The written language has been constructed by the missionaries and others, as has been done with various other tongues in Polynesia and elsewhere. Bibles and sundry more books have been translated and printed in Maori. In fact, there is beginning to be quite a Maori literature, for, besides translations, there have been published several volumes of Maori legends, proverbs, songs, etc., and there are two or three journals regularly issued in the language. Most of the rising generation are able to read and write in their own tongue, if not in English also; for they all have been, or go, to school. They cannot readily articulate all our sounds, but education is doing much to remedy this; also, they are rather inclined to adhere to their own idiom, which is, of course, to be expected. Very few of the elder Maori have these Pakeha accomplishments, or care to exercise them. A queer pride and prejudice keep them from attempting to learn or speak English. But I have found that a good many of them know a great deal more than they are disposed to allow. The ancient Maori would seem to have had some notion of hieroglyphic or picture-writing. The moku is one example of this, and others are to be found in the symbolic carvings of door-lintels and of standard posts, inscriptions on rocks and trees, and the sacred whalebone staves of the tohunga, whereon were kept a genealogical record of the families of high rank. Oral tradition was well kept up among the Maori, and certain of them may be termed deep scholars in it. They are a long-winded race, and very great at a korero (talk or debate), without which nothing was or can be done. They can reel off immeasurable quantities of legendary history or romance, in prose and verse, having astounding memories for this sort of thing. Oratory was cultivated as an art by them, and many are remarkably eloquent; but the style of their orations principally consists in the recitation of proverbs and traditions, and the application of them to affairs of the moment. Sir George Grey is, perhaps, more intimately acquainted with these things, and with the Maori language, than any other Pakeha, and he has collected and published some of their poems and sayings. Decidedly the most noteworthy Maori institution was that of the tapu. It exists in various forms throughout the South Sea. There is the tambu of Fiji, and the tabu of other islands, essentially the same thing. But it was among the Maori that it appears to have been brought to its greatest perfection. We have drawn from it our word _taboo_, which we use to express anything that is rigidly forbidden or disallowed. But the Maori tapu went far deeper than that. To use the words of another writer, "it comprised everything that we would call law, custom, etiquette, prejudice, and superstition, and had therefore its good as well as its bad effects."