CHAPTER XVII
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CHAPTER XVII.
Waimate, Lake Maupere, and Thermal Springs.
After emerging from the hills which surround Hokianga on all sides, and which are still covered with a primitive forest of pines, we descend into a comparatively level country; and about fifteen miles from the head of the harbour we leave the bush, and the country is open to the Bay of Islands. We may regard the whole country to the westward and northward of the Bay of Islands as a volcanic tableland. If we enter this table-land from Hokianga we have to our right the Lake Maupere. In its immediate neighbourhood is an ancient crater, which forms a regular cone, with the exception that the western margin has fallen in. Large angular pieces of a very scoriaceous and vesicular lava of different colours, and amygdaloidal basalt, cover its sides and base. With much labour the natives have collected these rocks into mounds, and have cultivated the black soil between them. The lavas and the crater closely resemble those in the Auvergne. In general the lavas of New Zealand
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VOLCANIC LAVAS.
are so hard, that time and the atmosphere have scarcely any influence on them. When we speak of a volcanic country we generally associate with it the idea of fertility; but this is true in particular cases only. If the ejected matter be mud or ashes, in forty or fifty years, or even in less time, it is clothed with vegetation, and fit for planting, as we see in the fruitful regions around Etna and Vesuvius: but it would appear that the masses thrown up by these Polynesian volcanoes have rarely consisted of such soft substances, but have flowed out as lava, forming hard scoriae, like the slaggy refuse of an iron-foundry; and it will therefore easily be understood that the lands immediately at the base of the numberless volcanic cones which we see in New Zealand are not always those best suited for agricultural purposes. The lake which I have above mentioned is about one square mile and a half in extent, and apparently of great depth. In some places its borders are steep, and consist of basaltic lavas. It is perhaps an old crater; and, indeed, there is a tradition amongst the natives that a large village with its inhabitants was suddenly engulfed during an earthquake.
Several conical craters, similar to that above mentioned, only with more perfect funnels in their centres, lie to the eastward of Waimate. The interiors are covered with vegetation, and all appear to have long been in a state of repose.
A few miles to the southward of Waimate are
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MINERAL SPRINGS.
some curious thermal springs. In order to visit them we leave Waimate, and ascend a hill, from which three of the volcanic cones above mentioned present themselves to our view, in an extensive depression of the table-land below. The field is spread over with fragments, often more than fifteen feet in diameter, of a slate-coloured basaltic rock, the spaces between which are covered with fern and flax; while here and there are patches planted with Indian corn and potatoes. After passing a small native settlement, and crossing a ravine, we ascend a ridge of hills, very barren and steep, with a white clay on the surface, and evidently covered in former times with the kauri-pine. We now come to a lake about one mile in circumference. On its shores are black and half-burnt stems of kauri, and the soil in the neighbourhood is covered with efflorations of pure sulphur. At a little distance is another lake, called Ko-huta-kino, smaller than the former, and near this are the mineral springs. There are several of them, all close to the lake. The first which I examined was strongly aluminous, and of a temperature of 62 deg. Fahrenheit. A few feet from it was a tepid spring, of a milk-white colour and an alkaline taste: its temperature was 124 deg.. A third was acidulous, with a temperature of 154 deg. Fahrenheit. In another, over which rose strong sulphuretted hydrogen gas, the thermometer stood at 133 deg., while the temperature of the surrounding air was 80 deg. Fahrenheit (Dec. 4. 1840).
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SULPHUROUS BATHS.
A small creek discharged itself into the lake through a narrow gulley. The gaseous emanations of sulphuric acid have much altered the argillaceous rock, parts of which have become white and red, while in other portions it has changed into a species of clay, covered with sublimations of pure alum, sulphur, and different sulphates. There are several other springs in the neighbourhood, which mix their waters with the creek, and impart to it an increased temperature.
I found here some native women, with their children, living in a temporary shed. The children were affected with cutaneous and scrofulous diseases, especially ringworm and swollen lymphatic glands, and had been brought to this place for the benefit of bathing in the warm sulphurous water, the beneficial effects of which were already very visible. The springs are often visited by the natives for this purpose, and, as might be expected, are of very great benefit in many of the disorders most common in these parts.
The surrounding country, especially to the southward, has to a singular degree the barren and desolate aspect so often observed in places celebrated for their salubrious mineral waters. Scarcely any verdure is seen on the hills of the neighbourhood: it is only in the ravines that the uniform brown tint of stunted fern is interrupted by the green of some sheltered groves.
There seems to be no doubt that the sick will
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WAIMATE.
flock to these baths in the course of time, especially as the distance from the Bay of Islands is trifling, the communication easy, and the valley well sheltered from the winds.
