With my reference to the geographical, historical, and political features of the King Country, I will here allude briefly to the physical and social position of the native race as I found it during my travels through that portion of the island where the inhabitants dwell in all their primitive simplicity. There can be no doubt whatever that the Maori race is greatly on the decrease,[4] and that the three principal diseases conducing to this result are phthisis, chronic asthma, and scrofula; the two first principally brought about, I believe, by a half-savage, half-civilized mode of life, and the latter from maladies contracted since the first contact of the people with Europeans. It is, however, clear that there is a large number of natives yet distributed throughout the King Country, and among them are still to be found, as of old, some of the finest specimens of the human race. A change of life, however, in every way different from that followed by their forefathers, has brought about a considerable alteration for the worse among the rising population, and, although during my journey I met and conversed with many tattooed warriors of the old school, and who were invariably both physically and intellectually superior to the younger natives, it was clear that this splendid type of savage would soon become a matter of the past. I found the natives living much in their primitive style, one of the most pernicious innovations, however, of modern civilization amongst them being an immoderate use of tobacco among both old and young. Although most of the native women were strong and well-proportioned in stature, and apparently robust and healthy, there appeared to be a marked falling off in the physical development of the younger men, when compared with the stalwart, muscular proportions of many of the older natives--a result which may, no doubt, be accounted for by their irregular mode of life when compared with that usually followed by their forefathers, combined with the vices of civilization, to which many of them are gradually falling a prey. It is a notable fact, which strikes the observer at once, that many of the old chiefs and elders of the various tribes, with their well-defined, tattooed features and splendid physique, have the stamp of the "noble savage" in all his manliness depicted in every line of their body, while many of them preserve that calm, dignified air characteristic of primitive races in all parts of the world before they begin to be improved off the face of the earth by raw rum and European progress. On the other hand, the rising generation has altogether a weaklier appearance, and, although I noticed many buxom lasses with healthy countenances and well-developed forms, not a few of the younger men were slight of build, with a thoughtful, haggard, and in many instances consumptive look about them.