1936 - Stack, J. W. More Maoriland Adventures of J. W. Stack - PART III. WITH DR. MAUNSELL ON THE WAIKATO 1853-1859, p 139-220

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PART III

WITH DR. MAUNSELL ON THE WAIKATO 1853-1859

INTRODUCTION

(The Editor wishes to acknowledge his deep indebtedness to Messrs. E. T. Frost, Fred C. S. Lawson, Henry E. R. L. Wily, and Herbert Maunsell, without whose local knowledge, so freely imparted, this introductory chapter could not have been written.)

Nearly two hundred miles away in the interior, flowing out from the wide-stretching waters of the great lake, the Waikato had begun its long journey to the sea. Many a native tribe it had enriched as it wound its way to the blue Pacific between fern-clad hills and through dense forests. Moving on, gaining volume and strength as it gathered to itself the tribute of every fertile valley, it had become a great and noble river. Nearing the sea to mingle itself with the beckoning breakers it moves majestically past the islets spread over its broad surface. Here, in the lower reaches, long before Maunsell or Stack or any pakeha had looked upon the great river, the brown man had for many generations snared his birds, caught his fish, tilled his ground, built villages and fortifications, got him wives and children, and waged deadly warfare against opposing tribes.

There is abundant evidence that in the past the lower Waikato had sustained a dense population. The present appearance of the coastal area in the neighbourhood of the Heads gives little indication of this.

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The old settlements lie buried beneath the invincible and still advancing drift sand. The occasional uncovering of an old village site shows that a thriving population once inhabited these extensive areas. Some indication of the teeming life of former days is afforded by the presence of thousands of cubic yards of pipi shell, the remains of countless tribal feasts. Buried in these bivalve accumulations there have been found many treasured belongings of those former inhabitants, including flints, axes, fish-hooks, implements, and even prized meres which, could they speak, might have strange tales to tell of their chequered careers.

In the earlier part of the nineteenth century the Maoris dwelling hereabouts suffered severely from raids and inter-tribal warfare. Hongi descended upon them with his dreaded muskets, and all but exterminated the inhabitants of at least one pa. About 1831 Charles Marshall, the earliest white settler, witnessed a fierce fight at Kohanga--the battle ground is now meadow land on Mr. Lawson's farm--between the Ngati Tipa and their neighbours the Ngati Pou. Evidences of the battle were only too apparent to Stack a quarter of a century later. Marshall relates that, prior to the arrival of Maunsell, a chief, desirous of giving a feast, and having no kinaki (relish) handy for the kumeras and potatoes, sent one of his numerous wives to fetch firewood and prepare the hangi (native oven). All unconcerned, she went about her tasks, and when all was ready was seized, killed and cooked, to the satisfaction of the chief and his guests.

In spite of the hazards to life there was still, in the earlier days of European contact, a large population on the lower reaches of the river. Marshall records the arrival at the Heads of a couple of thousand natives, brought down in scores of canoes in quest of shell-fish. Dieffenbach, the German scientist,

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saw a concourse of 2,500 natives at the mission station in 1841.

Maunsell established himself at the Heads in 1836, and in 1853 moved the mission station some miles up-river to Kohanga. This was a statesmanlike policy. The Maori population at the Heads was diminishing, and numbered less than a fourth of those residing in the neighbourhood of Kohanga. The new site was also much better adapted to the purpose of teaching the arts of husbandry. Here, a few years later, hundreds of acres of land were producing fine crops of wheat, potatoes and maize; and groves of peaches, apricots and cherries were laden with fruit. In the present instalment of his recollections Stack dwells upon the heart-breaking failures to win a harvest from the unresponsive soil. Possibly the explanation is to be found in their attempt to reclaim the swampy land first. It is pleasant to know, at any rate, that their efforts were ultimately rewarded.

In those days the river that flowed past the Kohanga mission station and its steepled church of pit-sawn matai timber, was the main highway for the outside world, and would often present a busy scene with passing flotillas of canoes laden with produce and pigs.

Kohanga has an interesting association with the early history of the postal services of our country. One of my correspondents writes: "Strange as it may seem to-day, Kohanga was then, and even up to the early 'seventies, on the postal route between Auckland and New Plymouth. Parcels and newspapers were sent as irregular opportunity might offer by sea. Letters, however, requiring a sixpenny stamp for each half-ounce, were carried overland. The first stage was to Mauku. Early next morning the mailman rode on to a point on the river nearly opposite

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Kohanga. where the mails were taken by canoe to the Heads, and thence by a Maori to New Plymouth on foot, the return journey taking about twenty days."

Almost the last vestiges of the mission stations have now disappeared. At Maraetai the ivy-clad foundations of a chimney, stout-hearted, century-old prickly pears, and a granite stone marking the last resting place of the pioneer missionary's first wife, Susan Maunsell, who died in 1851. Now the place rings on occasion with the merry laughter of youngsters who come down to the Hamilton Children's Health Camp. At Kohanga, where Maunsell, after the outbreak of the Maori War, bravely held on to the last moment, a headstone to the memory of the missionary's second wife, while nigh at hand rest many of her Maori pupils and their descendants. Of the busy mission homestead, no sign save a chimney base, and some garden borders of pumice where once flowers were cultivated. Of the church, at the building of which Stack and his Maori boys laboured so hopefully, and which in its day was landmark for miles around, nothing remains. The old bell which called them to worship, however, may still be heard at a little sanctuary in Waiuku, fifteen miles distant.

These are the things that may be seen, but there is surely more than meets the eye. There remains the record of a noble purpose and a great achievement. It has been stated, too, that the steady and industrious character of the natives of Port Waikato and Kohanga can be traced in large measure to the influence of Maunsell and his helpers on that earlier generation. It may be added that the Kohanga Maoris, the Ngati Tipa tribe, under their fine old chief Waata Kukutai, remained "Queen" Maoris throughout the war of the 'sixties.

The Ngati Tipa tribe occupied that part of the west coast extending from Kawhia to the Waikato

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Heads, and both sides of the river from Maraetai to Onewhero, seven miles above Kohanga. They were the paramount people of that region, and traced their descent from Hoturoa, the navigator of the Tainui canoe, one of the "Mayflower" fleet of the fourteenth century. The chief of Stack's time, Waata (Walter) Kukutai, lived with the main hapu or family of the tribe at Kohanga. The Ngati Tipa may be said to have possessed the gates of their enemies, for their well-fortified pas controlled the mouth of the big river. Their lands, to borrow again a figure of speech from Holy Writ, flowed with milk and honey. Fish was plentiful in the estuarian waters and eels in the fresh waters above, the land was fertile, and birds abounded in the forest land that stretched from the river to Raglan Harbour.

The remnant of the tribe is no longer rich in this world's goods. Yielding to pressure, the younger generation sold their lands. They are a fine people, however, and the rangatiras among them still recall, over their camp-fires, the brave days of old.

"Waata Kukutai," says one who knew him, and who has also given us a pen picture of Maunsell, "was almost my first acquaintance with a rangatira. He had a fine figure, was closely tattooed, and walked with rather a stiff gait. He was characterised by dignity, courtesy, and a high regard for his personal honour. He could unbend on occasion. I first met him as a young boy when he called at our home on his way to meet the newly appointed Governor. He carried a handsome mere, and twenty times at least he rehearsed the song and dance which were to accompany this valuable gift. Outwardly he wore a plain tweed suit, but this was merely the chrysalis enclosing the gorgeous butterfly within. Unbuttoning his waistcoat he disclosed to view his service uniform, for he

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was the holder of the Queen's Commission with the rank of Major of Volunteers. But this was not all. Unhooking the tunic he showed us the scarlet and blue and the gold lace of his dress uniform. The tweeds were to be discarded on his arrival in Auckland, whose citizens were to be gladdened by the sight of his service uniform. The inner glory was reserved to dazzle the eyes of the Governor and his guests.

"Waata had a comfortable five-roomed house, fairly well furnished, but lived in a whare at the rear, only opening the house when he had white visitors. When he died the house was strictly tapu, and was probably never opened again. In later years I pushed my way to it through a jungle of scrub and gorse. Looking through the window I could see the furniture undisturbed, with crockery and pots still in the kitchen. But the drawing room was empty, save for two carpenters' trestles, untouched since their last mournful function."

Waata was succeeded by his nephew Hori (George) Kukutai, a reserved, but honourable and kindly man. He met with a tragic death, and there was a strong suspicion of foul play. A grandson of Waata, Kerei Kukutai, still carries on the name. His memory goes back to the old days of the mission school of which he was, in fact, an inmate for the space of three days, when he could no longer endure the separation from his family, and had to be sent home. A great-grandson, Ngapaka, is a Methodist preacher.

* * *

An impressionist pen portrait of Archdeacon Maunsell, by one who knew him, depicts him as "a tall, gaunt man, loosely built, yet of great strength, with a deeply lined and weatherbeaten countenance swept by every play of feeling, not as ripples but as a tidal wave of emotion. It was said of him that

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WAIKATO RIVER, NEAR THE HEADS This photograph, taken in 1899, is reproduced by the courtesy of Mr. K. T, Frost. It depicts a familiar scene at the time, the swimming of cattle over the river. Amongst the flotilla of boats can be seen two Maori canoes, one of considerable length. The scene is in the neighbourhood of Archdeacon Maunsell's mission station at Maraetai, and it would be across this part of the river that Stack swain his horse (p. 147).

LOOKING ACROSS THE CANTERBURY PLAINS. FROM THE BRIDLE PATH. IN THE 'FIFTIES Tuahiwi, near Kaiapoi, lies not far from the coast, beyond the Waimakariri River. In the middle distance the Heathcote stream winds across the plain and to the right of it is the straight road leading to the settlement that was to become "the city of the plains." (From a lithograph by Maclure, Macdonald and Macgregor, after the drawing by E. NORMAN. Reproduced by the courtesy of Mr. A. H. Johnstone.) See p. 226.

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SITE OF MARAETAI MISSION STATION.

In the foreground is the Waikato Children's Health Camp, a modern successor to the old mission station, the actual site of which was round the side of the hill to the right. The flats in the distance were under intense cultivation in the old days. Beyond, the Waikato River enters the Heads. In Maunsell's time a Maori war party of some thousands crossed the river, performed a war dance on the beach, made a raid upon a neighbouring tribe, and were met as they returned, bearing their slain foes homewards for a cannibal feast.

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while he spoke English he thought in Maori; and when he talked to himself--a fairly frequent habit-- one language seemed to come to him as easily as the other.

"His sermons were punctuated with flashing eyes, wildly waving arms, and occasional impressive pauses. It was not strange that, after half an hour of fire and fury in the pulpit, he required a sedative. He found it in his short, black clay pipe and the strongest brand of plug tobacco obtainable.

"With all his eccentricities he commanded universal respect, and inspired in his intimates a deep affection. Few but admired his unfailing energy, dauntless courage and shrewd commonsense."

Readers of Stack's recollections will probably be glad of any assistance in forming a mental picture of the Kohanga mission station at that period. Soon a century will have passed since those days. The neighbourhood, now dotted with neat Maori and Pakeha farm-houses surrounded with cultivated fields and pasture land, has acquired a beauty of its own, but then the land was in its primitive loveliness. The hills were clothed with fern or the varied hues of the virgin bush; the river, bordered here by the tossing plumes of the toe toe or sturdy flax bushes, there reflected golden masses of kowhai, or the starry purity of clematis festooning the tall trees with its snow-white blossom.

