The Old Garb.

The modern Maori only reverts to the rapaki, the easy-going kilt fashion, when he is called upon to dance like mad for the delectation of the pakeha. In between times he is expected to be a perfect model of the conventionally trousered European. But here and there, in small villages in Maori districts, an ancient man of a now well-tamed fighting clan clings to the shawl or blanket equivalent of the Highland garb. Wise old fellows, they know where comfort lies, and decline to be slaves of the white man's upsetting ways. One of the last—perhaps the very last—of these stout conservatives was Hotu Paku-Kohatu, the venerable chief of the Ngati-Kinohaku, a section of the Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, who died in the King Country recently. He was about ninety years old; he had seen much of wild life and dangerous days; a thoroughgoing old patriot and warrior. All his life he wore the rapaki, and in the new age, when the hand of pakeha progress transformed the King Country he retained his love for the old ways of life and the old costume in the kainga, and abroad, too, when once in a while he visited the town of Te Kuiti.