Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/42

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26
Our New Zealand Cousins.

of gaudily dressed Maoris and half-castes are everywhere met with. Evidences of the mixture of race are apparent in the sign-boards. Each English announcement of the trade or profession practised inside, is blazoned also with the Maori equivalent in Roman letters. Owing to the admirable Maori schools, most of the younger natives can now read and write very fairly. Lawyers and land-agents seem to thrive here, judging from the sign-boards. A flaring placard catches my eye, bearing witness to the fact that on Easter Monday, after the sports, there will be a Maori dance, proceedings to conclude with European dances. These mixed dances, from all accounts, are not such as St. Anthony would have patronized.

Under the care of Harry Kerr, one of the very nicest, most efficient, and most good-natured of Jehus it has ever been my good fortune to encounter, we take our departure from the hotel in the sweet, fresh morning, and behind a spanking team of fine, broad-chested, clean-limbed, well-matched horses, in a comfortable American coach hung on leather springs, we merrily rattle through the quiet little town; and, turning the corner, we behold the noble Waikato, spanned by three bridges, surging and foaming between its high banks, which are clad with verdure to the water's edge. The river here is very swift, and really a regal stream. It boils and hisses and bubbles along, with a fierce, impatient swoop. Scooping out a cauldron-like hollow in the rocks here, dash-