For ten miles from its mouth the left bank of the river was closely bordered by steep, densely forested hills. In the vicinity of Kohanga the hills recede in a wide semi-circle, giving place to a large block of level and undulating land, much of it scrub covered. Half of this area was swamp, and it appears to have been a small part of this near the river that Stack endeavoured to reclaim.

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About the centre of a gentle slope falling to the river were built the parsonage and the church. Around the homestead Maunsell planted English trees--oak, ash and elm, and of these some handsome specimens still survive. Unfortunately for the meadow land gorse was also introduced. To-day, however, the land is in the hands of capable farmers; the gorse has been subdued, and the big swamp drained and grassed.

It was easy in those days to lose one's bearings, even on the river. An old resident recalls as a boy his dismay at being lost in the maze of islands near Kohanga, cheered, however, by the sight of the spire of the old church.

Prior to her marriage, Mrs. J. W. Stack, in 1858, thus described the river in the neighbourhood of the mission station:-- "The river is divided into many streams opposite the mission station, separated from one another by islands covered with flax, toe-toe and bulrushes, and clumps of white pine trees. Some of the islands are three or four miles long and from a quarter to half a mile wide. Below the islands, and within seven miles of the mouth, the river is four miles wide and presents a noble expanse of water."

In Stack's time there was a track, avoiding many of the river bends, leading from Kohanga, passing through Kukutai's pa, and on to Ashwell's station at Taupiri, running across hill and dale through the heart of the bush. Its route is well known in the neighbourhood, and a portion in Onewhero is still referred to as "The Mission Track." The map on page 158 will help to make clearer this and other topographical features of the mission days.

A. H. R.

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CHAPTER I

FIRST DAYS ON THE MISSION STATION

AS we approached the mission station I was very pleased with the appearance of its situation at the foot of a conical hill 700 feet high, covered with trees, and adjoining other wooded hills stretching up and down the river-sides. It was just dusk when we reached the crossing place, but the Maori school-boys' keen eyes had spied our approach along the coast, and had brought over a canoe to await our arrival. The river was about half a mile wide and proved a long swim for the horse, which moved very slowly, snorting loudly every few minutes, and grunting all the time as if it did not at all enjoy the enforced swim. On reaching the opposite side of the river I was met by Mr. Volkner and a party of school lads, who carried my things up to the school-house, which I was glad to find so close to the beach.

Mr. C. S. Volkner 1 was a young German missionary who had just joined the C. M. S., and was being trained by Mr. Maunsell, and in his absence was taking charge of the mission station. Mr. Volkner took me to his quarters, and installed me

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in the rooms which were to be my home for the next few years. We had tea together, and talked as only people in those days did, when there were no newspapers, and they could only learn by word of mouth, or by letters, what was going on in the world.

At eight o'clock we had prayers in the big schoolroom, when I saw my future pupils assembled together for the first time. We looked at one another with interest and curiosity, and I felt conscious that they all thought me too young for the post I was to fill. But I determined there and then, with God's help to convince them that, young as I was, I should be their master from the start, and never lower my standard to them.

Until Mr. Maunsell's return from Auckland, which did not take place for some weeks after my arrival, I did not take formal charge of the school, but just helped Mr. Volkner in any way he wished, and got an idea of the general school routine prevailing at Maraetai. I found my companion a kind-hearted and pleasant man to work with.

As it was necessary to prevent the boys and girls from seeing too much of each other, they were only allowed to meet at meal times, when there were always some adult Maoris present to keep them in order. Mr. Volkner and I had breakfast and supper in our own quarters, but took our midday meal with the Maunsells.

The family party consisted, when I joined it, of Mrs. Maunsell and three step-daughters, the eldest being about eleven years old. Mrs. Maunsell taught the Maori girls and women, as she had done for some time before her marriage. She was

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assisted in the domestic work by a dear old Maori lady named Mary Ngataru, who was a very fine character. An interesting account of her will be found in Miss Tucker's book, The Southern Cross. 2

I was very pleased to find that my future home was situated in a picturesque neighbourhood where agreeable views met the eye in whatever direction it turned. The situation of Mr. Maunsell's house, beside the Maraetai stream at the foot of a wooded hill, was a very pleasing one. My house and schoolroom stood about two or three hundred yards away across a grassy field, facing the Maunsells and close to the beach. The married natives' quarters were just beyond mine, and consisted of three or four large raupo buildings, and close to them the weatherboard cottage occupied by the English carpenter and his family.

The men and boys were engaged during a portion of every day in agricultural pursuits. But the flat land comprised a very small area, and was of poor quality, most of it old sea beach sand. The hills near were very steep, and consisted of clay and shale, and were very unproductive. It was often very difficult to find work for everybody to do, owing to the limited extent of land belonging to the school. The milch cows had to be tended all day to prevent them wandering along the hills by

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the coast and getting lost in the thick woods bordering it. The sheep belonging to Mr. Maunsell got quite wild from not being looked after, and we found it easier to procure pork than mutton for our larder, for our pig dogs could catch pigs, but could not be used to catch sheep for fear of their acquiring a taste for hunting them. I never saw a sheep brought into the station during my stay there with a fleece of wool upon its back. The scrub and fern, through which they daily passed in search of food, pulled all the wool off their backs.

The first thing Mr. Maunsell did on his return from Auckland was to have a long talk with me about the management of the boys' school, and the position I was to fill on the station. He seemed pleased to find that I had my own ideas about my work, and that I was likely to prove punctual, methodical, and a strict disciplinarian. He then gave me some very good advice about my own studies, and begged me to continue reading Latin authors, and asked me to come to him every day for an hour between three and four in the afternoon, when he would hear me construe. I felt grateful for the interest shown by him in my improvement, and accepted his offer. And I continued to enjoy the advantage of his scholarly abilities during all the years I was associated with him. The keen interest he always displayed in my studies, and the patience with which he treated my halting efforts to master the subjects in which he gave me instruction, won my respect, and ultimately my warm affection. 3

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At the time I arrived at Maraetai Mr. Maunsell was busy with the work of translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Maori. He had already completed the task once before, but the MSS. of his great work were destroyed by fire when his house was burnt down. 4 And with the translation of the Old Testament perished a valuable Maori Lexicon he had compiled with the aid of intelligent and learned Maoris, whom he consulted regarding the meaning of Maori words, during the course of his work as a translator. This valuable work he was never able to reproduce. Every day he spent several hours in his study, engaged in translation, and the constant application to it was injuring his eyesight, and undermining his bodily health.

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CHAPTER II

NEW FRIENDS, PAKEHA AND MAORI

THOUGH Mr. Volkner remained on at Maraetai he took no part in the teaching of the boys in school, but was employed superintending the men and giving them instruction in Maori. My teaching was all in English, but it was useless to attempt teaching the grown-up people in that language, as they found so many sounds in English which they could not pronounce, like "six" and "the" and "plough," etc.

Our day began with morning prayers in the schoolroom at 7 a.m. which lasted an hour. Then breakfast at 8, and school at 9. At 12 the boys marched off for an hour's digging or hoeing on the land. At 1 o'clock we had dinner. At 2, boys and men resumed some out-of-door work till 4. At 5 they had tea, and after that they prepared lessons till evening prayers, after which all went to bed. The bed consisted of a blanket, in which each boy rolled himself and stretched himself out on the most convenient place he could find on the floor. I used always to go round at 10 o'clock, before going to my own bed, to see that no one was missing. The schoolroom floor then presented the appearance of being covered with Egyptian mummies, so tightly had each one wrapped his blanket round his body and concealed every part of it.

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I had not been very long at Waikato Heads before I made the acquaintance of a gentleman whom Mr. Maunsell invited to visit the station, and give the school instruction in music. I found him a most charming companion, and used to look forward to his visits. He was a young English barrister, a tall, aristocratic-looking man, with the merriest twinkle possible in his grey eyes. He was full of fun and good humour, and his visits always brought sunshine into my rather dull, humdrum life. He had come out to New Zealand for his health, accompanied by his cousin, Armitage, 5 and had fixed his abode on the banks of the Waikato, nearly opposite Tuakau, and about twenty miles from the Heads. The sobriety and superior bearing of these men was remarked by the Maoris, who drew Mr. Maunsell's attention to them. He invited them to pay him a visit at the Heads, and so we got to know Francis Dart Fenton, 6 who afterwards became my lifelong and valued friend.

Fenton was a most accomplished musician, and played the violin and 'cello perfectly. He left one of his violins in my charge, and, whenever he came

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to see me, used to enchant me with his delightful performances.

On one occasion when he was staying with me Sir George Grey paid us a visit. He was very much taken with our guest, and on his way up the river spent the night in Fenton's whare. Noticing some algebraic signs on a piece of paper lying on the floor, he picked it up and examined it, when it proved to be the solution of a difficult mathematical problem. When Fenton came in, Sir George remarked:

"I see you are a mathematician. It is a pity that you should be wasting your talents in this out of the way spot. Would you take a post under Government if offered to you?"

Fenton assured him that he would. Nothing more was said at the time, but a few weeks later Sir George offered him the post of Magistrate at Kaipara. He afterwards received a more important post in Waikato, and subsequently became Chief Judge of the Native Lands Court in New Zealand. In Auckland he took the lead in all musical matters, and was President of the Choral Society.

When H. R. H. the Duke of Edinburgh 7 visited Auckland he discovered Fenton's musical skill, and used to go to his house almost daily to play the violin with him. I happened one morning to call on Mrs. Fenton, and, while talking to her, the Duke walked into the room, and asked where Fenton was. Hearing that he was out he said he would await his return, and began talking to Mrs. Fenton. I slipped out of the room and went into town,

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where I met Fenton in the street. I told him I had just left the Duke at his house.

"Oh yes," he said, "I am out here trying to avoid him. He is always turning up with some difficult music which I have never seen before, but with which he himself is perfectly familiar, and I am finding His Royal Highness rather a bore."

Among the men under our instruction was a chief named John Huki, a most ardent student of the Bible, and one of the most efficient of Dr. Maunsell's native assistants. I was often astonished to find, how, without the aid of commentaries or dictionaries or maps, he had mastered the meaning of the different parts of the Bible. He understood and entered into the spiritual meaning of the prophetical writings in a remarkable manner, and took the deepest interest in the work of translating them into the Maori language. I felt myself quite an inferior to him as an expositor of Scripture.

To my surprise he did not take any part in public worship. On enquiring the reason I was told that he was doing a self-imposed penance for doing what the Maoris regarded as an unchristian action during a battle which took place a few years before between his tribe and another. A dispute had arisen relating to the ownership of a certain piece of ground. One tribe tried to take possession and the other resisted the attempt, and a battle ensued. Hoani (John) Huki, who was known and respected by both tribes, and regarded by them at the time as the best Maori catechist in Waikato, was ministering to the needs of the wounded on both sides. At a critical moment in the battle his own tribesmen were unable to return their opponents' fire for

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want of wadding for their muskets. Hoani tore several leaves out of his prayer book, and handed them to his friends who, using the paper as wadding, fired with such deadly effect that two of the leading enemy chiefs were killed, upon which their followers fled.

