CHAPTER XI: The Isthmus of Auckland
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CHAPTER XI
The Isthmus of Auckland.
Situation. -- Waitemata and Manukau. -- The City of Auckland. -- The town of Onehunga. -- Geological features of the Isthmus. -- The extinct volcanoes. -- 63 points of eruption. -- Tuff-cones and tuff-craters. -- Cinder-cones. -- Combinations of both. -- Lava-streams. -- Manukau lava-field. -- Waitemata lava-field. -- Lava-streams of different age. -- Mount Wellington. -- Lava-cones. -- Rangitoto. -- The Auckland volcanoes of very recent date. -- The Isthmus as it was and as it is. -- Past, Present and Future.
The southern portion of the North Island is connected with the long-stretched northwestern peninsula by a small isthmus upon the 37th parallel South latitude. On the East-side the sea penetrates through the isle-studded Hauraki Gulf far into the land, washing in its southwestern ramifications, in the Waitemata River, the North-side of the isthmus. On the western coast, the weather-side of the island, the ocean has forced a narrow entrance through hard volcanic conglomerates, thence assuming wider dimensions, and forming the extensive basin of the Manukau Harbour on the southern shore of the isthmus. The land between both seas has a breadth of only five to six miles, and at two places, where from the Waitemata River in a southerly direction narrow creeks are cutting deep towards the Manukau Basin, it dwindles down to one single mile, forming "portages," which the natives have used since olden times for the purpose of dragging their canoes from one side of the sea to the other, 1 and which have roused among the colonists
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the idea of connecting both harbours by means of a canal. While the Waitemata River forms the most central harbour of the numerous harbours on the Eastcoast, the Manukau Basin is on the Westcoast the only harbour, which is accessible to larger vessels. 2
No second point upon the North Island possesses such an extraordinary facility for inland communication in all directions by means of the harbours, estuaries and rivers, all of which may be navigated to near their sources, either by boats or canoes, and between most of which very short portages intervene. In a northerly direction the Waitemata Creek extends to within a few miles from the Kaipara Harbour. Upon the branches of this extensive estuary and upon the Wairoa River, navigable to a large extent of its course, the water-route leads through regions abounding in timberwood, and through the most luxuriant Kauri forests far to the North. In a south-easterly direction, there is a passage between the islands of the Hauraki Gulf to the mouths of the rivers Piako and Waiho (the New Zealand Thames), and upon the latter river far into the interior of the country. In a southerly direction, there lies between the end of Waiuku Creek, a side-branch of the Manukau Harbour, and the Awaroa Creek a portage of only 1 1/2 miles; this creek flows into the Waikato, the principal river of the North Island, navigable for 100 miles up and leading through the most fertile and smiling tracts of land into the very heart of the country.
Such are the natural advantages of the spot, which in 1840 was fixed upon by Captain Hobson as the site for the seat of the Government of New Zealand, and as the proper spot for a large and prosperous agricultural and commercial settlement. Experience appears to have justified the wisdom of this choice. The city of
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Auckland, 3 extending the rows of its houses along the charming shores of the Waitemata on the Northside of the isthmus, will prosper and flourish, and secure its rank as a metropolis of the North Island, even after the seat of Government is removed to Wellington, and the centre of gravity of the colonial development seams to shift more and more from North to South.
