the white men; have been latterly as anxious
to cherish and protect their infant girls as
they were formerly cruelly bent on destroying
them. Therefore, if one sin has been, to a
certain degree, encouraged, a much greater
one has been annihilated. Infanticide, the
former curse of this country, and the cause of
its scanty population, a crime every way calculated
to make men bloody-minded and ferocious,
and to stifle every benevolent and tender
feeling, has totally disappeared wherever
an intercourse has taken place between the
the natives and the crews of European vessels.
The New Zealand method of “ courtship
and matrimony” is a most extraordinary one;
so much so, that an observer could never
imagine any affection existed between the
parties. A man sees a woman whom he
fancies he should like for a wife : he asks the
consent of her father, or, if an orphan, of her
nearest relation ; which if he obtains, he carries
his “ intended” off' by force, she resisting
with all her strength; and, as the New Zealand
girls are generally pretty robust, sometimes
a dreadful struggle takes place : both
are soon stripped to the skin ; and it is sometimes
the work of hours to remove the fair
prize a hundred yards. I f she breaks away,
she instantly flies from her antagonist, and he
has his labour to commence again. We may
suppose that if the lady feels any wish to be
united to her would-be spouse, she will not
make too violent an opposition : but it sometimes
happens that she secures her retreat
into her father’s house, and the lover loses all
Chance of ever obtaining her; whereas, if he
can manage to carry her in triumph into his
own, she immediately becomes his wife. The
women have a decided aversion to marriage;
which can scarcely be wondered at, when we
consider how they are circumstanced. While
they remain single, they enjoy all the privileges
of the other sex; they may rove
where they please, and bestow their favours
on whom they choose, and are entirely beyond
controul or restraint: but when married,
their freedom is at an end; they become
mere slaves, and sink gradually into domestic
drudges to those who have the power of
life and death over them ; and whether their
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