CorzNso,—On a better Knowledge of the Maori Race. 85 
Thirty-five years ago, when journeying along the Hast Coast, between 
Cape Kidnappers and Castle Point, on reaching the top of the high hill or 
range situated between Waimarama and Te Apiti, named Marokotia, my 
attention was called to a remarkable rift or chasm at the head of the glen 
just below me, on the east or sea side of the old Maori track or pathway. 
This, I was told by the old chiefs of the coast who were with me, was in 
ancient times the dwelling of a monster Saurian, named Hinehuarau ; that 
it burst away from this place, tearing and rending all before it, and so 
went on south until it reached Wairarapa, where it was subsequently killed 
by a chief of note of ancient days, named Tara, whose name he gave to the 
lake near Te Aute, “ Te Roto-a-tara.”’ 
Some time after I was again in the Wasani Valley, and hearing so 
much of the ** bones," or, as some said, “the head," of this monster being 
yet to be seen in the place where it was slain, away among the hills, I 
purposely walked thither from a village called Hurunuiorangi to see them. 
It was rather a long and rough walk to the place among the hills on the 
other side of the Ruamahanga river. Arriving there, I found the said 
* bones" to be a heap or knob of yellowish, friable, glittering, quartz-like 
stone (calcite), which cropped out from the hill-side and lay in large lumps. 
I remember well how angry one old Maori became, who was of the party 
with me, on my asserting that the pile before us was not bone at all but 
stone. Very likely those natives had never seen any other stone like it (up 
to that time I had not). It bore, at first sight, a resemblance to the yellow 
decaying bones of a whale. I think the spot was called Tupurupuru, and 
that it is not very far from the head waters of the river Taueru. 
Such places, however—caves, rifts, chasms, and strange-looking stones 
—are by no means unfrequently met with in travelling in New Zealand, 
especially when journeying (as I was obliged to do) along the old foot-paths, 
which mostly led over ridges of hills; and there are plenty of such stories 
coneerning them, each spot having its own peculiar rudi or legend, which 
was once most certainly believed. 
I have also more than once seen another curious pati in this neighbour- 
hood (Hawke Bay), which deserves recording, the more so, perhaps, from 
the fact of its being no longer to be seen as I saw it. It was on the low 
undulating grassy banks of the river Waitio. There, at that time, was a 
huge earthwork representation of a ngarara, or ika, i.e, a lizard, or 
crocodile, which, several generations back, had been cut and dug and 
formed in the ground by a chief of that time named Rangitauira, wh», in 
doing so, had also dexterously availed himself of the natural formation of 
the low alluvial undulations in the earth. It had the rude appearance of a 
huge Saurian extended, with its four legs and claws and tail, but crooked, 
