1870 - Meade, H. A Ride through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand. [Chapters I-VI. - CHAPTER III.

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CHAPTER III.

January 2nd. --Made an early start and picked up the remainder of our party at the neighbouring settlement of Kaiteriria, whence, after the eternal Tangi business, we got away soon after nine. After crossing a belt of forest, we had to traverse the same melancholy sort of country as on Thursday--pumice-stone hills and valleys covered with stunted fern.

Hove-to at midday in the fern for lunch, cooked by the natives in a neat and ingenious little fireplace, which they cut out of a bank.

After this the road led along the base of a remarkable ridge, rising about 1000 feet above the plain and 35 miles in length, running in a south-western direction, and named the Pairoa Range.

We struck it first after crossing a swamp, at the

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hot spring Au-Tawa-Kokori, the source of a stream of very respectable dimensions.

The brook retains its heat for a great distance, and the many-hued rocks decomposing under the influence of sulphureous gases, with the countless steam-jets stretched along the hill sides' as far as the eye could reach, showed that the whole range is but one link in the chain of volcanic action extending from Tongariro to White Island.

We bivouacked for the night in the tea-tree scrub near a cluster of boiling mud craters and solfataras named Kopiha, distant about a third from the end of the range. There is here also a "Souffriere," resembling those found in some of the West Indian Islands, but more noisy; the sound apparently caused by large volumes of gas bursting through some heavy and superincumbent weight. These noises were frequent immediately under the open ground where they lay, and had rather a startling effect, when they roused us from our slumbers--sometimes with a loud explosion, or a sound like the passing of subterranean railway trains; at others, dying away in distant rumblings, like thunder among the hills.

Here, as at Rotorua and other places where we have camped, all the boiling necessary for our meals was performed by Dame Nature.

From the foot of the range extends a broad plain intersected by deep gorges through which the

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water from the hot springs escapes; here grow great quantities of native flax, perhaps the most useful plant in New Zealand, and to be found in profusion all over the country. It is a handsome plant, with lily-shaped flowers growing on stalks 10 or 12 feet high, and long rush-like leaves, which, from the length and toughness of their fibre, afford the traveller an excellent substitute for leather or cord.

The natives scrape the fibre with sea-shells, and make large fishing-nets and mats of fine texture; but the difficulty of cleansing the fibre from its gummy sap has hitherto excluded it from the European markets. 1 There are ten or twenty orange-red flowers on every stalk, and each contains a drop of honey the size of a pea, which repays the trouble of gathering.

New Zealand is par excellence the land of honey, and though the bees have only been introduced for, I believe, about twenty-five years, the woods are already full of wild honey, A friend assured me that he had taken as much as 70 lbs. from a single tree, and known others to get 200 and 300 lbs. at one haul; another man collected a ton and a half in a few weeks.

The greatest enemies to the bees here are the dragon-flies, which grow to an enormous size. They

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waylay the luckless bees when homeward bound and laden with honey, and after nipping off the part containing the sting, devour the remainder with the honey at leisure.

We found one to-day, nearly five inches long, seated on a saddle, devouring one of its-own species; there was a savageness in the manner in which it nipped and tore its victim which could not have been surpassed by a tiger.

When it had finished its repast off its brother dragon-fly we tried in vain to glut its insatiable voracity with various kinds of flies and bees, ending with a spider with a body the size of a pigeon's egg, which he instantly crunched with his cruel jaws, as if he had been famishing for a week.

Just before dark two natives, travelling in the opposite direction, arrived in camp, with an account of having passed a war party of Uriweras, probably the wildest and most savage tribe in New Zealand, whom they asserted to be coming along the path before us; but a short cross-examination having convinced Mair that there was more fiction than fact in their story, we devoted our attention to the preparation of sweet-smelling couches of tea-tree and fern, whereon we soon were dreaming under a cloudless, starry sky.

3rd. --In our saddles by seven, we resumed our journey along the foot of the range. Slow travelling.

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for our foot people delay us, and the horses have contracted a had habit of getting bogged, or coming to grief in some way or other.

We luckily had a fine night for our bivouac, but it came on to rain heavily soon after we had started. Hot springs and steam-jets at short intervals.

In the course of the forenoon we rounded the southern end of the Pairoa Range, and in another hour obtained our first view of the river Waikato.

