and meeting-house. Although the style and dimensions vary considerably with the importance of the settlement, the general plan is the same. The hall is a long building, entered from the end. A bare strip some 8 ft. or 10 ft. wide runs up the centre of the floor, and the space between this and the side walls is littered down with fern or mangemange, covered with mats of green flax. This serves as a sleeping-place for the Maoris, who lie with their heads towards the wall, from which they are separated by a kind of narrow trough filled with fern, which acts as a general spittoon. Each Maori, on entering, takes his place—a kind of seniority being observed—the principal men occupying the upper end, and the women and children gathering near the door. The food which is cooked outside, is set on the floor in the central space, the Maoris squatting in a row along each side. The business—if there is any to be done—is conducted by a sort of informal debate, which is often carried on far into the night; and the hui, for whatever purpose it may have been called together, usually lasts until the stock of provisions shows signs of giving out.

It would be impossible to conceive of a more perfect medium for the dissemination of disease than the hui as it is now conducted. As it is important to have plenty of food, the larger meetings are held, if possible, soon after the crops have been harvested—that is to say, in the late autumn, when the weather is often cold and wet. A crowd of men, women, and children are packed together more closely than the passengers on an emigrant-ship. A large percentage are suffering from some pulmonary complaint, or from some inherited constitutional delicacy which renders them peculiarly accessible to infection. Night and day they are lying in damp clothes—as they never wholly undress—and breathing a mephitic atmosphere, poisoned by the exhalations from so many bodies and from the general spittoon. A person suffering from influenza comes in, and in a few hours the disease has gone the round of the house. Some times a death occurs, and the body is kept for days in the vicinity of the food, while the tangi (mourning) goes on. Diseases contracted at the hui are taken away to the homes of the homes of the visitors, where fresh centres of infection are started; and, although a new supply of bedding is provided, the germs remain about the building, to be nursed into life on the next occasion it is used.