and continuing some time after Taōnui had withdrawn the flute from his mouth. It ceased. 'Tis good! said the king, addressing his flute, with a haughty, self-willed, purblind, patronising air; "thou hast played well this evening!" He immediately received a tremendous kick on the shin, as if from some gigantic bony foot -but no one was visible. That it was a kick from a leg of some kind or other, he had reasons for knowing of too acute a kind to doubt for a moment. Where was the assailant? He turned round and round. There was nobody-nothing! out to the verandah. "Tell me that!" he continued to say, "tell me who did it, and why!tell me, all of you !-any one!—somebody!" Nobody spoke. They all stood looking at each other. Nobody had heard it. Inarticulate with the perplexity of his rage, Taonui glared all round at the assembled group,-and continued to do so, till gradually the sense of being bewitched came upon him, and his passion began to subside into a strange confusion with himself. What he had seen, and heard, and felt, were all very real to him; yet nobody else appeared to have the least cognisance of it. Where were their sensesThe king walked, or rather limped, towards or, what had happened to his? As to his his house very slowly. He presently met a having caused the wonderful music of his own chief. He was about to ask-but suddenly free will, if he had still wilfully endeavoured checked himself. The chief began a brief to persuade himself of that, he, at least, knew conversation with him on a new method of very well that he had not kicked his own preparing the ground for kumeras (a sort of shins. That violent blow came out of the air kidney potato), and then passed on. Not a-out of nothing-but not from nobody. It word about seeing anybody with a skeleton was of no use to try and conceal his condition leg-nor of the prodigious blowing of the pah- from himself any longer. He could not trumpet, which seemed at the time to shake harden himself against so many odds. the whole village. From this point, the king's haughty and The king met another chief, who, on seeing vindictive spirit began to topple on its barhim, advanced with an air of more excitement baric elevation, and he felt most bitterly the than is usual with these dignified rangatiras want of human sympathy and friendly advice. (men of high rank), and Taōnui drew himself He even once thought of opening his mind to up, to hear what he would say. The chief the queen; which he might have done withinformed him that the Australian kangaroos, out any disgrace, because the estimation in which had been long expected as a present to which women were held by his people was him from a powerful chief living on the by no means so low as is common with savage western sea-coast, had arrived only an hour tribes; but this very natural and sensible ago, and were all in good health, and likely to thought was destroyed by his pride almost as thrive, and give him a capital breed. Not a soon as it had glanced across him. He refused syllable about seeing any apparition with a to see or speak with any one for some days; skeleton leg and foot-nor of the roaring he even would not go and look at the kanganoise of the village war-horn. roos. Finally he determined to call a council of the oldest and wisest chiefs of Mokau, and relate to them all that had happened. 66 Arrived at home, the queen met Taōnui beneath the broad red and white verandah of his royal house, where she had been busily Meanwhile, he retained enough of his engaged in preparing him an excellent supper tyrannical and revengeful feeling to give after his hunting excursion, as she had sup-orders that his son Waipata, as he had emposed it. Here," said she, are kumeras, braced Christianity, should instantly leave the cooked with slices of deliciously stale shark" | pah of his fathers, and go and dwell on the (only considered eatable when very "gamey"), coast, near one of the missionary stations; "burnt fern-root, and mussels kept hot a long directing, at the same time, that Teōra should while for you. What do you say? But I have be taken to a lonely and deserted house, once more than this. Here are maize-cakes, hinau celebrated in accordance with its horrid name, cakes, bacon, and a leaf-full of roasted ghostmoths. What do you say? Still no word. Are not these enough for you?" "Have you nothing else to speak about ?" demanded the king, out of all patience. "Have you nothing else to tell me?" "I can get you very quickly the heart of a fine young nikau palm-tree," said the queen, in alarm at his manner; "also some buttermilk and wild turnips. Oh, I see-it's the kangaroos. Yes they have arrived." viz.,kai tangata, or Eat-man House. A supply of food and water for a certain period were to be placed within, and the door was then to be fastened, and Teōra left to her fate. As for old Kaitemata, he took no steps against her for the present. There was no sort of doubt about the love that existed between Teora and Waipata. They had roved away together for several hours every day while the king was secluded in his moody state at home-a proceeding Taōnui could endure it no longer, and undoubtedly opposed to New Zealand notions stamped upon the ground. "Who blew the of propriety; but their circumstances were pah-trumpet?" bellowed he in the poor peculiar. They were now seated in the depths queen's ear-" and why was it blown ?