And a very pretty view it was, for the river rushes over a succession of foaming rapids, alternated by deep and whirling pools of the darkest blue, and winds between high and partially-wooded mountains, which are further adorned by a number of waterfalls, whose white stalagmite deposits on the rocks over which they fall resemble the boiling cataracts which cause them, and multiply their apparent size.

We crossed in canoes, swimming the horses, which, from the steepness of the banks, the strength of the current, and the proximity of the rapids, was neither a short nor an easy task.

Before noon we had all got safe across, and arrived at a kainga, named Orakei-Korako, where we stopped the night in a whare not much bigger than a dog-kennel.

This village is strongly situated on the crest of a hill commanding a fine view of the rapids and of a cluster of beautiful cascades of boiling water on the opposite side of the river into which they fall almost

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perpendicularly. The chemical substances held in solution by these hot cascades have coloured with every hue of the rainbow the rocks over which they flow, leaving a broad margin of pure white, which causes each waterfall to appear three or four times its natural size.

The village takes its name from a great geyser at the foot of the hill, which raises a column of boiling water to the height of about 40 feet. Unfortunately this is not its season for playing, so we had to content ourselves with the descriptions given by the natives, and so estimate its height from their comparisons with surrounding objects.

The funnel from which it rises is close to the bank of the river, in the midst of a place which looked like a great frozen snowdrift, and surrounded by a number of very deep holes, in whose dark profundities water in violent action could be heard, though not seen.

There is also here a large natural warm swimming bath with a bottom like glazed porcelain, and the natives of the village, which is within two minutes' walk, spend half their day in it.

There was another geyser--now defunct--farther up the river, which used to throw the water to so great a height, that its downfall is said to have swamped canoes on the opposite bank of the river, nearly 100 yards wide.

The whole of the hills and woods visible from the

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crest where the kainga is built, are completely dotted with thousands of steam-jets, whose little wreaths and clouds of steam keep curling upward from amongst the branches of the trees, giving a very singular character to a very beautiful landscape, especially at early morning, when the steam-jets are most clear and well defined.

The village is often called Paul's Settlement, from the name of the chief, instead of by the rather long name Orakeikorako. He joined us last night at our bivouac, and came on with us this morning.

4th. --The Queenites here are both willing and anxious for the advantages of English law, and a rather amusing case came before Mair this morning. Two natives living near here owned some turkeys ("rarae aves" about here--we never saw one), one of which they kept as a great favourite, and named after a celebrated ancestor. During their absence a man and his wife, travelling, stopped at the whare of the owners of the turkeys, and being hungry, killed and ate one of them, which unluckily happened to be the honoured favourite. When the owners returned, the man had died, and finding that the widow had few effects wherewith to make payment, seized on a horse which she had previously disposed of to a third person. And he it was who appealed to Mair. The widow had offered in restitution a large piece of the precious greenstone, though the latter was an heirloom of value.

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But this the proprietors of the defunct turkey refused, saying that it was not the bird's value that they cared for so much as the insult they had received in having their great ancestor eaten! The decision was that the horse must be immediately restored to the neutral third party, and that if they chose to give honoured names to their poultry, they must stand the consequences; so they should therefore have the greenstone (which was worth many turkeys) or nothing. To this they at last consented, with the proviso that they should be allowed to throw the greenstone into the river immediately afterwards.

One of the chiefs to whom we carried letters from the Governor was Porokaia, Chief of the Wairoa. He was much puzzled as to how best he might show his good-will, and at last he sent a messenger to Motutawa with 1l. to buy provisions of meat, or some such rare delicacy, to present to us. But there were none to be had, so the old man has followed us on here, and with many apologies for the poverty of the country, begged our acceptance of the sovereign in cash.

Mair accepted it on our behalf with many thanks, but afterwards returned it with some tobacco added, with which I think the old man was very well pleased.

Started again this morning after a leisurely breakfast; the land much richer and more wooded than what we have passed through lately. Halted for lunch at a settlement of a few huts by the edge of

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a great wood, and later at Punu, a settlement belonging to a chief named Reweti, where we were regaled with cherries, while Mair heard all that the chief had to say on affairs in general.

We were much struck with the well-cut and handsome features of two of the young women of the place, more especially the fair Anipeka, who brought us the cherries, the bride of one of our party. She accompanies us to Taupo. From Punu we pushed on to Puke Tarata, one of the settlements which owns Poihipi as chief.

