CHAPTER XI. TE REINGA
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CHAPTER XI.
TE REINGA.
From the summit of Maketu Hill we just discerned a cloud-like appearance far out at sea, denoting the position of an active volcano, and in riding along the arc of the Bay of Plenty we have approached nearer and nearer to it, so as to be able to make out that the smoke issues from an isolated cone-shaped island rising in dreary solitude from the depths of the ocean; only twelve miles off Whakatane a somewhat similar peak exists, Whale Island, but no longer active, the only volcanic symptoms now about it being its shape and hot springs. But White Island is still a true volcano. I never landed on it, though many of my friends have done so; one of whom, by the way, discovered that slipping through a thin crust into boiling sulphurous mud was neither a pleasant nor yet an efficacious remedy for the gout. I once however steamed slowly close past, and was enabled to see that it was a burnt out, bare mountain, with hardly a trace of vegetation on its sloping sides; to the southward, the lip of the crater had given way, and the opening thus formed allowed us to judge easily of what the interior consisted. We could see a green, slimy-looking lake over whose surface curled the same kind of vapour that we had so often seen at the Hot Lakes; the interior slopes were steep, and apparently composed of rocks rotted down by the incessant heat; from numberless nooks and crannies spurted up jet after jet of steam; here and there yellow patches denoted the existence of masses of sulphur, sufficiently distinguishable
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indeed by the smell; and, over all, hung as it were a sense of utter desolation. It had a weird and grim aspect, this bare azoic rock, shooting up 850 feet above the calm blue sea which broke in ripplets on the small lava reef at the base, and sending its roots a hundred fathoms down to establish a volcanic communication with Tongariro by the chain of solfataras, &c, extending right up to Taupo. Had it been formed during some fierce submarine convulsion? Or was it rather the wreck of some mighty peak which had in past geologic ages towered over a range in a now submerged Austral Continent? Submarine or terrestrial by birth, it forms a most striking, but most sombre and dismal feature in the scenery of the Bay of Plenty.
By a piece of good fortune, after leaving Opotiki we kept fair weather on both sides of the East Cape, a rather unusual occurrence; and, after sailing along for a couple of days with a high broken coast on the right, we caught sight of the first land seen by Captain Cook in these parts, Young Nick's Head, a high white cliff which forms the southern promontory of Poverty Bay. If ever there was a misnomer given by discoverer to a spot, it was the above name; but in justice to Captain Cook it must be said that the first impressions of Turanganui, even now, are not favourable; for the township is built on a sandy soil, the road leading inland is ankle deep in sand, and every breeze carries with it clouds of blinding gritty dust. The town is however nothing; it is in the country at the back that all interest lies, and once the tourist gets three miles out, he soon sees the difference.
Poverty Bay, indeed! Not even when scathed by fire and sword, as I first saw it; its settlers slain; its houses burnt, blackened stacks of chimneys only remaining to indicate the sites of once happy homes; its orchards and gardens ravaged; its cattle, slaughtered; and indices of murder and rapine
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meeting the eye to right and left: not even then did it deserve the name. I had never before seen such rye grass as that through which I rode, up to the horse's girth, over the Patutahi plain; in the ruined gardens huge vines still trailed over the few buildings which had escaped the general destruction, or lay thickly matted on the ground; fruit of every description was in abundance; in the Bishop's orchard, near the old Episcopal residence, school and industrial farm combined in one at Waerangahika, then all deserted and the shell of the house riddled with bullets poured into it during the old fight in 1865, the plums, (unripe!) were weighing down the branches; and as for apples, they were literally being carted away by loads.
That was in 1869, and we had not then much opportunity for sight-seeing; of the few families which remained in the district none resided beyond the township, for Te Kooti and his crew were still in the field; he proved it to us too, by issuing out of the gorges just in time to assure us he was still full of mischief, notwithstanding the mauling he had received at Makaretu from Major Ropata's Ngatiporou, and we had to follow him up to Ngatapa, and have it out with him there.
Since then it may be said that no place in the Northern Island has advanced at such a rate of progress as Poverty Bay. In 1869, its population was about a couple of hundred, and its run holders had not extended far beyond Waerangahika; now it numbers about thirteen hundred souls, and the back country is being taken up even along the line of road which is in course of formation between it and Opotiki. Even the mountain on which stood Ngatapa pa, taken by Colonel Whitmore's colonials after three days' siege in 1869, is now included in land which will shortly be occupied by sheep.