In the year 1860, Auckland numbered 10,000 inhabitants, and probably to the same number amounts the population of the Auckland district. Though the city with its mostly timber-built houses has not quite lost all traces of its late origin; yet it continues to improve from year to year by the construction of large stone-buildings from the porous basalt-lava ("scoriae-stone") of the surrounding volcanic cones, yielding an excellent building material. The circumference of the town and suburbs, planned on a large scale, is at present already a considerable one. From East to West, including the suburbs, Auckland has a frontage on the water of a mile and a-half and extends from North to South to the distance of about one mile. The Centre of the city is situated on a ridge, between Mechanics' Bay East and Commercial Bay West, shelving off abruptly to the harbour at Britomart Point. Upon this central ridge, on the extremity of the head land, Britomart Fort and Barracks are built, next the Metropolitan Church of St. Paul, the rows of houses in Princes' Street, the Governor's Mansion, the Albert Barracks, and overlooking town and harbour the Windmill is seen with Mount Eden in the back ground. East of this central line, round about Official and Mechanics' Bay, are the Government buildings and offices, and the detached cottage-like houses of military and civil officers, of clergymen and missionaries; West of it on Commercial Bay is the mercantile quarter, forming a mass of houses closely packed together. Freeman's Bay, to the westward of Commercial Bay, is occupied chiefly by saw-pits, brick-kilns, and boat-builders' yards. The site of the city, the variously jutting hills, and the intervening bays remind us of Sydney with its "coves." The Harbour of Auckland being very shallow on the
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town-side, the construction of piers extending far into the water was a matter of necessity. On Mechanics' Bay, the Official or Wynyards Pier affords a convenient boat landing-place at all times of tide; on Commercial Bay, the Commercial Pier or Queen-street wharf more than a quarter of a mile long, is, in fact, one of the most reputable works in the young colony, and of incalculable benefit for the commerce of Auckland; alongside of it, coasting vessels are able to land and to take in their cargoes, and in the continuation of it runs Queen-street, the main commercial street of the town. Whoever has not been accustomed to city life on too extravagant a scale, will scarcely miss anything in social life. Considering its size, Auckland possesses the elements of considerable society. The most cheering and encouraging beginnings have been made in every thing; even a botanical garden and a museum of natural history have been already founded; and numerous societies and institutes for benevolent, scientific, agricultural, horticultural and other purposes have been formed. 4
Auckland is the starting point of the two principal road-lines on North Island; the Great South Road leading to Mangatawhiri on the Waikato; and the Great North Road, which will lead overland to the Bay of Islands. A third, macadamised road is cros-
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sing the Isthmus to the town of Onehunga, situated on the shores of Manukau Harbour, a distance of five miles.
Onehunga, originally a settlement of civil and military pensioners who from the Government had received a small house and one acre of land each, has already risen to the rank of a town, which, being the chief trading-place of the natives, is gaining more and more importance and, in consequence of its pleasant situation and charming environs, has become the favourite residence of business-men who, having their business-establishment in Auckland, prefer to live in or close by Onehunga. Along the road between the two towns farms and cottages are seen scattered about. The land, however, is not exclusively in the hands of farmers; merchants, civil and military officers also invest their savings in landed property. Charming country-houses surrounded with lovely gardens grace the country all over the Isthmus; while at the crossings of the principal roads already villages have sprung up, such as New Market, Mount St. John Village, Epsom, Panmure, and farther on Otahuhu and Howik. It is not to be wondered therefore, that in the course of time the land in and about Auckland has enormously risen in value. 5
The Isthmus of Auckland is one of the most remarkable volcanic districts of the earth. It is characterised by a large number of extinct volcanic cones with craters in a more or less distinct state of preservation, and with lava-streams forming extensive stone fields at the foot of the hills, or with tuff-craters surrounding, like an artificial wall, the cones of eruption piled up of scoriae and volcanic ashes. These cones are promiscuously scattered over the Isthmus and the neighbouring shores of the Waitemata and Manukau. The
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volcanic action seems to have made itself a new way nearly at every eruption, and has thus splintered into a number of small cones, while by always keeping one and the same channel, it might perhaps have formed one mighty volcanic mountain. On the geological map of the Isthmus I have traced, upon a rectangle twenty miles long and twelve miles wide, or within a radius of only ten miles from Auckland, not less than 63 separate points of eruption. They are volcanoes on the smallest scale, cones of only 300 to 600 feet above the level of the sea. The Rangitoto, the highest among them, rising at the entrance to Auckland Harbour as it were the Vesuvius of Waitemata Bay, measures 920 feet. Nevertheless, they are perfect models of volcanic cones and craters presenting a rich field for observation and ample material for the discussion of the question of the formation of volcanic cones and craters. A full description with all details I have given in the Geology of New Zealand (Scientific Publications of the Novara Expedition, Geological Part, Vol.I.); here I may be allowed to quote the principal results.
