CHAPTER LXII. THE AUCKLAND LAKES AND HOT WELLS.
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THE AUCKLAND LAKES AND HOT WELLS.
CHAPTER LXII.
THE AUCKLAND LAKES AND HOT WELLS.
THE scenery of the Middle Island, though perhaps as fine as anything in Europe, is, I think, altogether unknown even by character, to English travellers. At any rate, I heard little or nothing of it till I was on mv way to New Zealand, and was preparing myself by inquiry for the journey. But I had heard much of geysers or hot springs of the province of Auckland, and was aware that I could see in the North Island jets of boiling water and of steam, --such as could be found elsewhere only in Iceland. One of my first anxieties was to be put in the way of making an excursion into the hot-water territory in such a fashion that I might see whatever was worth seeing, --and this, through the kindness of the Governor, I was enabled to accomplish.
It must be understood that at present there is no road into this country, which lies south of the city of Auckland, --or I may perhaps more accurately say south of the Bay of Plenty, which forms a considerable bight in the very irregular north-western coastline. There is at present no completed road, but roads to it are being made in three directions. There is the route north from Napier, the capital of Hawke Bay, by which a coach runs, --with a short intermediate space of ten miles, over which passengers were still carried on horseback in September, 1872, --as far as Lake Taupo, which is the centre of the island and the largest of the New Zealand lakes. But though there are hot springs near Lake Taupo, and though the grandest jet of all, when it pleases to disport itself, is on Tongariro, a mountain to the south of Taupo, the traveller will see but little of that which he desires to see at the big lake. Lakes Tarawera and Roto Mahana are in truth the spots of which he is in search, and they lie forty miles north of Lake Taupo. The second route is by the valley of the Waikato River, up which a coach runs from Auckland, as far as Cambridge, making the journey in two days. But Cambridge is ninety miles from Taupo, and about fifty from the district of the hot springs. The third route is by Tauranga, a seaport on the Bay of Plenty, which is reached by steamer from Auckland in about twenty hours. From Tauranga, the lakes I have named lie about forty or fifty miles. In either direction, either from Taupo, Cambridge, or Tauranga, the journey
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must be made on horseback, --or on foot. Such was the condition of the places at the period of my visit, --but the road from Tauranga was being made through to Taupo, and when this is finished, the lakes and hot springs will be easily accessible. I went by steamer from Auckland to Tauranga, thence I rode through the lakes down to Taupo and back to Cambridge, and returned to Auckland on wheels, having taken a fortnight for the excursion, during seven days of which I was in the saddle. We rode something over thirty miles a day, carrying such baggage as we required ou our horses before us, -- carrying also, during a portion of the journey, our provisions also. I was informed that any one desirous of seeing the lakes could hire horses and a competent guide at Tauranga. The trouble of doing this was taken off my hands, as I was accompanied by Captain Mair, of the Native Contingent, and by two orderlies, one a Maori and the other a European. There can, however, be but little doubt that in a year or two the trip will be made easy to all lovers of scenery, and that Roto Mahana and Tarawera will be reached from Auckland, if not so quickly, still as readily as Dartmoor or Windermere from London.
At Tauranga, on the Bay of Plenty, I found myself close to the Gate pah, which was the scene of the massacre of European soldiers on April 29th, 1863, of which I have before spoken. That was the most fatal day throughout the unfortunate Maori war. The pah is now but the relic of a ruined earthwork, in viewing which one requires to be told that the sand-holes covered with briars were rifle-pits, and the stranger, ignorant of strategy as I am, fails to understand how the poor creatures within it could have lived under the storm of iron that was rained upon it. Three miles from the pah, on the very beach of the sea, --so close that a sea-wall has been necessary to prevent the inroad of the waves, --there are the graves of the sixty men, British soldiers, who fell on that unfortunate day. They lie in two lines, and the name of every man is given. But the visitor is chiefly struck by the number of officers who were killed. I counted, I think, the names of eleven on the tombs in the grave-yard.
