WALKING ROUND THE WORLD.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1910, Page 10

WALKING ROUND THE WORLD.

* CAPTAIN SEATON'S ADDRESS. Captain Seaton, who is walking round the world, made his first public appearance in Calcutta at the Tivoli Theatre, on Saturday night, said the Englishman of 28th April. The Captain, who was subjected to a good deal of badinage and heckling by the audience, explained at the -outset that he was not walking round tho world for money but for the honour of the British Empire, though of course there was a wager of ±i/UOO. He was possessed of independent means and did not care about the money, but wished to uphold the prestige of the British race Nine men had previously attempted the same feat, of whom seven met with their death by foul play or disease, while two got married. On the 9th April, 1908, said Captain Seaton, he left New York, and since then had covered over 18,000 miles. In all he has to cover 45,000 miles in six years, which means roughly 7,500 miles a year or twenty-one miles a day. After leaving New York he had been to San Francisco, the Fiji Islands, New Zea- | land, Australia, Java, Sumatra, the Straits, Burma, Japan, China, and was now in India. The worst portion of his walk was when crossing Chin Hills, where for some days he had an exceedingly rough time at the hands of the Nagas, and had to live on raw pigeons, being afraid to light a fire as it would have attracted the attention of the Nagas who were on the look out for him. The lecturer stated that he- had been in the British Army, having been in the Sussex Regiment, which was then stationed at Bum Dum. He had also seen service in Egypt under Lord Wolseley. Owing to interruptions and bantering by tho audience, Captain Seaton, after in vain appealing for fair play, abruptly brought his lecture to a close. [Captain Seaton, it will be remembered, passed through Wellington on his round-the-world tour some months ago.]

OLD BOTORUA. LEGENDS OF THE LAKES. (Specially writter for The Post.) j By J. Cowan. (All Eights Reserved.) j No. 4. WHAKAKEWAREWA. SCENES AND STORIES OF THE i , GEYSER VALLEY. | "What is the meaning of tho name Whakavewarewa?" is a question that is often, asked by white visitors. It *s seldom safe to take the most obvious interpretation of a Maori place-name as its real meaning. Except in clearly descriptive names, it is certainly advisable to consult some trustworthy member of the local tribe before venturing on a- translation. In the case of Whakarewarewa, an old Tuhourangi chief, Mita Taupopoki, gives mo tho explanation of the name. There are two fern-clothed, steepsided, small hills, called Te Whakarewarewa and Te Puia, rising from the famous Geyser Valley. These were once fortified strongholds or pas, and have an authentic history dating back for about 400 years. The original and ful' name of the first-named hill, Te Whakarewarewa, ia "Te Whakareware- [ watanga -o- te-ope -a - Wahiao," which means "The Upspringing of Wahiao's War Party." About 200 years ago the chief Wahiao (old Mita's ancestor) assembled an army of warriors at the foot of this hill, in order to march on an expedition against a hostile tribe (the Ngati-Tama). As was customary, a war-dance was held before setting out on the inarch. The "ope," or army, paraded in several ranks, one behind the other, and each with its chief on the flank. At the word of command, each rank in succession sprang up from : its kneeling position, with spear at the ready, and leaped into the wild dance j of the '"peruperu," to the sound of a [ terrific war-song. This up-leaping, the "whakarewarewatanga," of the warriors, was the incident thai gave its name to the pa which Wahiao built about that time on the hill-top. This name, in course of time, was extended to the | whole valley. The steepness of the sides of the Whakarewarewa and Te Puia "pas" was a natural defence. Te Puia did not i need any "maioro" or ramparts, but on that side of Whakarewarewa which sloped more gradually than tho others a deep trench was dug, and both ' pas" had mwatawata," or stockades, of tree- | trunks as an additional protection against assault. Te Puia- ("The Geyser," so named because of its proximity to the several great geysers of the valley) was considered a very strong pi, though so small. Those of its people who happened to be captured and eaten on various occasions in the cannibal raids of old were taken while outside the pa. Whakarewarewa hill, now a burial-place of the Tuhourangi tribe, was, between two and three hundred years ago, occupied by the sub-tribe Ngati-Wahiao ; Te Puia, the other hill, was