The volcanic cones of the Isthmus are rising on the basis of tertiary sandstone and shale, the horizontal strata of which are laid bare in numerous sections on the precipitous bluffs and steep banks of the Waitemata and Manukau Harbours. Fossils are an extremely rare occurrence in those strata. Only now and then, near the water's edge, thin layers of lignite or drift-wood, changed to brown coal, are seen, and on the Northside of the entrance to the Orakei Bay I discovered glauconitic strata with fossil species of Pecten, Nucula, Cardium, Turbo, Nerita, and replete with fossil Bryozoes and Foraminiferae. These strata were completely broken through by the volcanic action from below, and an examination of the points of eruption proves, first of all, that volcanic action has repeatedly exhibited itself at one and the same place.
The first outbursts -- as a closer examination shows -- were probably submarine; they took place at the bottom of a shallow, muddy bay little exposed to waves and wind, and consisted of flowing mud mixed with loose masses, such as fragments
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of sandstone and shale, lava-debris, cinders and scoriae (lapilli), which now form beds of volcanic agglomerate or tuff. The eruptions occurred, no doubt, at intervals; for in this manner alone can the fact be accounted for, that the ejected material has been deposited round the point of eruption in layers one above
the other, forming low hills gradually rising and with a circular basin or dish-shaped crater in the middle. A cross-section presents clearly the different layers, which usually slope inwards towards the bottom of the crater, as well as outwards down the sides. The hills formed by these first eruptions we may designate as tuff-cones, or in as much as they enclose circular craters, as tuff-craters.
Lake Pupuke on the Northshore, Orakei Bay East of Auckland, Gedde's Basin (Hopua) near Onehunga, the Waimagoia Basin near Panmure, the Kohuora Hills, South of Otahuhu, and a good many others are striking examples of such tuff-craters. Like the lake-craters ("Maare") of the Eifel, the crater-basins are sometimes very deep and full of water, -- the fresh-water Lake Pupuke has a depth of 28 fathoms, 6 -- sometimes flat and dry, or covered only with swamp and turf-moors. Where they lie close to the sea, the latter has generally forced an entrance on one side or the other, breaking down the circumvallation, and thenceforth passing in and out from the crater-basin. Where there are several such cones close together, as at Onehunga, and in the vicinity of Otahuhu, it is very often a difficult matter, to designate the individual craters, because a space bordered by a number of craters, very easily assumes for itself the form of a crater.
The excellence of the soil of Onehunga and Otahuhu is owing to the abundance of tuff-cones. Nearly each one of them harbours
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the house or premises of a farmer; and it is curious to observe how the shrewder amongst the settlers, without any geological knowledge, and without dreaming even that they were building their houses at the very brink of a crater, have long since picked all those tuff-craters for themselves. The meadows and clover-fields upon them are proudly waving in softest verdure, while upon the sterile clay-soil nothing but ferns and manuka-bushes are strutting.
With the beginning of the volcanic action, by which the tuff-cones were formed, a slow and gradual upheaving of the whole Isthmus seems to have taken place, so that the latter eruptions were supra-marine. In this second period the volcanic action caused the ejection of glowing masses of scorias and cinders ("lapilli"), and of fiery fluid drops of lava ("volcanic bombs"), which from the rotatory motion through the air assumed the pear or lemon-shaped form peculiar to them; and finally great out-flowings of lava-streams took place, which were rolling their glowing waves, like rivers of fire, through the valleys. At that period the Auckland volcanoes were "burning mountains" in the true sense of the word; they were piling up their steep-rising scoria or cinder-cones; and, where repeated and frequent out-flowings of lava from the same crater were taking place, there also lava-cones like the Rangitoto formed themselves.