I had lagged behind to gather some rare ferns, when I met a native of rather striking appearance, also mounted, who turned off the narrow path and "tena-koe"-ed (how d' ye do-ed) with great cordiality; this proved to be old Ngaperi, a rabidly Kingite chief of high rank.

Slept in a large whare at Puke Tarata--the Maories on one side and we on the other, with a blazing fire in the middle, but which went out and left us miserably cold.

5th. --We gave up to-day to rest the pack-horses and foot-men; but during the course of the morning guns were fired in our honour at the Oruanui pah, under the impression that we were already on the way thither. Soon afterwards we received a visit from Dr. Hooper, the Government surgeon for the natives, who has lived in this district for the last two

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years, all through the troublous times, physicking friends and foes alike. And he says that during the whole of this period we are the first Europeans who have come up here, which agrees with what the Governor said. The post is not an enviable one--for, besides the isolation, the difficulty of procuring even the barest necessaries of life is great.

The natives about here keep neither pigs, poultry, nor live-stock of any kind, and the difficulty of transport from the coast is so great, that with the exception of an occasional pigeon, he does not taste meat more than two or three times a-year.

We gladly accepted his invitation to put up at his whare at Oruanui, and after lunch rode on to the pah at that place, about 4 miles distant.

We were received with discharges of musketry on our approach, and shouts and songs of welcome as we entered the gate of the pah, and cordially entertained by the chief, Hohepa (Joseph) Tamamutu, at his house--one of the largest we have seen since leaving Maketu, and having within it many little signs of civilization, such as a standing bedstead, glass windows, neatly-matted floors, and on the table in his bedroom two glass tumblers full of fresh-plucked flowers. The chief himself, a tall, rather stern-looking man, with a strong black beard and moustache, and decently dressed in partly European clothes.

We dined with him luxuriously off fresh pork and potatoes, coffee and milk--a rare luxury indeed;

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he offered to give up to us his house and bed during our stay, but we preferred the comparative privacy of the doctor's whare outside the pah.

The pah is strongly situated on the crest of a small hill, surrounded by a high stockade consisting of a double row of slab-stake fencing, with flanking angles; and lined with a chain of open and covered rifle-pits.

There being no raupo to be had here, or at Puke-Tarata, the whares are built of wood, and roofed with the bark of the Totara tree. It is difficult to keep these wooden whares warm, as we found to our cost last night.

At Puke-Tarata and in the pah the inhabitants have consequently built most of their dwellings in the style of a "whare-puni" described before, the whole of the house below ground except the roof, and even that plastered over with earth to the thickness of a foot or more; and having no communication with the open air save through the narrow door, which fits quite closely. Hot, stifling, and abominably unwholesome.

The hills surrounding the Oruanui pah are covered with forest. There is plenty of open land in the valley, which is watered by a small stream, but the natives plant all their potatoes in the woods, where the soil is much richer.

6/i. --A brace of "kuku," or "kukupa," had been snared for our breakfast this morning; the kuku is

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the name of the New Zealand pigeon, a bird which in size surpasses every other known species, with the exception I believe of one found in the Nicobar islands. They are now out of season and consequently in bad condition, yet these two were much larger than English partridges.

After an early dinner we got our little cavalcade under way again, and pushed on for Tapuae-haruru, Poihipi's home, by the shores of Lake Taupo.

We passed the remains of two recent landslips, caused by the decomposition of the rocks by the fumes of sulphur, and the perpetual undermining of the hills by the hot springs and steam-pits. We saw one of these of great size, at a short distance from the path, discharging its steam in a rapid succession of puffs like some huge high-pressure engine. Our road led mostly through a district of deep and branching gorges, bounded on the right by distant mountains, and on the left by the river Waikato, quite hidden from sight in its winding bed; while ahead of us, towering high above the nearer hills, rose Tauhara, a lofty and very remarkable mountain, rising sheer out of the vast unbroken Kaingaroa plain, on the far side of the river. This plain of pumice stretches to the eastward far beyond the horizon, but is perfectly level with the exception of the narrow fissures which form the beds of the streams and rivers that traverse it, and so broad and blue in the distance as to seem more like sea than land.

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A great part of the country that we have lately passed through presents the appearance of having been swept by a flood in geologically recent times, the subsiding waters in some places wearing deep channels, and leaving high ridges of singular shape, with very sharp extremities.

It was whilst passing through one of these most dismal valleys, that Poihipi pointed out a cairn of earth and stones which marks the death-place of his last and favourite wife, who died last year whilst on a journey with him to the coast.

