1923 - Mair, Gilbert. Reminiscences and Maori Stories - CHAPTER XXXI. A SCOTCH LASSIE, p 115-117

       
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  1923 - Mair, Gilbert. Reminiscences and Maori Stories - CHAPTER XXXI. A SCOTCH LASSIE, p 115-117
 
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CHAPTER XXXI. A SCOTCH LASSIE.

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CHAPTER XXXI.

A SCOTCH LASSIE.

MISS GORDON CUMMING'S PUNCH.

In the year 1882 I received an urgent autograph letter from Sir Arthur Gordon, then Governor of the Dominion, asking as a personal favour that I would "take care of a Scotch lassie, a Miss Gordon Cumming, an authoress, who would meet me at a certain place on a date named." The letter was somewhat indefinite, but it appealed to my Scotch blood, so I saddled up and started that very night, reaching the trysting place well on time, keenly anxious to "become acquaint" with the fair lady. Do not blame me, my readers, if I conjured up quite a tender romance--poi dances by the Maori maidens; rides to the Fairy Springs and other beauty spots, etc. Imagine, therefore, my disillusionment when I beheld a tall, massive person, clad in large patterned shepherd's plaid coat, vest, and short skirts, stout grey hose, and wearing a huge Kilmarnock bonnet adorned with a whole grouse wing, and she introduced herself as "Miss Gordon Cumming, sister of the Lion Slayer." She had light hair and eyebrows, and a high complexion. Well, she did not call up in my mind the line, "And light, springing footsteps are trampling the heather." My romantic castles in the air came tumbling down. However, the lady was very companionable, though she expressed preconceived opinions on every possible subject, and disagreed absolutely with my remarks on the Maoris, about whom I am supposed to know something.

After doing the Rotorua sights--barring the riding trips, which I cut out--we put up at McCrae's Wairoa Hotel for the night, intending to make an early start on the morrow for the Terraces, but at breakfast time my protege was missing. I should mention that the Tuhourangi tribe had fixed a charge of £5 for photographing or sketching, fearing that it would

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attract visitors to deal for their lands, the very thing Sir Arthur Cordon had so emphatically warned them against. I saw a bevy of children running towards me, shouting: "Te wahine, pakeha! Tamihana!" I raced the 400 yards in the direction they pointed in record time, followed by half a hundred villagers. On topping the ridge overlooking Lake Tarawera, I saw my "Scotch lassie" perched up on a splendid pinnacle rock that rose up twenty feet on the verge of a perpendicular precipice above the lake, many hundred feet below. I heard the Maori land-ranger, a fine athletic fellow named Tamihana Rangihuea, demanding £5, to be answered with a snap, "Not a shilling." I saw him make a grab at her sketch block, which she immediately placed behind her, and then stood up, and, really, she made a striking figure. The great valley of the lake was filled with drifting mist, through which the sun broke here and there, disclosing its lovely blue waters, and grim old Tarawera mountain towered nearly 4,000 feet in the background. The artist loomed up like the Colossus at Rhodes. The Maori official, influenced, no doubt, by the artist's magnificent proportions, lowered his tariff to two shillings. "Not a bawbee shall you get out of me," answered the lion-hunter's sister.

By this time Tamihana had crawled nearly to the top of the rock, and, exclaiming: "I pull you down soon, I tink," he made a quick grab for her right ankle.

Rolling up her sleeves, the Highland damsel overshadowed him, and just as he was getting his knees on the top of the rock, she dealt him an appalling smack between the eyes. Tamihana toppled over several times, landing on his back on some loose stones with an ominous thud. His comrades ran forward, and stood him up again, he gasping the while and rubbing his head and as many portions of his anatomy as he could find hands for. There stood my Scotch lassie, with the glare of battle in her eyes, shouting: "Come on; if there's any more of your kidney down there, come up here. I'm just in the humour to take on the lot of you!"

I shall never forget poor Tamihana's bewildered look as he plaintively asked me, "Heaha tena?" (What is it?) "He wahine Kotimana" (A Scotch woman), I replied. "My warra," said he, "me no raiki te Kotimana wahine."

Miss Cumming said it was very gracious of me not interfering, and I answered that it was quite unnecessary, as I saw she had "the situation well in hand."

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My fair charge seemed highly satisfied with herself, saying: "And now I'll enjoy my breakfast, and we'll go and see if this Rotomahana you talk about so much will come up to my expectations." But the glamour had worn off, and I quite forgot to ask her whether or not it did.

I was in Fiji shortly afterwards, and while there endeavoured to purchase for the Auckland Museum some specimens of the very interesting native pottery; but, alas! Miss Cumming, with her cousin, the Governor's, assistance, had secured everything worth having in the group, and though I made a fifty-mile voyage in a native outrigger to a small island tribe of hereditary pottery makers, she had been ahead.

Miss Cumming's Maori antagonist, by the way, was a noted ladykiller. But if ever Tamihana presumed too much, the Maori maidens could always silence him by inquiring: "What about the Scotch wahine?"


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