Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/217

Rh "We will talk more on this subject by-and-by," said the Doctor; "just at present we will use our eyes in studying the present rather than the past."

With this hint the youths closed their note-books and returned them carefully to the pockets where they belonged.

The youths were curious to see a Maori (pronounced mow-ry, the first syllable rhyming with "cow"), and they had not left the steps of the hotel before their desire was gratified. Their fellow-passenger from the Zealandia pointed out several of the aborigines of New Zealand, and among them he recognized an acquaintance, who greeted him cordially.

Frank was disappointed at seeing the man dressed in European garb, and looking altogether so much like an Englishman that he was not readily distinguished from the men of British origin. He was fully six feet high, muscular and well-formed, and had a slight tendency to corpulence. His face was darker than that of the average Englishman, and about the complexion of a native of the middle or south of France, and certainly lighter than the southern Italian. Frank thought it could be described as a light brown; but he was informed that these people are of different hues, and the Maoris have twelve names to indicate as many shades of color.

The eyes of this specimen native were black, and his hair was also black and slightly curly. As he talked he displayed a fine set of teeth; and as dentists are unknown among the Maoris, it is to be supposed these teeth were natural. His features were regular and symmetrical, the nose having a slight tendency to an aquiline form, the lips large and well developed, but not thick like those of the negro, and the mouth capacious enough for all practical purposes.