Annwersary Address. i 
coffin. The sacred remains were intended to be then conveyed to the summit 
of Tongariro ; for the deep crater of the voleano was designed to be the final 
grave of the hero, with the heaven-ascending pyramid of scorie and ashes for 
his monument. But this grand idea was only half carried out. As the 
bearers were approaching the top of the ever-steaming cone, a subterraneous 
roaring noise became audible, and, awe-struck, they deposited their burden 
upon a projecting rock. There the remains still lie. The mountain, however, 
is most strictly tapu, and nobody is allowed to ascend it.” 
On the morning of the 10th of April we started on horseback, escorted by 
the principal chiefs, for Rotoaira, a small and pretty lake at the foot of 
Tongariro, and about ten miles north of Tokano. At first we rode over the 
rich alluvial delta formed by the Upper Waikato where it flows into Taupo, 
and which is in part cultivated by the natives. Then, turning to the right, 
we skirted the wooded base of Pihanga, the hill renowned in Maori legend as 
the spouse of Tongariro. The native tradition runs that of yore three 
mighty giants, Tongariro, Taranaki, and Ruapehu—like Pelion, Ossa, and 
Olympus—stood side by side, until Taranaki attempted to carry off Pihanga, 
his brother's wife. Then arose a combat like that in the classical mythology 
between the Gods and the Titans; in which the false Taranaki was at length 
worsted and forced to fly, drawing after him the deep furrow of the river 
Wanganui. His flight was stayed only by the western ocean, where he now 
stands on the shore in solitary and mournful grandeur, his hoary head 
covered with perpetual snow,—the magnificent cone of Mount Egmont.* 
The scenery of this region is very fascinating. The bleak shores of the 
Lake of Taupo are, for the most part, little fitted for European settlement ; 
but from under Tongariro and Ruapehu, stretch away East, West, and South, 
well-grassed and well-watered valleys, separating mountain ranges that wave 
with primeval forests. As yet, there is scarcely any sign of human habitation, 
past or present, in this glorious country ; but the native owners are already 
in treaty to lease large portions of it to English settlers. As we stood. together 
on the lower slopes of Tongariro, one of the Maori lords of the soil, after 
casting a proud glance over his wide domains, turned to me and said that he 
had lived through many changes, that he remembered the first settlement of oe 
the white strangers in New Zealand, and that he now cherished the hope 
that the rents of the broad lands of his ancestors would enable him to spend 
his old age in peace, and to educate his children in the language and arts of 
the English. He longed before he died to see the fair valleys and plains, 
now lying silent and untenanted before us, overspread by herds of cattle and 
flocks of sheep ; with English homesteads and townships rising up along the 
rivers and in the glades of the forests; and with steamboats, bearing the 
* So Captain Cook named the Taranaki of the Maoris. 