From Tauranga we rode eighteen miles along the beach to Maketu, when I found myself in the midst of Maoris. These Maoris belong to the Arewa tribe, who were always friendly, ---whereas, at Tauranga the natives were hostile. Consequently the land round Tauranga has been confiscated, and divided among military settlers, whereas the Arewas still hold their ground, --not at all as far as one can see to the advantage of humanity at large.
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MOKOIA.
At Maketu I walked up among their settlements, and shook hands with men and women, and smiled at them, and was smiled upon. At the inn they came and sat alongside of me, --so near that the contiguity sometimes almost amounted to an embrace. The children were noisy, jovial, and familiar. As far as one could judge, they all seemed to be very happy. There was a European schoolmaster there, devoted to the Maori children, --who spoke to me much of their present and future condition. He had great faith in their secular learning, but had fears as to their religious condition. He was most anxious that I should see them in school before I departed on the next morning, and I promised that I would do so. Though I was much hurried, I could not refuse such a request to a man so urgent in so good a cause. But in the morning, when I was preparing to be as good as my word, I was told that the schoolmaster had got very drunk after I had gone to bed, had smashed the landlord's windows, and had been carried away to his house by two policemen, --greatly, I hope, to the sorrow of those Maori scholars. After this little affair, it was not thought expedient that I should trouble him at an early hour on the following morning. I cannot but remark here that I saw very much more of drunkenness in New Zealand than in the Australian colonies; and I will remark, also, for the benefit of those who may ever visit these lakes, that there is a very nice little inn at Maketu.
On the following day we rode thirty-five miles, to Ohinemutu through a very barren but by no means unpicturesque country. The land rises and falls in rapid little hills, and is tossed about in a wonderful fashion; --but there is no serious ascent or descent. The first lake seen is Roto Iti, at the end of which we had to swim our horses across a river, passing over it ourselves in a canoe, --as we had done also at Maketu. And here at the end of the lake, we found a very fine Maori house, or whare, --I believe the word is properly so spelt, but it consists of two syllables. And by the whare was a huge war-canoe, capable of carrying some sixty men at the paddles. These, as far as I could learn, were the property of the tribe, rather than of any individual. The whare was a long, low room, with high pitched roof, with an earthen floor, and ornamented with grotesque and indecent carvings. I may, however, as well say that I doubt whether I should have discovered the indecency had it not been pointed out to me. I don't think any one lived in the whare, ---the chief of the tribe, as is usual, preferring his own little hut. No doubt had I wished to stay there, I might have slept on one of the mats with which a portion of the floor is covered.
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Roto Iti, as I saw it, was very pretty, but I did not stop to visit the farther end of it, where, as I was told, the chief beauty of it lay. It may be as well to state that Roto is the Maori word for lake. We went on to Ohinemutu, passing a place called Ngae, on the lake Roto Rua, ---whence, according to the Maori legend, a Maori damsel, hearing the flute of her lover in the island Mokoia, swam off to him. As the distance is hardly more than a mile, and as the Maoris are all swimmers, the feat did not seem to me to be very wonderful, -- till I heard that the flute was made out of the tibia of a man's leg. At present there is a telegraph station at Ngae, and I found an unfortunate telegraphist living in solitude, inhabiting a small office on the lake side. Of course one took the opportunity of telegraphing to all one's friends; --but as visitors to Roto Rua are as yet but very scarce, I can hardly think that the station can pay its expenses.
On the farther side of Roto Iti I had seen great jets of steam at a distance. At Ohinemutu, on Roto Rua, I came to the first hot springs which I saw closely, and I must own that at first they were not especially pleasing. Before reaching the spot, we had to take our horses through the edge of the lake up to their bellies, at a place where the water was so impregnated with sulphur as to be almost unbearable on account of the stench. I had known the smell of sulphur before, --but here it seemed as though the sulphur were putrid. Ohinemutu itself is a poor little Maori village, which seems to have collected itself round the hot springs, close on the borders of the lake, with a view to the boiling of potatoes without the trouble of collecting fuel. Here was a little inn, --or accommodation-house, as it is colonially called, --kept by a European with a half-caste wife, at which the traffic must be very small indeed. He appeared to be the only white inhabitant of the place, and I cannot say that I thought him happily placed in regard to his neighbours or neighbourhood. At Ohinemutu there is nothing pretty. The lake itself has no special loveliness to recommend it. But close upon its edge, there are numerous springs of boiling water, --so close that some of them communicate with the lake, making the water warm for some distance from the shore. There were half-a-dozen pools within a couple of hundred yards of the inn, in which you could boil potatoes or bathe at your will, choosing the heat which you thought desirable. Close beside the gate was one pool which is always boiling. My companion told me that a Maori man had come to him at that spot, desiring to be enlisted in the Maori Contingent. He was bound to refuse the recruit as being too old, --
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BATHING AT OHINEMUTU.