Waimate, which is situated about fifteen miles to the westward of the Bay of Islands, has a very European aspect. A church has been built, and in its neighbourhood are the houses of the missionaries, surrounded by rose-trees, and other plants of foreign extraction. There is a great want of flowering plants in New Zealand, and every introduction of such improves the landscape. In the neighbourhood are the poor and slovenly huts of the natives, forming rather a painful contrast. However, when I saw the natives in church on the Sunday, most of them were cleanly dressed in the European style; and the work of Europeanizing them seemed to be gradually progressing.
Waimate was chosen many years ago as the agricultural settlement of the Church Missionary Society, and has been ever since the residence of an ordained clergyman. Although convenient as a Mission-settlement in many other respects, being in the common road from the Bay of Islands to Hokianga, and from the southern to the northern districts of the island, its immediate neighbourhood has no great pretensions in an agricultural point of view; and the produce of the Missionary farm has always been at a very low ebb. In fact, a great deal of the land has been relinquished, for the very sufficient
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VARIETIES OF SOIL.
reason that it yielded nothing at all. The soil is a very light dusty volcanic earth. This is the reason why the natives have no plantations here, but prefer the ravines intersecting the plain, or go nearer to the groves, or to the base of the hills which bound the table-land, where the soil is more substantial. Some parts of the table-land towards the Keri-keri have a very superficial stratum of vegetable earth, and are strewed over with lapilli of ferruginous clay; where these are found the soil is almost useless. Good and bad land, indeed, alternate; the latter rather prevailing. On the banks of the Keri-keri and Waitangi rivers, which discharge themselves into the Bay of Islands, the land is of the best description; but even there masses of scoriae have to be cleared away, which will require a great expenditure.
The Waitangi forms a picturesque cascade near its outlet into the Bay of Islands. Below the fall the basaltic rock in the banks of the river shows somewhat of a columnar structure.
The neck of land which separates Waitangi from the Keri-keri is claimed by Mr. Bushby, the former consul of New Zealand, and contains some very good land and pasturage.
The vegetation which covers the table-land is but little varied: fern, tupakihi (Coriaria sarmentosa), Dracaena australis and indivisa, and Gaultheria, are the most common plants. That curious lichen the Cenomice retispora is found in
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KERI-KERI RIVER.
abundance. A few groves of trees in the neighbourhood of Waimate contain chiefly puriri, tarairi, and high stems of fuchsia.
These groves were formerly used as burying-places by the natives, who suspended coffins containing the bodies of their dead to the trees, which has made them sacred, and is perhaps the" cause of their not having shared in the destruction which has attended the greater part of the forest.
The natives living in this neighbourhood belong to the Nga-pui, who were formerly one of the largest tribes in New Zealand, but have very much decreased, notwithstanding the ascendency which the conquests of E'Ongi gave them over many other tribes. They live much dispersed in their small villages. Remains of their ancient pas are visible on the hills in the neighbourhood of Waimate.
A few miles to the northward of Waimate is the Keri-keri river, where there is a mission-station. The intervening land is very inferior, and especially around the station; but higher up the Keri-keri it is decidedly good. The Keri-keri is a small stream, forming a fall about two miles above the station, opposite to which there is a rapid, presenting a barrier to the farther ascent of the tide. Small vessels can come up as high as this point. The estuary of the Keri-keri has the appearance of a broad river, and presents some fine sites for farming establishments on its borders.
The waterfall of the river Keri-keri (a water-
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KERI-KERI RIVER.
fall is called Waianiwaniwa in the native language, meaning rainbow-waters) has a very picturesque effect. The river is only about twenty yards broad, hut the fall is over a basaltic escarpment ninety-five feet in height. This basalt overhangs a soft formation of a grey volcanic sand, which has been washed away from under it for about thirty feet, so that one can walk behind the falling cascade. The spray of the waters gives rise to a vigorous vegetation all around, and this place was a favourite spot of that excellent botanist Mr. Cunningham. There is, indeed, a greater assemblage of the flora of New Zealand in this neighbourhood than in any other place so near a shipping-place.
The banks of the Keri-keri are also the only known habitat of the elegant Clianthus puniceus, a leguminous plant, which the natives appropriately call parrot's-bill--ko-waingutu kaka. In the neighbourhood of the mission-station are the remains of the pa of E'Ongi, the scourge of New Zealand. His warlike extravagancies, however, have more than anything else contributed, by exhausting the strength of the natives, to bring about that state of repose so favourable to the progress of European civilization. The blood spilt with the sword which he received from the hands of royalty, when in England, was, as it were, the fertilizing dew in the hearts of the survivors, preparing them for the seeds of civilization, as he had too much weakened his enemies for them to think of revenge. But the man
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E'ONGI.
was as good a hero as many who have appeared on the modern stage, and had perhaps more just pretensions to natural talent: and as it is not probable that he will be honoured with a column as a sign of public gratitude for his butcheries, we may as well, in honour of his memory, transcribe from the report of an eye-witness, the missionary Stack, the following particulars of the death and funeral rites of this warrior: --
"Patuone," he says, "who has just returned from Wangaroa, called this evening. I asked about E'Ongi. He told me several things, all of which I felt interested in listening to, as connected with the end of this extraordinary chief. I perceived that Patuone spoke of him in the most affectionate manner.