The monument had rather a grotesque appearance, in spite of the melancholy nature of the place itself and of the event which caused its erection; for the large stone which had been set up endways to crown the summit of the cairn, was decorated by the defunct lady's bag, which had been inverted and drawn over the top like a stocking, while the lower part was clothed in her European shawl, and surrounded by the teapot, pannikins, and other articles which she had used before her death.

We have at different times passed many of these monuments, often marking a battle-scene where some warrior chief had fallen in savage strife in the good old days of spear and mere. 2

Some of them were surmounted by a grim-looking

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head, carved out of wood or stone; others had merely a post and flax-mat. They serve only however to "tapu" the actual death-place of the deceased--the graves themselves are neatly fenced in on the top of a hill near a settlement.

It was at five this evening that we first saw the waters of the Great Lake. And the sight was a pleasant one as we rested on the crest of a lofty ridge, and recollected how few before our departure had believed that we should ever be permitted to get thus far: so little was the true state of the interior of the country known in Auckland.

In another hour we had dismounted at Tapuaeharuru, a kainga built on the banks of the Waikato where the river flows out of the lake, and directly opposite Mount Tauhara.

At the actual point of exit the river is not 70 yards wide, but is extremely deep, and the current of waters converging from the surface of the great lake rushes through these narrow portals with tremendous speed and power, expending its surplus energy in a variety of small whirlpools a little farther down the river, where the channel expands to a breadth of 200 or 300 yards, retaining however depth more than enough to float a line-of-battle ship.

The lake itself is very clear, and deep, and cold. Its size has been variously estimated by Dieffenbach and Hochstetter at from 25 to 36 miles from the

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northern to the southern extremity, and from 20 to 25 miles from east to west. It appeared to us that the lesser of these two estimates was the nearer to the mark.

On the crest of a cliff overhanging the lake, and close to the kainga where we are stopping, Poihipi's people are building a pah of ambitious dimensions, and the stockade is already nearly finished, but when the whole structure is completed, it will probably be found too large for defence by any force which Poihipi is likely to be able to muster at Taupo.

With the exception of this settlement, and Hiruharama (Jerusalem), a small and almost entirely deserted kainga, three or four miles to the southward, the whole of the settlements round Taupo are Kingite.

For a short distance eastward of the Waikato and Mount Tauhara, the northern shore is rather tame and flat, as there the lake is bounded by the Kaugaroa plain and the lava from Mount Tauhara with its endless pumice-stone levels, varied only by some spare groves of stunted Manuka, a tree resembling evergreen heather. But to the southward the coup d'oeil presented by the lake is as imposing as a traveller could wish to see, having for background the beautiful Kaimanawha ranges, amongst which towers high above the clouds the great active volcano Tongariro, and beside it, clad in perpetual snow, the still higher mountain Ruapehu--the loftiest in the island.

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A large portion of the lake is surrounded by perpendicular cliffs of basalt, rising straight out of

the water to the height in some places of over 700 feet, at whose base even a cat could find no footing, and over whose frowning crests many a mountain torrent falls in a single cascade into the dark waters below. In bad weather an awkward chopping sea rises in Taupo suddenly and without warning, and the natives very rarely venture to cross it, knowing that from the inaccessible character of the banks, canoe accidents in Taupo are almost invariably fatal. From the appearance of these cliffs and of the surrounding mountains, Hochstetter opines that the whole lake is formed out of one vast crater.

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but to men as unskilled in geology as ourselves, it has rather the appearance of having filled and overflowed many craters.

The supply of water from the very numerous streams which feed the lake, especially from the southern side, is far greater than the discharge by the Waikato, and the difference being greater than can be accounted for by evaporation, the idea suggests itself of a subterranean passage, supplying probably the chain of geysers, hot springs, and steam-jets, between the lake and the sea-coast.

Not far from the centre of the lake there is an island named Motutaiko, which, strictly "tapu" from time immemorial, is still held in awe and fear by the Maories of the present day, who will neither approach it themselves nor allow strangers to do so, for--though they no longer believe in the old legend of heathen times, that asserted the island to be the dwelling-place of a monstrous and most malevolent "Taniwha," or dragon, ever lying in wait to devour any canoes with their luckless crews who might venture too near his dominions--they found their objections on the more reasonable fear of a dreadful whirlpool, which they say is always gyrating near the island, and is strong enough to suck down and ingulf for ever any canoe which has the misfortune to come within reach of its attraction. Should this whirlpool be an existing fact, it would account both for the old legend and in some degree supplement my wild theory of

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a subterranean passage from the lake, by indicating the spot where the waters disappear.