whereupon the disappointed man threw himself into the pool and was boiled to death. Along the path thence to the bathing-pool mostly frequented by the Maoris, there were various small jets here and there, some throwing up a little water, and others a little steam, --very suggestive of accidents in the dark. Such accidents are not at all uncommon, the thin crust of earth not unfrequently giving way and letting through the foot of an incautious wanderer into a small boiling cauldron below. Farther on there is the small square pool, round and in which Maoris are always clustering; -- on which no European would, I should imagine, ever desire to encroach, for the Maoris are many, and the waters are not much. Above and around this, flat stones have been fixed on the earth over steam-jets, --and here the Maoris squat and talk, and keep themselves warm. They seem to become so fond of the warmth as hardly to like to stir out of if. A little to the left, there is a small landlocked cove of the lake in which canoes were lying, and into which a hot spring finds its way, --so that the water of the whole cove may perhaps average ninety degrees of heat. Here on the following morning I bathed, and found myself able to swim without being boiled. But on the previous evening, about nine, when it was quite dark, I had bathed in another pool, behind the inn. Here I had gone in very light attire to make my first experience of these waters, my friend the Captain accompanying me, and here we found three Maori damsels in the pool before us. But this was nothing, -- nothing, at least, in the way of objection. The night was dark; and if they thoroughly understood the old French proverb which has become royally English, why should we be more obstinate or less intelligent? I crept down into the pool, and as I crouched beneath the water, they encouraged me by patting me on the back. The place was black, and shallow, but large enough for us all. I sat there very comfortably for half-an-hour while they conversed with the Captain, --who was a Maori scholar. Then I plunged into a cold river which runs into the lake a few yards from the hot spring, and then returned to the hot water amidst the renewed welcomings of the Maori damsels. And so I passed my first evening among the geysers, very pleasantly.
At Ohinemutu I saw nothing of uplifted columns of boiling water; --nor throughout the district did I see any thing of the kind at all equal to the descriptions which I had read and heard. Indeed, I came across nothing which I could call a column of water thrown up and dispersed in the air. At some spots there were sudden eruptions, which would rise with a splutter rather than a column,
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perhaps six or eight feet high, --throwing boiling spray around, and creating an infinite quantity of steam; but these were not continuous, --lasting perhaps for a minute, and remaining quiescent for four or five, during which the rumbling and boiling of the waters beneath would be heard. In others places, jets of steam would be thrown up to a considerable height, --probably over twenty feet. As to the jets of water, I was told that I was unfortunate, and that the geysers were very tranquil during my visit. I have, however, observed, all the world over, that the world's wonders, when I have reached them, have been less than ordinarily wonderful.
But I had not yet come to Roto Mahana, and was therefore not disappointed with Ohinemutu. Any deficiency in the geysers had been made up by the courtesy of the girls, --and it had been something to bathe in a lake, in water almost boiling me. On the next morning we rode up to a place called Wakarewarewa, about three miles from the lake, at which the sulphur, and the steam, and the noisy roaring boiling processes, were going on with great ferocity at various holes. Perhaps in some respects the thing is better realized as I saw it, than when columns of water are thrown up. I could stand and look down into the holes, and become thoroughly aware that a very slight spring, a step forward, would not only destroy me, but destroy me with terrible agony. All around me were small boiling pools, --for the most part delightfully blue, --each of which had its own boiling spring at the bottom. And among the pools were great holes in the rocks, crusted with sulphur, out of which the geysers ought to have been lifting their heads, but down which instead I could look, and see and hear the ferocious boiling waters. At Wakarewarewa there were no Maoris, and no inhabitants of any kind.
