IV 
PIPIRIIvI 
203 
ments of men who fought for hearth and home. 
Montoa Island, twelve miles down the river, was the 
spot where the famous battle of 1864 was fought 
between the friendly natives and the fanatical Hauhaus, 
the former fighting so gallantly to save the town. 
The precipitous cliffs, hundreds of feet in height, are 
clothed in every variety of vegetation, and little native 
villages are perched here and there on every spur where 
a footing can be found. In the last seven miles the 
scenery became wilder and grander, and the cliff tops 
showed out high above us through the thick mists and 
driving clouds, adding more grandeur and mystery. 
The river below was brawling along with a headlong 
flight swelled by last night’s heavy rains, and though we 
had started in bright sunshine, the rain now came down 
in torrents. Truly the freaks of the climate here are 
of wonderful interest. At Pipiriki, our landing-place, 
seventy miles from the town, a crowd of lazy, dirty 
natives were on the bank to greet us, and the cliff was 
so steep and slippery that for every two steps we 
slipped one back. I stuck several times in the deep 
mud, and a very tipsy man who had made himself most 
objectionable on board, and had already fallen twice, 
offered to take me on his back. I asked a native to 
carry my bag a hundred yards ; he wanted five shillings 
for doing it. One of the men on board kindly took it 
from me. Then I stuck again and had to be pulled 
out, and I wished I had not come. I was angry with 
everything, and came to the edge of my temper at the 
accommodation house, where they said they had not 
room for any of us, as thirty or forty men were already 
there, driven in from their road-making by the rain ; 
but they were very good after all, and, though I did 
have another wade across to my bedroom, it was clean 
and comfortable when I got there, and had brushes and 
