fast gathering around what was generally alluded to as the vexed Maori Question, while, to make matters still more unsatisfactory, it was known that the rebel Te Kooti, who had carried out the Poverty Bay massacre, after his marvellous escape from the Chatham Islands, and who had more than once played the part of a New Zealand Napoleon during the war, was hiding, with a price set on his head, in his stronghold in the Kuiti, ready, it was believed, to take up arms at any moment. This was the state of the country which I then and there volunteered to explore.
The next point to consider was how the journey could be best set about. The matter was laid before Sir George Grey during the session of Parliament of 1882, and he, with a characteristic desire to advance an undertaking calculated to promote the interests of the colony, wrote a letter of introduction in my behalf to King Tawhiao, asking him to grant me his mana, or authority, to travel through the Maori territory. The letter was presented at a moment when the native mind was much disturbed in connection with the political relationship existing between the Kingites and the Europeans, and just at the time when the meeting at Whatiwhatihoe, before referred to, was about to be held between the Native Minister and Tawhiao, with a view to the opening of the country to settlement and trade. It is only right to state that the king received me on this occasion with every token of good feeling, and spoke, as indeed did all the natives, in the highest terms of Sir George Grey; but he advised me, as the native tribes were much disturbed in connection with the question about to be discussed between the Maoris and Europeans, not to set out on my journey until the meeting should be over.
Leaving Whatiwhatihoe before the termination of the gathering, I made no further appeal to Tawhiao, who subsequently left for an extended tour through the island. The assemblage of the tribes broke up, as before shown, without any solution being arrived at with regard to the settlement of the native difficulty, and the question of the exploration of the King Country lay in abeyance for a few months, but the idea was always firmly fixed in my mind, although it was not until the 8th of March, 1883, that I left Auckland, en route for Tauranga, to explore the wonders of the forbidden land at my own risk.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the altitudes of the various mountains, see map.
[2] The word tapu is applied to all places held sacred by the Maoris; it is synonymous with the taboo of the South Sea Islanders. To interfere with anything to which the tapu has been extended is considered an act of sacrilege.
[3] A justice of the peace.
[4] In Cook's time the whole native population was estimated as exceeding 100,000; in 1859 it only amounted to 56,000, of this number 53,000 fell to the North Island, and only 2283 to the Middle Island; in 1881 the number had decreased to 44,099, of which 24,370 were males, and 19,729 females.
THE FRONTIER OF THE KING COUNTRY.
CHAPTER I.
THE KING'S CAMP.
Alexandra—Crossing the frontier—Whatiwhatihoe—The camp—King Tawhiao—The chiefs—"Taihoa."
Alexandra, the principal European settlement on the northern frontier of the King Country, lies about one hundred miles distant from Auckland, and a little less than eight miles to the west of the Te Awamutu terminus of the southern line of railway.
I reached Alexandra along a delightful road lined with the hawthorn and sweetbriar, and through a picturesque country, where quiet homesteads, surrounded by green meadows filled with sleek cattle and fat sheep, imparted to the aspect of nature an air of contentment and quiet repose. Indeed, when doing this journey in a light buggy drawn by a pair of fast horses, it seemed difficult to realize the fact that I was fast approaching the border-line of European settlement, and that a few minutes more would land me on the frontier of a vast territory which formed the last home of perhaps the boldest and most intelligent race of savages the world had ever seen. In fact, when approaching Alexandra from the Te Awamutu road, with its neat white houses, embowered amidst gardens and groves of trees, and with its church-spire pointing towards heaven, I seemed to be entering a quiet English village; and had it not been that the eye fell now and again upon a dark, statuesque figure, wrapped in a blanket, and with a touch of the "noble savage" about it, it would have been somewhat difficult to dispel the pleasant illusion.
The township was not large, and a school-house, two hotels, several stores, a public hall, commodious constabulary barracks surrounded by a redoubt, a postal and telegraph station, a blacksmith's forge, and about fifty houses, built for the most part of wood, formed its principal features of Anglo-Saxon civilization.
On the day following my arrival at Alexandra I left, in company with a native interpreter, for Whatiwhatihoe, to present my credentials to the Maori king. Our ride across the frontier into Maoriland was a most delightful one. The steep, wooded heights of Mount Pirongia had cast off their curtain of mist, and stood revealed in their brightest hues; while the green, rolling hills at its base formed a pleasant contrast with the more sombre, fern-clad banks of the Waipa River, as it wound its devious course from the direction of Mount Kakepuku, which rose above the plain beyond in the form of a gigantic cone. The country for miles around lay stretched before the gaze, forming a varied picture of delightful scenery, and all nature appeared budding into life; while the prickly gorse, with its golden-yellow flowers, encircled Whatiwhatihoe like a chevaux de frise. The primitive whares[5] of the natives imparted a rustic appearance to the scene, as they stood scattered about the country to the south, while, as the eye wandered in the direction of the north, the white homesteads of the settlers served to mark the aukati[6]—frontier-line—separating the King Country from the territory of the pakeha.[7]
The king's settlement of Whatiwhatihoe was situated on the west or opposite bank of the Waipa from Alexandra, and on a broad alluvial plain running along the base of a range of fern-clad hills. As a rule the whares were built entirely of raupo,[8] and were scattered about the flat and on the low hills in its vicinity without any regard to regularity, and while some had a neat and even a clean look, others were less attractive both in their designs and general surroundings. They were mostly oblong in shape, with slanting roofs, which projected a few feet at one end of the building in the form of a recess, where the entrance, consisting of a low narrow doorway, was placed. Windows, in the form of small square apertures, were the exception and not the rule, and consequently the interior of these primitive domiciles was badly ventilated. A few blankets and native mats formed the principal articles of furniture, save where the owner, profiting by the advance of civilization, had gone in for articles de vertu on which the "Brummagem" hall-mark might be distinctly traced.
As we approached the camp the whole place presented a very animated appearance; horsemen were riding about in every direction; long cavalcades of natives, men, women, and children, were arriving from all parts of the country, to take part in the korero[9] to be held on the morrow; while many old tattooed savages, swathed in blankets, and plumed with huia feathers to denote their chieftainship, were squatting about, puffing at short pipes with a stolid air, as they listened in mute attention to one of their number as, gesticulating