As soon as it became known that the shots fired with such fatal effect came from the muskets wadded with the Prayer Book leaves, Hoani Huki was universally condemned by the Maoris for taking such an unfair advantage of his opponents, by using part of a book consecrated to God for peaceful purposes, and employing it as an instrument of destruction. His own conscience had already condemned him, and from that day forward he never took part in any public act of worship, and always sat by the door of the church in token of his penitence. He gradually fell into a decline, and died shortly after we occupied our new station at Kohanga. I shall never forget his look of joy when I placed in his hands the first printed copy of the Minor Prophets. Dr. Maunsell was then in Auckland, passing the book through the press and sent a copy, by a special messenger, to his dying friend, whose last words to him when he started for Auckland were: "I hope God will spare my life till my eyes have read from Genesis to Revelation the whole of His sacred Word in my own tongue." God heard his prayer, and in my hearing, on his death-bed, he quoted, just before he expired, Simeon's words: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

Hoani Huki was always to me a standing

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miracle of grace. Naturally he was a vain and conceited man, for his natural abilities were so great that he stood head and shoulders above the other Maoris; but taught of God, he became as humble as a little child.

CHAPTER III

CHANGING QUARTERS

THE result of Sir George Grey's visit to Waikato Heads was that the Maoris were induced by him to give us more land for farming purposes. Waikato Heads, however pleasant as a place of residence, was quite unsuited for the site of an industrial school where the pupils, in addition to the three R's, were to be taught farming and carpentering, etc., so that they might, on returning to their homes, introduce new methods of building and of cultivation, more suited to the growing needs of the Maori people.

The Maoris agreed to give us six hundred acres of land ten miles higher up the river, at a place called Kohanga. 8 The land comprised the block in dispute between the two tribes, where the battle took place in which Hoani Huki committed the indiscreet act which ruined his reputation as a Christian teacher, and caused his death.

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The neighbourhood of Maraetai and Kohanga Mission Stations. From data supplied by Mr. Fred. C. S. Lawson.

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Mr. Volkner was at once sent up to Kohanga with eight or ten of the young men who formed the student class preparing for the ministry, to clear the ground for the erection of new school buildings. After he had been there about three months I went up to take his place while he went for his holiday to Auckland.

As the necessity for maintaining discipline prevented my being able to make companions of the young men I was in charge of, I found time hang rather heavy on my hands. During the day I had to superintend the splitting of rails and posts, the erection of fences, and the clearing of land for ploughing, etc.; for two hours in the evening I gave instruction in writing, arithmetic and other subjects; but when that was over I had three hours at least to fill up before I went to bed. Unfortunately I had brought no books up with me, and the only ones I could find in Mr. Volkner's rooms were a German and English dictionary, and the poet Cowper's Letters. The Letters I found at first intensely dull reading, and turned to the dictionary, but an evening or two spent in examining its contents exhausted their interest, and I fell back again upon the poet's Letters. One of them at first was enough to read at a time, but soon my interest was excited by them, and long before I had exhausted the contents of the volume I had grown to like it, and to look forward to the return of evening, when I should be able to resume its perusal.

One evening, just after I had dismissed my class, and resumed reading in front of the fire that I always kept burning for companionship, I noticed a hole in the roof, through which a bright star

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shone down upon me. When I looked up again the star had increased in size, and I soon found that the thatch of my roof was on fire. Fortunately there was no wind, and a bucket of water extinguished it. The chimney consisted of half a canoe stood up on end, and battened across, the hearth being lined with stones and clay. The wonder was that fires were not of daily occurrence, for the walls and roofs of all native-built houses consisted of inflammable materials, and people were often very careless where sparks from the wood fires alighted; and the flaring lights they carried about were often placed close to the raupo walls.

One Saturday afternoon, during one of Dr. Maunsell's prolonged absences, I was startled by the cry of "He poti! he poti manawaro! Boats were unknown on the Waikato then, and the idea of a man-of-war boat appearing seemed incredible. I ran down to the beach, which was only a few yards away, and saw at once that the Maoris were quite right, for there was a man-of-war barge, coming straight towards me. In a few minutes it touched the beach, and the sailors put out a landing stage, down which a naval officer and a lady stepped ashore. I moved towards them, when the officer introduced himself as Captain Drury, 9 of H. M. S. Pandora, a survey vessel then anchored in Manukau Harbour, and the lady with him was his wife. The other officers, of whom there were three, one being Dr. Joliffe, were then introduced.

Dr. Maunsell was away from home, and the prospect of entertaining a batch of naval officers,

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Impeded by the maze of islands in its course, the Waikato flows on past Kohanga to the Heads. The mission lands are on the left bank of the river. The places marked with white crosses, from right to left, show (1) the site of the mission house, (2) the cemetery, and (3) the spot where the steepled church stood, the building of which is described by Stack. The photograph was kindly supplied by Mr. Fred C. S. Lawson.

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The river hereabout is "liquid history." A few years after the period referred to by Stack, gunboats were regularly patrolling the river between Tuakau and the Heads. The bluff on the left of the picture is the Alexandra Redoubt. Five miles lower down is Camerontown, the scene of a gallant exploit by Colour-Sergeant McKenna, for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross, perhaps the first to be awarded in the Maori War. The photograph is one of a fine series submitted by Mr. Geo. A. Robertson.

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As a result of diligent search and enquiry it seems likely that this picture is the only one in existence giving a comprehensive, detailed view of the mission station. The original is a water colour sketch, evidently by Canon Stack. It bears a footnote in his handwriting as follows:-- "Dr. Maunsell's house and his School nearest to the river, and my house and Boys' School the furthest from the river." Not a vestige now remains of the church or any of the other buildings.

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and an English lady, for a few days, was such a novel experience that it threw the whole Maunsell household into a flutter of excitement. Captain Drury, while accepting hospitality for Mrs. Drury and himself at the Maunsell home, assured Mrs. Maunsell that the whole party of officers and men were provided with ample stores of food and means of shelter, as they had brought tents and bedding and food with them. I selected their camping place as close to my rooms as possible, as I wished them to make use of my quarters during their stay at the Heads. My friend Fenton turned up quite unexpectedly, and helped greatly to entertain our guests, who found him a most fascinating companion.

About nine o'clock on Saturday evening, when we were all sitting round the fire chatting and laughing at Fenton's funny stories, Captain Drury joined us. It was a very novel experience for me to have such interesting and distinguished company in my rooms, and I thoroughly enjoyed it after my long isolation from any sort of social intercourse with English gentlemen.

The naval party spent a week with us while surveying the mouth of the river, and its course for ten miles inland. One day they met a large canoe, paddled by the same number of men as the boat contained. The Maoris challenged the boat's crew to race them to the Heads, distant about seven miles. The challenge was accepted, and the canoe soon shot ahead. But the steady stroke of the men-of-war's men readily caught it up again. Then for about five miles the Maoris succeeded in spurting past the boat every time it came up to them.

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Then the sailors put forth all their strength, got the lead, and reached the landing place a mile ahead of the canoe. We were very glad it was so, for it checked the growing spirit of bumptiousness which was beginning to appear amongst the younger Maoris, who regarded themselves as physically superior to the English. Now they had to admit that they were beaten in a fair trial of strength.

CHAPTER IV

BY CANOE ON THE GREAT RIVER

WHILE at Kohanga I had some very pleasant expeditions up the Waikato as far as the Ashwells' station at Taupiri, and from there up the Waipa and Horotiu. I generally slept on the river bank for one night on the way up, and got the Maori who accompanied me to make a shelter with nikau palm or flax leaves, and to collect sufficient wood to keep a fire burning all night. Canoes frequently passed down the river to the portage at Waiuku, loaded with wheat or maize for the Auckland market. The canoes contained from one to two tons of produce, and were managed by a couple of lusty young fellows, who had nothing to do but keep the canoe in mid-stream and let the swift current bear it along. They kept themselves awake at night by repeating a monotonous chant, first one, then the other. The man at the stern would shout:

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"Te tika i te mahianawa"; then bow would reply: "Te Hori i te mahianawa"; 10 and as they rolled out the words the sound was carried to a great distance, and fell pleasantly on the listener's ear.

If our fire happened to be seen by any passer-by we were challenged, and asked who we were and where we were going. Maoris were always very inquisitive about other people's movements, due to a habit formed in their war-like past, when it was dangerous to let strangers come too near, for fear they might prove to be deadly enemies. 11

Mr. and Mrs. Ashwell 12 were particularly kind to me, and I always enjoyed staying with them. He was a very genial little man, and always took a fatherly interest in my welfare. His whole heart and soul were thrown into his mission work, and he seemed able to inspire all who came in contact with him with something of his enthusiasm. His girls' school was the best in Waikato, and he was very proud of it.

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On my way back from Taupiri one of the Maoris in the canoe said he would like to examine the place, belonging to his family, where for generations they had caught a large kind of eel which sometimes weighed from twenty to forty pounds. The spot was indicated by a large kahikatea tree which leant very much over the water. As we drew alongside I noticed that the roots of the tree spread out like a fan under water for six or eight feet from the bank. Having put off all his clothing the Maori took a large hook, and secured it by a cord to his waist. Then he slipped over the side, and glided in amongst the roots, which I thought a most dangerous operation. He kept his feet very close together, and got in so far that only the soles of his feet could be seen. As he moved back I held my breath, fearing he might be caught by the roots and drowned there under our eyes. The water was as clear as glass, and he was only two feet below the surface. It was with a sense of intense relief I saw his head appear above water, and heard him breathing hard before scrambling back into the canoe. He found the hole empty which, he said, indicated that some passer-by had robbed his preserve, as no member of his family had been to it since the last great eel was caught there. The Maoris accounted for the eels growing to such a size, to the superabundance of food in the immediate neighbourhood, and to their not being disturbed for some years.

I witnessed a very animated scene on the river during the first summer after my arrival at Maraetai. For a mile from its mouth the river flowed in a channel about half a mile wide, and which

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broadened into an estuary about five miles by ten. One lovely bright day I saw this large sheet of water swarming with little Rob Roy-like canoes, each occupied by one man, who was either paddling with all his might, or else drawing in the fishing line which trailed along behind him, and to the end of which a pearl shell, made to resemble a small fish, was fastened. The occupants of the canoes were all engaged catching kahawai, a fish about the size of a small salmon, which had entered the river in vast numbers in pursuit of a kind of whitebait, upon which they fed. Day after day, for weeks, the exciting sport was pursued by hundreds of people, who handed over the fish they caught to their women, who cleaned and preserved them. Some were dried in the sun, and some artificially dried in Maori ovens. Tons and tons of fish, thus preserved, were sent up the river to the inland settlements on its banks, and from there carried on porters' backs to still more distant places.

Seeing the small canoes so easily managed, I purchased one, and used to amuse myself sometimes by paddling about on the river. Thinking myself sufficiently expert in the management of the canoe, I ventured one day to go up as far as Kohanga, and pay Mr. Volkner a visit. I took three small boys with me, meaning to give them a holiday treat. I put up a small sail when starting from Putataka, 13 and went skimming along the water at a good pace. The tide was in our favour, and all went well till we got about half way to Kohanga, where the river was divided into several channels

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by small islands. Just as we entered one the wind caught the sail aback and we capsized, fortunately within my depth. I told two of the boys to cling to the canoe while I carried the other one to a sandbank close by. I then returned for the other two. The tide was rapidly covering the sandbank, and fearing I might have to swim the channel that separated us from the nearest island, I stripped, and taking the boys, entered the channel and got on to the nearest island without further mishap. Fortunately two of the boys had stuck to their blankets, which we found of great service, for the sea breeze was very cold. We beat down the flax and bulrushes and nestled together under the blankets, waiting until a canoe should pass and rescue us. After waiting and listening anxiously for four or five hours we heard voices, and in answer to our cries for help, the people who were passing up the river in a large canoe came and took us on board, and carried us up to Kohanga. Mr. Volkner was very much astonished to get a request for a pair of trousers and a coat and hat to be sent down to me at the landing place, where I was sitting, like a Maori, wrapped round with a blanket. Though I lost all the clothes I had with me when I started from the Heads in the morning, I was rejoiced to report that the boys were safe. I never recovered the canoe, which was carried out to sea by the ebb tide.