From thence we rode on past a beautiful little sheet of water called the Blue Lake to Kaiteriria, on another lake, --Roto Kakiki. Kaiteriria is the spot at which a certain number of the native contingent force, --the Maori soldiers in the pay of the government, -- are kept, I cannot say in barracks, but in what I may perhaps call a Europeanized pah. The men live in huts of their own, but the huts are surrounded by a palisade, at the two gates of which Maori sentinels are stationed. The men are under the command of a European officer, who had two other Europeans with him in the depot. There seemed to be no danger of any disturbance among the men. As long as they are paid, and fed well, and not overworked, these Arewa Maoris are too well alive to the advantages of their military service to risk them by mutiny or disobedience. The value
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LAKE TARAWERA.
attached to the service may he understood by the act of the man who boiled himself to death because he could not be admitted.
The entrance to Roto Mahana is by a beautiful little stream, which empties that lake into Tarawera, and Tarawera is about four miles from Kaiteriria. At the head of Tarawera, --which, in point of scenery, is by far the finest of all these lakes, as Roto Mahana is the most interesting, --much had been done to form a civilized settlement of Maoris. There was a church, a clergyman's house, a corn-mill, and a considerable extent of cleared land lying amid the beautifully broken ground. The church was empty, and deserted. The clergyman's house was falling into decay, and was occupied by a Maori woman and a Frenchman. The corn-mill was choked up, and in ruins. On the laud there was no sign of crop, or of preparation for crops. Peach-trees had been planted in abundance, -- and here and there patches were bright with the pink peach-blossom. English primroses were in full flower up at the parsonage. But everything was going back to the savageness of the wilderness. The attempt had been made, and had been made among a friendly tribe; -- but it had failed, and the failure seemed to have been acknowledged. There were Maoris in plenty, --a village full of Maoris. When I asked how they lived, I was told that they were Friendlies, and that therefore the government fed them. This Maori chief had a salary, --and that Maori chief. Then there were men on the roads who received wages, --and the sugar-and-flour policy was prevailing. It might be better to feed them than to have to fight them.
I do not at all intend to find fault with the policy at present pursued in regard to the Maoris, --neither with the existing policy nor with any previous policy. I know the great difficulty of the subject, --arising from our desire to do, after some fashion that shall be as little unjust as possible, a thing which according to our light seems to be radically unjust from the beginning. The attempt at justice has been so earnest that adverse criticism is stopped. And any one presuming to criticize should have had much more opportunity of mastering the subject than has come in my way. But I think that I could see that the race was not progressing towards civilization, either with or without Christianity, as it was our thought that they would progress. The people are dying out, --and thus, and thus only, will the Maori difficulty be solved.
The deserted church and parsonage, with the Maori village, which no longer wanted a corn-mill because rations of flour and rations of biscuit were at their command, were most picturesquely placed
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among the hills from which we descended to Lake Tarawera. Here we found a canoe with three natives, our own party consisting of the Captain, two Europeans under his orders, and myself. The passage across the lake to the mouth of the little stream coming out of Roto Mahana, took us four hours. The shape of the lake is so fine, the mountains so well grouped, and the timber so good, that the spot will undoubtedly become famous with tourists on some future day, even if there were no hot lake near, and no geysers to attract holiday wanderers. Tarawera has this advantage among lakes, --that it is almost equally lovely on all sides. At the mouth of the river the Captain and I got out and walked to Roto Mahana, while the men worked the long canoe against the sharp stream, one or two of the natives getting into the water for the purpose. Before leaving the larger lake the water had gradually become warm, and in the river which came cut from Roto Mahana it was almost tepid. For the hot springs round Roto Mahana are sufficiently numerous to warm the whole lake, which is small and irregularly formed, being perhaps a mile long and half a mile broad.
