Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/203

 Maoris with whom I was not permitted to form too close an acquaintance. There were no allurements to trap and distract the attention, no luxuries to pall the appetite or paralyse energy, no mentors (at that period, save our parents) to guide the wayward faculties into the rigid paths of education. Consequently we were thrown against Nature, and soon came to learn from her many of the secrets she holds for all who choose to study her. From watching the movements of the birds we came to know their habits, and from reflecting on their habits came to know the reasons that lay behind them. Similarly with animals and plants and other natural objects we acquired a knowledge utterly beyond the ken of the casual observer, to whom

One of my earliest reminiscences carries me back to the year 1846, when, at the age of five years, I was playing in the grass with my younger brother. Just how we were occupied at the psychological moment of the fright, which has stamped the incident so indelibly on my memory, I cannot say, but a sound