring fleet after a successful but perilous cruise. That over, a rubbing of noses took platie, conducted with an energy which must have ruffled the surface of any substance short of the properties of well-tanned Lather. Then followed a general corrobery or yabbor, duriug which the men atruok attitudes and the women cut antics no professional showman or mountebank could possibly have surpassed. It was the comic and serio - comic produced in their highest stages of development. Next ensued the inevitable adjournment to the public* house bar. The latter movement was the only evidence of European custom or civilization afforded by the whole proceeding 1 , and I think you will agree with me it was not by any means hopeful evidence of the humanising influence wa have succeeded in producing onfchenativa mnul. A tangi was held the end of last week, in commemoration of the Maori recently murdered at T-< Aroha. Th 9 performance was a singular one. Some hundred", men, women, and children, cr6uchcd down on tho grass and Howled piteously for the best pa>t of an hour. In their mid^t, the patriots of the rnbe stood up in a po-ture of supplication,app<irently invoking unseen venganee on the perpetrator of "the foul deed. A s >eoies Hf war d nice was indulged in, after whi.ih the ass -mbl ige wa3 harangued by one of the chief's, his addieas beini^, of course, delivered in the uitive tonguo. Up to the present the conduct of the n itives has been every thing thut could be expected. Ac^e-sions are being made to the number daily, and at present there c mnot be le-"* tlian a thousand in the place As one b itch after another comes in » demonstration t«ke3 piaco, the meetm it, as a rule, beinj> followed by an adjournment to some one of the hotel bars. However, tho conviviality i« not carried to any great sucoes-t. Ou Saturday night rhe town was perfectly orderly. During the early p-trt of the evening the main. thoroughfares were thr -ngr'd, but the ousine-s done *t the various hotels was not in any way excessive. In the general trade oF tho towu th-* Muiris seem to do a very fair share ; the stores and drapery establishments at one period of the evening beinar bn^k. By 1 > o'clock the throng had greatly slackened, and before midnight the streets were as quiet as they could have hseu under any circumstances. On Sunday the town was perfectly orderly, only the faweit number of its U.iori visitors being seen about the streets at all.