alluded to:—"Friend, salutations to you. I have received your circular letter pointing out how disease could be averted and the means of preserving health among the native people of New Zealand. Your advice is good. Friend, listen to this. According to the observation made by the Maori people as to the decay of their own people, it is found that formerly, in the days of our ancestors, the natives mostly died of old age. Their whares, their clothing, their food, were very bad. When they slept at night, they used fire to keep them warm, and in the day they basked in the sun, its heat serving them as clothing, and the people never died off. But the arrival of the Europeans to these islands brought disease amongst them, and two complaints made their appearance, namely, chest complaint and cough. From that time the numbers of natives began to decline. Subsequently, another disease called measles, and now fever has come, and rheumatism. Among other causes which have been discovered by the Maoris is that they have been neglected by the ministers, for the Maoris have a reverence for sacred things. In former days, when the chief of any tribe died, before that evil happened, his approaching death would have been known to all by the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder rolling along the mountain-tops of his own district. No matter where the chief was dying, they always knew, and would always say that such-and-such a chief was dying, because that the thunder and lightning were in such-and-such a place. Friend, the
