it as an amusement, long after it has ceased to be profitable.

The New Zealand artist has no lathe to compete with; but neither has he
even those ordinary hand-tools which every civilized country has always
afforded. The only instruments he has to cut with are rudely fashioned
of stone or bone. Yet even with these, his skill and patient
perseverance contrive to grave the wood into any forms which his fancy
may suggest. Many of the carvings thus produced are distinguished by
both a grace and richness of design that would do no discredit even to
European art.

The considerations by which the New Zealanders are directed in choosing
the sites of their villages are the same which usually regulate that
matter among other savages. The North American Indians, for example,
generally build their huts on the sides of some moderately sized hill,
that they may have the advantage of the ground in case of being attacked
by their enemies, or on the bank of a river, which may, in such an
emergency, serve them for a natural moat. A situation in which they are
protected by the water on more sides than one is preferred; and,
accordingly, both on this account, and for the sake of being near the
sea, which supplies them with fish, the New Zealanders and other
savage tribes are much accustomed to establish themselves at the mouths
of rivers. Among the American Indians, as in New Zealand, a piece of
ground is always left unoccupied in the middle of the village, or
contiguous to it, for the holding of public assemblies. So, also, it
used to be in our own country, almost every village in which had
anciently its common and its central open space; the latter of which,
after the introduction of Christianity, was generally decorated by the
erection of a cross.