-tell of a great forest at the mossy foot of a lofty me that!" His other wives, and the women totara tree, with the foliage of which the flowerand slaves of his household, all came rushing ing clematis had mingled, and ascending to the nous to New Zealand, to which he had added, for this important occasion, a blossom of the warrator, a large flower of a deep crimson colour. Round his neck he wore a mighty necklace of boars'-tusks, while his ears were adorned with costly specimens of the teeth of the tiger-shark. Those parts of his legs which were not tattooed, he had painted with kokowai, a sort of red ochre; but Taōnui carefully avoided all covering or ornament on his feet, lest he should in any degree obscure or injure the effect of the six toes with which nature had especially honoured each foot, a distinction, however, enjoyed by two or three other great chiefs in New Zealand at that period, and also at the present day. very summit, it fell down on all sides in snowy chains and garlands. A wreath of the white starry blossoms of this odorous creeper were bound round the dark tresses of the young girl, and fell with them over her shoulders and bosom. Around grew the mighty trees indigenous to the country, having, like the tree beneath which they sat, their own luxuriant foliage enwoven with bright and elegant parasitical plants rising to their very topmost crowns and pinnacles, and often hanging down in beautiful festoons, and gracefully swaying wreaths. One old and decayed tree, a grandsire of the woods, was visible among the others; but even his hoary sides, and broken mouldering bark, were clothed with mosses and orchids, and his dark hollows were filled The most eminent among the Mokaurie with scarlet fungi. Beneath all this there chiefs assembled as the king had commanded, was a prodigious undergrowth, among which and retiring to a forest they all seated themappeared the tree fern, the nikau palm, the selves in a circle and began to smoke. At wild fuchsia-with its double set of flowers, length the king stood up in the midst, and one green and purple, the other purple and began a speech, in which he related the red, the pollen on the anthers of the former wonders and offensive performances of the being of the most brilliant cobalt blue-shrubs flute, up to the period of the thunder-march and plants, some of yellow-tinted leaves, in the vicinity of the ruined mausoleum. others of the darkest purple-green, almost like glossy black; while here and there lay fallen trunks, some nearly overgrown with grasses and lichens, and others with the exquisitely-scented horopito, straggling about in clusters of trumpet-shaped blossoms, varying from the deepest crimson to the most delicate pinky white. One opening through the foliage admitted a peep beyond, which consisted of a series of gentle hills, enclosed again at no great distance by the circling belt of the great forest; but the whole of these hills were covered with the wild cabbage in blossom, and presented beneath the sun one entire surface of shining gold. In this equally magnificent and lovely scene of nature's profusion, sat Teōra and Waipata discoursing, in accents of love, the leading truths of that religion of deep-hearted humanity which they had so recently adopted in place of their native creed of ignorance and cruel passions. These happy hours, however, were soon to be at an end. Even in this deep solitude the emissaries of Taōnui very speedily discovered them, and they were immediately disposed of, according to his directions-Waipata being sent to the sea-coast, and Teōra fastened up in Eat-man House, with the means of prolonging existence only for a certain time. The day appointed for the council of chiefs having arrived, Taōnui attired himself in the most imposing manner for the occasion. Over his large, bony shoulders he threw his ample war-cloak of dogs'-hair interwoven with flax, flung aside, however, in such a manner as to display the rich tattooing of his chest and limbs, over which all sorts of lines, devices, and grotesque figures had been engraved in purple and black lines. His close-cropped black hair was adorned with a bunch of the feathers of the kaka, or brown parrot, indige Seeing, or fancying he saw, doubts mingled with surprise in the grave features of the elder chiefs, Taōnui paused. A long silence ensued. One of the oldest chiefs then proposed that the king should immediately play upon the flute as before, that they might be the better able to judge of the effect. With this request the king immediately complied, and he distinctly heard the grand death-march, as before. "There!" said the king, with a look of grizzly satisfaction. But nobody else had heard it. He played again, and heard the march. Nobody else heard it. The chiefs all looked at each other, and then at the king. Taonui, now getting quite desperate, went on with passionate energy and volubility to narrate the rest of the events, till he came to describe the prodigious sounds that issued from the pah-trumpet; whereupon the chiefs began to exchange significant glances with each other, and some of them even touched their heads and nodded, clearly indicating their opinion that the king had gone mad. Secretly as all this was done, Taonui had, in part, observed it, or rather become conscious of it, and snatching up the flute he was about to blow with all his strength, in the wild hope of producing some terrible result which should, at least, compel them to believe his tale, when a loud cry of women was heard to issue from the pah, followed by the actual blowing of the pah-trumpet in signal of alarm. for The council was broken up in an instant, and Taōnui, with all the chiefs, hurried