Stories of New Zealand.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 150, 26 June 1937, Page 7 (Supplement)

Stories of New Zealand.

(Continued from page 346.) From the Rangetop. There are two ranges before us. The first is Papa-totara; it gives us a steady climb for over 1000 ft, with many a dip and rise again before the saddle is reached. On the summit the old guide raises his tattooed hand, and, pointing through a gap in the forest toward the higher ranges, utters a name of power: "Maunga-pohatu!" Yonder it rises, the sacred Rocky Mountain./ It goes up sheer from the jumble of blue about it, to a height of over 4000 ft. It is a huge mass of limestone, with bluffs of grey gleaming through the forest break. Great grey rocky columns stand out on its flank. The cre6t and citadel, however, are hidden by the clinging mists. The holy mountain, as Paitini says, has, a way of concealing herself from strangers in a mantle of fog. The Sign of the Lightning. Nearer our halting place, for a rest, we see the head of a sharp peak called Te Peke (Pekkay). It is separated from us by a profound gulch of gloomy blue. The trees go feathering down until they are drowned in the drifting fog. The peak is a "lightning mountain" jf fateful omen. Lightning striking down on its head is regarded by the people who own the country as a portent of death to some leading member of the tribe. The Old Scout. We must get on; the lake is still a long way off; we must cross giant Huia-rau, that lifts its indigo-blue mass 3800 ft into the glowing sky. The kilted warrior, leading the way, stepping upward .and onward as lightly as a deer,. wa« in his campaigning ground here on his beloved mountain.

The Forest Sanctuary. Now high on Huia-rau, we were in the fairy garden of the mountains, a wild park of ferns, glorious feathery masses of them, acres and acres of them. There are trees whose trunks are completely covered with the delicate fronds of a climbing species of ferns. Here is the kingdom of the forest queen, the lovely Todea siiperba, densely covering the forest floor, and forming little forests of her own. The fronds are grouped in graceful circles; they completely hide from view the mossy ground. They soon conceal any foot trail. The barefooted Maoris have trodden these secret places for centuries, on their missions of war or peace; but a season's growth makes it difficult for all but a bushman native to the soil to discover the hidden track. Sometimes it is necessary to slash a way through these luxuriant ferns growing in the always damp and always twilight recesses of the forest. There are long streamers of grey moss, swaying from the great rugged brandies of the mountain beech; they give a wizardly appearance to the ancient forest. One beautiful fern which grows in festoons, its green lacelike strings of fronds drooping from the lower branches of the trees, is called by the Maoris a poetic name which means "the tresses of Kau-katauri."* The woman after whom the ferny hair is called is said to have been one of the inventors of the poi dance in the ancient home of the Maori.

Alas! tlie deer are there now, ami deer and forest-floor vegetation cannot live together. I fear for those enchanted fern gardens of the Huia-rau. Into the Creeks. Over the lofty brow of Huia-rau, the trail goes steeply downward; it follows an up and down ridge, with deep ravines on each side. Faitini points out a dark, deep gorge on the right-hand side of the track and says

there is kiripaka (quartz) there. A prospector once explored that gulch and brought out some bits of goldbearing stone. Down we go into a noisy creek, fording it again and again. Presently, hurrying to reach tlie lake before dark, we came to a place where the trail ended in the cliffy valley of a larger stream (the Hopu-ruahine). Paitini gave his calico kilt a higher hitch and stepped into the water. It was deeper and tolder than the first river. We crossed and recrossed it scores of tin cs. Wet to the waist, tired and hifngry, we ridded ourselves of our swags on the lake shore at last, in the bush-walled bay of Te Apiti ('The Pass"). Waikare's dark waters spread to the far base of Panekiri Bluff. The last of the sunset flooded the scarred and tattooed brow of that mighty cliff. Mountains upon mountains, and a great and grave •

silence as the night came down. The billy was boiling soon, and a generous fire sent a glow of life and light across the nearer waters. We toasted ourselves in our blankets before the. bivouac fire while our clothes steamed dry again. Over us spread the leafyroof of a venerable tawhero tree. Paitini's tongue was loosened; he pointed to this hill and that promontory and told how canoe crews and the crack of rifles made history about the lake; he was in the thick of it. All that has vanished like a dream; and Paitini and all his comrades of the brave old days have returned to their Mother Earth and are one with the mountains and their brothers the trees. For that camp talk of ours was forty years ago; and the pakcha car highway and the tourist motor bus have cut a destroying swathe through the ,t?;m of the Huia-rau.