294 



TUTIRA 



tops. On the limestone edge overlooking the Waikoau valley flourished 

 the furthermost inland centre of mischief, a colony of six or seven 

 immense bushes. Another blackberry grew within half a mile of the 

 crossing, another immediately on the Tutira side of the ford. There 

 were none on the site of the disused Maori cultivation-grounds on the 

 Racecourse Flat, pretty good evidence that the plant was a genuine 

 pedestrian sticking to the road, that it had not been deliberately 

 brought up as a fruit, and finally, that it could not have been in the 

 province at an early date. There was a plant on the old native trail 

 half-way to the Maheawha crossing, another at the ford itself. The 

 westermost bush on Tutira proper was established just above the gorge 

 separating Tutira and Putorino. 



During the early 'eighties, in fact, except about the plague-spots 



Blackberry roots tapping sheep-paths. 



Petane and Tangoio, blackberries could almost be reckoned on a man's 

 fingers. 



There were, however, even at that date, dotted along the road, 

 bridle- track, and pack- trail, a sufficiency of bushes to fix it definitely 

 as a line of human traffic. The pioneers of the east coast had 

 in fact marked their pilgrim path in blackberries, for it is man 

 himself who first carried up - country the fatal seed. Each offering 

 deposited at each improvised temple of Cloacina on the road has erected 

 itself a living monument to the goddess ; whilst intermediate bushes 

 could still be individualised, they were to be found more thickly in 

 proximity to the parent plantations, more sparsely at longer, or as I 

 may say, more costive distances. Owing to its ensnarement of sheep, 

 the blackberry is the most dangerous, perhaps the one truly dangerous, 