A large portion of the river Waikato itself, at a place not very far below Taupo, plunges suddenly underground through a cave-like opening, rising again to daylight a little farther down.

At the opposite end of the lake is the Pukawa pah, which with the neighbouring settlements, including Tokanu where there is a very powerful geyser, own the sway of a great hostile chief named Te Heu-heu, to whom we carry a letter from the Governor, but whose character for hostility to the Pakeha, as shown in his more recent behaviour, makes it doubtful whether we shall ever have the opportunity of presenting our credentials. A messenger has however already been dispatched to ascertain what sort of reception the Pakehas from the Governor are likely to receive at his hands.

There was formerly a Church Mission station at Pukawa, with a native school, &c., under the Rev. Mr. Grace; but when the war broke out a feeling of hostility developed itself towards him. He stayed as long as he dared, till one day, finding his congregation holding a "korero" as to the advisability of removing his head as a reprisal for some murders in Waikato of which they accused us, he deemed it prudent to depart until the storm should have passed away, which he did in a considerable hurry. For a long time after he had left them, the Maories of

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Pukawa appeared to regret their conduct which had led to his departure, and to lament his absence, showing their sincerity by keeping inviolate the house which he had left containing all his property, and the live-stock which surrounded it. But then came the last bitter winter, made harder by the war, with its attendant miseries of hunger and cold, and one by one the sheep of their late Pastor found their way to the roasting or the oven; yet still the house with its contents remained untouched. At last another change, and a worse, came over the spirit of the late Christians of Pukawa: the emissaries of the new fanaticism came to the settlement, and found a soil fit for the seed they had to sow, manured by all the evil feelings which the bitterness of strife in the war against the Pakeha together with famine and suffering could engender; and in a very short time, now scarcely three weeks past, a host of perverts were chanting Pai Marire hymns round a Hau-hau post of worship, erected close to the late Christian church.

With the abolition (for the time at least) of the old religion, went all respect for the eighth commandment, without apparently being replaced even by the old rough notions of honesty which certainly distinguished the race in bygone heathen times-- the mission-house was broken into and gradually sacked.

They are still, however, rather ashamed of this

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last performance, and in the very little intercourse which they have held with the Queenite natives, have endeavoured to make out that they have only distributed the property for safe keeping, ready for restitution to the owner on his return; but some doubt is thrown on this explanation from the circumstance of the chief Te Heu-heu having been recently observed enjoying the morning breeze and his pipe, arrayed in two pairs of the rev. gentleman's smallclothes.

On the opposite side of the Waikato are two ponderous millstones, which, with part of the machinery necessary for a water-mill, have been transported on sledges or drays from the east coast and across the plain, with infinite labour and perseverance, by Poihipi and his people; but the works are now at a standstill, for the fund for the erection of flour-mills and looms, which, in peaceable times had been subscribed by both Queenites and Kingites, was committed to the care of the missionary, and has now with the rest of his property fallen into the hands of the Kingites.

8th. --Walked down the river to the "Te Huka" ("the foam") waterfall, passing by the way through some very pretty scenery of winding river, rapids, and islands. Te Huka is grand in a style of its own, though not remarkable for great height or breadth. About 300 yards above the fall the river contracts

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into a chasm, or "cannons" as the Americans would call it, scarcely 30 feet wide but tremendously deep, between whose perpendicular walls the whole body of the river in one foaming torrent rushes with deafening violence, till it dashes over the rocky brink into the deep basin beneath. The great pressure from the compressed volume of water in the chasm behind, forces the waterfall to shoot out horizontally farther than any other that I have yet seen elsewhere. The banks of the river below the falls are nearly perpendicular, but covered with foliage to the height of 50 or 70 feet, and crowned with barren sugar-loaf hills.

Judging by the configuration of these banks, the wall of rock over which the river falls, and the time that elapses before any object, however large and light, thrown in above the falls reappears at the surface, the depth of this basin must be enormous,

I narrowly escaped testing this question in a disagreeably practical manner, for whilst climbing the cliff to find a better place whence to sketch the falls, the branch to which I trusted gave way, and I fell bounding through the foliage that clothed the face of the bank, till my downward course was luckily arrested by a stump only a few feet above the surface of the seething whirling waters.

