Jteiieic of Rerieirt. tll',11^. 



In the Heart of MaorfJand. 



345 



i 



way : they laid down their guns in token of peace ; 

 the road went on — a strategic highway into the heart 

 of Tuhoe Land — and now the surveyor's trig-flag 

 flutters even on the lofty peak of sacred Maunga- 

 pohatu, the demon-guarded '' Rocky Mountain," the 

 Olympus of the Urewera, and the trail of the white 

 man's chain is over it all. To-day you may ride 

 from end to end of this dist ct, and everywhere 

 receive a kindly welcome and enjoy real old-time 

 Maori hospitality. For they are a pleasant, though 

 a primitive people. But they are as jealous of offi- 

 cial interference as of old, and as proudly tenacious 

 of their traditional rights and tribal honour as any 

 Scottish Highland clan. 



The glamour of the blue Tuho^ Mountains, that 

 nameless " something lost behind the ranges," has 

 lured me more than once of recent years into this 

 little Thibet of Maoriland, mysterious and forbidden 

 though it is no longer. One summer expedition was 

 rich in picturesque glimpses of an interesting people. 

 ♦ » » 



Saddling-up in the crisp and early morning of 

 one of those glorious clear days frequent on the 

 plains, we left our camping-ground by the foot of 

 Maunga-Kakaramea, the " Painted Mountain " which 

 guards the fantastic hot-spring valley of Waiotapu. 

 and struck across the breezy Kaingaroa Plateau — a 

 wide treeless steppe tenanted only by mobs of wild 

 horses — and fording the swift Rangitaiki entered 

 the mountains by a narrow pass that opened out like 

 a gateway between two lofty hills. On our left rose 

 woodv Tawhiuau, towering in deep purple from the 

 plains 2000 ft. into the golden sky — the guardian 



A Mataatua Girl. 



and to all pakehas save a few Maori-spe.iking Go- 

 vernment officials and military officers "Tuhoe Land 

 was practically a terra incognita till 1894. In that 

 year a Government survey party was despatched to 

 lay off the route for a road through the bush from 

 the Rangitaiki to Lake Waikaremoana. On the 

 old-fashioned Maori the sight of a theodolite and 

 chain produces much the same effect as that of the 

 proverbial red rag on a bull. The tribe took up 

 arms, the war-conch-shell echoed through the craggy 

 defiles of Tuhoe Land as of yore, and the surveyors 

 were turned back and escorted to the plains and 

 their instruments seized. An armed column was 

 hurried from Auckland to the boundaries of the 

 disputed territorv, and it seemed at one time as if 

 shots would be fired once more in earnest, after a 

 peace of nearlv a generation. Indeed, I have never 

 seen Maoris more sulky, more inimical in looks, in 

 gestures and in speech, than that gathering of angry 

 and suspicious tribesmen into whose meeting-place 

 VK marched at Ruatoki, in the Whakatane Valley. 

 Our tents were pitched here for a season, then an- 

 other military camp was formed at Te Whaiti, well 

 within the mountains. The Urewera gradually gave 



Ca^'ved slab(Te Ttpua: "The Demon") eno 

 in Ca* \ed House. " Te Whai-a-te-Moki." i 



-acework Panel 

 t Mataatua. 



