Ah! those good old times, when first I came to New Zealand, we shall never see their like again. Since then the world seems to have gone wrong, somehow. A dull sort of world this, now. The very sun does not seem to me to shine as bright as it used. Pigs and potatoes have degenerated; and everything seems "flat, stale, and unprofitable." But those were the times!--the "good old times"--before Governors were invented, and law, and justice, and all that. When every one did as he liked,--except when his neighbours would not let him, (the more shame for them,)--when there were no taxes, or duties, or public works, or public to require them. Who cared then whether he owned a coat?--or believed in shoes or stockings? The men were bigger and stouter in those days; and the women,--ah! Money was useless and might go a-begging. A sovereign was of no use, except to make a hole in and hang it in a child's ear. The few I brought went that way, and I have seen them swapped for shillings, which were thought more becoming. What cared I? A fish-hook was worth a dozen of them, and I had lots of fish-hooks. Little did I think in those days that I should ever see here towns and villages, banks and insurance offices, prime ministers and bishops; and hear sermons preached, and see men hung, and all the other plagues of civilization. I am a melancholy man. I feel somehow as if I had got older. I am no use in these dull times. I mope about in solitary places, exclaiming often, "Oh! where are those good old times?" and echo, or some young Maori whelp from the Three Kings, answers from behind a bush,--NO HEA. I shall not state the year in which I first saw the mountains of New Zealand appear above the sea; there is a false suspicion getting about that I am growing old. This must be looked down, so I will at present avoid dates. I always held a theory that time was of no account in New Zealand, and I do believe I was right up to the time of the arrival of the first Governor. The natives hold this opinion still, especially those who are in debt: so I will just say, it was in the good old times, long ago, that from the deck of a small trading schooner, in which I had taken my passage from somewhere, that I first cast eyes on Maori land. It _was_ Maori land then; but, alas! what is it now? Success to you, O King of Waikato. May your _mana_ never be less;--long may you hold at bay the demon of civilization, though fall at last I fear you must. Plutus with golden hoof is trampling on your land-marks. He mocks the war-song, but should _I_ see your fall, at least one Pakeha Maori shall raise the _tangi_; and with flint and shell as of old shall the women lament you.