Before taking a ride round previously to continuing our
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route, it was the proper thing to visit two natural curiosities which may be called the lions of Turanganui. A few hundred yards from the hotel a tidal creek falls into the river which forms the harbour, and at low water the bottom of the former is found to be a soft sandstone on which sundry queer markings had been for some time observed. I believe it however was the Ven. Archdeacon Williams who first paid attention to these and set to work to make them out. As a reward for his trouble he was enabled to obtain numerous perfectly preserved moa foot-prints, in some cases finding it necessary to shave off a superincumbent slab, while occasionally the marks lay quite distinct on the surface. Those which were discovered have been taken away, and no more are visible at present; but there is every probability that a search under the sandy banks of the stream would disclose more. At all events I found that a little rubbing with the finger on the friable sandstone produced a very fair imitation of the genuine article.
The other lion is a petrifying spring on the beach the further side of the main river. We crossed in the boat and landed on a reef composed of a peculiar and disagreeable kind of rock. Its Maori name is "Papa," its scientific appellation I know not; it is blueish in colour when dry; gets reddish under water; delights in running in ridges and furrows, the former inclined at an angle; and is, when wet, far more slippery than any well prepared ballroom floor. It was my luck once to ride northward from Poverty Bay to Waiapu, about a hundred miles, and back; and, when I was not leading my horse up or down steep, high, and almost trackless hills, or occasionally getting a canter on a bit of sand, I was going over acres of this horrible stuff. At every point, in every little bay, jutted out the uncompromising reef; occasionally it was just as much as we could do to get round a bluff between the waves, and that was about as
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nervous work as could be; for a fall on the jagged edges of the rock would have been no joke. Luckily, mine was a hoio whenua (country bred horse), and the manner in which he picked his way was beautiful. About a mile along the beach after crossing the river we came to a cliff, in which there was not apparently much to distinguish it from any other cliff--but, a couple of blows with an axe soon showed a difference. There had evidently been a groove here once filled with flax, and down which had run a stream rising from some spring in the limestone rock. How long the stream took about it, it is impossible to say; but the hollow is filled up, there is only a trickle of water; and, what was flax is now stone. We hacked away and got out specimens of every kind, from delicate leaves and shoots to coarse masses; lumps looking just like a breccia of bird-bones; pieces of stalk and roots; leaves curled up slightly, or else completely rolled round; and the greater portion of the whole was thoroughly turned into stone, the very leaves, when broken across, showing the petrifaction.
There are plenty of directions in which to ride from Turanganui. Eastward, along the beach and by the mouth of the "Big River," the Waipaoa, lies the coast way to Wairoa; a road formerly of climbs and slips, and productive of groans, weariness, and bad language: now however it is improved. In a more southerly direction lies the inland track to Wairoa, by Te Reinga, the route we are bound to take; and, beyond Waerangahika, to the westward runs a long valley, breaking up into others, and into which falls the road from Opotiki.