out of the forest and flew towards the pah. At the outer stockade, beyond the last range of stiles and fences with which the king's pah was tified, they met the queen and all Taonui's household, together with many boys and a score of yelping dogs. The cause of thisand which the queen and a dozen voices in chorus loudly related at the same instant, so that it was impossible to understand it was the sudden breaking loose of all the kangawho had made their escape, and were now in full flight across the country. roos, As soon as this intelligence became intelligible, Taōnui, who was only too glad to break up so unsatisfactory and maddening a conference, formed a hunting-party with several chiefs, and set out in pursuit of his property. He was reminded of Teora by the queen, and asked whether he intended she should remain fastened up to be starved to death in Eat-man House; but he turned a deaf ear to this, and making no reply hurried away after his kangaroos. It should be understood that kangaroos, not being indigenous to New Zealand, the arrival of such a present as nine of those creatures was an event of considerable importance, as it was to be hoped that the breed might be propagated, and thereby afford an admirable addition to the very limited livestock of the country. Valuable, however, as these creatures were in the eyes of the king, it was not the excitement of their escape that rendered him unable to attend to the queen when she reminded him of Teōra, but rather that he wished her death to happen by a sort of indirect process, since he was withheld from killing her in an off-hand way, in consequence of the influence of the flute and all its witcheries. -- So away the hunting-party sped, men and dogs, after the nine kangaroos, who with their long flying leaps were making their way across the country, now secreting themselves in forests, now springing forward again in terror at the sound of their approaching pursuers,-till, finally, having turned their course to the more open spaces of the sandy scrub, over whose dry clumps and ridges, bushes and shrubs, they could rapidly make way in a direct line by leaps, while their pursuers were obliged to make all sorts of windings and semicircles, they completely distanced them, and, for a time, were lost. "GIVE WISELY!" AN ANECDOTE. unknown male voice growling forth a hoarse bass, which was completely overscreeched by a remarkably high and thin treble, easily recognised by the placid curate as proceeding from the well-practised throat of his housekeeper, the shrewish Perpetua of a gentle Don Abbondio. "A pretty business this, Monsieur!" cried the dame, when her master appeared, as with flashing eyes, and left arm a-kimbo, she pointed with the other to a surly-looking man dressed in a blouse, who stood in the hall, holding a very small box in his hand. "This fellow," she continued, "is a messenger from the diligence, and he wants to get fifteen francs as the price of the carriage of that little box directed to you, which I'm sure, no matter what it contains, can't be worth half the money.'" Peace, Nanette," said her master; and taking the box from the man, who, at his approach, civilly doffed his hat, he examined the direction. It was extremely heavy, and bore the stamp of San Francisco, in California, together with his own address. The curate paid the fifteen francs, which left him possessed of but a few sous, and dismissed the messenger. He then opened the box, and displayed to the astonished eyes of Nanette an ingot of virgin gold, and a slip of paper, on which were written the following words :"To Monsieur the Curate of B. "A slight token of eternal gratitude, in remembrance of August 28th, 1848. "CHARLES F—. "Formerly serjeant-major in the-th regiment; now a gold-digger in California." On the 28th of August, 1848, the curate was, as on the evening in question, returning from visiting his poor and sick parishioners. Not far from his cottage he saw a young soldier with a haggard countenance and wild bloodshot eyes, hastening towards the bank of a deep and rapid river, which ran through the fields. The venerable priest stopped him and spoke to him kindly. At first the young man would not answer, and tried to break away from his questioner; but the curate fearing that he meditated ONE evening, a short time since, the curate suicide, would not be repulsed, and at length, of B., a small village in the north of France, with much difficulty, succeeded in leading returned much fatigued to his humble dwell-him to his house. After some time, softened ing. He had been visiting a poor family who by the tender kindness of his host, the soldier were suffering from both want and sickness; confessed that he had spent in gambling a and the worthy old man, besides administer- sum of money which had been entrusted to ing the consolations of religion, had given him as sergeant-major of his company. This them a few small coins, saved by rigid self- avowal was made in words broken by sobs, denial from his scanty income. He walked and the culprit repeated several times, "My homewards, leaning on his stick, and thinking, poor mother! my poor mother! if she only with sorrow, how very small were the means knewhe possessed of doing good and relieving The curate waited until the soldier had misery. become more calm, and then addressed him in As he entered the door, he heard an un-words of reproof and counsel, such as a tender wonted clamour of tongues, taking the form father might bestow on an erring son. He of a by no means harmonious