It was not on all points of eruption, that cinders and lava came bursting forth, but at several points the first formation of the simple tuff-crater remained, and the volcanic forces afterwards opened new channels. But where the new eruptions followed the
old channel, there we observe in the middle of the flat tuff-crater, the outer slope of which hardly ever rises at an angle larger than 5 to 10 degrees, a steep cinder-cone with a declivity of 30 to 35 degrees, and a deep, funnel-shaped crater at the top. The cinder-cone very often has entirely filled up and even covered up the tuff-crater, as is, for example, the case with the Takapuna, the North Head of the Auckland Harbour; or it rises in the shape
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of an island, in the middle of the larger tuff-crater, and is surrounded either by water or swamp, as at Mt. Richmond, Fort Richards and several points South and Southwest from Otahuhu. In fact, examples of every gradation may be seen -- from the simple tuff-crater without any cinder-cone, to those which are entirely filled up by the cinder-cones. Especially interesting are those which may be said to represent the middle state; perhaps the most perfect specimen of this kind is the Waitomokia Southwest of Otahuhu. No doubt, such forms may partly be explained also by a later sinking down, by a sagging of the cinder-cone within its tuff-enclosure, by which even cones, that formerly had towered high above the tuff-crater, sunk in to their topmost points, some of them perhaps disappearing entirely. The destroying influences of water and atmosphere have also wrought a change of the original forms. This may be the case especially with the remarkable point of eruption within the very precincts of the city of Auckland, upon the half-destroyed tuff- and cinder-cone of which the central parts of the city are built. I will give a more detailed description of this point. The Wesleyan Church, Mechanics' Institute, the Auckland Hotel and other buildings are built upon a kind of terrace, higher by about 40 feet than Queen-street; behind the terrace at a steep angle and almost with a semicircular slope the hill rises, upon which the barracks stand, and on the northern and eastern slope of which the Governor's house, St. Paul's Church and the Princes'-street are situated. I consider the terrace to be the central point of eruption, or the remains of a sunk cinder-cone. The foundations of the buildings are resting there on more or less compact masses of cinder and basaltic lava, blocks of which are everywhere in the vicinity protruding from the ground. The steep, almost semicircular declivity, 200 feet high, however, is to be considered as the eastern half of a large tuff-crater, the western half of which, beyond Queen-street, is scarcely to be recognized by a thin layer of volcanic tuff, which has been almost entirely decomposed into yellow clay. Queen-street intersects the former tuff-crater in the direction from North to South. Near Odd Fel-
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low's Hall I saw the layers of scoriae and cinders in new cuttings on both sides of the street. Near the barracks loose masses of scoriae and cinders are obtained as metalling-material from shafts 12 to 16 feet deep; and I was told that on the occasion of special trials nothing but scoriae and cinders have been found at a depth of 340 feet, so that it almost seems as though, just beneath the barracks there were another centre of eruption. Farther below, near St. Paul's Church, on Shortland Crescent, and in the ditches of Fort Britomart we meet again decomposed tuff-strata; likewise at the Clipp house and in the yard of the Victoria Hotel. The little valley, however, leading-through these tuff-strata to Wynyard Pier, the natives call very strangely Wai ariki (warm water), as though a warm spring had been flowing there in olden times.
The scoria and cinder-cones, although not adapted to agricultural purposes are nevertheless of practical value. They furnish an excellent material for macadamizing roads, which can be easily obtained; and it is to this material, that the Isthmus of Auckland owes its beautiful metalling roads. The metalling-quarries are opened everywhere at points contiguous to the road, as on the foot of Mount Eden, on One Tree Hill, Mount Wellington and others.
