24 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



allowed being supplied from a layer of fern which had been 

 previously wetted placed under and over the kumara, just 

 sufficient to keep them from being scorched. They were 

 allowed to cook for about twenty-four hours, and when taken 

 out had a dry black appearance, with a sweet aromatic 

 flavour. The kao would keep for any length of rime if not 

 exposed to damp, and was highly esteemed as a delicacy at a 

 time when such delicacies were rare. 



Such was the kumara in the old primitive times. It has 

 long fallen from its high estate. As the Maoris became 

 gradually possessed of the potato, maize, pumpkins, and 

 marrows, and were able to obtain a supply of flour and beef 

 and mutton, the relative importance of the kumara declined; 

 and as the old beliefs gave way to the new ideas the karakias 

 were no longer practised and the ta/,u vanished from the 

 land. The neatly tended hand cultivation is practically a 

 thing of the past, and the elaborate storehouses have fallen 

 to ruin. The kumara is now generally put in with the plough, 

 and if for want of proper attention the crop should turn out a 

 failure " Kei ahatia" (what matter)? There is always the 

 kai-pakeha (European food) to fall back upon. 



Art. III. — Foot-tracks of Captain Cook. 



By H. D. M. Haszard. 



[Read before the Auckland Institute, 6th October, 1902.] 



Plates I.-III. 



I read with very great interest the paper printed in vol. xxxiii. 

 of the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," entitled 

 " On the Tracks of Captain Cook," by the late Professor 

 E. E. Morris; and, having noticed his invitation for some 

 one with local knowledge to fill in the gap caused through 

 his not being able to visit Mercury Bay, I will endeavour to 

 put together a few notes in regard to that place, though it is 

 with some diffidence I follow after such an able writer ; but 

 now, alas ! there is no chance of the subject being completed 

 by him. 



Some four years ago, whilst revising the trigonometrical 

 survey of a portion of the Coromandel Peninsula, I was 

 camped for several weeks about Mercury Bay, and in February 

 of this year I was again in the same locality, so that I may 

 claim a fair knowledge of the district. 



After Cook's arrival at Poverty Bay, on the 9th October, 

 1769, he sailed as far south as Cape Turnagain, which he 

 reached on the 16th October. He thence retraced his steps, 



