Stewart. — On the. Rotorua District. 593 



the result of indifference, it is hard to say; but, as we have 

 seen, the nabive difficulty, if it ever existed, vanished oq 

 being faced in 1880. Two or three years previously the Nga- 

 titukorehe hapu began to assert their independence of the 

 isolating decrees of Tawhiao, and it is probable that previous 

 to that period the Native Office would not have moved in the 

 matter, or allowed any one else to take it up. 



Tourist traffic rapidly developed in the seventies, and 

 became a matter of great importance to Tauranga and Taupo. 

 The result to Tauranga cannot be said to be an unmixed bless- 

 ing, as it seemed as if everything else was neglected for the 

 trade caused by coaches, waggons, and steamships. And 

 when, in the natural course of things, a better route was 

 found the reaction was naturally very severe. 



The new road via Cambridge and Oxford avoided all the 

 ravines which pierce deep into the mountain-range. It leads 

 up the western ascent, on the dividing-ridge between the 

 Waiohotu and one of the branches of the Waimakariri 

 streams. The descent on the eastern side is between the 

 Waiteti and Manurewa. The road was first available for 

 saddle-traffic in 1881, and was opened for coaches in the 

 summer of 1883 and 1884. It at once became popular, as 

 involving no sea-voyage, and, although the coaching at first 

 extended from Hamilton, a distance of sixty-six miles, the 

 road was, for all able-bodied tourists, easy and pleasant 

 compared with the extremely broken country traversed by the 

 old route. 



During all the time of lavish expenditure on railways, in 

 the years when loans were raised with the same facility with 

 which the money was scattered and got rid of, when it be- 

 came an exercise of ingenuity to discover fresh fields for ex- 

 penditure of the quota which each provincial district claimed 

 as its due, no mention was ever made, or hint of any kind 

 given, of the desirability of having railway-communication 

 with Eotorua, or direct communication of any kind in fact, 

 for we have seen it was in 1880 that Mr. Moss moved in the 

 matter of the road, and the halcyon days of spending for the 

 sake of expenditure were then just about closing. 



It was reserved for private enterprise to inaugurate what 

 will yet prove to be, all things considered, the most profitable 

 railway in the colony, and a blessing to hundreds and thou- 

 sands of the suffering and distressed in many lands. And it 

 came about in this way : In the years 1879 to 1881 large pur- 

 chases of native land were effected in the country, extending 

 from about twenty-six miles south of Cambridge, towards 

 Eotorua. Some of the claims under alleged agreements to sell 

 extended to the lake. Eventually, in 1881, blocks to the 

 aggregate area of about 260,000 acres became the property of 

 38 