The lava of the Auckland volcanoes consists of a scoriaceous basalt, containing small grains of Olivin. The lava-beds of Mount Eden are on various places columnar. The porous mass, called "scoriae-stone" is exceedingly well adapted for building-material, and is used for this purpose in Auckland in like manner, as in Melbourne quite a similar kind of basaltic lava, found in the vicinity of the latter city.
In the larger lava-streams, as at the "Three Kings," Mount Smart, Mount Wellington etc., caves are very frequently found, which are in reality nothing but the results of great bubbles in the lava -- occasioned probably by the generation of gases and vapors, as the hot mass rolled onward over marshy ground. Where the roof of such caves broke down, there are deep holes, such as those near Onehunga, called the "grotto" and "pond," which have been mistaken for points of eruption or crater-sinkings.
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The several craters differ very much as to the quantity of lava that has issued from them. Where the issue of lava has taken place only once, breaking through one side of the crater and flow-
ing over the ring of the tuff-cone to the foot of the hill, there we see the volcanic system in a very simple perfection and distinctness, as at Pigeon Hill near Howick, at Green Hill and Taylor's Hill. At other points, however, there was a more copious out-flowing of lava; stream followed after stream, and the lava-streams of several craters uniting together, formed extensive lava-fields, upon which it is often a difficult matter to distinguish the streams belonging to the different craters. Thus the lava-streams of Mount Eden, Three Kings and Mount Albert are blended in the large Waitemata lava-field Southwest of Auckland. Those three mountains seem to have been active simultaneously; their streams, spreading round the basis of the cinder-cones, and rolling thence over the northwesterly slope of the Isthmus through former ravines and valleys towards the sea. Near the coast they met all together in a contracted valley, and there formed one large stream to the shore of the Waitemata, terminating on the long reef West of Sentinel Rock and opposite to Kauri Point on the Northshore. The idea had once been entertained of building a bridge from that point across the harbour.
On the southeastern slope of the Isthmus the lava-streams of One Tree Hill, Mount Smart, and Mount Wellington form the large Manukau lava-field. Here, however, a remarkable difference of age appears in the streams of the various craters, proving distinctly that they were not active all at the same time. The lava of One Tree Hill is already entirely decomposed at the surface, it is covered with a fertile reddish-brown earth and beautiful grass and clover paddocks are laid down over those oldest lava-streams. The lava of Mount Smart, on the other hand, presents a stone-field very difficult to cultivate; and the comparatively newest lava-streams of Mt.
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Wellington, together with the large stream, which flowed in a southwesterly direction as far as Onehunga, shows a surface as yet uncorroded by the action of the atmosphere or water. The lava presents a barren stone-field of black blocks of rock, between which only a few bushes have succeeded in taking root. The difference between the older and newer lava is very clearly shown upon the Great South Road. About one mile East of the "Harp Inn," the traveller will observe a sudden change in the colour of the road, which is most distinctly noticed after a rain. The red colour (from oxide of iron) changes suddenly to black, where the road leaves the older and more decomposed lava-streams of One Tree Hill and passes on to the new and undecomposed lava-stream of Mount Wellington.
Inferences thus drawn already from the state of decomposition of the lava-streams, are moreover proven by observations on the remarkable crater-system of Mount Wellington (Maunga Rei of the natives), which I needs must make special mention of, as being one of the most instructive points on this subject. Here the careful observer has ample opportunity of studying a whole system of craters and cones of different ages and different composition. The oldest member is a large tuff-crater intersected by the Panmure Road, and exhibiting most beautifully, in the northern cut of the road, the characteristic outward dip of its strata. In this tuff-crater arises a double cone 7 of cinder with two craters. The Northeast-side of this cone is now cut into by a quarry. Its old lava-streams are to be seen very much decomposed at the bottom of the tuff-crater. After a comparatively long period of quiescence, from the southern margin of the tuff-crater by new eruptions the large and very regular cinder-cone of Mount Wellington arose, from whose three craters large streams of basaltic lava flowed out in a westerly direction, extending North and South along the existing valleys of the country, one stream flowing
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into the old tuff-crater and spreading round the base of the smaller crater-cones.
