The great canoe to hold three hundred men is but a memory; all that is left of it is its steering paddle, 40 feet in length, which adorns the wall in the Ethnographical section of the British Museum. [Illustration: STEM-PIECE, MAORI WAR CANOE.] [Illustration: STERN-POSTS OF MAORI WAR CANOES. _From Examples in the Dominion Museum, Wellington, New Zealand._] [Illustration: A MAORI WAR CANOE. _From Angas’s “New Zealand.”_] The canoes of that mysterious people, the Maori of New Zealand, well repay attention in greater detail than is possible in this book. The origin of the people themselves is unknown, though, if their traditions are to be accepted, they migrated a few hundred years ago from certain of the islands in the Central Pacific, partly conquered and partly absorbed the people whom they found there already, and have remained ever since. There has been more than one such expedition. There are affinities between the Maori and the Hawaians. Did the Maori come originally from Hawaii, or is there some connection between them and the ancient Egyptians, as is held to be indicated by certain points of resemblance in their carvings and mural decorations? In what sort of canoes did they cross the ocean, and how did they find their way? Unfortunately, the old chiefs who held the traditions have all died, and it is only owing to the painstaking researches of a few scholars who recognised the need and value of preserving what could still be learnt, that anything at all is known of the history of this strange people. Their legends tell us that some of their canoes were of great size; some could carry fires or places for cooking the food, and others were double canoes. One of the latter is said to have had a platform connecting the two hulls, and bearing a house; it was a three-masted vessel. All the New Zealand canoes had names of symbolical or historical interest. One of them was called _Marutuahi_, which, translated literally, means a slaying or devouring fire.[8] The dimensions of the historical or legendary canoes are not known. The straight, tall kauri pines of the North Island enabled large canoes to be built; one is said to have been 110 feet in length, and many of the later canoes were 60 to 80 feet long, and held a hundred to a hundred and fifty men. These boats had long, overhanging bows ornamented with a figurehead and two carved boards extending some little distance along either bow. Between these boards and resting on the stem the carved figurehead was placed and was often adorned with tufts of feathers. A mast set rather far forward and raking aft supported a triangular mat sail, the foot of which extended along the boom one and a half times to twice the length of its height, and enabled the canoe to sail very near the wind. The stays of the mast and the sheets of the sail were of plaited flax. The drawbacks to these canoes were that having no keels they made great leeway, and that their length made them awkward