came, 'a strange, melancholy sound, like the sound of a wind blowing
into a hollow vessel'. 'It is well with me,' it said; 'my place is
a good place.' They asked of their dead friends; the hollow answers
replied, and the Englishman 'felt a strange swelling of the chest'.
The Voice spoke again: 'Give my large pig to the priest,' and the
sceptic was disenchanted. He now thought of the test. '"We cannot
find your book," I said; "where have you concealed it?" The answer
immediately came: "Between the Tahuhu of my house and the thatch,
straight over you as you go into the door".' Here the brother
rushed out. 'In five minutes he came back, _with the book in his
hand_.' After one or two more remarks the Voice came, '"Farewell!"
_from deep beneath the ground_. "Farewell!" again _from high in
air_. "Farewell!" once more came moaning through the distant
darkness of the night. The deception was perfect. "A
ventriloquist," said I, "or--or, _perhaps_ the devil."' The seance
had an ill end: the chief's sister shot herself.

This was decidedly a well-got-up affair for a colonial place. The
Maori oracles are precisely like those of Delphi. In one case a
chief was absent, was inquired for, and the Voice came, 'He will
return, yet not return'. Six months later the chiefs friends went
to implore him to come home. They brought him back a corpse; they
had found him dying, and carried away the body. In another case,
when the Maori oracle was consulted as to the issue of a proposed
war, it said: 'A desolate country, a desolate country, a desolate
country!' The chiefs, of course, thought the _other_ country was
meant, but they were deceived, as Croesus was by Delphi, when he was
told that he 'would ruin a great empire'. In yet another case, the
Maoris were anxious for the spirits to bring back a European ship,
on which a girl had fled with the captain. The Pakeha Maori was