Island, in the remotest east of that immense expanse of waters.

The Malay language is spoken, although in many different dialects and
degrees of corruption, throughout the whole of this extensive range,
which, measured in one direction, stretches over nearly half the
equatorial circumference of the globe, and in another over at least
seventy degrees of latitude. The people are all also of the same brown
or copper complexion, by which the Malay is distinguished from the
white man on the one hand, and the negro on the other.

In New Zealand, however, as, indeed, in most of the other seats of this
race, the inhabitants are distinguished from each other by a very
considerable diversity in the shades of what may be called the common
hue. Crozet was so much struck with this circumstance that he does not
hesitate to divide them into three classes--whites, browns, and
blacks,--the last of whom he conceives to be a foreign admixture
received from the neighbouring continent of New Holland, and who, by
their union with the whites, the original inhabitants of the country,
and still decidedly the prevalent race, have produced those of the
intermediate colour.

[Illustration: Two Maori Chiefs--Te Puni, or "Greedy," and Wharepouri,
or "Dark House."]

Whatever may be thought of this hypothesis, it is certain that in some
parts of New Zealand the natives are much fairer than in others. Cook
remarks, in the account of his first voyage, that the people about the
Bay of Islands seemed darker than those he had seen further to the
south; and their colour generally is afterwards described as varying
from a pretty deep black to a yellowish or olive tinge. In like manner,