Here we found an incredible number of ducks, --as to which I was told that the Maoris do not approve of their being shot. In fact they are "tapu," or sacred by Maori law, --in order that they may be the better preserved for a great slaughtering and preserving process, which takes place once a year, in December. But the "tapu" in these days has become, even to Maoris themselves, a thing very much of pounds, shillings, and pence, or of other material conditions. The "tapu" was taken off the ducks for the Duke of Edinburgh, when he visited Roto Mahana, --and might, I think, be lifted for awhile to accommodate any one who would pay high enough for a day or two's shooting.
It was nearly dark when we reached the lake, --there being just light enough for us to see the white terraces as we passed across the lowest part of them. We were to eat our supper and sleep in a whare on the side of the lake, a little away from the terraces, in the midst of various steam-jets and water-jets. As I followed my leader through the bush I was cautioned not to step aside here, or to make a blunder there. In one place the Governor's aide-de-camp's dog had been boiled alive in a mud-jet, and in another a native girl had dropped a baby, and had herself plunged in after the poor infant, -- hopelessly, tragically gone for ever amidst horrible torments. I heard more, however, of the Governor's aide-de-camp's dog than I did of the girl and the baby. These mud-jets, or solfataras, are to be seen throughout the whole district, and are very far from being
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ROTO MAHANA.
lovely. By some infernal chemistry, probably not very low beneath the surface, earth and water are mixed and are sent up in a boiling condition. When the aperture is small the mud simply boils and bubbles. When the mouth is large it is thrown up, and lies around in a great bubbling ring of dirt, soft and hot, and most damnable to any one who should place a foot upon it. Solfataras is a very pretty name, but the thing itself is very ugly both to the eye and to the imagination.
Our whare was close upon the lake-side, close also to various boiling springs. Here we cooked our bacon and potatoes, and then, when it was dark, crouched into a warm pool, and sat there and enjoyed ourselves. When the water became too warm I crept out into the lake, which was close at hand, with a barrier of stones dividing them, and which was warm also, though less warm than any of the pools. And then I got back again into the pool, conscious of the close vicinity of a naked Maori, who was supposed to see that I fell into no difficulties. But here the companions of the bath were of the less interesting sex, and I almost wished that they were away. The bathing was certainly good fun, but the night in the whare afterwards was less enjoyable. The ground was hard, the adjacent stream made the air hot and muggy, --and I had a feeling as of many insects.
The glory of Roto Mahana is in the terraces. There are the white terraces on the side on which we had slept, and the pink terraces across the lake. I will endeavour in describing these to avoid any word that may seem to savour of science, --being altogether ignorant in such matters, ---and will endeavour simply to say what I saw and felt. These terraces are formed of a soft friable stone, which is deposited by the waters streaming down from the hot pools above. The white terraces are in form the finer of the two. They are about three hundred feet in width, and rise nearly two hundred in height from the lake. As you ascend from the bottom you step along a raised fretwork of stone, as fine as chased silver. Among this the water is flowing, so that dry feet are out of the question, but the fret-work, if the feet be kept on it, assists the walker, as the water, though it runs over it, of course runs deeper through it. As you rise higher and higher, the water, which at the bottom is hardly more than tepid, becomes warmer and warmer. And then on one terrace after another there are large shell-like alabaster baths, holding water from three to four feet deep, --of different temperatures as the bather may desire them. Of course the basins are not alabaster, --but are made of
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the deposit of the waters, which is, I believe, silica; --but they are as smooth as alabaster, only softer. And on the outside rims, where the water has run, dripping over, century after century, nature has carved for herself wonderful hanging ornaments and exquisite cornices, with that prolific hand which never stints itself in space because of expense, and devotes its endless labour to front and rear with equal persistency. On the top terrace is the boiling lake from whence the others are filled.