A. New cinder and scoria-cone.
a. Crater, about 200 feet deep.
b. Crater, about 180 feet deep.
c. Third crater.
d. Highest point of the crater.
B. Purchas Hill, old cinder and scoria-cones.
e. and f. Craters.
C. Tuff-cone.
g. Tuff-crater.
D. Lava-streams.
E. to F. Road from Panmure to St. John's College.
(The terraces on the slopes of A and B date from the fortifications of the natives.)
Most abounding in lava, and in its last eruptions probably also the newest of all the Auckland volcanoes is the Rangitoto Mountain, 920 feet high, rising on the Eastside of the entrance to the Waitemata Harbour. This is at the same time the only point, where the lava-streams have built up a regular lava-cone, rising at an angle of 4 to 5 degrees, and bearing at its top two
steep cones of scoriae and cinders, of which the upper one with a funnel-shaped crater appears set in the crater of the lower. Hence the characteristic profile of this mountain.
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A complete volcanic system would accordingly consist of three parts: a tuff-cone, the basis and pedestal of the whole frame; a lava-cone, the chief-mass of the mountain; and a scoria or cinder-cone forming the top with the crater, as the annexed wood-cut is intended to illustrate.
In referring the Maori name Rangitoto, according to its literal signification "bloody sky," to fire-phenomena, such as a reflection of blazing lava-streams in the nocturnal sky, we would have to suppose, that the Auckland volcanoes had not ceased to be active till within the latest historical period. This, however, seems to me improbable, since there are nowhere traces to be found of solfataras, fumaroles or hot springs. That, however, the time of their activity belongs to a very recent geological period, is shown by the fact that the cinders everywhere occupy the topmost surface, and that the lava-streams have taken the course of the existing valleys. These valleys, consequently, were already formed, when the out-flowings of lava took place; and the surface of the country has not essentially changed its appearance since that time.
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The question, how long the volcanic action might have lasted, and whether there is any probability of its returning, is of course not to be answered: yet, -- if we take the example of Monte Nuovo near Naples, which in the month of September A. D. 1538, grew in two days and two nights to the size of a cone 400 feet high, -- we may venture to say, that cones, such as Mt. Eden and Mt. Wellington, are likely to have sprung up in the course of a few days.
We have thus sketched the geological history of the volcanic cones in the vicinity of Auckland; 8 moreover these take also a most remarkable part in the history of man. Now-a-days they are the ornament of a country richly cultivated by the industry of European settlers, who duly availed themselves of the fertile volcanic soil. Their summits present charming points from which the whole Isthmus can be viewed from sea to sea, and I love to linger a little while longer over the picture here presented to the eye, linking to it my thoughts about the "Past and Present" of this country, such as they suggested themselves to me, whenever from those heights I viewed the peculiar landscape.
The country is now almost bare of trees. Only on the hillsides, in the craters or in a few gullies, there are some remnants
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of the forest-vegetation, formerly covering the Isthmus. To judge from the Kauri gum found upon the Isthmus, the queen of the New Zealand forest, the Kauri pine, had likewise a share in those forests. On the road to Onehunga, at the foot of Mount Eden,
there stands an isolated "cabbage tree" (Ti of the natives; Cordyline australis), nearly 30 feet high, with ramified branches and a crown of luxuriant growth, -- a true representative of the original vegetation, and a magnificent specimen of its kind, fully deserving the indulgence bestowed upon it. A tree quite peculiar to the volcanic cones is Brachyglois repanda, by the natives called Pukapuka, meaning book or paper-tree because of the white lining of its leaves. On the high bluffs of the Waitemata, there are some few scattered Pohutukaua trees (Metrosideros tomentosa) the last remains of the beautiful vegetation, that once decked the shores of the harbour. About Christmas these trees are full of charming purple-blossoms; the settler decorates his church and dwelling with its lovely branches, and calls the tree "Christmas-tree." As to the rest of the landscape, it presents only shrubs.
