At the present day all Maori are professed Christians, and, as a rule, very earnest ones. Among the younger there is a state of mind more approaching to our standards, but with the elders it is different. They were born under a different _régime_. Their young minds were filled with hereditary impressions that conversion has been naturally powerless to shake off altogether. Their vague and foggy mythology is still believed in, though they formulate their notion of it in Scriptural words and phrases. They have long laid aside the old habits of war and cannibalism, but political necessity brought this about, quite as much as Christianity. And the old warlike spirit is by no means dead, any more than the dark and gloomy mysteries of the ancient belief. These crop out sometimes from beneath the veneer of the newer mental garment. It was believed that the spirits of the dead—of the good dead, the brave warrior dead, apparently—had a long and toilsome journey before them. They had to cross mountains and marshes, and to find their way through forests and over rivers. Many terrible difficulties had to be encountered, and all sorts of spirit foes were ready to contest the narrow path. At last the end of the earth was reached, Cape Reinga, in the extreme north. An awfully tapu place this to living Maori. Here came the spirits of the dead at last, after accomplishing their journey, beset as it had been with many perils. And from the top of Cape Reinga, a mighty rock projecting into the sea, they took their last look at earth and dived into the water. Then they had to swim out beyond the Three Kings Islands, where the gate of Paradise was supposed to be situated. Many a tattooed Christian cannot give up his belief in this idea, and he still retains it, reconciling it in some dim way with his new theology. There is a little emerald-green lizard in the bush, called by the Maori ngarara. It is dreadfully tapu, and an old warrior would rather die than touch it. It is believed to contain a spirit, some say an evil demon, others the ghost of a wicked man. There is some uncertainty on that point, even among the most learned tohunga. At any rate it is most excessively tapu. It seems that to throw a ngarara at a Maori, or even to bring it near him, or show it to him, is a crime of a very heinous character. Wars were the consequence of such acts, once upon a time. I did not know of this superstition regarding the ngarara, and nearly lost my life in consequence. At least, I have been told the case was as bad as that.