There can hardly be a pleasanter ride than to start early, as we did one fine morning, canter out to Patutahi and ascend Pukeameonga, a small conical hill in the plain, and have a look round. From this a view is obtained of the
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whole level of the Bay, from Nick's Head to Turanganui, the former being the prolongation of the low chain which sweeps round the southern edge of the basin, and through gaps and passes in which access is had to the interior. Turning our backs on Turanganui we had to our left the dark Pipiwaka Bush; and beyond it the sea, the river, and a series of rolling hills; to the right the view extended up the Waerangahika valley, and just in front gaped in the hills a well known opening, for the mouth of which we once had a tidy race with some of Te Kooti's people. From Pukeameonga we had caught sight of a party of Hau-Haus creeping along the foot of the hills after a plundering raid, and it fell to my lot to ride down, and hasten up our men; it was not pleasant galloping, as the thick rye grass concealed a quantity of holes in and out of which my horse kept blundering, but the falling was pretty soft. It was then a case of "swags off" and "doubling" but the Hau-Haus had the start, and by throwing away their pikaus (loads), managed to get first into the gorge, up which we eventually followed them on the march to Ngatapa. That day, whichever way one looked nothing but ruin and desolation met the eye, and the only people about were armed men. Now there was a difference. Roads crossed the plain; houses were dotted all over the country, built, or in course of erection; miles of fencing were visible; cattle and sheep roamed about in numbers, and all looked prosperous. It speaks volumes for the district that it should have so well recovered from the crushing blow it got while in, an infant stage; and I doubt if any scene in New Zealand could give to one who had seen the place under both aspects a better realisation of a picture of Peace and War than the view from Pukeameonga. From the hill, we cantered across the flat, where clover is now assuming the place of the old luxuriant rye grass, and, after fording the river, rode on to
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Wairangahika. Alterations here also are to be seen. Once more is there found a good substantial gentleman's residence, approached along an avenue of glorious willows, and surrounded by well fenced and well kept paddocks; and a couple of miles further we arrived at the station of the Armed Constabulary, the military township of Ormond. The military settlers here at all events have not got one of the grounds of complaint which are heard elsewhere; they cannot grumble at the quality of the land; and some of them, either in person or by substitutes, are working away effectually at it. Beyond this again stretches a long valley in which some miles up are found springs exuding petroleum for the exploitation of which a company has been formed; and the whole of this is being rapidly taken up by runs, the influx of genuine settlers into the district promising well for its future prosperity. Its last, but not least advantage, is the climate, without a doubt the pleasantest in the North Island.
There is yet another most interesting ride to take --to Whakato, where is to be seen a specimen of Maori carving, in which the Ngatikuhungunu (Poverty Bay natives) used to be very proficient. Formerly there was to be found in Poverty Bay a council chamber, the upright slabs of which inside the house were of a black, tough wood, and wonderfully carved with all the grotesque imagery of which the Maori sculptor was so fond. This house was taken possession of during the war, and now forms a portion of the Wellington Museum. There is however a specimen still to be seen at the abandoned mission station of Whakato, and we went to look at it; a few miles out of Turanganui we were ferried over the Waipaoa and found ourselves in a magnificent old orchard in the centre of which stood a high barn-like building, evidently a Maori church. Broken windows
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a ripped-up floor, and holes in the roof shewed that its glory as well as its parishioners had departed; but the huge carved slabs still remained entire. I think they were a dozen in number, about eighteen feet high, and carved to represent each some departed Taipuna (ancestor). The amount of work expended on them must have been wonderful, and it must also have been no slight task on the ingenuity and nature of the workmen to refrain from inserting any of the peculiar touches which usually characterize Maori carvings; however, as the slabs were for a church, it was necessary to keep them free from anything approaching to the general style.
I have briefly alluded above to the Poverty Bay massacre; there is in connection with it an anecdote which is worth relating as exemplifying a noble trait in the Maori character. Awakened by the news of the ruthless work proceeding around them when Te Kooti and his band fell upon the settlement and destroyed it, and flying in haste to a place of refuge, a small party of Europeans passed by a hut where were sitting an old Maori and his wife, both well-known to them. A short time afterwards a number of Te Kooti's men arrived in hot pursuit and questioned the old man as to the direction taken by the fugitives; he declined to answer; threatened with death, he still refused to betray his friends, and was at once tomahawked. The savages then turned on the wife whom they had widowed, but she was as faithful as her murdered husband, and sent the pursuers on a wrong track. Acts of ferocity are loudly blazed abroad; deeds like the above are but slightly noticed; yet such an instance of self-devotion merits record as much as any act of heroism mentioned in history.
There are two ways of getting from Poverty Bay to Te Wairoa, the next settlement to the south: by the coast line, or by the inland track. The latter was the one I
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adopted, chiefly with the object of getting a view of "Te Reinga."
This name applies properly to the "Hades" of Maori mythology, supposed to be somewhere beyond the North Cape. The tradition ran that out of the cliffs of this promontory grew a huge tree, from the branches of which the souls of the departed took a final leap into the other world, there to lead a dolce far niente sort of existence, without cares or occupation. Curious, that the highest aspiration of a people should be a hankering after the life of a vegetable!