Nearly every vestige of the former wilderness has disappeared from the Isthmus. The former vegetation has been mostly sup-
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planted by European domesticated plants, and the weeds always accompanying the latter are mingling with the remnants of the indigenous flora. Roads are intersecting in all directions the hilly country between the Waitemata and the Manukau. Cottages and farms are dotting the smiling landscape between Auckland and Onehunga. The premises are very substantially fenced in by solid basalt-walls and quick-set hedges; and wherever the nature of the soil or the structure of the ground admits of cultivation, there grass and clover paddocks, and gardens and fields have been laid out. Cattle are browsing in the meadows; omnibuses enliven the roads; here a farmer's family in the one-horse dog-cart; there ladies and gentlemen mounted on horse-back: -- a picture full of freshness and vigour and of gay and merry life, as in the happy, idyllic spots and cherished haunts of our native home.
Like mirrors artificially enframed, the ponds, set in the old circular tuff-craters, are glistening afar. The sea is dashing far into the land, as though water and land had as yet not stipulated for their proper limits. Towards North arises the majestic Rangitoto from the waters of the Waitemata; and opposite to it, the smaller cones of the Northshore. Sailing vessels are passing in and out through the channel, and boats are racing over the harbour. On the other side of the Isthmus, on the waters of the Manukau, the mail-steamer, with its long whirling columns of smoke, is bringing us letters and taking along our greetings to "the loved ones at home." On surveying all this, how should the stranger realize, that he is in New Zealand at the Antipodes.
Only yonder in the distant horizon, towards West and South, where sombre shadows are hovering over lofty mountain-ranges, there are still traces to remind us of virgin forest and of primeval wilderness. Yet, the curly wreath of smoke ascending there, is a proof, that even there the son of man has fixed his abode. There are the first settlers, pioneering for generations to come. A small log-house is standing in the midst of the dusky bush, it is the scanty shelter of a family, that has come many a thousand miles far o'er the deep, to found a new homestead in a new
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country. The father is in the bush; trunk after trunk, is falling prostrate under the powerful strokes of the woodman's merciless axe; the mother at home is preparing the frugal meal in the iron pot suspended by a chain over the merrily flickering chimney-fire. Children are playing in front of the sylvan hut, radiant with health, and with their cheeks flushed with the forest-breeze; a faithful dog, chickens and pigs are their playmates. "It is hard work, indeed" the industrious house-wife is perhaps chatting with her husband on his return from the combat with those antiquated wood-giants, "a life full of trouble and privation; no physician, no drug-store, no church in the neighbourhood; nor even a friend, to talk about the dear, old home; yet, what we see before us and all around us, is ours, we may call it ours, and the Giver of All, I trust, will grant us His help for the future." And so it is. From year to year improvements are going on; the bush dwindles away; crop succeeds crop; the log-house has been supplanted by a pleasant, commodious country-house, surrounded with blooming gardens and waving fields. Herds of well-fed cattle are grazing in the pastures; horses are skipping and plunging in the meadows; friends have settled in the neighbourhood; smooth lanes and neat paths are winding between hedges and through the woods from farm to farm. And close by the wayside stands a church; a tavern is there, and the first trading-shop too has already been opened. Where of late there stood but a scanty isolated log-house, there is now -- it cannot be called a village, nor is it quite a town; it is -- a fragment of a town. Town people are inhabiting it with town-wants and town-fashions; they have mail-communications and newspapers; horses and carriages, and are living like the lords and ladies in the "old country." Thus, in the evening of a busy life, the old ones are enjoying their plenty; their children have now advanced into the bush; father and mother have set them a good example, and a new vigorous generation, undaunted by obstacles, is taking with rapid strides possession of the land, once the native haunts of a race of men of another complexion, called savages,
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who also lived after a manner, but it was the manner of their fathers.
