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CHAPTER XV. 



IN THE BEGINNING. 



ABOUT 1860 an immense territory was purchased by Government from 

 the native owners of southern Hawke's Bay, the lands thus acquired 

 being parcelled out in great runs as freehold. It was open fern country 

 for the most part, extending from the foothills of the Ruahine and 

 Kaweka ranges to the ocean. The homesteads of the stations thus 

 created were connected with the port of Napier either by sea or by 

 rough bullock-tracks following the lines of old river-beds deserted by 



Packing -wool pockets. 



the streams which had made them, too barren to be blocked by vegeta- 

 tion, and offering the further inducement of sound going even in the 

 wettest of seasons. At a later date another area of land north of Napier 

 was confiscated from the natives who had taken part in the "rebellion" 

 of the late 'sixties. Upon reconsideration, however, of their claims and 

 counter-claims, it was discovered that in every tribe certain septs 

 and families had remained "loyal." The natives, in fact, had con- 

 sciously or unconsciously hit upon a device practised by many Jacobite 

 houses in the eighteenth century, the head of the family supporting 



