After the meal we took a stroll through the kainga, Mata trying to attitudinize after the fashion of the white ladies she had seen in the settlements; and Henere loftily informing his neighbours that "_We three Pakeha_ come to see _your_ Maori town"—a piece of humour that was thoroughly enjoyed by both men and women, who made great capital for numberless jokes out of it.
Half-breeds, or Anglo-Maori men and women, form no inconsiderable section of the native community. Some have said of them, that they inherit the vices of both their parents, and the virtues of neither, but I cannot say that my own observation goes to support such a sweeping allegation. I have had some good friends among the Anglo-Maori, and never noticed any predominant vice in their character at all.
In complexion and general appearance, the Anglo-Maori resemble Spaniards or Italians, though they possess more or less marked traits of either the English or the Maori blood that mixes in their veins. Their physique is usually good, though they incline to slenderness and delicacy. They are by no means to be stigmatized as idle, but their capacity for work seems less than that of either parent. They lack the shrewdness of the Maori, and have not the mental power of the Anglo-Saxon. When a half-breed is bad, he seems to be wholly so, without any redeeming good qualities.
The Anglo-Maori women are nearly all very graceful and good-looking. There are some among them that are only to be described in the strongest language, as exceedingly beautiful. I have met a voluptuous beauty of this mixed race, an educated and fashionable lady, whose rare and exquisite loveliness might have made her the cause and heroine of another Trojan war. Once I knew one who possessed the most magnificent hair I ever expect to see.
We were playing croquet, I remember, some half a dozen people. The ladies had been bathing, I think; at any rate, they wore their hair flowing loose. I never saw anything like it. She, my partner in the game, had a complete mantle of dark-brown silky tresses. Her hair fell in volumes round her, and actually trailed on the ground when she stood upright. What an advertisement she would have been for a "hair-restorer!"