However, the New Zealanders had no idea what the pigs were sent for, and
everybody asked everybody else about it, until one--the smart fellow who
knows it all--said that he had heard all about them from a sailor, and
that they were horses! Oh, certainly they were horses! The sailor had
described them perfectly--long heads, pointed ears, broad backs, four
legs, and a tail. They were to ride upon. Great chiefs always rode them
where the sailors lived.
So the New Zealand chiefs mounted the pigs, and when Captain King came
to see how everything was going on, they had ridden them to death--all
but a few obstinate ones, who had eaten up the maize as soon as it grew
green, and finished up the beans by way of dessert before the vines were
halfway up the poles.
Captain King did not despair, however. He took two natives home with
him, taught them all about the cultivation of maize, and the rearing of
pigs; and pork is now as popular in New Zealand as it is in Cincinnati.
You can hardly take a walk without meeting a mother-pig and a lot of
squealing piglets; and people pet them more than they ever did or ever
will in their native lands. Here, you know, when baby wants something to
play with, some one finds him a kitten, a ball of white floss, or a
little Maltese, or a black morsel with green eyes and a red mouth; but
in New Zealand they give him a very, very young pig, smooth as a kid
glove, with little slits of eyes, and his curly tail twisted up into a
little tight knot; and the brown baby hauls it about and pulls its ears
and goes to sleep hugging it fast; and there they lie together, the
piglet grunting comfortably, the baby snoring softly, for hours at a
time.
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