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CHAPTER V

REVERSES AND HARDSHIPS

THE new school buildings at Kohanga took some time to erect. Dr. Maunsell had very little money at his disposal for the purpose, and was obliged to economise in every way. Most of the buildings were put up by the Maoris, and were just like the huts they built for themselves. The only weatherboard building was the girls' school, and the Maunsells' quarters, which formed part of it; and the store-house where we kept our supplies of flour, groceries, etc. My hut was about twelve feet by fifteen, divided into three rooms, with a large wooden chimney at one end of the building.

My schoolroom was just a copy of the barn, and was built by our young men under my direction. I first marked out the size of the building, and the lads dug a trench three feet deep where the two sides and ends were to be. Stout hardwood saplings, about ten feet high, were set up in the trenches, and these formed the walls, over which a roof was built, and thatched with nikau palm leaves and toe-toe. No windows were required, for enough light came through the open spaces between the upright wall posts. The building was never floored, and the only likeness it had to a schoolroom was contributed by maps on the walls, and the desks which were ranged one behind

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another half way down the building. Though the winds blew hard in winter time against our walls, and were sometimes very cold, I never found any inconvenience during school hours from draughts, nor did the men and boys ever complain of cold.

After we moved up to Kohanga all were busily engaged ploughing, digging and draining, preparing for the final transfer of the mission station from Waikato Heads. It was most interesting work, commencing what we hoped would become a model farm for the Maoris, where the pupils could be instructed in all the methods of European agriculture, and enabled, on going back to their homes, to make use of the fertile lands belonging to them, which so far were quite unproductive.

Having fenced in about a hundred acres with posts and rails, and cleared the land of the shrubs and fern growing upon it, we found it very hard work ploughing up the matted fern roots which held the soil together. After cross ploughing the fern roots had all to be collected and burned, and the ground harrowed and ploughed over again before it could be planted with anything. We used bullocks to draw the ploughs and do our carting. After our disheartening experiences of farming on the poor land at Waikato Heads we entertained great hopes that our new venture would yield not only enough to supply the school with food, but enough for sale, to provide it with funds for its general support. These hopes, sad to say, were doomed to bitter disappointment. We had a first class English farm instructor, who taught the Maoris how to work the land and prepare it for cropping; but the result was most pitiful. Our first crop of oats was not worth cutting; it would

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not have yielded the seed we had sown. Our potato crop in the same way produced tubers no bigger than marbles, and all our labour was thrown away. Instead of winning the Maoris over to methods of English farming, the result of our work was to deepen their prejudices in favour of their own methods.

During the three years I lived at Kohanga we only succeeded in raising good crops on land which the Maoris had already cultivated--spots where trees had once grown, and where the soil was full of decaying roots. The fern and manuka land refused to grow either corn, grass, or root crops, and most of our six hundred acres consisted of fern land.

When I first joined the mission at Waikato Heads the school funds were at a very low ebb, and it was with great difficulty that food could be got for the seventy mouths we had to feed. At breakfast each received a tin plate of boiled wheat with a pinch of sugar on it. The wheat was soaked for twenty-four hours before being boiled, and proved wholesome food. Dinner consisted of a plate of boiled potatoes and pumpkins and maize. Each adult got, in addition, a scrap of meat. Supper was a repetition of breakfast, with the addition of a pannikin of tea, sweetened with brown sugar. Whenever the tide suited for the collection of pipis (cockles) they were added as a relish to any meal the cooks prepared.

Sometimes we were so short of food that we had to send men and women to beg for it in the neighbouring Maori villages. Every day in spring and summer a party of girls, under the matron,

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went out in the morning to gather baskets of sow thistles and turnip leaves, which were boiled and eaten at the midday meal.

I was very much troubled in my mind, on one occasion, when presiding over the school dinner, when a fine, hard-working young man came up to me with his tin plate half full of the water the greens had been boiled in, and two small potatoes, and a rib bone of mutton without any meat on it, and asked me how a man could be expected to work on such food. All I could say was that we were doing our best to get them something better. What I admired in all our pupils was their willingness to submit to the privations they were subjected to, in order that they might benefit by our school teaching. Their thirst for knowledge was very genuine.

When our food supplies were at their lowest ebb a visitor told Dr. Maunsell that he had found a species of seaweed on the rocks at the Waikato Heads identical with what was known as "Irish moss," which, when boiled formed a nutritious jelly. The matron and girls were immediately sent to collect a quantity, and from that time forward it always formed part of our daily food supply. When used fresh from the sea it had a somewhat unpleasant taste, which disappeared when bleached. The Maoris told us they knew the edible value of this seaweed, 14 and used it to thicken tutu juice in olden times.

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When the Governor, Sir George Grey, visited the Heads, we drew his attention to the privations our people were subjected to, and the knowledge of it furnished him with his strongest arguments when appealing to the native chiefs to give us more land to cultivate. When they responded to his appeal, by the gift of six hundred acres at Kohanga, he promised a larger grant for food than the Government had yet made, which was to be continued until the school could raise enough food for its own support.

By dint of patient plodding at the difficult task of teaching these wild children of nature habits of orderliness, and how to fix their minds upon their lessons, and by treating them always firmly but justly and kindly, we gained their confidence and goodwill.

CHAPTER VI

ATTACKING DIFFICULTIES

THE site occupied by our mission station was most picturesque. Our houses stood on the brow of a low down, overlooking the Waikato, which flowed past us in a broad, smooth stream. We could see up and down the river for many miles, and trace its course, from where it first appeared issuing from the wooded hills till it almost reached the sea. The views in every direction were extended and beautiful. Moonlight added a special charm

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to their fascinating beauty when the smooth flowing waters for miles shone like burnished silver in the moonbeams. The river presented a striking contrast to the dark pine trees that lined its opposite banks, and grew in small clumps upon the many islands that studded its channel. But the moment for securing the most fascinating sensation was, I discovered, at early dawn, when the rays of the rising sun first struck the glistening leaves of the flax, toetoe, raupo and karamu shrubs in the swamps adjoining the river, and caused them to glitter and sparkle in such a wonderful way as to communicate a strange sense of joyousness to one's whole being.

But beautiful as our new surroundings were, they possessed a serious drawback from being so close to the breeding grounds of the mosquito, a pest from which we were quite free at Waikato Heads. I shall never forget my first encounter with the Kohanga mosquitos. I was on a short visit in summer to my friend Volkner, who advised me, when bedtime came, not to attempt sleeping in the whare, but to join him in a shed, where all the Maori men and boys slept, to escape the tormenting mosquitos. The shed was very low, not more than four feet from the ground in the highest part, and covered with toetoe. The sides were open, but sheltered by the overhanging ends of the toe leaves. Every two occupants had fern beds, the width of an ordinary mattress, placed on either side of a small fire, which was kept burning all night. The heat and smoke from the fire drove out all mosquitos, and secured peaceful rest for everyone who slept in the shed.

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Before crawling, on my hands and knees, into what looked like a long dog kennel, I preferred to try a remedy for mosquitos which I had seen recommended in a newspaper--the smoke of burning cow dung. A quantity of it was kept burning in the whare for a long time before I went to bed. The only effect it had was to cause the tormenting insects to swarm about the ceiling, where they kept up an incessant humming and buzzing. I covered myself up very carefully with the bed clothes and tried to get to sleep. But the smell of the smoke and the heat of my body, covered up as it was, made sleep impossible. As the night wore on, and the smoke cleared off, the mosquitos recovered their activity, and came buzzing all round me, and before long I felt them under the bedclothes, crawling about my body, and biting wherever they could. I got so hot and worried at last that I jumped up and went out into the night air with a blanket wrapped around me. There was just enough stir in the air to disperse the mosquitos on the ridge, and coming across an empty dray I sat down on it and dozed until daylight. For the rest of my stay I gladly accepted a place in the shed by my friends' mosquito-proof fires.

One of my great difficulties at Kohanga was to keep the boys' clothes clean and tidy. It was found undesirable for the women and girls to have anything to do with them, and the boys had to wash and mend their own things.

Every Monday a certain number of boys were set to wash the clothes, which had been steeping in tubs of cold water since Saturday evening. The difficulty was to get the lads to rub the dirt out of

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the soiled garments. I knew that East Indians and man-of-war sailors washed their things in cold water, and made them quite white, and I could not understand why my boys could not do the same. Finding that scolding and punishing did not secure better results, I took charge of a tub myself, and soaped and rubbed till my knuckles were skinned, without getting rid of the soil stains which I had so often blamed the boys for not doing. I felt very crestfallen, and resolved to be more cautious in future when judging the boys' work, and not to attribute all defects to carelessness.

By Mrs. Maunsell's advice I used washing soda, and boiled the clothes before trying to rub the dirt out of them, and found the result most satisfactory; and my boys, who wore during warm weather white duck trousers and white smocks, always looked spick and span. In winter they wore white moleskin trousers and blue serge shirts.

It was one of my ambitions to make a good vegetable garden for the supply of the school. As the hillsides consisted of very stiff clay which was unsuitable for my purpose, I decided to drain a portion of the swamp adjoining the foot of the hills. I cut a drain through the flax and raupo from the foot of the hill to the river, which was about three hundred yards away. It was dirty work, and took a long time. I marked out each boy's daily share of the drain-digging, my own being always double what I assigned to the strongest of them. After taking the first spadeful off the surface, which consisted of the matted roots of the swamp growth, we got into soft black mud, and sank into it up to our hips. Shovelling this up, and throwing

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it far enough off to prevent its slipping back into the drain, demanded the exercise of all our strength and skill. The drain was five feet wide and about the same in depth. When it was completed I surrounded a piece of the swamp, adjoining the garden I had already made on the hillside, with a good wide drain, and cleared about half an acre of it. Then we dug it all up, and when the sods were dry, piled them into heaps and burned them. Finding, after some months, that the soil retained its moisture and was too wet to grow anything in, I cut broad drains through it about ten feet apart, which proved sufficiently successful to enable me to plant potatoes and other vegetables in the reclaimed ground.

Everything on its first appearance above the soil looked healthy and promising, and I felt very hopeful about the success of my experiment; but as time went on the character of the plants quite altered. The healthy-looking potato plants grew such long stalks that they trailed like creepers along the ground, and exhausted all their strength in their efforts to grow taller. When the roots came to be examined, instead of ordinary sized potatoes, we found the minute bulbs to which I have already referred, smaller than marbles. Cauliflowers developed into most absurd-looking plants, resembling Prince of Wales feathers. They grew from two to four long, narrow leaves, without any sign of a heart. And so it was with everything I planted in the ground which had cost so much toil to bring into cultivation. For four years I persisted in my efforts to obtain better results, but without success.

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The only reward for our labour was got by accident, from the peach stones we threw away when refreshing ourselves from a basket of fruit while digging drains. Many of the stones took root, and in two years peach trees ten feet high sprung from them, and were loaded with delicious fruit. 15

While at Kohanga I learned to plough, and drive both horses and bullocks, and to reap and thresh corn. The reaping was at first very irksome, from having to stoop all day, and rather dangerous from the tendency of the reaping hook to slip when drawn towards one, and so cut the fingers instead of the wheat stalks. There was less danger where the corn was thick and the stalks close together, but with our poor crops it was difficult to fill one's left hand with enough stalks to prevent the hook slipping, and several of our men nearly cut off their little fingers. We had always to take a supply of sticking plaster and rags with us when we started reaping, as they were sure to be wanted sooner or later.

