A.—No. 4.

REPORTS ON THE STATE OE THE NATIVES AT

18

From the best information I can obtain, this disease prevailed extensively during this period, but after the lapse of some years, died out. The prevailing surgical complaints appear to have been principally scrofulous tumours and abscesses, and carbuncle " tapu," " ahi koko," " papaka." After whaling had been carried on some years, influenza made its appearance in a much more aggravated form than had been previously experienced by the Natives, and proved fatal to very many. Afterwards, at a comparatively recent date (about 1850), measles became epidemic, and carried off great numbers of the aged and infirm, and young children. Since, annually, influenza prevails, but of late years has been much more mild in its form, and except to old people, comparatively harmless. On my appointment to the office of Native Medical Attendant, I found the Natives in a tolerably healthy state at Wairoa proper, the northern portion of the district, and at Mohaka. At Whakaki, on. the contrary, and inland Wairoa, 1 found occasionally low fever endemic, and a peculiar susceptibility to any (however slight) prevailing disease. In 1863 typhoid fever became epidemic at Wairoa (imported by some returned Natives from Ngapuhi) and rapidly extending to inland Vv Tairoa and Whakaki, decimated some hapus. (I at this time became acquainted with the Maori system of medicine, if it is a system, and can testify to the immense amount of injury thereby wrought.) It also extended to Nuhaka Mahia, and some cases occurred at Nukutaurua. Altogether I suppose that fully one hundred adults succumbed, principally old men and those suffering from chronic diseases as asthma, &c, scarcely any, if any, children. Very few deaths occurred at Wairoa proper and vicinity, the fever fortunately being very benign of its kind, rarely becoming typhus. Not a single case came under my notice at Mohaka; but at about the same time the waihakihaki (Native psora) began there and has since proved most unmanageable, being less contagious than the psoraiosis of the Union Hospitals at home, but more difficult of thorough eradication. Since 1863-4 up to present date, there has been a considerable change in the habits, and consequently in the diseases of the Natives, more especially in this vicinity, to the North, and at Mohaka. Pleurisy, pneumonia, affections of the bronchia^, influenza, and opthalmia being usually prevalent at certain seasons of the year, with diarrhosa, gastric derangements, &c, among the children now and then, but not so frequently as heretofore ; a serious case of abscess came under my notice, but there has been a great falling off of those untractable and almost hopeless cases formerljr frequent, of strongly developed scrofula? in which the lysuphatic glands of the neck and of the axilla) are alike diseased. I am of opinion, and the Natives coincide with me, that there has been a decided increase of the infant population in the above-mentioned places (excluding Whakaki) perhaps no more strongly marked than at Te Uhi and Ilatepe Wairoa, and Mohaka, in which places the children have decidedly increased in number, and look healthy and vigorous. I attribute this improvement in a great measure to the superior kind of food to which these Natives have been lately accustomed, and to the disuse (partially) of the " whare puni," formerly in my opinion a most fertile source of disease. At Whakaki, the Natives live squalidly on the borders of a large swamp, and have that sallow aspect which is sometimes noticeable in the inhabitants of some parts of the Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire fens. I have not found real intermittent fever among them, but as before mentioned one of a low continued kind easily removable by proper nutriment and change to a more salubrious situation. Within the last three years (during or shortly after the war) the venereal disease has again been imported, but owing to medical advantages which the Natives did not formerly possess, and to their increased knowledge of the power of European remedies, of which they avail themselves, its principally mischievous effects are obviated. During the last four months measles have again visited Wairoa and as a marked contrast to former times, but one Maori child fell a victim, although very many were affected. In conclusion, I might state that I consider the process of vaccination has been of inealulable advantage to the present generation of Maori children. lam not prepared to state that it is prophylactic, or affords any protection against disease, other than the varilous, but it certainly seems greatly to improve Native children of scrofulous parents, and appears to impart a vigour and stimulus to the constitution which it did not naturally possess. I have, &c, Matthew Scott, Captain Deighton, R.M., Clyde. Native Medical Officer.

No. 11. W HASGAJfUI. Exteact from the Report of D. S. Dueie, Esq., Resident Magistrate, Whanganui. Tkete state of feeling towards the Europeans generally may be characterized as friendly, although a feeling of jealousy on the score of race sometimes shows itself, which feeling quickly finds vent when first exhibited by the Europeans. In general the Natives and Europeans here having no grounds of quarrel are mutually well disposed to one another. As to their physical and moral condition I must report unfavorably. The present race are decidedly inferior to their forefathers, the cause of which can be traced to the partial adoption of European clothing, food, &c, and to the lazy habits the young men are apt to fall into from the want of employment, and to their too easily obtaining the means of subsistence through the large sums of money received by the sale and leasing of their lands and other sources, and by their still partially clinging to their old habits and customs, and by the unsettling of their minds through political excitement. Morally speaking the Natives have much retrograded. There not being that rigid observance of the duties inculcated by a sound religious teaching, as instanced in the want of a strict observance of the Sabbath as was formerly the case, and a partial relapse into heathenism, as to be seen by their again recurring to the custom of tabooing, and by their

D. S. Durie, Esq.