Meanwhile one of our natives had procured us half-a-dozen wild ducks in the very simplest manner he paddled quietly along the bank in a little dug-

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out canoe, with his dog on hoard, till he came to a duck between himself and the shore, under the overhanging foliage. The bird, apparently too tame or too lazy to rise, would then land and scuttle up into the narrow belt of bush under the cliff, where he would be speedily caught by the dog.

According to the account of the natives, the ducks repair at certain seasons to the neighbourhood of Roto-Kawa (bitter lake) (whose waters are highly impregnated with sulphur and other mineral substances), not far from here, where they moult their wing feathers, and are thus for the time unable to fly. At this lake are held periodical grand battues, the ducks being hunted with dogs only and sticks.

Unfortunately the ducks were all wholly or partly plucked when we heard this rather tough story on rejoining our natives who had gone to procure a canoe, and there was no time left to catch a fresh duck; but the appearance of the bird which still retained part of its plumage, and an examination of the feathers strewn about, rather corroborated the native account.

We returned by water, starting in the canoe from just above the rapids, and stopping to lunch at the Tewakaturou geyser. This geyser, which in the days of its vigorous youth used to eject a column of water across the river, here some 130 yards wide, is now nearly defunct. The orifice is a funnel of silica and stalagmite about 6 feet in height and diameter, curi-

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ously lined like some gigantic bird's-nest with boughs and sticks incrusted with variously-shaped crystals.

The procuring of them for specimens was rendered inconvenient by the behaviour of the effete old geyser, which spouts up every few minutes, with great noise and splash, enough boiling water to scald anyone who does not jump off quick enough.

The ducks and some potatoes were rapidly cooked in a boiling spring hard by, and still more rapidly devoured. Here, as elsewhere, are rare and beautiful ferns close around the hot springs, and all the vegetation which grows in an atmosphere of perpetual steam attains a green, singularly delicate and brilliant.

9th. --Mr. Grace with his son arrived to-day; they have followed us up here to see if there is any hope of re-establishing the mission at Taupo. He anticipates a bad effect being made amongst the Kingite natives (who are always well posted as to anything concerning them published in Auckland) by a stupid paragraph in one of the newspapers, which accounted for the dispatch of the little 'Sandfly,' by saying that she conveyed "Mr. Mair and an officer from the Curacoa, who have been sent to find out what the Kingites are doing;" in plain English, or still plainer Maori, that we are spies. Mr. Grace expects to be able to establish himself again, for a time at least, at Pukawa, and invites us to come and stay at the mission-house when we visit that place; but I

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do not think that we will tax his hospitality, as he conceives that our presence under his roof may endanger the present close connection between his head and shoulders, and he expresses his very reasonable fears of the consequences to himself which might be caused by a report, even after our departure, that he had been harbouring spies.

10th. --Started at eight this morning for Waihaha, Perenara's home on the south-western shore of the lake. We travelled in a large canoe propelled by twenty paddles, and accompanied by a rather smaller one containing the rest of our native companions. We hugged the shore nearly all the way, crossing only two or three deep bays, for a nasty sea rises quickly on this lake with very little provocation, and the short deep lop would soon swamp a canoe.

The shores we passed were mainly formed by lofty, dark, and perpendicular rocks, grand in their gloom, but relieved by an occasional cascade.

Waihaha is a village built on a small alluvial flat at the mouth of a river of the same name, and completely shut in, except on the side of the lake, by lofty columnar cliffs of basalt. It belongs nominally to a Queenite tribe, the Ngatiterakaiaki, but is mainly peopled by the men who escaped from Orakau and refugees from other places in the Waikato country now occupied by our troops.

On approaching the shore we found a white flag

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flying over the settlement, in token of a peaceful reception, and the men drawn up under arms in front of the village, and stripped to their fighting costume. They shouted something which our people answered with a corresponding yell, and springing out of the canoes the moment they grounded, formed on the beach, some with muskets and others with only their paddles in their hands, and then, with the red ensign flying, advanced at a run until within 100 yards of the Waihaha natives, when they halted and formed a double line. We, meanwhile, stood off a little, and watched the proceedings. The moment our people stopped, the Waikatos, who had been crouching as though in ambush, sprang to their feet, and went through the war-dance with great spirit and apparent ferocity.

