The Range of Research.

Best's intensive study of the Urewera and allied tribes was not extended to other sections of the Maori people, at any rate not with such a degree of thoroughness. But there were other competent enquirers dealing with many tribes, in particular Hare Hongi, who is the chief repository of traditional knowledge and priestly lore of his people, the Ngapuhi and related tribes; he was schooled by tohungas of the old religion. He is, too, the best living authority on the Maori language. Best did not study the lore of the Waikato, or the King Country tribes; and Taranaki he left to his friends, Percy Smith and W. H. Skinner. He did not know the South Island, which has its traditions and ancient wisdom of its own. He had so absorbed the special knowledge of the Urewera that he was apt to apply their sayings and beliefs to the Maori generally. Students of his books must allow for that peculiarity and remember that most of his great accumulation of mythology and ritual and spiritual concepts came chiefly from two or three districts—the Urewera, the East Coast (the Takitumu tribes) from the East Cape to the Wairarapa, and the West Coast as far up as Wanganui. But those tribal districts he searched thoroughly for the esoteric wisdom of the race.

Two veterans of the cue met in an Auckland billiard saloon the other evening, and while waiting for a table got, talking tobacco, as old smokers will. Said one: “Don't know how it is, Bob, but I don't seem to get the pleasure out of my pipe I used to. Losing my taste for it.” “Reckon you're ‘brand-tired,’” said Bob, “you want a change of baccy, old man. Myself, I've been smoking same old brand for 20 years, and wouldn't change. Why should I? I can't get anything better, or so good. But there are brands, I know, that ‘go off’ a lot. Mine—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead)—doesn't.” “Toasted, isn't it?” asked his cobber. “That's right! One of the five genuine toasted brands—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold. And next to no nicotine in any of ‘em! The toasting does it, my boy! Now you try Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), and I wager a new hat you'll soon relish your pipe again!” And so he did!