How very different is the fate of that race of men! They, too, had emigrated in olden times from distant isles, in order to enjoy a better, happier life in the new country. Perhaps they, too, found here, what they had anticipated, through a long series of generations. But their time is past; and like a dreary picture of the romantic medieval age their life appears by the side of the cheerful picture of to-day.
The Isthmus of Auckland was of yore the dwelling-place of a mighty tribe of Maoris, the scene of the peaceful occupations, of the festivals and games of a people, who, if barbarous, were not the less gifted; but also the scene of the bloodiest cannibal-massacres, in consequence of which that tribe gradually vanished from the earth. The Ngatiwatuas, who were living here, are said to have numbered but a few generations ago from 20,000 to 30,000, and those extinct volcanoes were at that time acting the part of mountain-forts like the castles of the middle ages. By their commanding position and the prospect far o'er the country, they were exceedingly well adapted for watch-towers and forts. As in Europe the ruins upon rocks and mountain heights are the gloomy mementoes of club-law, where "might alone made right;" so also the heights of New Zealand are peculiarly marked as the fastnesses and places of refuge of powerful and tyrannical warriors and chiefs. Their summits bore the well-fortified Pahs of the chiefs; and at the foot of the hills, the dwellings of the serfs ranged to a great distance, with the Kumara-fields which they had to till. The ruins of those dwelling-places at the foot of the heights are seen to this very day; most distinctly perhaps at the foot of Mt. Smart; nor the mountain-cones themselves bear less evident testimony to their former destination.
The slopes of the hills look, I might say, tattooed, like the faces of the old surviving warriors, who have been spared from the carnage of the cannibal age. They are terraced, that is to say, terraces are cut around the declivities, 10 to 12 feet high, which are visible
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at a considerable distance. Upon those terraces double rows of stockades were planted in olden times, and deep holes dug, covered with branches, reed, and ferns, like wolf-traps, for the purpose of insnaring the assailing foes. Other pits less deep, connected by subterraneous passages from above and below, and having ingeniously concealed outlets, served the defenders of the fort as secret paths and hiding-places, or as ambuscades, from which they sallied forth upon the assailants; and in a third sort of holes in the ground they had their provisions stored away. The observer is justly struck with astonishment on seeing, how ingeniously and practically the Maoris had planned their forts, and what colossal works they were capable of executing with extremely rude and defective instruments of wood and stone; with wooden spades, with hammers, chisels and axes of stone, and with knives wrought of muscle-shells. Behind all those palisades and ditches encircling the slope of the mountain, high on the top lived the chief with his family and the nobles of his tribe.
Now-a-days the houses and huts are destroyed; the last vestige of the stockade has disappeared; the Maori-castle is in ruins. And as the crater on the top has remained as it were a scar of the
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fiery combat in the bowels of the earth; so the terraces with their deep holes and ditches are the scars that remind us of the bloody combat of nations long passed away. Heaps of seashells 9 are the remnants of the repasts of the savages. Fernweed, Manuka, and other indigenous plants, or the grass and clover of the European settler are covering with their soft vestment of luxuriant verdure the former scene of action of a valiant people past and gone, whose mighty deeds are now living only in songs and traditions. Of the tribe, once so numerous and powerful, there are but a few families inhabiting a small village on the Orakei Bay East of Auckland. The lava-caves at Three Kings, Mt. Smart, and Mt. Wellington are crammed with the skeletons of those unhappy victims, who perished, during the second decade of this century, in the murderous wars of the terrible Hongi. Upon one of the mountains, Mount Hobson, so called in honour of the first English Governor of New Zealand, I found one single, solitary inhabitant left, living beneath the scanty shelter of a tattered tent half underground, -- an old deranged Maori woman, an out-cast upon that lonely spot according to the superstitious customs of her kindred, and doomed to die in dreary solitude where thousands of her tribe had died of old.
Such is the "Past and Present" of the Isthmus of Auckland.
