Pigs, potatoes, flax were offered for copies of the precious volume, in one case even that rarest of curiosities in No Man's Land--a golden sovereign.
Not the least debt, which any one having to do with New Zealand owes the missionaries and Professor Lee, is a scholarly method of writing Maori.

In their hands the spelling of the language became simple, systematic, and pleasant to the eye.

What it has done to save the names of the country's places and persons from taking fantastic and ridiculous shapes, a few examples will show.

For sixty years after Cook's discovery every traveller spelt these names as seemed good to him.

The books of the time offer us such things of beauty as Muckeytoo (Maketu), Kiddy-Kiddy (Keri-Keri), Wye-mattee (Waimate), Keggerigoo (Kekerangu), Boo Marray and Bowmurry (Pomare), Shunghee and E'Ongi (Hongi), Corroradickee (Kororareka).