We had swum in Roto Mahana early in the morning, and did not bathe at the white terraces, having been specially recommended to reserve ourselves for those on the other side. So we crossed the lake to the pink terraces. In form, as I have said before, the white terraces are the finer. They are larger, and higher, and the spaces between the pools are more exquisitely worked, --and to my eye the colour was preferable. Both are in truth pink. Those which have the name of being so are brighter, and are salmon-coloured. They are formed after the same fashion, and the baths are constructed, -- of course by nature, --in the same way. But those which we last visited were, I was told, more delicious to the bather. I can, indeed, imagine nothing more so. The bather undresses on a piece of dry rock a few yards distant, and is in his bath in half a minute without the chance of hurting his feet, --for it is one of the properties of the stone flooring which has here been formed that it does not hurt. In the bath, when you strike your chest against it, it is soft to the touch, --you press yourself against it and it is smooth, --you lie about upon it and, though it is firm, it gives to you. You plunge against the sides, driving the water over with your body, but you do not bruise yourself. You go from one bath to another, trying the warmth of each. The water trickles from the one above to the one below, coming from the vast boiling pool at the top, and the lower therefore are less hot than the higher. The baths are shell-like in shape, --like vast open shells, the walls of which are concave and the lips of which ornamented in a thousand forms. Four or five may sport in one of them, each without feeling the presence of the other. I have never heard of other bathing like this in the world.
And from the pink terraces, as you lie in the water, you look down upon the lake which is close beneath you, and over upon the green broken hills which come down upon the lake. The scene here, from the pink terraces, is by far the lovelier, though the white terraces themselves are grander in their forms. It is a spot for intense sensual enjoyment, and there comes perhaps some addition
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ROTO MAHANA.
to the feeling from the roughness you have encountered in reaching it; --a delight in dallying with it, from the roughness which you must encounter in leaving it. The time probably will soon come in which there will be a sprightly hotel at Roto Mahana, with a table d'hote, and boats at so much an hour, and regular seasons for bathing. As I lay there, I framed the programme of such a hotel in my mind, --and I did so, fixing the appropriate spot as I squatted in the water, and calculating how much it would cost and what return it would give. I was somewhat troubled by the future bathing arrangements. To enclose the various basins would spoil them altogether to the eye. To dabble about in vestments arranged after some French fashion would spoil the bathing to the touch. And yet it must be open to men and women alike. The place lies so broad to the world's eye that I fear no arrangement as to hours, no morning for the gentlemen and evening for the ladies, would suffice. Alas, for the old Maori simplicity and perfect reliance on the royal adage! The ladies, indeed, might have the pink, and the men the white terraces; but the intervening lake would discourage social intercourse, --and there would be interlopers and intruders who might break through the "tapu" of modern propriety. After bathing we went to the top, and walked round the hot spring from which the water descends. It has formed a lake about a quarter of a mile in circumference, the waters of which are constantly boiling, and are perfectly blue. In the centre it is said to be many feet deep. The colour is lovely, but in order to see it we had to get behind the wind, so that the steam should not be blown into our faces. As we came down we found parts of the crusted floor perfectly yellow with pure sulphur, and parts of the fretted stone-work on the under curves of the rocks, where they were not exposed to the light, as perfectly green. Then there were huge masses brightly salmon-coloured, and here and there delicately-white fretwork, and the lips and sides of the baths were tinted with that delicate pink hue which we are apt to connect with soft luxury.
We returned across the small warm lake, and down the rapid river, --which has some Maori name meaning the "breaking of canoes," derived from the accidents occasioned by the rapid windings of the stream; and we were rowed again across the great lake Tarawera to the deserted chapel and the broken corn-mill, --and thence we walked to Kaiteriria, where I slept amidst the Native Contingents.
Having done this I had really seen the hot springs of the province of Auckland, and I would advise no traveller who is simply desirous of seeing them to go farther south. One cannot travel through any
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part of that wild country without seeing much that is worth seeing, and south of Roto Mahana or of Kaiteriria there are are very many steam-jets and geysers. As I have said before, the greatest geyser of all, when it chooses to play, is on Tongariro, south of Lake Taupo. But jets of boiling water, and jets of steam, and jets of mud, though they are wonderful, are hardly in themselves beautiful; --and in the neighbourhoods of Ohinemutu and of Roto Mahana there are enough to gratify even an ardent curiosity. But I had made my plans to see Lake Taupo, and to return by the Valley of the Waikato, and this I did. From Kaiteriria to Taupo it was a long day's work, --the distance of which we increased from forty-five to fifty miles by losing our way. On the route we passed a hot river in which we bathed, --a river which became hot at a certain point by the operation of a boiling spring, and then cooled itself by degrees, --so that the bather might wade into hotter or into cooler water as he might wish. Fifteen miles beyond this we crossed, for the first time, the Waikato River, which in the lower part of its course had been the scene of so much fighting, and here we left the friendly Arewa tribe and got among the Wharetowa, who in the time of the war were our foes. When we crossed the river we found a village, and another close to the lake, --looking poor, miserable, and dirty. At ten o'clock at night we crossed back over the Waikato, and found ourselves at the town of Tapuaeharu, which consists of a large redoubt held by European armed constabulary, and of an inn. There were a few Maori whares round about, but they clustered chiefly on the side of the river we had just left.