originally the pa of Ngati-Taoi, a ' hapu of the Ngati-Uenuku-Kopako section of the Arawas. Many battles and skirmishes were fought around these historic hills. Puarenga, the name of the brown, sulphurous river which flows down the Hemo Gorge and through the Geyser Valley of Te Whakarewarewa, contains a reference to the "frost" or "flowers" of sulphur, the little particles of white and yellow sulphur otten seen floating on the surface of the water. These par- | tides of sulphur are likened in appearance to the renga or pollen of the swamp | plant raupo. ' The waters of Rotorua, near the Post- | master Bath and along towards the mounth of the Puaranga, are in many j places strongly mineralised, not only by the many hot springs which here flow into tho lake, but also by the bitter acid sulphurous waters of the Puaranga. As an old song puts it, these pumiceous shores are: — "Te kirikiri w'ai-Puarenga, Whakakavva kai o te moana." ("The gravelly strand of the Sulphur Waters, Tho water that makes bitter the food of the lake.") The Whakarewarewa Valley is one great gorgeously-hued paint-pot, fresh from the hands of Nature's alchemist. The coloured earths in which this part of Geyserland abounded were much sought after by the olden Maoris, for the purpose of painting their carved houses, thejr palisade posts, and their canoes, and also then? faces and bodies. Most valuable of all was the kokowai, or red ochre, which was procured in holes dug on the side of Pukeroa Hill, above Oninemutu village, and in this Whakarewarowa Valley. This ochre, when mixed with oil — preferably shark oil, from the Bay of Plenty — made an excellent permanent paint for houses and carved figures. Pukepoto and aiunoana, blue fclays, were chiefly obtained at the mouth of thb Utuhina Creek. Yellow earth was called kohai or kowhai, from the golden-hued flowers of the tree of that name. The tint which we pakehas called maroon was by the Rotorua Maoris called ponini. FROM THE LONG ROCK. Just at the back ot the Whakarewarbwa Valley rises the steep fern-covered hill Pohatu-roa ("Long Rock"). A winding track leads to the summit of this height. At the survey trigonometrical station on the hill-top the Tourist Department has placed a circular direction table, showing the compass bearings and I distances of the principal points of interest in the landscape, and many more distant places. Similar useful direction boards have been set up on Pukeroa Hill and Mount Ngongotaha. Tho picture unfolded from the Long Rock trig, is one of uncommon beauty. Lakes and lakelets, ponds of all colours, steaming pools, spouting geysers, and snow-like j white "papa-kowhatu" or shaver beds aro spread out below ; and all around the broken mountains build a sky-line of misty blue. Due north is Rotorua Lake, with its pyramidal island Mokoia : from, the tree-shaded town the long avenue of Fenton-street runs towards us like a ruled line. Fenton-street is a straight road two miles in length. It was laid out thus on the suggestion of Captain Gilbert Mair, when the Government town of Rotorua was being surveyed in the early eighties, in a direct line from the lake for Waikite Geyser, Whakarewarewa. Many lakelets splash the green scrub with blue and white ; these water sheets, some hot, some cold, lie scattered all about the Whakarewarewa Valley. Turning in the other direction, and looking southwards, there is the wild, free country of Volcano-land.' a lawless array of Kills and cones and forested ranges, stretching from Moerangi's runded head on the left away to the Tihi-o-Tonga forested cliffs, and on to Ngongotaha. One of the most picturesque objects in this landscape is tall Haparangi, a perfect type of a volcanic cone, with its steeply sloping ridged and hollowed sides and its crateral Summit. Nearqr, at the eouthern foot of Pohatu-roa,

stretches a grassy valley. Little hills, fern and grass covered, rise in strange swellings from the valley, and a little river, the Waipa, winds down it in lazy twistings from the slopes of blue Moerangi. Away up yonder under the rocky cliffs of Moerangi are the great springs of coolest, clearest water that supply Rotorua town, the Whai-kapokapo and other never-failing fountains welling up from tho mountain heart. Some distance up the Waipa Valley are some square dot I*,1 *, staring white against the green. These are the huts of tho prisoners, the herehere, as the Maoris call them — the "tied-up" — who are engaged in the useful work of aftoresting these treeless valleys and hills. Beyond, about three miles away, Is the narrow pass Pareuru, between the lower slopes of Moerangi and the steep