The Maoris thoroughly enjoyed the business of threshing the corn, which was done in the open field, as soon after reaping as possible. A large sheet was spread upon the ground, and on to it the sheaves were thrown. Men and women arranged themselves on either side of the sheet at a convenient distance from one another, and at a given signal flung their long, slender flails over their heads, and brought them down with a loud thud

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on to the threshing floor. They kept splendid time by chanting together a suitable Maori ditty.

The one farming job the Maoris very much disliked was cleaning out the stockyard, and making manure heaps, and handling the manure when spreading it over the ploughed fields. I had always to take part in that particular work in order to overcome their repugnance to it.

CHAPTER VII

A FEAST AND A FAMINE

THE removal of the "Tapu" from that portion of the battle ground given by Ngati Tipa to the school, where some leaves from Hoani Huki's prayer book were used for wadding, was begun as soon as ever the gift was made.

The first step was to invite the chiefs of the Thames, who were closely related to the slain who were buried on the land, to come and take up the bones, and perform the ceremonial rites of "Hahu."

When their consent was obtained the Ngati Tipa set to work to collect food for their entertainment. This occupied them for several months, as they wished to present the visitors with a good supply of dried whitebait and eels, and other special delicacies for which Waikato was celebrated.

When their arrangements were all completed the Thames chiefs were told, and as the day fixed

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for their arrival approached, our natives began to arrange the food, for feasting the visitors, in a row of huge piles, at the place where the speeches of welcome were to be made. The first pile consisted of several tons of flour, in white bags which, seen from our school premises, looked like a white house. Next to the flour were long rows of baskets full of potatoes and kumaras, taro and pumpkins, corn, karaka berries, and dried fish. There were hundreds and hundreds of these baskets. One hundred pigs, cleaned and ready for cooking, were laid across the potato baskets, and the carcases of four bullocks.

There was a tremendous uproar at the pa when the visitors arrived. They were welcomed with volleys of musketry and loud cries, followed by a long tangi, after which speeches were made by our chiefs and replied to by the visitors. Then followed the handing out of the food to the visitors who, when the ceremony was over, were escorted to the huts, which had been built for their reception on the banks of a deep stream close to our mission station.

Dr. Maunsell was away in Auckland when all this took place, and I was greatly alarmed lest our scholars should "take French leave" and rush off to the pa to see the fun. There was nothing really to prevent their doing so but their own good feeling towards us, their English teachers. Fortunately the older men and women on the station shared our opinion that it was best for the young people, especially the girls, to keep away from the visitors' camp.

I went over in the afternoon to welcome, in the

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school's name, the guests of our tribe, accompanied by two of our native teachers. When my visit was over, and I was about to return, the Thames chiefs said that they wished to make the school a present, and placed on the ground beside me six whole pigs, a whole bullock, several bags of flour and sugar, and a great many kits of potatoes and pumpkins. After thanking the visitors for their acceptable gifts, I returned to get men to fetch them. I was kept very busy for several hours after the pork and beef arrived, cutting up and salting it, with the assistance of some of our men.

For days our scholars feasted as they had never done before. Pork was their favourite meat, and they were allowed to eat as much of it as they liked. The visitors had been so liberally supplied that most of them got ill from over-eating, trying to do what, as Maoris, they thought their duty to their entertainers, by eating all they could of what was put before them. Ngati Tipa had provided for about five hundred guests, and only two hundred partook of their hospitality. The visitors were so embarrassed by the excessive provision made for them that, to get rid of what beef and pork and perishable food they could not consume, they carried it away at night, and hid it in the surrounding swamps.

When the hahu and pure 16 ceremonies were completed, and our school lands freed from tapu, the

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visitors were occupied, for much of the six weeks spent in our neighbourhood, in conveying, in their large canoes, the flour and other things they were able to take home with them, to Waiuku, where it could be shipped to their homes in the Hauraki Gulf.

During the winter which followed the visit of the Thames natives, the Ngati Tipa had cause to regret their ostentatious and wasteful expenditure of food upon their late guests. Before the winter was half over, every man, woman and child amongst them was suffering from want of proper nourishment. Not a potato, or cob of corn, or a pumpkin, remained in any house in the district. Most of the people lived on fern-root, which they told me had lost most of its nourishing properties from being so often burned. While their money lasted long enough to buy flour, some partook daily of a little thin gruel sweetened with sugar. But having no pigs or produce to sell, when this money was expended they could not replenish their stores, and Waata Kukutai, 17 our leading chief, told me that, but for the plentiful supply of watercress in the neighbourhood many of his people would have died

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of starvation. The watercress was boiled and eaten like spinach. We were all very thankful when a good harvest brought plenty back to our people's storehouses, and relieved their needs.

A few weeks after the departure of the Thames visitors we discovered that the beef they gave us, in spite of the strong brine in which it was steeped, was so full of maggots, and smelled so offensive, that none of our people would eat it. Dr. Maunsell could not endure the thought of throwing away such a quantity of meat, and ordered it to be hung up to the rafters of a long shed, on the floor of which several wood fires, banked up with wet sawdust, were kept burning night and day for weeks. The smoke after a time made the pieces of meat as black as soot, but cured them of all bad smell, and when boiled they proved to be delicious eating, and kept good for months.

CHAPTER VIII

GREAT CHIEFS--MAORI AND PAKEHA-- VISIT KOHANGA

SIR Thomas Gore Browne, 18 who succeeded Sir George Grey as Governor, paid us a short visit soon after his arrival in the country, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, Captain Steward. I regarded His Excellency with considerable interest, as he

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was the brother of Harold Browne (afterwards Bishop of Winchester) whose book on the Thirty-nine Articles I was then busily studying.

We had very short notice of his coming, but I managed, by working all night, to erect an ornamental arch on the path leading up to the school-house, which I covered with greenery, and surmounted by a Union Jack. Across the arch a piece of white calico was tightly stretched, on which the words "Welcome to Kohanga" were written in large letters. No one knew what I was doing all night except the boy I got to help me, for I did not begin to erect the poles for the arch until after midnight, when all were asleep. It was the first thing of the kind ever seen in Waikato, and its unexpected appearance across the pathway in the morning caused great excitement amongst all the Maoris on the place, both young and old.

I felt rather sorry for myself, when introduced to the Governor, to find that my hands were stained a very dirty colour by the leaves with which I made the wreaths, and they remained dirty looking for many days. I only hope our visitor, who I know was pleased with the mark of attention shown by the erection of the arch, guessed how I came by them.

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Unlike Sir George Grey, the new Governor misunderstood the Maoris, and disliked their free and manly bearing, which he rather resented. He wrongly charged them with disloyalty to the Queen, and went to war with them to enforce an unjust bargain. A Maori named Teira sold a piece of land at Taranaki to the Government, which he had no right to sell without the consent of his tribe. Sir Gore Browne, in spite of Bishop Selwyn's advice, and that of every disinterested person who knew the nature of the Maori tenure of land, supported the right of individual members of a tribe to dispose of tribal lands to the British Government.

The war which broke out just after I left Waikato for the South Island ruined all our mission work amongst the natives, and forced loyal subjects of the Queen to fight against her troops in defence of their own lawful rights. The conduct of the English seemed inexplicable to the Christian Maoris. How can Christians, they said, be guilty of such unchristian conduct towards those who are their brethren in Christ? No wonder the majority of the Maoris lost belief in the Divine origin of the Christian religion, which they strongly suspected was a political invention to beguile the unwary, and render them more easily subjugated.

Hoping to restore Maori confidence in British honesty, Governor Browne was recalled by the Home Government, and Sir George Grey reappointed Governor of New Zealand. But the Maoris, on his arrival, asked how they could be expected to trust him after his treacherous conduct towards Te Rauparaha, who, while residing in Porirua

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harbour was, without warning, seized at midnight by a party of marines, taken on board a man-of-war, and carried off to Auckland, where he was kept a prisoner for a long time. Rauparaha, the Maoris said, trusted you, Sir George Grey, because you said you were his friend, and you betrayed him to the captain of the man-of-war, without giving him any warning. 19

Before the Waikato Maoris lost their faith in the English they tried hard to discover some way of reconciling the conflicting interests of the two races who now occupied the country. There were many clever men amongst the chiefs of Waikato, and if their efforts to solve the difficulties of the political situation between the English and Maori people had been seconded by the colonists, no war would have ever broken out between them. 20

Some of my most interesting experiences during the seven years I spent in Waikato were conversations I had with noted chiefs on the subject of

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local self-government. All they wanted was to be treated as fairly as the English were, and allowed some form of local self-government. Wherever I went about the country I was asked to address gatherings of chiefs, who listened with breathless attention to my account of the provincial system of government introduced by Sir George Grey amongst the English inhabitants of the country, but withheld from the Maoris.

I was rather startled late one evening, when sitting alone in my room in the darkness, singing at the top of my voice, to hear a strange Maori in a chuckling tone say: "That's a rollicking song." What was my surprise on discovering, when the light was lit, that two of the most distinguished chiefs in the country had called to see me. One was Ruihana and the other Potatau, 21 who was afterwards elected first Maori King of New Zealand. They were both completely tattooed, and very fine, handsome-looking men. The object of their visit, I soon learned, was to gather reliable information from me about the provincial system of government. They said that as I was a layman they could speak more freely to me about political

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matters than they could to any of the older missionaries. They kept talking to me upon the subject which so interested them till far into the night. I felt sure, from what my visitors told me, that if the English only treated the Maoris fairly and justly they had nothing to fear from them.

Bishop Selwyn's visit to Kohanga, for the purpose of holding a confirmation, took place before our church was built. Our Sunday services were then being held in the girls' schoolroom, where we all had our daily meals together. But it did not seem a fitting place in which to hold the confirmation; besides, the room was too small to hold the congregation which would be drawn together to meet the Bishop.

There seemed to be no alternative to the service being held in an open field. This I thought very undesirable, as it would detract from the solemnity and impressiveness of the service. We had just finished a new stockyard, and it occurred to me that it might be fitted up in such a way as to make it a suitable substitute for a church. Having got Dr. Maunsell's permission, I requisitioned all the threshing floor sheets from the neighbouring Maori villages, and all the new floor mats I could get together. Then I procured from the woods a number of tree ferns and cabbage palms, and placed them alternately against the posts of the stockyard, and hung the sheets between them. At the east end I made, and roofed in with sheeting, a sort of chancel, and fitted it up with the necessary furniture. The whole of the enclosed space was covered with fresh straw to a depth of a foot, and over the straw the flax mats were spread for the congregation to sit upon.

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On Sunday morning, when the service began, everything within our extemporised structure looked well-ordered and church-like. Before long, however, a breeze sprung up, which waved the long fern fronds about, and shed the seed over everything, till the surplices and the Bishop's robes and the Communion linen were all quite brown with it. But, worst of all, the fine dust got into the Bishop's throat when speaking, causing him much discomfort and annoyance. I quite expected a rebuke from him when the service was over, for my thoughtlessness in selecting tree ferns in seed for my decorations. But he studiously avoided all reference to the shower of fern spores, and only spoke in praise of the arrangements made by me for his comfort, and for the accommodation of the large native congregation which assembled to meet him.

CHAPTER IX

WE BUILD A CHURCH

ONE result of the Bishop's visit was that Dr. Maunsell began to take steps towards the erection of a church. Plans and specifications were obtained for a handsome wooden building with a tower and spire. The site was fixed where it would be conveniently near the school, and also form a prominent object in the landscape. The Maoris

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agreed to provide the timber and, to facilitate its carriage to the church site, they set the English sawyers to work cutting it in a forest adjoining the river, and about four miles distant from us.

