52

produce more severe and more numerous attacks
of disease. The great secret of the salubrity of
the climate of the North Island of New Zealand
rests on this very point, it admits the most
constant and continued exposure in the open
air without injury.

In all tropical countries men are obliged to
shelter themselves from the burning rays of the
sun, and the heavy dews of the night. In the
fine southern climates of Europe, the cold of
winter is intense, and the heat of summer
during several hours of the day oppressive;
exposure to either produces disease.

In New Zealand there are no great extremes,
and although the climate is a wet one, yet the
Anglo-Saxon race can bear exposure to its
vicissitudes without injury; on this account
men live much in the open air, or in houses
which admit the free entrance of air; the con-
sequence is that severe sickness is, comparatively
speaking, not frequent. But it may be asked,
how does this produce a small mortality from
diseases of the lungs? Consumption is now
generally admitted to be a constitutional, not a
local disease; whatever depresses the consti-
tution, or impairs the powers of life, produces a
tendency to consumption. Men living much
in an impure atmosphere are liable to the
disease, because that is a depressing agent of
life; men breathing a pure air ward off the
disease, because that is an invigorating agent.
This is the cause why diseases of the lungs are
comparatively rare in New Zealand; it is also
the reason why fevers and other diseases are
not frequent, maladies which directly and indi-
rectly lay the foundation of others.

7.—EXAMPLE OF THE INJURIOUS EFFECT
OF THE CLIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND ON
THE CHILDREN OF THE TROPICS.

Bishop Selwyn has on two occasions brought
to New Zealand from the tropical islands in the
Pacific Ocean, a number of lads for the pur-
pose of educating them at St. John's College,
Auckland, as Christian teachers. Their ages
might be from fourteen to twenty-four. The
first detachment the Lord Bishop brought to
New Zealand, after remaining in the country
for several months, left in June, 1852; and "it
was full time," it is stated in a paper issued from
St. John's College Press, "that they should
leave New Zealand, for the damp winds had
severely affected their health, and two were sent
board dangerously ill. A favourable wind
speedily carried them into a warmer climate,
where they soon recovered;" one poor boy, a
native of the Island of Lefu, died, however, at
the college.

In October, 1852, the Bishop brought to
New Zealand a second detachment of tropical
children. This time there were twenty-seven
of them, and they were collected from the
Loyalty, Solomon's, and New Hebrides Islands.
They remained eight months in New Zealand,
but during that short time many of them fell
sick, and two died, and were all hastily
removed in June, 1853, to prevent more
suffering. On embarkation, eight were sick
with coughs and colds, and one died on board
of ship, shortly after leaving New Zealand.

Those acquainted with the history of the
human race know that the children of the tropics
cannot bear transplantation to a temperate
climate without losing their health, and the
examples just quoted are only additional facts
testifying to the correctness of this opinion;
they afford no evidence of the trying nature of
the climate of New Zealand for the Anglo-Saxon
race.

8.—THE CLIMATE OF THE NORTH ISLAND
OF NEW ZEALAND IS CHARACTERIZED
BY THE GROWTH OF MAIZE AND PO-
TATOES.

There is a curious, important, and charac-
teristic peculiarity of the climate of the North
Island of New Zealand, which I cannot pass
over without notice. It is, that both maize
(Indian corn) and potatoes ripen in this country,
are very fruitful, and afford a copious supply of
food for the inhabitants. In Italy, and the
southern countries of Europe, maize is to the
inhabitants what potatoes are to the people in
the North of Europe—the staple article of
food.* The cause of this is thus explained:—
Potatoes and maize do not grow together in the
same climates in Europe; one flourishing best
where the other succeeds badly. The growth
of maize in Europe is indeed almost limited to
the country of the vine, for although potatoes
can be raised in climates where the grapes of the
vine come to perfection, yet potatoes in vine
countries are deficient in quantity, and bad in
quality.

There is no climate in Europe where maize
and potatoes grow to perfection side by side as
in New Zealand, and there is no country where
both these substances form a large part of the
food of the same people. In Van Diemen's
Land potatoes grow to perfection, and maize
decays; on the Australian continent maize
yields abundantly, and potatoes are uncertain.
It is difficult to foresee the moral and physical
results which will flow from the growth of these
two productive plants in the climate of the North
Island of New Zealand.

9.—EXAMPLE OF THE GROWTH OF TWO
USEFUL TROPICAL PLANTS IN NEW
ZEALAND.

Another curious and characteristic feature of
the climate of the North Island of New Zealand
I must relate. When the New Zealanders
arrived in New Zealand, they brought with them,
according to tradition, in their canoes, seeds of
the plants they used as food in the tropical
islands from whence they came; some of these
plants have become extinct, but the sweet
potato (Convolvulus Batatas), with the Taro
(Caladium Esculentum), and a few others still
survive.

It is true the sweet potato, the Kumera
Maori, as it is called, and the Taro, are culti-
vated with some difficulty in New Zealand, and
have degenerated much; but the fact that these
two tropical plants should have furnished for
several centuries a large portion of the food of
a whole people, speaks volumes for the mildness
of the climate, the excellence of the soil, and

• Laing's Notes of a Traveller. 2nd Edition, London, 1842.