xliv 



INTBODUCTION. 



Alas ! if your comeliness were but that of a woman, I would fain bear it away with me ! Farewell, 

 thou vision of beauty, a long farewell ! " 



The Hon. W. Pember Eeeves (the present Agent-General for New Zealand) was a guest at 

 Papaitonga shortly before coming to this country to take up his post, and one of the picturesque 

 wooded bays was named in his honour. Cruising about this bay in a Eob-roy canoe, his poetic 

 muse was inspired by his unique surroundings, and he composed the beautiful lyric, ' In Pember 

 Bay,' which was afterwards published in his ' New Zealand and other poems,' and from which I 

 quote the following five stanzas : — 



Midway between the mountains and the deep, 



Secure from upland cold, from salt winds keen, 

 Bathed in sweet air and sunshine, thou dost keep 

 A golden mean. 



Dark clouds may brood on yonder peaks and spurs, 



Chill winds may chase the sea-foam flake on flake ; 

 But here is peace, nought ruffles, nothing stirs 

 The tranquil lake. 



Nought shakes the ferns whose interlacing fronds 

 Like sea-birds' w T ings, uplift their giant pinions ; 

 Nought stirs the brakes, whose creepers' myriad bonds 

 Guard green dominions. 



Look, while the sunset clings to yonder range, 



Look, while the lake gleams silver in its ray, 

 And pray that though all beauty else may change, 

 This scene may stay. 



Here the wild birds, from ancient coverts pressed, 



May seek asylum by this silent mere ; 

 And though no other glade or wave give rest, 

 May find it here. 



In the narrow parts of the lake, between the island and the shore, and in some of the 

 deep bays, there were in former times renowned Duck drives, thousands of these birds being taken 

 in a single season by the simple device of stretching right across the passage, and just above the 

 surface of the water, a thin flax rope, supported by fixed stakes, with running loops or nooses 

 suspended from it in close succession. A native boy in a canoe would gently drive the 

 unsuspecting flock of Ducks before him in the gloom of the evening, when the snares had become 

 invisible, and their fate was sealed. As a rule the species thus trapped was the Brown Duck 

 (Elasmonetta chlorotis) . 



On the Papaitonga Island, which constitutes the Kiwi-preserve, there is the usual wild 

 growth, in its rankest luxuriance. At one season of the year the lower vegetation is freely 

 spangled with the white flowers of the native Convolvulus, 'pohuehue,' whilst from the higher 

 bushes hangs, in graceful festoons, the beautiful star-like Clematis, or ' pikiarero.' At another 

 season the place is radiant with the crimson blossoms of the ' tawhiwhi,' or climbing Metrosicleros, 

 and the air is laden with the fragrant flowers of the 'ti-whanake.' It is, in short, an ideal spot for 

 the lover of nature. 



It may be mentioned that on the island there is a famous obelisk, carved out of a great river 

 canoe about seventy years ago, and called ' Ngarangiorehua.' It was originally erected at Pipiriki, 

 in the Upper Wanganui, to mark the burial-place of a noted chief ; then it stood for ten years or 



