The Complete Spiritual Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated Edition). Артур Конан Дойл

to get at truth. I do think that Christchurch has some need to apologise for its controversialists—much more need than our distinguished visitor has to apologise for what we all know to be his honest convictions."

      I have never met Dr. John Guthrie in the flesh, but I would thank him here, should this ever meet his eye, for this kindly protest.

      It will be gathered that I succeeded at Christchurch in performing the feat of waking up a Cathedral City, and all the ex-sleepers were protesting loudly against such a disturbing inrush from the outer world. Glancing at the head-lines I see that Bishop Brodie declared it to be "A blasphemy nurtured in fraud," the Dean of Christchurch writes it down as "Spiritism, the abrogation of Reason," the Rev. John Patterson calls it "an ancient delusion," the Rev. Mr. North says it is "a foolish Paganism," and the Rev. Mr. Ready opines that it is "a gospel of uncertainty and conjecture." Such are the clerical leaders of thought in Christchurch in the year 1920. I think of what the wise old Chinese Control said of similar types at the Melbourne Rescue Circle. "He good man but foolish man. He learn better. Never rise till he learn better. Plenty time yet." Who loses except themselves?

      The enormous number of letters which I get upon psychic subjects—which I do my best to answer—give me some curious sidelights, but they are often confidential, and would not bear publication. Some of them are from devout, but narrow Christians, who narrate psychic and prophetic gifts which they possess, and at the same time almost resent them on the ground that they are condemned by the Bible. As if the whole Bible was not psychic and prophetic! One very long letter detailed a whole succession of previsions of the most exact character, and wound up by the conviction that we were on the edge of some great discovery. This was illustrated by a simile which seemed very happy. "Have you noticed a tree covered in spider webs during a fog? Well, it was only through the law of the fog that we saw them. They were there all the time, but only when the moisture came could we see them." It was a good illustration. Many amazing experiences are detailed to me in every town I visit, and though I have no time to verify them and go into details, none the less they fit so accurately with the various types of psychic cases with which I am familiar that I cannot doubt that such occurrences are really very common. It is the injudicious levity with which they are met which prevents their being published by those who experience them.

      As an amateur philologist of a superficial type, I am greatly interested in studying the Maori language, and trying to learn whence these wonderful savages came before their twenty-two terrible canoes came down upon the unhappy land which would have been safer had as many shiploads of tigers been discharged upon its beach. The world is very old, and these folk have wandered from afar, and by many devious paths. Surely there are Celtic traces both in their appearance, their character and their language. An old Maori woman smoking her pipe is the very image of an old Celtic woman occupied the same way. Their word for water is wei, and England is full of Wye and Way river names, dating from the days before the Germans arrived. Strangest of all is their name for the supreme God. A name never mentioned and taboo among them, is Io. "J" is, of course, interchangeable with "I," so that we get the first two letters of Jove and an approximation of Jehovah. Papa is parent. Altogether there is good evidence that they are from the same root as some European races, preferably the Celts. But on the top of this comes a whole series of Japanese combinations of letters, Rangi, Muru, Tiki, and so forth, so that many of the place names seem pure Japanese. What are we to make of such a mixture? Is it possible that one Celtic branch, far away in the mists of time, wandered east while their racial brethren wandered west, so that part reached far Corea while the others reached Ireland? Then, after getting a tincture of Japanese terms and word endings, they continued their migration, taking to the seas, and finally subduing the darker races who inhabited the Polynesian Islands, so making their way to New Zealand. This wild imagining would at least cover the observed facts. It is impossible to look at some of the Maori faces without realising that they are of European stock.

      I must interpolate a paragraph here to say that I was pleased, after writing the above, to find that in my blind gropings I had come upon the main conclusions which have been put forward with very full knowledge by the well-known authority, Dr. McMillan Brown. He has worked out the very fact which I surmised, that the Maoris are practically of the same stock as Europeans, that they had wandered Japan-wards, and had finally taken to the sea. There are two points of interest which show the date of their exodus was a very ancient one. The first is that they have not the use of the bow. The second is that they have no knowledge of metals. Such knowledge once possessed would never have been lost, so it is safe to say that they left Asia a thousand years (as a minimum) before Christ, for at that date the use of bronze, at any rate, was widespread. What adventures and vicissitudes this remarkable race, so ignorant in some directions and so advanced in others, must have endured during those long centuries. If you look at the wonderful ornaments of their old war canoes, which carry a hundred men, and can traverse the whole Pacific, it seems almost incredible that human patience and ingenuity could construct the whole fabric with instruments of stone. They valued them greatly when once they were made, and the actual names of the twenty-two original invading canoes are still recorded.

      In the public gallery of Auckland they have a duplicate of one of these enormous canoes. It is 87 feet in length and the thwarts are broad enough to hold three or four men. When it was filled with its hundred warriors, with the chief standing in the centre to give time to the rowers, it must, as it dashed through the waves, have been a truly terrific object. I should think that it represented the supreme achievement of neolithic man. There are a series of wonderful pictures of Maori life in the same gallery by Goldie and Steele. Of these I reproduce, by permission, one which represents the starving crew of one canoe sighting the distant shore. The engraving only gives a faint indication of the effect of the vividly-coloured original.

      Reference has been made to the patient industry of the Maori race. A supreme example of this is that every man had his tikki, or image of a little idol made of greenstone, which was hung round his neck. Now, this New Zealand greenstone is one of the hardest objects in nature, and yet it is worn down without metals into these quaint figures. On an average it took ten years to make one, and it was rubbed down from a chunk of stone into an image by the constant friction of a woman's foot.

      It is said that the Tahungas, or priests, have much hereditary knowledge of an occult sort. Their oracles were famous, and I have already quoted an example of their séances. A student of Maori lore told me the following interesting story. He was a student of Maori words, and on one occasion a Maori chief let slip an unusual word, let us say "buru," and then seemed confused and refused to answer when the Englishman asked the meaning. The latter took it to a friend, a Tohunga, who seemed much surprised and disturbed, and said it was a word of which a paheka or white man should know nothing. Not to be beaten, my informant took it to an old and wise chief who owed him a return for some favours. This chief was also much exercised in mind when he heard the word, and walked up and down in agitation. Finally he said, "Friend, we are both Christians. You remember the chapter in the Bible where Jacob wrestled with an angel. Well, this word 'buru' represents that for which they were wrestling." He would say no more and there it had perforce to be left.

      The British Empire may be proud of their treatment of the Maoris. Like the Jews, they object to a census, but their number cannot be more than 50,000 in a population of over a million. There is no question, therefore, of our being constrained to treat them well. Yet they own vast tracts of the best land in the country, and so unquestioned are their rights that when they forbade a railway to pass down the centre of the North Island, the traffic had to go by sea from Auckland until, at last, after many years, it was shown to the chiefs that their financial interests would be greatly aided by letting the railway through. These financial interests are very large, and many Maoris are wealthy men, buying expensive motor cars and other luxuries. Some of the more educated take part in legislative work, and are distinguished for their eloquence. The half-castes make a particularly fine breed, especially in their youth, for they tend as they grow older to revert to the pure Maori type. New Zealand has no national sin upon its conscience as regards the natives, which is more, I fear, than can be said whole-heartedly for Australia, and even less for Tasmania. Our people never descended to the level of the old Congo, but they have something on their conscience none the less.

      On December 18th there was some arrangement by which I should meet the Maoris and see