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CHAPTER X. 



TRAILS ROUND TUTIRA LAKE. 



IN Maori occupation the water area of Tutira was more productive of 

 food than its solid surface. " Te wai-u o koutou tipuna " " the milk of 

 your ancestors " runs the local proverb, signifying the constant supply 

 of food ready to hand from lakes and rivers. It is natural, therefore, 

 that a larger number of place-names, legends, and traditions should 

 have been remembered about the vicinity of the lake, about its shores, 

 small fertile marshes, and promontories, than about the remainder of the 

 run. Most of the traffic was by water ; even in the 'eighties there were 

 several old canoes afloat ; others still intact rest to this day submerged 

 and safe in Waikopiro. There were narrow trails of a more or less 

 temporary character connecting pa with pa, kainga with kainga, cultiva- 

 tion-ground with cultivation-ground, but probably in many places no 

 permanent route existed. The line of sparsest vegetation would be 

 the only general description of the eastern lake path, a line that must 

 have altered in some degree with every fire run through the flax and 

 fern, with every flood and consequent crop of landslips. 



Starting from Piraunui and following the eastern margin of the lake, 

 the trail, such as it was, passed on the right the celebrated spring of 

 water Te Korokoro-a-Hine-rakai, on the left the log Te Waka-o-whakairo, 

 ere reaching the small marsh known in modern days as " Pera's Swamp." 

 Here on a dry patch of good land stood, in the 'eighties, the remains of 

 an old hut, its little garden plot marked with a patch or two of thyme 

 (Thymus vulgaris). About the dry warm apex of the same valley 

 flourished a considerable peach-grove. On another dry rise, rich in 

 leaf-mould and travertine oozings, grew a single peach-tree. On the 

 farther side of Waikopiro swamp a sharp spur runs down from the 

 main range terminating in the peninsula Te Rewa-a-Hinetu. Upon the 



