PEDESTRIANS 291 



starting forth to stock Tutira. Another weed depository would comprise 

 the lands about the township of Petane, and especially about the native 

 village of the same name, twenty-two miles distant. Unlike the ancient 

 cultivation-grounds of the Maori, which have been described by Colenso 

 as models of neatness and careful culture, a modern native village is 

 forlorn, unkempt, and untidy in the last degree. Every such settle- 

 ment contains a superabundance of land, only half of it half-tilled ; 

 vacant corners, unsown headrigs, widths of mud road, offer ideal 

 germinating ground for virile ambitious weeds. 



Still approaching Tutira we reach the Coastal Hill, of which the 

 larger seaward portion is called Te Uku, the smaller Puke-Mokimoki. 

 It is a low bluff or promontory fenced off from the neighbouring 

 run, and therefore a secure camping - ground for travelling stock. 

 When first known to me it still maintained what was probably its 

 original vegetation coast grass (Microlcena stipoides) and sparse 

 spray-swept bracken. As, however, pastoral interests developed and 

 stock traffic increased, these aborigines were speedily ousted, the 

 Coastal Hill became the resting-place, sometimes for a few hours, 

 sometimes for the night, of considerable mobs of travelling stock. 

 In later days, consequent on the progress of the east coast, hundreds 

 of thousands of sheep yearly camped on, trod and manured, the little 

 promontory. 



Besides stragglers of many kinds resting on their way, I have seen 

 this camp at different periods under a dense crop of prickly thistle 

 (Carduus lanceolatus) , of ox- tongue (Picris echiodes), of buckshorn 

 plantain (Plantago coronopus), of Bathurst burr (Zanthium spinosum) ; 

 for several years it then grew a sward of pure ryegrass (Lolium 

 perenne) ; at present it carries a hirsute mat of Chili grass (Sporololus 

 indicus) ; doubtless when there has gathered on it a superabundance of 

 manure, or when a severe drought may have exposed the dusty trampled 

 ground to extra light, some new weed will take temporary possession. 



Passing the County Boundary hill, Pane-Paoa, a fourth weed-centre 

 exists at Tangoio, another unkempt briar and bramble-tangled native 

 settlement. At eight miles distance from that station, where drovers 

 customarily halt their mobs at midday, there is still another weed- 

 centre of lesser account ; and lastly, a sixth, where travelling stock, 

 temporarily blocked by a gate, used to tread the ground into dust, 

 or poach it into mud. 