This extraordinary dance is not easily described; but it is well calculated both to strike terror into the heart of the foe and to work up those who join in it to a state of excitement and combativeness far exceeding that produced by grog or martial music. Admirable time is kept by one of the chiefs who acts as fugleman, the whole of the warriors in serried ranks springing from the ground together, and giving the ferocious war yell in perfect chorus-- brandishing their muskets and stamping as one man, and throwing their bodies into every sort of position indicative of the slaughter of their foes.

After this our people did the same, taking time

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from Poihipi; the Waikatos then fired a salute, which was returned on our behalf, and the two parties having joined, a long "Tangi" commenced, the effect in this instance being rather pleasing than otherwise, from the number of voices composing it, the echoes of the rocks, and the striking nature of the surrounding scenery.

The Tangi concluded, we joined the natives, and the usual hand-shaking business having been gone through, we all squatted on the ground, in two adjacent groups for a korero on Maori politics, led off by our friend Poihipi with a solo on his own trumpet, descriptive of his own loyalty ever since the day he signed the Treaty of Viaitangi, and advocating generally loyalty to the Queen.

One of the most permanent difficulties in the way of a complete pacification of New Zealand is the Maories' innate love of fighting, for mere fighting's sake. Centuries of intertribal warfare have left traditions of feats of arms inviting the young men to go and do likewise, and bellicose tastes which are not to be eradicated in one generation. Amongst the refugees here we found Takiuira, a fine young fellow, tall and well made, with a very pleasing countenance; he was one of those who made a dash out of Orakau pah, and escaped through the besieging troops by the skin of his teeth. He then joined the Arawas, and fought on our side against the Ngatiporos; and when twitted by Mair with his inconsistency, cha-

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racteristically replied, "Oh! as to that, fighting is fighting, and we young men don't care much whom it is against."

We hear that Te Heu-heu has gone to a great war meeting of the Kingites held near the Waikato, so we cannot find out till his return whether he is willing to receive us, which is, however, daily expected.

Karamoa and Reihana, the two of our party who are most highly connected amongst the Kingites, go to ascertain whether we are likely to be allowed to pass through the hostile settlements lying between Taupo and our military posts on the Waikato, which we hope to make our return route.

Meanwhile the few provisions we brought with us being nearly exhausted, Hohepa, the Chief of Oruanui, rides on to Napier, which he can reach in three days, and is to buy us some more.

We rather expected that we might have had the ill-luck to stumble up against Wm. Thompson (Tamihana), the Maori Earl of Warwick, who was to have left Taranaki with a war party for the eastward the same week that we left Auckland, and so would cross our path; but we have seen nothing of him, and he has probably stayed to attend the great war meeting to which Te Heu-heu and others have gone.

11th. --Found too many fleas going about loose

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in the whare, so I slept on the beach most luxuriously, having made myself a fern bed on the sand.

The sand is composed of obsidian and clear crystallized olivine and silica, so that by moonlight the strand seems to be literally strewn with diamonds. It was very pleasant being lulled to sleep by the gentle rippling of the tiny waves, and to find a bath ready beside one's couch when roused by the warm rays of the morning sun.

There is here among the refugees from Orakau a young woman named Ahumai, possessing no little influence, a well-made, rather good-looking person, but strong-minded and imperious. Her husband was killed in the pah, and she herself in escaping received from the soldiers three bayonet and gunshot wounds in the breast, arm, and hand, which have, however, now healed, leaving only the scars. 3

The height of the volcano Tongariro has been variously estimated at from 6500 feet and upwards to an absurd figure. The heat of its volcanic fires keeps its black cinder cone bare to the summit far above the line of perpetual snow, which by the contrast only makes Mount Ruapehu with its three snowy peaks look all the more beautiful. The latter mountain is estimated at from 9000 to 10,200 feet high.

We have long determined on the ascent of Ton-

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gariro, should we be allowed to reach the valleys from whence it rises; but it seems now very doubtful whether we shall be able to accomplish our purpose, for this mountain has always been held strictly "tapu," and even in the most peaceful times the natives would never allow anyone to attempt to scale it. A Mr. Bidwell in 1839, and a Mr. Dyson in 1851, claim to have eluded the vigilance of the natives and made the ascent, and Mr. Dyson wrote an account of it; but the natives assert that neither of them ever reached the summit. The Maories say that they tracked his footsteps, and punished him by enforcing on his house and goods the "Muru," a sort of organized confiscation or distraint.