We started one summer afternoon and, after passing through the plain, got into a very good undulating sheep country which lasted for some miles; camped by a little stream, and the next morning entered upon rather more difficult regions. After riding for a little distance through an open valley, we found it of a sudden close in, and we descended a steep slide into the Huangaroa, a river with a bed of papa rock. It was absurd, whilst on the bank, to watch the floundering of the horses as they slid and stumbled about on the greasy ledges, their hind quarters one moment well out while they were up to the shoulders in a deep hole; then sometimes all four hoofs seemed to go away in different directions all at once, and the poor brutes looked like awkward skaters in trouble and aware of the imminence of a tumble; and then the riders' faces! It was a case of sticking on "all one knew," and every feature expressed uncertainty as to whether the next minute might not inflict the thorough ducking which two of our party got. To this moment I cannot recollect exactly how I scrambled across, as every instant I felt my horse going, but he managed to keep himself up somehow or another. Then came a climb, a descent, and another crossing of the same river over the same kind of stuff: then we were on the hills. Had it not been for the name of the thing, we might as well have had
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no horses, for they were of no use here for riding purposes-- it was quite a case of "here we go up, up, up, and here we go down, down, down." In one of the latter we came upon a lovely little nook: the river had out its way through high cliffs of a white chalky looking stone, and at a sudden turn had scooped out a hollow, now clothed with grass and shaded by peach trees; once down in this it was impossible to tell how to get out again, or even to see which way the river entered or left: altogether it was a charming spot for a pic-nic, and here we lunched. While mooning about during the post-luncheon pipe, I was astounded at the quantity of fossils to be seen; every boulder was a mass of shells, every pebble bore on it the imprint of some former denizen of an ancient sea; for the specimens were all marine, and, as far as I could judge, of forms identical with those now found on our shores.
Topping the hill on the further side we got a grand view. Close by to the left rose a magnificent mass, apparently trachytic from its resemblance to the Tarawera mountain, its face for several hundred feet scarped and bare, and presenting occasionally an appearance resembling a basaltic columnar formation. This was Whakapunake, the last home, so Maori tradition relates, of the moa on the East Coast. Before us lay a jumbled mass of mountain and vale, and in the hollow beneath, a number of circular ponds, their edges fringed with reeds and a small circle of clear water in their centre, gave the impression that in former times they had been "Ngawas" (hot springs) similar to those of Rotomahana. Away to the right were more and more ranges, one mountain top, shaped something like a lion couchant, being pointed out as Mangapohatu, the stronghold of the Uriwera, a tribe still bitterly hostile at the time of my journey.
We passed the valley of ponds, and after some more riding, stood on the summit of a spur leading down to a narrow
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gorge, from the furthest end of which was rising a cloud of-- smoke? No: this was the spray of the Te Reinga falls. We were now on one of the spots where Te Kooti was attacked after his escape and landing from the Chatham Islands; on this occasion the native allies executed a strategic movement up the spur we were now about to descend, leaving the dozen or so Europeans with them to shift for themselves; and it was only by keeping a good countenance and shooting straight that these managed to hold the enemy at bay and get away.
At the bottom of the spur, we were in a beautiful little valley, through which was rolling our old friend the Huangaroa, and presently we got into a thick scrub where we had to cut our way, the track being completely overgrown, so that it was getting dusk before we emerged from it and stood at the junction of the Huangaroa and Ruaketuri rivers, directly over the fall.
The two rivers meet at about two hundred yards from a high range along the western flank of which the Ruaketuri has been flowing, and which extends perpendicularly to the course adopted by the united streams. Straight towards it they flow, till, close to the foot of the range, their course is arrested by a white reef barring their progress and damming up their waters into a large pool. But not right across does it extend; it stops short a few yards from the face of the cliff on the right bank, and through the narrow opening thus left the whole body of water rushes in a clear-wave, shooting some ten feet down to meet a precipitous cliff which diverts it in a second fall to the left. Of these shoots there are three, in which the river makes a quarter circle; then, with one mighty plunge, it precipitates itself sideways some ninety feet down into a yawning gulf, strikes the face of the rock on the left bank, turns sharp round to the right, and hurls itself through a chasm which it has cut sheer through the range.