Whenever the sawyers reported that they had sawn a quarter of the quantity of timber they were to deliver, Dr. Maunsell sent me over to measure it and, with me, most of the men and boys to carry the timber from the saw-pits to the river bank, and then, in canoes, to take it across to Kohanga. We took provisions with us for a week, and spent a most enjoyable time. The ground between the river bank and the saw-pits was soft, and but for the matted roots that covered its surface we should have sunk into it to our knees when carrying our heavy loads. The timber, being green, was very heavy, and I found one board quite enough to carry at a time. I fixed the number each man and boy was to carry every day between breakfast and dinner and tea. As soon as their allotted task was finished, they were free to roam the woods, snare birds, or do anything else they liked. During the first few days we all got very stiff in the shoulders, and got the skin rubbed off in many places, but the outdoor life made up for all the discomfort. The smell of the bruised pine and other leaves was very pleasant, and filled the air with fragrance wherever we went. We kept good fires burning all night, which not only protected us from the mosquitos, but gave a cheerful look to our camp under the tall forest trees. The bright flames seemed to puzzle the owls, who had never seen anything of the kind before near their wild

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haunts. They used to come about us repeating their monotonous cry "Kou kou," till everyone was weary of it.

In order to maintain discipline I had to keep a timetable, which fixed the hours for our meals, and for prayers--morning and evening--and for short lessons in reading and arithmetic. At night, when sitting round the fire, I used to tell historical stories, which the young men especially enjoyed, for there is no subject the Maoris take more interest in than history.

I never enjoyed my food at the mission station so much as I did on these working holidays spent on the edge of the forest, where I got potatoes roasted in the embers, and meat grilled on a glowing charcoal fire, and hot toast and billy tea sweetened with plenty of brown sugar, at every meal.

These visits to the saw-pits were repeated from time to time until the whole of the timber required for the erection of the church was carried across the river to Kohanga. From the landing-place it was taken in our bullock drays to the site of the church, and stacked there till it got dry enough to be used.

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Sydney Taiwhanga, a Bay of Islands chief, who had been taught carpentering by the missionaries in the north, took a leading part in the erection of the church. He could read and write English, and spoke our language with great fluency. His abilities might have been of great service to his countrymen in their negotiations with the English Government, in which their ignorance of the English language prevented an amicable settlement of their disputes being arrived at. But he had, together with the useful knowledge acquired from contact with the English, contracted their besetting vice, and had become a notorious drunkard, and had consequently lost the respect and confidence of his countrymen. He kept quite sober all the time he was working for us, because no intoxicating liquors were procurable in our part of Waikato. 22

CHAPTER X

THE RIVER AND ITS PEOPLE

THE Maoris were very given to uttering startling cries at all hours of the day and night. It was their way of making public announcements.

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"Ko Te Kawana E! Ko te Kawana!" ('Tis the Governor Oh! It is the Governor!) announced Sir George's near approach to our station.

"Ko Pihopa E! Ko Pihopa tenei!" ('Tis the Bishop! 'Tis the Bishop here!) in like manner announced the Bishop's approach.

But what in the world did the cry "Ka tere! Ka tere! mean? The first time I heard this cry it broke the stillness of a night in early spring, and was taken up and repeated by every little hamlet along the river-side, and for miles inland. It conveyed the stirring news that the first shoals of the season's whitebait had begun to pass up the river; and was the signal for everyone who possessed a net to hurry down to the river-side and scoop up as many as they could.

The whitebait came up the river as far as the flood tide reached, which was about eight miles from the sea. They returned seawards with the ebb, and continued to follow the tides for about six weeks. During that time the Maoris formed fishing camps along the river-bank, where they dried the whitebait they caught, on mats spread out in the sunshine. They preserved many tons of the little fish in this way, for winter use. All the time the whitebait were about our school enjoyed a plentiful supply at their meals, and we were all very sorry when the whitebait season came to an end.

Sunday was the only day of the week that I ever met the lady members of Dr. Maunsell's household to converse with. They consisted of the doctor's wife and his two daughters, between thirteen and fourteen years of age, and their governess,

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and Mrs. Millar, the English matron. I took tea with the Maunsells every Sunday, and stayed on for the rest of the evening till prayer time. I once was indiscreet enough to speak to some of them when taking their daily walk across the farm, and the result was that all the Maoris on the place began to talk about it, and to give expression to their conjectures as to which of the party I meant to choose for a wife. I took good care never to be seen in their company again outside Dr. Maunsell's house.

The Maoris were inveterate gossips, and I soon discovered that I had to be exceedingly careful never to be seen talking to any female when I was alone. I adhered, all through my life amongst the Maoris, to their social rule, which required every self-respecting man to be accompanied by some witness of his words and actions wherever he moved about amongst the people.

In the Second Book of Samuel, Chapter 21, Verse 10, there is a very touching story about Rizpah, an affectionate mother who for months watched by the dead bodies of her sons, day and night, to prevent their being eaten by vultures or wolves. Strange to say, on an out of the way spot on the river-bank, miles from any human habitation, I came across an old Maori woman who, like Rizpah, had watched beside the bodies of those she loved day and night for many years.

Her husband and two sons were mortally wounded in the battle fought on the land given to our school. They were carried by their comrades as far as the river, but died before they could be embarked in the canoes. Their bodies were left

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on the bank, where the devoted wife and mother found them. She sat beside them crying till some passers-by, hearing her weeping, came and buried the three bodies. But they could not induce her to leave the spot. She stretched herself out upon the grave, and continued to weep and mourn for her loved ones. After fasting for many days, food was brought to her by some friend who came in search of her. But no entreaties could prevail upon her to forsake her post. With little clothing on, and no protection from the weather, she continued to keep watch over her dead. Some pitiful people, when the winter set in, built a little thatched hut to shelter her, just where she was always to be found sitting.

Though never baptised, and unable to read, she never omitted saying her prayers. She knew the Lord's Prayer, and some collects and hymns, having heard them so often repeated at the daily services in her village chapel before her great affliction befell her, and these were her comfort and solace in her solitary life.

Dr. Maunsell took great interest in her case, and the result was she resolved to attend the morning Sunday service at Kohanga whenever the day was fine enough to allow of her doing so. To do this she had to walk four miles and back, and as she was very weak and frail it always took her from two to three hours. I used to visit a village for the purpose of holding a service every Sunday afternoon, and the path to it, for a couple of miles was the same by which the old woman walked home. I often came upon her resting in the fern, two hours after she had left Kohanga, quite wearied

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out with the exertion she had undergone, and having still two miles to go before reaching her little hut. Her baptism, which took place during Miss Jones's visit to Kohanga, was a very touching service; so also was her first communion. The regularity with which the bent figure of this frail old woman was seen approaching the building where service was held on Sunday, and entering it before the bell stopped, exercised a wholesome influence on the members of our congregation, and silenced all excuses for non-attendance on the score of distance or bodily infirmity.

A relative of this old woman's husband used to come to see me sometimes. He still bore the marks of the wounds received in the battle which proved so fatal to his relations. One shot broke his jaw and cut off part of his tongue; and as he was retiring from the field of battle another shot struck him in the stomach, and ripped open such a large hole, that to prevent further disaster he had to place both his hands over the wound. Yet, in spite of his condition, he ran two miles down to the river, where he was placed on his back in a canoe, and taken to his home up the Waikato, where his wife nursed him. He kept on his back for several weeks. A plaster of steamed leaves (I think mahoe) 23 was placed over the wound, which healed without difficulty. His face was much disfigured, and the great scar across his stomach supplied convincing evidence that the account he gave of his wounds was not exaggerated.

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However it may be accounted for, wounds inflicted on Maoris healed quicker than in the case of Europeans suffering from like injuries. Nothing surprised the military surgeons during the Maori War so much as the speedy recovery of Maoris thought to be fatally wounded.

On the other hand, Maoris apparently in good health would die quite suddenly of excessive grief, or from the effects of a great mental shock. Their imaginations exercised a powerful influence over them. Till they became Christians they were always in dread of being bewitched, or of transgressing some rule of tapu which would involve their death. A sudden pain, or finding a little packet, such as witches made, on the floor of his hut, or wrapped up in one of his mats, would cause the strongest to collapse and lie down, and await the coming of certain death. What fears and alarms Christianity had delivered the people from, I had interesting proof on one occasion.

It was my practice to preserve in spirits any specimens I could find of reptiles or insects which I thought would be of value to naturalists. I had several glass jars full of lizards and wetas and beetles. I was examining a fine specimen of the green lizard variety, which I had just caught and popped into spirits when Waata Kukutai, our chief, came to see me. He did not at first notice the glass bottle on the table, or its contents, and we had been in conversation some time when he suddenly fell off his chair as if in a fit. 24 I sprang

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forward to help him up, and when he had sufficiently recovered his breath to speak, he said: "Oh, why do you keep such things in your room? If I were not a Christian I should die from having seen that particular kind of lizard, which is the form our family spirit always assumed when coming to announce an approaching death in our family." Waata was one of the most sensible and intelligent Maoris I ever met, but even he was not proof against what we call imaginary fears. He told me that he had been instructed from his earliest years how to act when he encountered lizards, in order to neutralise any ill-omened movements they might make. It was his unpreparedness, when all of a sudden he caught sight of a lizard, in a place where he never expected to see one, that caused his nervous shock. He begged me, for the sake of others who might suffer as he did, to put my specimens where no Maori in future could catch sight of them.

Waata told me many interesting facts respecting the fatal effects which followed the transgression of the rules of tapu relating to the personal belongings of great chiefs. The only one I now remember was that of a slave belonging to his father who, feeling hungry, and seeing a basket of cooked food lying in the fern beside the path he was walking along, picked it up and ate its contents. Some hours afterwards he discovered that the basket belonged to his master, Waata's father, who had thrown it aside after eating a small portion of its contents. The slave was so overwhelmed on discovering the enormity of his offence that he dropped down dead.

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CHAPTER XI

A PAKEHA-WAHINE VISITOR

IN 1857 I paid a visit to my relations in Sydney, whom I saw last in 1847. My place at the school was filled during my absence by Mr. George Maunsell, the doctor's second son, who arrived from England a short time before, acting as my locum tenens. I stayed with my uncle Edward, who had retired on his pension, and was living on the Surrey Hills. I very much enjoyed my stay in Sydney, and felt very loth to leave my relatives and return to my life in New Zealand. But God mercifully overruled my wishes, and led me back to the work which I now know it was His will that I should engage in. Whenever I thought of giving up missionary work and following some secular calling, our Lord's words: "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God," rang in my ears, and warned me against deserting the work which my conscience told me it was God's will I should follow all my life.

