356 Transactions. — Botany. 



we had better be oft, and adding, ' Spear me ! kill me ! "" 

 meaning that if we did so it would scarcely be a greater 

 offence. This is the last village at this extremity of the 

 island, and the only one, except Kahokawa, within many 

 miles of the Eeinga, the fabled departing-place of the New- 

 Zealanders." On the next morning, "leaving two of our lads 

 in charge of the tents, about 8 a.m. we commenced our 

 journey to the Eeinga. After the first ascent the road ran 

 along the very edge of a tremendous rocky precipice ; and in 

 one sharp ascent the grass was so slippery that it was difficult 

 to keep one's feet. The descent to the rocks of the Eeinga was 

 rather better than the ascent. This brought us down to a 

 little rill of water, called Wairatane, or Waioterata. The 

 keliuas, or spirits, travel, it is said, along the road which we 

 had passed. At one place, near Kahokawa, they stop for a 

 parting look and a long farewell to the land of their fathers. 

 Other spots on the road are marked by wakaaus, or tokens, 

 to denote the resting-places of the wearied spirits. These are 

 little bundles of rush tied in a loose knot ; a green bundle, of 

 course, indicating a recent death, as each spirit, in passing, 

 leaves his toakaau. On arriving at the Wairatane, some 

 kehuas make a stop there, and then return. An old spirit 

 stands waiting at the opposite side of the river with a stick 

 or plank in his hand, which, on the arrival of a new-comer, 

 he appears to lay down as a bridge. Sometimes his offer is 

 rejected. 'No,' says the newly-arrived, '1 mean to go back 

 again.' The case meant by this emblem is that of a native 

 who has been, as we say, at death's door, and has recovered. 

 Sometimes the friends of the individual who has so recovered 

 ask him, ' No hea koe?' (whence have you come?) Here- 

 plies, 'No te Waioterata ' (from the Waioterata). But once 

 past the stream there is no return from the dreary region 

 beyond. The opposite is, with them, the bourne from which 

 no traveller returns. From the Wairatane the spirits of the 

 deceased glide along the rocks till they come to a perforated 

 rock, where, passing through a small hole, they then ascend 

 to the peaks of those projecting rocks to which more properly 

 belongs the name of Eeinga — wild rocks running out to sea. 

 From peak to peak the spirits again descend — where none but 

 spirits could — till they arrive at the projecting branch of a 

 pohutukawa-tree (Metrosideros tomentosa) . Why this is called 

 the Aka of the Eeinga I could not ascertain. On this branch 

 the spirits hang for a while, taking their final earthly rest. 

 The branch is bent downwards in consequence, it is said, of 

 the number killed in Hongi's wars, whose spirits crowded to- 

 gether upon it. Thence they drop on to the flat rocks below, 

 and pass out to the extreme point — which might fairly be 

 called 'the land's end' — there plunging into the deep. A 



