Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/274

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THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN AUSTRALASIA.

tion of Maori weapons and articles of manufacture, and one might almost make up a history of this interesting people by studying the Maori department of the museum. Of course they have a skeleton of the gigantic Dinornis, or Moa, which we have already described; and there is a beautiful display of the birds of New Zealand, which has been arranged by a skilled ornithologist.
JUST ARRIVED FROM ENGLAND.

"From the museum we went to the Botanical Gardens, which cover an area of perhaps a hundred acres and are finely laid out. They are a favorite resort of the public, and here in the early evening we had an opportunity to see of what a curious mixture the population of a New Zealand city is made up. There were men and women from all parts of the United Kingdom; Yorkshiremen jostled against Londoners, a Dubliner against a representative of Glasgow, and a Welshman against one who first saw the light at Dover or Brighton. English, Scotch, Irish, Catholic, Protestant, Gentile, and Israelite all met harmoniously, and if they brought to this country any of their old quarrels of race or religion they forgot them all, at least while in the Gardens.

"But if the assemblage at the Botanical Gardens was interesting, so was the collection of trees and ferns. The Botanical Gardens are rich in these things, and will be richer as the years go on. Not far from the Gardens is a specimen of the New Zealand forest; we saw it at various points along the railway, but did not try to walk through it, as we did here. Unless a path is previously cut it is absolutely impervious, so closely woven are the vines that interlace between the trees and climb to their very tops.

"It is this impenetrability of the forest that gave the Maoris such