Earthquakes, though not so often felt as in the centre of the island, were generally severe when they did occur. I remember one in particular, which happened just as I was embarking one moonlight night for a canoe trip up the Waikato. The school children were all standing round me at the

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AN EARTHQUAKE! AN EARTHQUAKE!

landing-place seeing me off, and chattering away to one another, when a sudden silence fell upon us all. I thought I was going to have a fit. The earth seemed reeling all round me, and I nearly fell down. The silence was broken by the cry from many lips: "Ru! Ru!" 25 (An earthquake! an earthquake!) Several shocks followed in quick succession, and then the stillness of the night was broken by the noise of the waves caused by the oscillation of the earth breaking against the banks of the river, all down its course. Our houses being of wood or thatch did not suffer, but the chimneys were all cracked. The severest shocks, we afterwards discovered, were felt in Wellington and in the South Island. In Wellington the earth opened at the top of Willis Street, and hot mud flowed down the road. The sea-coast of Cook Strait was raised several inches, and hardly a chimney was left standing in the town. In the South Island a broad rent was formed from near the Kaikouras, across the country towards the West Coast. The centre of the disturbance was thought to be a submarine volcano in Cook Strait. If so, its effects extended for hundreds of miles, for Waikato, where I felt the earthquake, was three hundred miles from Wellington. 26

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Owing to the constant interruptions to which I was subjected by Maori callers during the hours of daylight, I made a practice of reserving any work which required special application for night time, when the school rules required every Maori to be indoors. After ten o'clock I felt quite safe from interruption, and pursued my studies in peace. One night, when I was deeply immersed in my studies I heard the sound of tapping on my window-pane, but thinking it was caused by birds, beetles and other small fry which frequently disturbed me in this way, I took no notice. On hearing a human voice, however, I got up, opened the French windows and looked out.

"I have brought an English woman here," said a Maori voice, "because I could not arouse the Maunsells; they are all fast asleep."

"Where do you come from?" I asked.

"From Taupiri. Mr. Ashwell told me to bring the wahine Pakeha here."

Ah, I thought, she is that English woman from Kawhia we were warned against entertaining, for she abuses every missionary with whom she has stayed. With such thoughts in my mind I was not very cordial when the "wahine Pakeha" came forward, and explained why she had troubled me at that late hour. I told her I would accompany her back to the Maunsell's house, and show her the proper entrance. The door she and the Maori had so long knocked at was the door of the empty

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schoolroom, far away from the part of the building where the people slept. The path leading from my room to the Maunsells' was bordered by a rose hedge, and some of the stems stood out across the path, and were rather apt to scratch the passer-by in the dark. I said nothing to warn the unwelcome guest until we had taken three or four steps, when something the lady said made me ask: "Are you Miss Jones?"

Hearing she was, my manner instantly changed, for I knew then that she was the young English lady who took such an interest in the Maoris, and in all that we were doing for them. I begged her to change places with me, and to be careful, not only of the prickly rose stems, but the loose round pumice stones with which the path was covered. The night was particularly dark, and the business of piloting an interesting young English lady across the rough ground proved a very agreeable task. I knocked for a long time before gaining an entrance. I had first to explain through a half-opened window to the matron, Mrs. Millar, who the belated visitor was. When I got into the house I set to work to light the kitchen fire and boil a kettle, as Miss Jones had given me to understand that a cup of tea was what she craved for. But as she had been all day long in a canoe coming down the river, and had not had a proper meal since she left the Ashwells, I fried some rashers of bacon and poached a couple of eggs, while Mrs. Millar was installing Miss Jones in the visitors' bedroom. I was looking forward with a considerable measure of excitement to a pleasant chat with the young lady while she refreshed herself. To my great

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disappointment Mrs. Millar told me that Miss Jones was undressed, not knowing that supper was being prepared for her. I therefore had to take my departure, but her message of warm thanks, and polite apologies, sent me away in very good spirits. And that was the beginning of my acquaintance with the lady who, three years afterwards, became my dear wife, the sharer of all my joys and sorrows, who has, for fifty-five years, cheered and encouraged me by her loving sympathy, and bright example of cheerful submission to the will of God in all things.

CHAPTER XII

MORE ABOUT THE "PAKEHA WAHINE"

MISS Jones's enthusiastic interest in everything connected with the Maoris had a most extraordinary effect upon Dr. Maunsell. Every day he planned something for her entertainment and, to my astonishment, proposed a picnic on the beach at Waikato Heads, to which we all proceeded early one fine morning, in two large canoes. One of these was paddled by boys and the other by girls, and they raced each other for the whole ten miles which lay between Kohanga and Maraetai.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day's outing, and being able to talk and walk with a young lady without the feeling of restraint which debarred me from all social intercourse with either white or

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brown persons of the other sex who lived on the mission station, I found Miss Jones very active and energetic, and ready to walk over the roughest and steepest ground to see anything worth seeing. In the course of the day we tired everyone out. First Mrs. Maunsell and Mrs. Millar and the doctor dropped off; then stout Miss Boylan and Miss Maunsell, overcome by the heat, sat down on the beach. Only young Fanny and the little dog kept up with us, but they at last turned back when Miss Jones expressed her willingness to go along the face of a cliff by a very narrow, steep path, in order to reach some high rocks jutting out into the sea, from which a view of the coast towards the south could be obtained. On reaching the rocks, we sat and watched the great rollers coming in from the Pacific Ocean, after an unimpeded course of three thousand miles, and striking with a loud roar the first obstacle they had yet encountered. As we sat, I recited all the poems I could recall to mind which related to the ocean, and we both grew quite sentimental and oblivious to the passage of time, till a rude wave swept over the rock at our feet, and reminded me that the spot we were sitting upon would soon be submerged by the incoming tide. With a feeling of sudden dread lest I had induced my brave and trustful companion to venture into a position of greater danger than I ought ever to have placed her, I got up and begged her to follow. On reaching the cliff the sea was already surging in amongst the rocks at its base, and, by distracting the attention of anyone on the narrow path, added to the risk of slipping into the seething waters below. I said nothing to

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frighten Miss Jones, but told her to wait while I crossed the face of the cliff and cleared the narrow path of the loose pebbles lying on its surface. As the cliff itself was composed of a crumbling material like chalk, I found it impossible to make it much safer. Turning her face to the cliff, exercising care at every step, and with my assistance, this dangerous place was safely crossed, and when we reached the beach again we found the rest of our party had opened the luncheon basket.

Dr. and Mrs. Maunsell returned to the old station by the beach, while the younger members of the party essayed a different route by a longer and rougher track. Our way took us up the hillside, through the short matted fern and scrubby bushes. Long before we reached the ridge the ladies all complained of the discomfort caused by piripiri 27 (burr) which covered their skirts and stockings with a brown coating of prickly seeds. The irritation caused by these caused them at last to sit down and pick off as many as they could. While they were doing so I strolled on to look for the nearest cattle track to give them deliverance from this nuisance. We reached Maraetai late in the afternoon, and went to the old mission house, which was occupied by Dr. Maunsell's two eldest sons, who were sheep-farming in the neighbourhood. They had persuaded their father and mother to spend the night with them, and return to Kohanga in the morning.

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There was a wooded hill, about seven hundred feet high, just at the back of the house, and Eliza and Fanny Maunsell, Miss Jones and I set off to climb it for the sake of the sunset view. Miss Jones and I reached the summit, the Maunsell girls having stopped half way up. From our vantage point we could see the whole curved coast-line of wooded hills lit up by the slanting rays of the setting sun as it sank into the outstretched waters of the wide Pacific. By climbing on to the branch of a great tree the most striking and beautiful object in the landscape was brought into view. At the end of the curving coast-line the snow-capped peak near Kawhia stood out, presenting a striking contrast to the purple-coloured hills and azure sea. During our return I was thinking what a delightful and appreciative companion Miss Jones was, and how unlike any girl I had ever before met. Her strength and fearlessness, and readiness to attempt anything I suggested, impressed me very much.

It was just dusk when we got to the house, where we found all the mattresses laid on the floor of the largest bedroom, which was to be occupied by the ladies, and in another room a quantity of dry sheepskins spread out for the men. After supper, and a walk on the beach by moonlight, we all retired, and slept soundly till daylight, when we were awakened and told to embark in our canoe, return to Kohanga for breakfast, so that the school might begin at the usual hour, the doctor and his wife being rather conscience-stricken for the dissipation they had indulged in. With ten paddles plying on either side the canoe went along quickly, aided by the flood tide.

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For the next few days I saw little of Miss Jones, and was surprised one morning by her coming into the boys' schoolroom while I was busy trying to teach a dull pupil how to pronounce the word "just." She said she was passing the building, and looked in to see what it was like, thinking I was away with the boys in the garden, it being after twelve o'clock, the hour when morning school ended. She seemed much interested in my persistent efforts to secure the correct pronunciation of such a simple word. Many years afterwards she told me that the way I behaved towards my pupil led her to form a very favourable opinion of my character. So, unknown to myself, we two were being gradually drawn to take a growing interest in each other.

One afternoon the Maunsells took Miss Jones to the top of the hill at the back of Waata Kukutai's village, and had tea there. Having often been up there myself, and knowing the exact spot from which the best view of the surrounding country could be obtained, I joined them. On proceeding towards the place I have mentioned, we found the underwood very dense, and difficult to get through, and all but Miss Jones gave up the attempt to reach it. Our successful efforts were fully rewarded. The air was very clear, and the bright sunshine lit up the landscape beautifully. We could see for forty miles to the right and left and in front of us. Spread out before us was a vast and varied landscape of forest and fern-clad hills, stretching away as far as the eye could reach. The broad stream of the Waikato could be seen coming out of the hills to the right, and flowing past, about

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three miles distant from where we were sitting, its surface studded with numerous flat and partially wooded islands, down to the broad estuary on our left. We were surrounded by every variety of forest growth, the trees growing almost down to the banks of the river. We sat, and admired, and discussed the scene before us for a long time, and I indulged in some vague dream of a future spent in the companionship of the lady at my side.

Miss Jones's departure from Kohanga was hurried at the last by a letter from her brother, asking her to meet him at once at Drury, a small village half way between Kohanga and Auckland. She was escorted there by George Maunsell. I very nearly missed bidding her good-bye, as I knew nothing of her sudden recall to Auckland. I was in the midst of my morning work when I received an urgent call from George Maunsell. On getting to the canoe I found the whole mission staff, and the girls' school, gathered there to bid our popular visitor good-bye. We gave her hearty cheers as her canoe was paddled away up the river to the place where the saddle horses were to meet her and her escort.

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CHAPTER XIII

MY HOLIDAY AT AUCKLAND

AFTER Miss Jones's departure everything seemed deadly dull for some time, and I was very glad when the period arrived for my annual holiday, which I meant to spend in Auckland. I hired a nice looking cob from the Maoris, and rode off at daylight one morning, as it was necessary to make a very early start to enable one to accomplish the journey in one day.

Owing to heavy rain during the previous night, the narrow track along which I was travelling proved very slippery, and the horse nearly fell down several times, so I thought it safer to lead than to ride it. I had just entered a small clearing in a wood, through which the path led, when two men appeared coming out of the trees towards me. To my dismay I recognised them at once as the two madmen who had been terrorising the neighbourhood for some months past. They seemed as amazed to meet me as I was to meet them, and stood still for a moment, throwing up their heads and staring at me, and then, with a loud exclamation they hurried towards me. One carried a reaping hook in his hand, and the other a billhook, murderous weapons I thought, and I wondered what they would do with them when they got up to me.

I felt that my safest course was to put a bold face on, and meet them with a cheery greeting, and treat them as I would any sane men. Shadrach

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SHADRACH, THE DEMENTED MAORI

was the first to grasp my hand. His face was completely tattooed, and disgustingly dirty. The restless look in his bloodshot eyes told how mad he was. He wanted to rub noses with me. But at the risk of rousing his anger I put my hand on his bare chest and held him off; and drawing my head backwards I reminded him that nose-rubbing was not a Pakeha custom. Fortunately the other madman wanted to shake hands and, pushing Shadrach aside, grasped both my hands and kept shaking them, while I told him where I was going.

Taking advantage of what, from their looks, I judged was a suitable moment, I bade them goodbye and moved on. They stood watching, but did not attempt to follow me. The moment I got into the wood I got behind my horse, and drove it at a fast trot down the hill, till I reached the river-bank half a mile distant. When I told the ferryman of my meeting with the two lunatics he congratulated me on my escape from them without injury.