I crossed the lake, which is about twenty-five miles long and twenty-two broad, in a boat rowed by six constables, and put up for the night at the Maori village of Takano at the other end. The country all around, --as it had been indeed since we left Maketu, with the exception of small patches at the head of Tarawera, --was not only uncultivated but apparently barren and poor by its nature. The ordinary growth is a low stunted fern, which sometimes gives place to tufts of thick yellow> grass. I was told that sheep had been tried upon it in places, but that they had fallen off and had perished. The attempt had been a failure. At Tokano there was a large village, and here I found in the valley of the river some potato patches. The land was better than it had been beyond the lake; but I saw nothing that savoured either of prosperity or of civilization. Old tattooed natives came and grinned at me. Young women, tattooed, as are all the women, on the under-lip, sat close to me and chattered to me; and young mem kindly shook me by the hand. I
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THE WAIKATO.
encountered nothing but Maori friendship; --but at the same time I encountered no Maori progress. As I had not time to go on to Tongariro I returned on the next day to the other end of the lake, --and during the following three days I rode to Cambridge, a new little town on the Lower Waikato.
The distance is about ninety miles, and a more desolate country it would be hard to imagine. In the first eighty miles there is not a sign of cultivation. The land is fern-covered, and is very poor, and is not yet in the hands of Europeans. During the whole distance we descended the course of the Waikato, though at some places we were miles away from it. Our first night we spent at another depot of the native contingent force, in a collection of huts similar to that at Kaiteriria. Here again we bathed in a warm spring close to the river, and here again we crossed the Waikato in a canoe.
Some of the scenery on this route was certainly very fine. We passed through one winding gorge, with the rocks high above our heads, which seemed to be the very spot for another Thermopylae And at certain places the river had made for itself a grand course, rushing down rapids, and cutting a deep channel for itself between narrow banks. But the desolation of the country was its chief characteristic. There were no men or women, and nothing on which men and women could live. There were no animals, --hardly even a bird to be seen, till as we came near to European haunts, we occasionally put up one of the pheasants with which the Lower Waikato has been stocked. There is perhaps no country in the world more destitute of life than the wilder parts of the Northern Island of New Zealand. During one long day a wild cat was the only animal we saw after leaving the neighbourhood of the place from which we started. On that night we slept at a Maori pah, which we did not reach till dark, --and before reaching it we had to pass through a dense wood in darkness so thick that I could not see my hand. I mention the fact in order that I may express my wonder at the manner in which my friend the Captain made his way through it. That night I had a small Maori hut all to myself, -- one in which were deposited all the tokens of recent Maori habitation. There was a little door just big enough for ingress, -- hardly big enough for egress, --and a heap of fern-leaves, and a looking-glass, and a bottle which looked like perfumery, --and the feeling as of many insects. In the morning two old women cooked some potatoes for us, - -and I rode away, intending never to spend another night among the Maoris.
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They are certainly more highly gifted than other savage nations I have seen. They are as superior in intelligence and courage to the Australian Aboriginal as they are in outward appearance. They are more pliable and nearer akin in their manners to civilized mankind than are the American Indians. They are more manly, more courteous, as also more sagacious than the African negro. One can understand the hope and the ambition of the first great old missionaries who had dealings with them. But contact with Europeans does not improve them. At the touch of the higher race they are poisoned and melt away. There is scope for poetry in their past history. There is room for philanthropy as to their present condition. But in regard to their future, --there is hardly a place for hope.
