There are several modes of witchcraft; but that which is most practised is performed by digging a hole in the ground and invoking the spirit of the person who is to be bewitched. After the incantations are said, the invoked spirit appears above the hole like a flickering light, and is then solemnly cursed by the witch. Sometimes, instead of digging a hole, the witch goes by night to the river bank, and there invokes the spirit, who appears as a flame of fire on the opposite bank. Dr. Dieffenbach gives rather a curious account of a district named Urewera, which is supposed to be the special abode of witches. It is situated in the northern island, between Taupo and Hawkes’ Bay, and consists of steep and barren hills. The inhabitants of this district are few and scattered, and have the reputation of being the greatest witches in the country. “They are much feared, and have little connection with the neighboring tribes, who avoid them, if possible. If they come to the coast, the natives there scarcely venture to refuse them anything, for fear of incurring their displeasure. They are said to use the saliva of the people whom they intend to bewitch, and visitors carefully conceal it, to give them no opportunity of working them evil. Like our witches and sorcerers of old, they appear to be a very harmless people, and but little mixed up with the quarrels of their neighbors. “It is a curious fact that many of the old settlers in the country have become complete converts to the belief in these supernatural powers. Witchcraft has been the cause of many murders: a few days before I arrived at Aotea, on the western coast, three had been committed, in consequence of people declaring on their deathbeds that they had been bewitched.... “It is another curious fact, which has been noticed in Tahiti, Hawaii, and the islands inhabited by the great Polynesian race, that their first intercourse with Europeans produces civil wars and social degradation, but that a change of ideas is quickly introduced, and that the most ancient and deeply-rooted prejudices soon become a subject of ridicule to the natives, and are abolished at once. The grey priest, or tohunga, deeply versed in all the mysteries of witchcraft and native medical treatment, gives way in his attendance on the sick to every European who pretends to a knowledge of the science of surgery or medicine, and derides the former credulity of his patient.