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Standing on the limestone reef which arrests the rivers you cannot see the main fall; to your right are the small shoots rushing clown to it; but directly before you is a straight gap some thirty yards in width and three hundred yards in length, an uncovered tunnel if you like, the sides of which are sheer rock, and cut down, as clean as if machinery had been employed, from a height equal to that on which you stand; above the steep part the hill sides slope off and are covered with dense bush. Through this gulch the river roars down in many a swirl and wave and bound, sending up its spray to moisten the rich growth of ferns clothing the slopes under the heavy forest, tearing madly at the walls of rock which restrain it within bounds, and finally ending its wild career by subsiding suddenly into the quietest of demeanours, and finishing its headlong race in an open and placid pool. Right through the mountain it has cut a straight line, and the vista afforded of the calm lagoon at the further end of the chasm, fringed with low bush and gleaming in the sun, compared with the dark and gloomy glen through which the boiling torrent pours to attain a peaceful haven, forms a scene which, once beheld, can never be forgotten.
There are persons who having once gazed upon some grand natural feature, cannot stoop to the admiration of similar scenery on a smaller scale. I confess I am not one of these: and it no more entered my head to make any invidious comparisons between Te Reinga and Schaffhausen, or any other cataract of European celebrity, than it would to turn up my nose at my daily joint because I have dined at the Trois Freres. The Reinga fall is simply a magnificent sight; at least I thought it so on first acquaintance, and I know I shall think so again on my next visit. There is but one fault to be found with it; only from one spot can the main fall be seen in its entirety, and that is from the mountain path on the left bank.
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As in picnic-gully, so here the rock was full of fossils; the white reef running above the fall was one mass of shells deeply imbedded in it, and I naturally set to work with a tomahawk to dig up specimens, which we found could not be carried away: but, as before, I believe they were mostly identical with extant species.
We knocked up a "maemae" in a deserted kainga, the old posts of which came in handy for bivouac fires, and we slept soundly, notwithstanding the noise at hand. Next morning, while getting my horse, I came upon a circular hollow strongly reminding me of the Rotorua pools; it had the same wide-lipped inverted funnel shape, and it was not till after sundry prods with a stick that I felt reassured enough to trust myself at the bottom. If this was not an extinct ngawa, it ought to be; hardly a philosophical way to put it, perhaps; but after all, not much worse than many a theory broached on extra scientific grounds.
The river having made a way through the range only for itself, we had to climb over the hill, and it was while on the path that we got our view of the big shoot, but even then the spray was so heavy that much could not be seen. The descent brought us down to the margin of the pool which receives the waters as they come out, and I had a scramble up into the chasm. For there is gulch within gulch; there is the main rift, which, when the waters are in fresh, is described as presenting a magnificent appearance; and, in the centre of this, a smaller furrow has been scooped out, sufficient for the summer flow as we found it.
The lagoon itself was a charming little spot, so pretty and so soft-looking after the scenery we had just passed through; and I thought it exactly the spot I would recommend as head-quarters for a pic-nic excursion to last for a fortnight, the whole of which time could be very profitably taken up by explorations. (I mean myself to spend a holy-
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day there some time or another.) In the first place, on the further side of the river there are caves the floor of which is covered by a stalagmitic deposit; these it would be most interesting to trench thoroughly in search of fossils and bones; there is the valley of the Ruaketuri, with its wild scenery; and lastly there is Whakapunake, with its subterranean river, its caves, and its grottoes in the face of the cliffs. In short there is plenty to do and to be seen.
Three or four more climbs and descents brought us to the Wairoa plains, a fine level bit of country, well grassed, and apparently good land, but deserted. However there was not much wonder at this, for the Uriwera were not far off, and it was not so very long before this that Te Kooti had come down and done a deal of mischief at the very military township.
At a prettily situated Maori kainga (once occupied by rank Hau-Haus) we forded the Mangapoiki, flowing rather more peaceably than it did in the Reinga chasm, and a few miles canter brought us to Te Kapu, the military township. Te Wairoa, the district, takes its name from the river which, formed by the waters issuing from the lofty ranges surrounding the plain, rolls down in a fine and broad stream to the sea, but is spoiled for navigation by a very ugly bar.
The position of the settlement is so far disadvantageous, especially as the road to the nearest port, Napier, is decidedly bad; but there is abundance of good country, plenty of room for farms and small runs, and the Reinga track is now being surveyed with a view to the construction of a road connecting Wairoa with Poverty Bay.