duet,-an finished by giving him a bag containing one hundred and thirty francs, the amount of the sum unlawfully dissipated. "It is nearly all I possess in the world," said the old man, "but by the grace of God, you will change your habits, you will work diligently, and some day, my friend, you will return me this money, which indeed belongs more to the poor than to me." Probably the most hideous language in the world, and the least articulate, is that of the Bojesmans. It is more like the chattering of apes than the tongue of man. Next to it, and only a few degrees better, is the Hottentot. It is, however, rarely spoken, or even understood by the Hottentots themselves, who have all learnt Dutch or English from their masters. The Kafir tongue is positively beautiful, as far as the sound is concerned, and is dignified and expressive at the same time. Yet the Kafirs themselves are very "Monsieur, in three months my military bad linguists; for although the Fingoes have engagement will be ended. I solemnly pro- been settled in the colony for the last fifteen mise that, with the assistance of God, from or twenty years, I never met one who could that time I will work diligently." So he hold a conversation freely in Dutch, and departed, bearing with him the money and scarcely one who even understood a single the blessing of the good man. word of English. It would be impossible to describe the young soldier's joy and astonishment. He pressed convulsively his benefactor's hand, and after a pause, said: Much to the sorrow and indignation of The Hottentots are the principal domestic Nanette, her master continued to wear servants (of all descriptions) in the colonythrough the ensuing winter, his old thread- especially in the eastern province. They are bare suit, which he had intended to replace a most eccentric race a most extraordinary by warm garments; and his dinner frequently consisted of bread and soupe maigre. "And all this," said the dame, "for the sake of a worthless stroller, whom we shall never see or hear of again!" 66 mixture of good and evil qualities. In fact, nearly every Hottentot is a kind of living paradox. He is a drunkard and a thief, and yet he will practise wonderful abstinence, and never rob his master. He will serve you for two or three months in sobriety and honesty, then he will give you warning, pocket his wages, walk off to the nearest canteen, and never be sober for a month, or for whatever "Nanette," said her master, with tears in his eyes, as he showed her the massive ingot, whose value was three thousand francs, never judge hardly of a repentant sinner. It was the weeping Magdalen who poured time his money may last. While in your precious ointment on her Master's feet; it service you may intrust him with anything was the outlawed Samaritan leper who returned to give Him thanks. Our poor guest has nobly kept his word. Next winter my sick people will want neither food nor medicine; and you must lay in plenty of flannel and frieze for our old men and women, Nanette ! "CAPE" SKETCHES. A WORD or two on the labour resources of the colony as existing in the ABORIGINAL AND NEIGHBOURING RACES, will show what kind of European labourers are most in demand. and he will never be tempted to "pick and steal." After he has left you, he will as soun appropriate your Wellingtons (if he calls to see his successor in office) as wear his own untanned shoes. He is a very dirty fellow, and will neither clean your room, your boots. nor your knives and forks, unless you are eternally driving him to the work; yet he will wash his hands with the utmost care before he touches the food he is preparing for your dinner; though he has the greatest natural antipathy to the contact of cold water, and if he wears any linen at all, never changes it till it is worn out and in rags. He is consequently by no means a pleasant valet, nor are the women of his race by any means agree able as cooks or housemaids. Unless your olfactory nerves are unusually obtuse, it is advisable never to go into any room which a Hottentot damsel has been putting in order for at least half an hour after her departure. There is perhaps no British colony in which so many varieties of the human race are to be constantly seen as at the Cape of Good Hope. Hottentots, Mozambiques, Kafirs, and Fingoes, Negroes, Bojesmans, Bechuanas, Griguas, and Malays, are to be seen every day; and although the uninitiated European might be contented to class them all together as The Malays generally live by fishing or "coloured people," they have each distinctive acting as carriers; some of them are men of traits of character, colour, language and in considerable property. They follow the fact, almost every sign which marks a nation Mohammedan religion, are very clean in or a race. There is as much difference be- their persons and houses, very temperate and tween the personal appearance of a Kafir and very industrious. Indeed, they are by far the a Hottentot as between the latter and a best and the most civilised of the coloured Malay; and far more than between a German races. Very few of them go into service. and an Italian. Yet the country of the Hot- Some in Cape Town act as grooms, and are tentots and that of the Kafirs border on each clever in their treatment of horses, and exother. Of the eight varieties I have men-cellent riders. The religious festivals of the tioned (for I reckon Kafirs and Fingoes as one Malays are great sights. These people at the race), seven have perfectly distinct languages. Cape by no