"When he and his party arrived at Pinia, where E'Ongi was, they found him so emaciated, that they were much affected. They all, as is usual, wept together; after which they informed him that they feared he would soon die: to which he replied in the negative, saying he never was in better spirits. After waiting sufficiently long with him to pay him proper respects, they were about to return, when he was taken suddenly ill, on which they determined to wait the result. Perceiving, by his inward sinking, that he was going, he said to his friends-- 'I shall die now shortly, but not to-day.' He called for his gunpowder; and when it was brought to him he said--'Ka ora koutou.' 'You will be
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E'ONGI.
(or are) well.' This was addressed to his children. His meris, or battle-axes, muskets, and the coat of mail which he received from King George IV., he bequeathed on that day to his sons. After he had settled these matters, he spoke of the conduct of the natives after his death, as in all probability likely to be kind towards his survivors, saying, 'Kowai ma te nia. Kai mai ki a koutou kaore.' 'Who will desire to eat you all? None!'
"He spent his last moments on the 6th instant (March, 1828), exhorting his followers to be valiant, and repel any force, however great, which might come against them; telling them this was all the 'utu,' or satisfaction, he desired; which intimated that he had had the question proposed to him-- 'Who is to be killed as a satisfaction for your death?' This abominable principle still exists in New Zealand of honouring the dead by human sacrifice. His dying lips were employed in uttering 'Kia toa! Kia toa!'--'Be courageous! Be courageous!'
"As soon as E'Ongi ceased to breathe, all his friends in the pa at Pinia trembled for themselves; for they did not know but that the Hokianga natives would fall upon them, and send them as companions for their dead chief 'to the shades of night.'
"The Hokianga natives, to prevent suspicion, caused all their people to remain quiet in their huts, while they went to the pa to see E'Ongi's body dressed. On their approach, though they had used the above precautions, they perceived the people in
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E'ONGI.
the pa shivering like leaves in the wind, till Patuone and the others bade them dismiss their fears, for they were groundless.
"A wish to keep E'Ongi's death private till he was buried, lest a party should come and attack the survivors, induced his children to determine to bury him, or rather to place him on the wahi tapu, or sacred place, the day after his death. This Patuone reproved them for, saying--'I have only just become acquainted with those who wish to bury their father alive!' He was not buried, therefore, for some days; which were spent in paying all the honour which the New Zealanders were capable of to the remains of the once renowned E' Ongi. This time the natives spent in haranguing, crying, cutting themselves, dancing, and firing muskets."
There are now no natives whatever living on the Keri-keri; and it seems, therefore, useless to keep up the station. Most of the land on the banks of the river is the property either of the mission or the missionaries.
Below the station the basis of the soil is basaltic. It seems as if an immense crust of this rock had been elevated to near the surface. To the northward of the Keri-keri, as far as Wangaroa, the land is mostly hilly, covered, as I have already observed, in the middle of the island, with primitive forest. Near the coast almost the whole forest is gone; herds of cattle and horses feed well upon the young fern and shrubs, although there is no grass-pasturage.
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MARBLE AND LIMESTONE.
Sheep looked in a rather bad condition; but the principal objection to sheep-farming in New Zealand is on account of the seeds of the Acoena sanguisorba, a herb spreading all over the country: these attach themselves so firmly to the wool, that they cannot be separated in the washing. About half-way between Wangaroa and the Keri-keri, on the outskirts of the forest, we pass an agricultural settlement of a European. Some natives live in the fertile ravines which run off from the hills towards the sea-shore: off the latter are many rocky islets. The shore forms several small bays, of which Mataute is one of the finest. On the slope of the hills, which surround this bay like an amphitheatre, an excellent hard greyish marble crops out. The bay is about two square miles in extent. On its shore is a native settlement.
Between Mataute and Wangaroa there are two other bays of similar description--Waio and Tauranga
In the latter, a marly limestone in horizontal strata appears on the side of the hills; it breaks into slabs about an inch thick. To the northward the hills inland present a perpendicular escarpment, and the limestone displays the interesting phenomenon of a dendritic dyke of whinstone (Lydian stone) injected into its mass. The limestone is altered where in contact with it, and inclines at an angle of about forty degrees; a few paces from this the strata are again horizontal.
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TAURANGA.
On the Bay of Tauranga there is some land cultivated by a European.
Along the coast from the Bay of Islands to Wangaroa is found in many places an excellent reddish and variegated marble, alternating with whinstone and slates.
From Tauranga a path leads to Wangaroa, through a beautiful and fertile valley, sheltered by the hills of the coast from the winds; in it flows a small river, which discharges itself into the harbour of Wangaroa already described.
