Topographical, Political, Etc.

In both islands there are extensive lakes; and the rivers are also numerous and mostly navigable, generally running north and south, and branching off into others, from which run numerous streams and creeks. The rise and fall of the tide along the whole coast is considerable, but greatest to the southward. At Hokianga (which is to the northward) it is 14ft or 15ft in the springs. The harbours and bays are, perhaps, the finest in the world—and few countries, indeed, possess so many, capacious, safe, and easy of access. The climate is very healthy, and free from those hot and pestilential winds destructive to cultivation, which characterise the climate of New South Wales; nor is the thermometer subject to the sudden changes observable there. From all the information that can be collected, New Zealand is far from being thickly page 10peopled, but is rich, beautiful, and fertile. The Natives have an intuitive respect, blended with fear, for the English—the chiefs, for the most part, desiring to place themselves under British protection. They do not possess courage, but are cunning, easily taught, clever, fond of show, hardy, and capable of undergoing great fatigue. They require to be treated with a mixture of kindness and firmness. There seems yet but little prospect of uniting any number of the natives under one leader. They are subdivided into many small communities or families, without any one individual having the slightest recognised authority, and are excessively jealous of each other and of their equality. With the exception of slaves, they have no distinctions of rank, everyone, not a slave, being equal to every other. The elder of a family, in time of peace, meets with some little deference—in war, the most enterprising takes the lead. The property of the soil is well defined, their jurisprudence extensive, and its penalties are submitted to without opposition, even by the stronger party. We find amongst them none of the volatile spirits of the islanders in warmer latitudes, but a proud, haughty, independent race, who think deeply, reason acutely, compare the past with the present, anticipate the future, and are as dogged and persevering amidst their fogs as the Briton is in his.—Communication to Royal Geographical Society by R. W. Hay, 3rd January, 1834.