When I was about half way to Auckland my horse's feet slipped while I was cantering along a smooth clay road, and fell heavily to the ground, pitching me head first into the fern, where a dry stalk pierced my nostril, but fortunately I was able to pull it out without leaving any splinters behind. The wound bled profusely, which was a good thing, as it prevented any swelling or disfigurement of my features.

As the Kisslings had visitors staying with them, the Burrows kindly took me in. Mr. Burrows 28 was the clerical secretary of the C. M. S. in New Zealand, and both he and his wife were always

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very kind and hospitable to me. Mrs. Burrows took a maternal interest in the welfare of young men. She was a notorious match-maker and was, I was told, planning to marry me to one of her young lady friends. Fortunately she never suspected either Miss Jones or me of having any particular partiality for one another. Besides, the sister of Commissary-General Humphrey Jones would never look with favour upon a poor student like James Stack as a suitor for her hand, when she had the choice of more distinguished and eligible men at her disposal.

Before I had been a week in Auckland, Commissary-General Jones 29 and his sister, called upon me at the Kisslings, thinking I was staying with them. They left many kind messages for me, and an invitation to lunch on the following day. Thanks to dear old Mrs. Kissling, who assured me that Miss Jones's brother had expressed the strongest wish to make my acquaintance, I accepted the invitation, and went to Carlton Gore, where I met Miss Jones and her sister-in-law. It was a very hot day, and though I was clad in the thinnest garments I was "leaking all over," and feeling very nervous about my introduction to the brother, whom I pictured as one of the typical military order, with a big moustache and military stand-off manner. Imagine my relief and surprise when a gentleman

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in a loose grey suit came in, and with a kindly smile and gentle voice said:

"You are Mr. Stack. I am very glad to make your acquaintance. My sister has told me how very kind you were to her during her late visit."

At lunch I sat beside Mr. Jones, and found no difficulty in talking to him. I think he saw that I was rather shy, and tried to help me along. After lunch we went into the orchard, and ate peaches. While there, the late Attorney-General, 30 whom I had known from babyhood, joined us. He was a great lady's man, and evidently very partial to Miss Jones; and I, feeling a bit out of place, retired. Before doing so, however, a visit to the caves at the Three Kings was arranged for.

When the day arrived we met on the Khyber Pass Road, where Mr. Swainson had provided a dray, with a mattress on it, for the ladies who could not walk. But the motion of the dray, rattling over the rough scoria road, was so shaking, that all but Miss Jones and Connie Burrows and I gave up, and returned to town. We walked on till we reached the caves, when we sat down on the rocks near the entrance and ate the contents of our lunch basket.

Miss Jones produced a volume of Trench's poems, and read out some of her favourite passages, one of which dwelt on the virtues of a beloved mother. This touched a very tender chord in each of our hearts, and we began to tell one another secret and sacred reminiscences of the beloved mothers we had lost. We felt so drawn to one

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another by feelings of mutual sympathy that I could there and then have asked Miss Jones to fill the void in my heart that my dear mother's death had made. But I checked myself, feeling it would not be honourable conduct on my part to take advantage of the confidence she had just reposed in me, by revealing to me a sacred page in her past life's history. I was a poor unknown student, without any social position in the world, or income to support a wife.

To change the subject of our thoughts, I suggested that we should light our candles and proceed to explore the caves, which we did, in company with Connie, who must have thought us rather dull company so far. The scrambling over great rocks inside the caves, and crawling through narrow passages gave plenty of opportunity for renewing our sentimental moods of thought; but I steadily resisted the temptation, and continued to do so until my appointment to the care of the Maori Mission in Canterbury two years afterwards when, for the first time, I felt at liberty to ask Miss Jones to share my lot in life, and help me with her loving sympathy and counsel.

The Bishop and Mrs. Selwyn were living at St. John's College, several miles out of Auckland, and I wished to go and see them. The only way to do so was on horseback, and as Miss Jones was very fond of riding I suggested to her that we should go together, and ask Connie Burrows to join us, to which she agreed.

On reaching St. John's, we found Mrs. Selwyn in the schoolroom, busy teaching a class of Melanesian boys. On entering the room I noticed a

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peculiar smell, quite different to what I was accustomed to when entering a building filled with Maoris. I afterwards discovered that the smell was due to the use of cocoanut oil on their hair and bodies.

On our way back to Auckland I had rather a fright. Miss Jones was riding a fine black horse lent to her by our friend Mr. Fenton, who seldom gave it any exercise, and as it was well fed the horse was full of spirit, and eager to go as fast as it could whenever it was given the chance of doing so. We had hardly left the college before the horse showed signs of impatience, and kept pulling at the bridle, and from a canter soon got into a gallop. I dare not try to keep up with it for fear it should bolt; besides, my horse, without shoes, could not go out of a walk on the hard scoria road, and I had to canter along the unformed path at the side of it, which was crossed every few yards by an open drain. After tearing along the road for three miles Black Prince met a large mounted party of Old Pensioners, 31 who evidently took in

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the situation, and restrained Black Prince from renewing his homeward progress until Connie and I came up. I felt in a measure responsible for the safety of the horse as well as its rider, and I knew the owner would not be pleased with the condition of his horse, which was dripping with sweat and smeared with foam. We tried to cool it by walking the rest of the way back, but it had got so excited by its long gallop that it could not be calmed. I was very thankful that our ride ended without any serious disaster, and that Miss Jones had no idea of the danger she had escaped, being conscious only of having experienced the most exhilarating sensations while tearing through the air on horseback.

During my absence from Kohanga it was arranged that our school and that of the Ashwell's should meet at Rangiriri, a place halfway between the two mission stations, where a public examination of both schools should take place, and that the parents and friends of the scholars should be invited to be present. I received a letter from Dr. Maunsell, telling me to meet him at Rangiriri on a particular day, in order that I might take part in the examination.

It so happened that I had accepted an invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Jones to dine with them, and afterwards go to a concert in the town on the very day that Dr. Maunsell wished me to start for Rangiriri. I did not at all like the idea of missing a pleasant evening with my friends, and it occurred to me that if I rode all night I could reach Rangiriri in time. So I went with them to the concert, which proved to be a very enjoyable performance, and in which my friend Mr. Fenton took a leading

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part, together with Colonel Balneavis 32 and Mr. Alec Clerk.

Mr. Swainson was one of our party, but fortunately for me he sat between Mr. and Mrs. Jones, so I had my friend all to myself. It was a beautiful moonlight night when we got out into the street, and made our way up the hill to Carlton Gore. We all parted at the gate, where I was congratulated upon having such a bright moon for my midnight ride, and received the farewells and good wishes of the party for a safe journey.

CHAPTER XIV

A MOMENTOUS DECISION

MY night ride brought me to Rangiriri in good time. I found a large assemblage of natives gathered there from all parts of Waikato, in addition to the scholars from Kohanga and Taupiri.

The native church was a good-sized building, capable of entertaining several hundred people, and there our services, night and morning, were held, and a series of meetings in connection with the C. M. S. and Bible Society. The examination of the scholars was watched with great interest by

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the natives, and the rival merits of the different schools keenly discussed by them.

How little any of us imagined that within a few years Rangiriri would be the scene of a desperate fight between English troops and the Waikato natives, and that the church we gathered in would be occupied as a military hospital. Everyone who, like ourselves, knew the Maoris were forced to take up arms against the English in self-defence, knew when the war broke out that it was an unjust one, promoted by those who coveted the Maoris' lands, and hoped to profit by military expenditure.

The completion and opening of our new church was a great satisfaction to me. For five years our Sunday services had been held, both at Maraetai and Kohanga, in rooms where the scholars took their daily meals, a fact which to Maori ideas rendered them quite unfit for the purpose of holding worship in. Any place where food was partaken of was defiled, and the Maori worshipper in such a place must have found it hard to experience feelings of reverence and awe, and that he was in a place hallowed by sacred associations. The opening of the church removed many obstacles which had hitherto stood in the way of our training the young people in habits of reverence for sacred things, and directing their natural religious instincts into Christian channels.

I had learned while in England to associate the Lord's day with the tolling and chiming of church bells, and it was one of the things I had greatly missed. It was with much pleasure that I now heard the tolling of the bell which summoned, for

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the first time, the inhabitants of the neighbouring Maori villages to enter the newly erected House of God. It was a building worthy of the purpose for which it was set apart, and, from its position overlooking the river, formed a striking object in the landscape. Its fine tower and spire, pointing heavenwards, was a continual reminder to all who saw it to lift up their hearts and minds to the Lord who dwells on high, and to give Him thanks and praise.

During the early part of the year 1859 I reached the second great turning point in my life's history, when I had to decide whether to sever my connection with the C. M. S., who had been so good to me, leave Bishop Selwyn's diocese, and go to Canterbury, where I knew no one, to take charge of the Maoris in Bishop Harper's diocese. 33

When the proposal was first made to me I refused to entertain it. One of the inducements held out to me was that my salary would be more than doubled, 34 but money had then no attraction for me. It was not money I was working for; as long as God fed and clothed me I was content. I shrank from the idea of leaving all my old friends in Auckland, and going amongst perfect strangers. And I could not endure the thought of being disloyal to the Society who had educated me and

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employed me for so many years, and treated my father and his children so well.

After sending a formal refusal to Bishop Harper's offer of the Maori cure in his diocese, I thought the question settled, and had several conversations with Dr. Maunsell regarding a proposal made by Bishop Williams that I should be ordained by him and stationed at Opotiki, where I should have been in the service of the C. M. S. I expressed my willingness to serve wherever the Society wished to employ me. But before any definite steps were taken for my removal to Opotiki an urgent appeal was received by the C. M. S. committee in Auckland from Bishop Harper, asking them to get me to reconsider his offer. The committee wrote me a long letter, urging me to accept the post offered to me, and promised that if at any future time I wished to rejoin the C. M. S. I should be at liberty to do so.

I was thrown by this letter into a very distressed state of mind. I was in great perplexity. I had no human friend to whom I could unburden my feelings, for kind as Dr. Maunsell had become to me, and affectionate as our relations were, I could not make him my confidant. But I took my trouble to the best Friend and Counsellor. Going into the church at night, I waited before God, who heard, and taught me what to do. All my doubts as to the right course vanished. I chose the path I was least naturally inclined to take. My friend Volkner went to Bishop Williams instead of me, was ordained by him, and stationed at Opotiki, where he was afterwards cruelly murdered by the Hauhaus.

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Before leaving Waikato I went up the river to bid good-bye to the Ashwells, and Morgans, and Mr. Reid. 35 My affectionate old friend Mr. Ashwell was very grieved at my leaving the district, and going so far away, but at the same time told me that he thought I was doing what I ought, and invoked God's blessing upon me.

The evening before I took my departure from Kohanga, a farewell meeting was held in the schoolroom, when speeches were made by the Maoris and Dr. Maunsell, all full of kindly references to my work in connection with the school. Dr. Maunsell closed the meeting with a very earnest and touchingly worded prayer, based on the words of the 126th Psalm: "He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." This prayer was in part fulfilled when I returned to visit the school at Kohanga in February, 1861, as the happy bridegroom of the young lady who, as "Mihi Hone," in 1858 had won all their hearts.

The morning I left the Waikato the Maoris in the neighbouring villages fired several volleys of musketry to mark their sorrow at my departure. Firing guns was the customary way of notifying

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the death of a chief, and it was in that way my Maori friends showed their appreciation of the loss they sustained by my departure.

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