means deserve the character of "CAPE" SKETCHES. treachery and dishonesty generally given them 119 rism pass through a transition state, which, The Fingoes make very good herdsmen ; and are also employed in landing goods from the surf boats in Algoa Bay. They are a fine, sturdy race, temperate and industrious, and extremely parsimonious. which they save they bury in the earth in imagined from the above rough sketch of the The kind of EUROPEAN LABOUR required, The money must now be considered. It may easily be some place known only to themselves, and as aboriginal tribes of South Africa, that pendthey often purchase cattle it is by no means ing their arrival at a state of civilisation, the unusual to see them tender in payment some European settlers are very badly off in having hundred or two of shillings and sixpences en- to depend upon their labour and services in erusted in dirt, having been dug up after, farming and domestic operations. The anprobably, two years' interment. Many of noyance to good housewives in having a set them make a bargain with their masters to of dirty and drunken servants, is beyond receive so many cows per annum instead of description. money, as this species of property is the every shipload of emigrants, (and they are highest of all in their estimation. Therefore, on the arrival of I may mention a circumstance, probably not beach to offer engagements to the new comers. And here far too few,) there is a perfect rush to the known to the general reader, and to which Twenty-five and thirty, or even thirty-six may be traced the late disastrous Kafir war. maid's wages to any girl from England, without an inquiry whether she has ever been pounds a year are freely offered as houseinto service before. Unfortunately these girls have frequently been spoilt on the voyage by the idleness in which their days have been "Jack's" society, who, though an excellent spent ; besides being none the better for fellow in his way, is by no means "the housemaid's best companion." shepherd will get from fifty to seventy pounds Farm servants are in great request. A for himself and family, however numerous. a year, a house to live in, and excellent rations Few are the sheep-farmers fortunate enough to possess a good English or Scotch shepherd. Very superior shepherds- men of some It is the law among the Kafirs, that each man shall purchase his wife from her father, by payment of a certain number of head of cattle according to the young lady's rank in life. Now it often happened among Katirs, as among civilised Europeans, of very small means, or of none at all, fell in that young men love with young maidens whose papas were men of high degree, and turned up their noses at poor suitors. The ardent youths thus repulsed, felt that something desperate must be done to win their beloved mistresses. fore, having no very great respect for the Theredistinctions of meum and tuum, they would walk over the boundary into the colony, pick out the requisite number of cattle from the first herd they saw, drive them to their own education-may become large sheep-owners kraals and then-claim their brides. colonists, not taking a romantic view of the shop-keepers of property have generally The themselves in time, thus:-Merchants and proceeding, called it theft; and one day, farms in the country, which they cannot of catching a lover thus employed, he was lodged course attend to themselves. They are glad, in gaol. He was afterwards being conducted therefore, to select a competent person, one by a very small escort of soldiers to a town thoroughly acquainted with sheep, with a on the frontier for trial, and was handcuffed good knowledge of the country, and able to to a Hottentot prisoner. large party of armed Kafirs rushed out of the receiving as a remuneration one third of the On the road, a speak Dutch, to take charge of their farm, Bush, attacked the guard, chopped off the increase of the flock each year. Dutch is arm of the Hottentot in order to free their indispensable, because half your neighbours Countryman from his companionship, and and three-fourths of your servants speak no before the guard could recover from the sur- other language. It is easily acquired-espeprise of the attack, made their way back into cially by Scotchmen, who declare that it is the Bush-the Hottentot's amputated arm "mickle like their ain bonnie tongue." dangling to the wrist of the liberated Kafir! The Governor of the colony sent to the chief into whose territory they were tracked, to demand the delivery up of the offenders. The chief refused and told the Governor to come and fetch them "if he dared." The other chiefs joined in the defiance; and war, of course, became inevitable. journeyman artisan is five shillings per diem. The lowest rate of wages paid to any Sawyers, carpenters, bricklayers and smiths, earn much more. Plumbers and glaziers are in great request. enough to break a pane of glass, you may frequently have to wait a week or ten days If you are unfortunate The other coloured tribes I have mentioned, mend it. When I was in Port Elizabeth, before the glazier can find time to come and are less numerous within the colony. The there was but a solitary glazier there (in a Hottentot is the most civilised of them all town of three thousand inhabitants), and if (except the Malay); but even he has hitherto sent for, he would probably reply with great learnt more of the vices than the virtues of dignity and composure, civilisation. Nations emerging from barba "Mr. C.'s compliments, and some day next |