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custom. Many religious communions are wont to cele- brate the ajiproach of the New Year with a special ser- vice, especialh' the Methodists. In the Roman Catholic Church the Te Deum is still sung at the close of the old
claiming and cultivating land can be carried on at all seasons. The seasons in New Zealand are the reverse of ours : January is their hottest month, and June the coldest. The principal products of the soil are wheat,
j'ear; and New- Year's day is a holiday of strict obli- ] barley, oats, potatoes, and sown grass. Maize and beans gation. For monographs on the ancient customs, both and pease are also raised in great abundance, and any among the Jews and other nations, in this respect, see other vegetable, grain, grass, or fruit produced in the
Volbeding, Index P7-orjrammatum, p. 117, 118.
New Zealand is the name of a British colony in the South Pacific Ocean, which consists of three vol- canic islands, and of a number of islets scattered around the coasts, having an area of about 106,000 square miles, with a coast-line measuring about 4000 miles, on the best-named account, and a population (in 1872) of 279,560 Europeans, besides about 40,000 natives.
Soil, Climate, and Productions. — Of the whole surface- extent of New Zealand (nearly 70,000,000 acres, little short of the combined area of England and Wales, Scot- land, and Ireland), one fourth is estimated to consist of dense forest tracts, one half of excellent soil, and the remainder of waste lands, scorite-hiLls, and rugged moun- tain regions. The mountains are mostly clothed with evergreen forests of luxuriant growth, interspersed with fern-clad ranges, and occasionally with treeless, grassy plains. Extensive and rich valleys and sheltered dales abound in North Island ; and in the east of South Isl- ajid there are many expansive plains of rich meadow- land, and nearly 40,000,000 acres are estimated to be more or less suitable for agricidture and cattle-breeding. The soil, although often clayey, has in the volcanic districts more than a me- dium fertility; but the lux- uriant and semi-tropical vegetation is perhaps as much due to excellence of climate as to richness of soil. Owing to the prev- alence of light and easily worked soils, all agricultu- ral processes are performed with unusual ease. The climate is one of the finest in the world. The coun- trj^ contains few physical sources of disease ; the av- erage temperature is re- markably even at all sea- sons of the year, and the atmosphere is continually agitated and freshened by Avinds that blow over an immense expanse of ocean. In North Island the mean annual temperature is 57°; in South Island 52°. The mean temperature of the hottest month at Auckland is 68°, and at Otago 58° ; of the coldest month, 51° and 40°. The air is very humid, and the fall of rain is greater than in Eng- land, but there are more dry days. All the native trees and plants are ever- greens. Forests, shrubber- ies, and plains are clothed in green throughout the year, the results of which are that cattle, as a rule, browse on the herbage and shrubs of the open country all the year rouixl, thus saving great expense to the cattle - breeder ; and that the operations of re-
United States of America can be cultivated successfully in New Zealand. With the exception of a few harmless lizards, no animals that annoy or hurt are encountered by the invading European. The small species of rat is the only objectionable four-footed inhabitant of New Zealand. Hawks are numerous. Snakes are not to be found at all, nor do insects that worry or hurt abound. The pig, introduced by Cook, runs wild, and the red and fallow deer, the pheasant, partridge, quail, etc., and the common domestic animals introduced by colonists thrive well.
The People, and their Customs and Religious Belief. — The native inhabitants of New Zealand are the Maoris (which name signifies native, or indif/e7iovs), aiu], with the natives of Polynesia generally, they belong to the Ma- layan race. See Malays. Though calling themselves indigenous, the Maoris have a tradition that their an- cestors migrated to the present seat of the nation from the north-east — the island ofllawaiki — about 500 years ago. " They came," the legend goes, " in seven canoes, •(V'hich had outriggers, to prevent foundering, and were called Amatiatia, being very different from those sub-
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sequently used by them, wliich -were much simpler in construction, and named WaUka. The first of these canoes that touched at New Zealand was named Arawa, and this brought over the first settlers from whom the Maori are descended." If anj' faith is to be attached to this tradition, Hawaiki was, probably, the same as Hawaii, the principal of the Sandwich Islands, distant about 4000 miles north-east of New Zealand. Some, however, suppose that it may have been Savaii, one of the Samoan or Navigators' Islands, a group not half that distance awaj'. The tradition says nothing of any indigenous population found in New Zealand before the arrival of these immigrants. Many writers, however, incline to the belief that it was previously inhabited by a darker race, somewhat akin to the Papuas of New Guinea. See Negritos. Supposing that the two races, in process of time, intermingled, this might account, in some measure, for the differences apparent between the Maori and the Tahitians, Samoans, Sandwich Islanders, and other natives of the Pacific. But whether of pure or mixed race, all testimony combines in representing the Maori as a nation standing very high in the scale of humanity. The skin of the Maori is in general of an olive-brown color, but there are some in whom the shade is much lighter, while in others it is darker. In stature they almost equal Englishmen, and have a pow- erful muscular development. They have well-shaped, intellectual heads, and their features, when not tattooed, might almost be taken for European. Few of them have beards or whiskers, it being an immemorial cus- tom with them to pluck out the hair on the face with pipi shells. On the head, the majority have long black hair, with a slight wave in it; but with some it is of a reddish tinge, and some Maori again have the hair slightly frizzled. Their eyes are large, their lips thick, and their teeth, unlike those of most savage nations, are large and irregular. The women are of less stature