12th. --Slept out on the beach again, and on waking this morning found Tongariro in full blast;. great volumes of steam and smoke issuing from the upper crater; after which the steam collects round the summit of the cone in a glistening cloud of dense whiteness, whilst the smoke, spreading far and wide, stained the clear morning air for miles.

The natives assure us that showers of light ashes are even now falling as far as the south-eastern end of the lake, and that the unusual vigour of the volcano points to the probability of an early eruption. They are but ill pleased at these signs and changes, regarding the volcano as an oracle whose manifestations betoken the coming death of a great chief, or

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too surely the harbinger of some other impending evil to their race.

They have a legend that Tongariro was but an empty crater until the arrival in New Zealand of the progenitors of their race, which is supposed to have taken place early in the fifteenth century, when the ancestor of the great tribe of Arawa, after landing on the east coast, started with a single slave to explore the new country, and left his wife at White Island to tend the sacred fire which they had brought from Hawaii (Sandwich Islands).

Having ascended Tongariro to survey the promised land, his slave fell ill from cold; so, being a man apparently blessed with very powerful lungs, he hailed his wife, then somewhere about 150 miles distant, to bring him some of the sacred fire. The faithful spouse started forthwith by a subterranean passage, and wherever by the way fell any of the holy sparks, the springs began to boil, geysers burst forth through the fissures in the earth, and subterranean fires, never more to be quenched, produced the present fumaroles and solfataras.

She arrived, however, too late to save the life of the slave, so her lord threw the sacred embers down the crater of the volcano, where they have blazed or smouldered ever since; and the principal crater, which is said to have been the tomb, still bears the name of the slave--Ngauruhoe.

Another legend is to the effect that Ruapehu,

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Mount Egmont, and Tongariro were once three giant brothers living near Taupo; but some lady fair having caused strife and rivalry, the elder and younger made common cause, and ousted their brother Mount Egmont, who retired into Taranaki, where he still remains; but the ultimate disposal of the lady was not much simplified by the ejection of one only out of three candidates; for all the three brothers were punished by being transformed into stone and earth, for a perpetual warning against family discord.

The volcano appears to have been much less active at the time of Hochstetter's visit, and its appearance led him to believe that nothing but steam issued from the crater--in fact that its career as an active volcano was closed,

No later, however, than the summer before last, during the campaign on the Waikato, several eruptions of fire and ashes were observed, the flames being plainly visible during the brightest days, and lighting up the skies by night as far as Rotorua and the hot lakes. 4

To-day we ascended the ravine through which the river finds its way to Waihaha, till we came to the Patutiki cascade, where the stream, after passing through a narrow cleft in the mountains, falls in a series of cascades, the lowest of which is about 25 feet

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high. The falls are well set off by the dark pools which receive them, the wide-spreading foliage which shades them, and the dark, beetling cliffs round them. The natives say that under these falls there once lived a terrible "Taniwha," a fabulous monster whose description answers in every point to that of our own dragon, excepting that he was unprovided with wings.

We were assured that not many years ago one of the monster's teeth was found lying in the stream, but has since been lost. This is a pity, as there seems no reason to doubt that a fossil of some interest was actually found.

As soon as the fiercest heat and glare of the day were past, we launched the canoes and started on the return voyage to Tapuae-haruru.

We passed many of the beautiful cascades mentioned above as falling directly into the lake from the summit of cliffs 700 or 800 feet high.

Towards dusk a smart breeze sprang up, forcing us to take refuge for a short time in a little bay, the Maories paddling as hard as they could to reach shelter in time; they have a clever way of warding off with their broad paddles the little waves when just about to break over the gunwale of the canoe. We then landed for half an hour on a narrow strip of shingle of 100-lb. pebbles, under overhanging rocks, where a fire was lit to dry the clothes of those who had got wet during the squall. In truth, the

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Maories were glad of any excuse for a halt; they would put on a spurt, racing as hard as they could with songs and shouts for ten minutes, but then "spellho" for twenty to chaff and smoke.

A glorious night with a bright moon on one side, and on the other, miles and miles of hills crowned and girt by blazing lines of bush fires, lighting up both land and water; the occasional mingling on the lake of the red and silver-blue reflexions of the fire and moonlight producing a curious effect.

It was nearly two in the morning before we reached Tapuae-haruru, though we had only landed once more for a few minutes to drop some natives at a place named Whakaipo, on the western margin of the lake, where there is said to be excellent duck-shooting.

On arrival we found Mr, Grace and his son encamped close to our whare.