118 



TUTIRA 



anticipated march down the coast cleared every homestead of its inhabit- 

 ants. The 4000 sheep or what remained of them were mustered in 

 hot haste and rushed off the place. Craig, with other outlying settlers, 

 took refuge in Napier, and with his flight the first attempt to work 

 Tutira as a sheep station terminated. 



The Waikari run now called Putorino was no more fortunate 

 in its initial stage. It also was abandoned during Te Kuiti's raid by 

 its first owners. Maungaharuru, taken up by Philip Dolbel, was 

 actually burnt out by Te Kuiti's band of ruffians, Dolbel and his men 

 escaping by a fortunate delay in the delivery of certain newly-pur- 

 chased stock. These sheep, which should have been ready to start 

 from Napier on a Monday, were not forthcoming until the Tuesday ; 

 Dolbel and his drovers arrived at Maungaharuru in time to find the 



Homestead of the * seventies. 



yet smouldering remains of their little homestead the twenty-four 

 hours' delay had saved them. 



Eeverting to Tutira proper, we can well believe that Craig's hasty 

 muster was not a "clean" job. Sheep, in fact, were left on the station 

 in considerable numbers, for until the run was again in European hands 

 the local natives were accustomed to dog them into high fern and there 

 shear them. Sheep, however wild, are, in six-foot bracken, helpless. 

 They sink belly-deep into the tangled springy growth, whilst the stand- 

 ing fronds surround them like a wall. After shearing, the wool thus 

 commandeered was rammed into bags and carried off by the Maoris. 

 This first Tutira shearing must have been picturesque at any rate, the 

 trampled trodden wedge driven into the solid fern, the blue open sky, 

 the wild brown Maoris, the mongrel teams of dogs, the gleaming shears, 

 the jollity and laughter over the pakehas discomfiture. Newton's 