rise of Tutuhinau mountain. Through this pass ran the old Maori track to RotokafeaKi, much used in the days before the Tarawera eruption, when the shores of Lakes Tarawera and Rotokakahi were peopled by the Tuhourangi tribe. Here, at Pareuru, is the celebrated rock of Hatupatu, bearing strange markings like great scratches i ("mea raraku") in Maori legend the work of the forest giantess Kurangaituku, the ogre-woman with claws like a ! bird's, and feathers like a bird, from whom the hero Hatupatu escaped by uttering the magical Matiti, Matata," whereupon the rock opened and took him in. Just at the southern foot of the Poiia-tu-roa hill, alongside the track winding up the Waipa Valley, is a solitary largo puia, a cauldron of boiling white mud. It seems strangely placed here, this big mud basin, in the grassy valley, far away . from any other thermal vents. It is callec l Whanga-pipiro, and it is the very puia, say the Maoris, into which the terrible Kurangaituku ("Kura-of-the-claws") fell while chasing Hatupatu after after he had left the shelter of his friendly rock ; into this hole she popped, and was boiled to death. The steaming mud-pool has something of a tapu character amongst the Maoris ; it was an "uruuru-whenua." a place where offerings were made By passers-by to placate the spirit of puia. Maori travellers would pause when they came to this great bubbling white mud-hole, and would throw a branch of fern or other shrub into it, repeating the short karakie, "Mau c kai te manawa o tauhou" — an incantation addressed to the genus loci, and meaning, "0 spirit of this place, feed thou on the heart of the stranger." If this observance were omitted, in Maori belief, a storm of rain would shortly descend and punish the wayfarer for his thoughtlessness. A STORY OF THE WAIROA GEYSER. The celebrated Wairoa Geyser, at Whakarewarewa, has a story that has not been previously told. It is curiously associated with a momentous chapter of Rotorua history, the fierce war of 1835-1840 between the Arawa tribe and Te Waharoa's Ngati-Haua and other Waikato warrior tribes. A Maori proverb has it that women and land were the causes of all wars ; in that case it was a woman who, indirectly, gave rise to the series of cannibal campaigns in which musket and tomahawk and fire and pillage swept the Lakeland and the coast of the Bay of Plenty. Nga-tomokanga was one of the three wives of Haerehuka, an important chief of the Ngati-Whakaue tribe, of Ohinemutu. She became very jealous of Haerehuka's other wives, who received a greater share of the warrior-lord's attention than she did, and she brooded over this until in her "pouritanga," her melancholy and despair, she attempted suicide in an appalling form. She was staying at Whakarewarewa, and one day while sitting beside Te Wairoa — the pool of which was very much larger than it is at present — she suddenly rose and threw herself into the cauldron. Her friends managed to pull her out, but she waa terribly scalded. She was carried on a litter to Ohinemutu, to her husband's house, and as she was dying she was placed, as waa customary with the Maoris, in a little wharau or temporary hut for those who were not long for this world. In two or three days she expired. But while she was lying there dying, a man and girl of the village made use of the little hut for their surreptitious love-making, regardless of the sick woman. , This became known, and Haerehuka was in a fury of anger when he heard of the desecration of his wife's tapu "dying-house." It was an unforgivable insult, and he looked around for utu, or revenge. For some mysterious reason he did not seek to square accounts with ' the man, Tama-Whakangaro, who nad i trespassed in his wife's sick-room. Instead, quite after tho unaccountable fashion of the Maori, he sought out and I killed a man who had nothing at all to j do with it. He had to kill some one, ' and he deliberately selected a man named Hunga, a chief of the Arawa, j who lived on the opposite side of the ' lake, and who was closely connected with ' the heads of the Ngati-Hdua tribe, of | the Waikato and the Upper Waihou , Valley. His object apparently was to i draw down the vengeance of Ngati- ' Haua, who were famous warriors and l well armed with muskets, on the Ngati- ; Whakaue tribe, to whom the man and ' joung woman who had offended him ! belonged. It was a curiously round- ' about but truly Maori way of obtaining j "utu." Of course, HaerehuKa himself would have to join his tribe and fight against Ngati-Haua when they came for their "utu," but that, again, had nothing to do with the case. So Haerehuka, going across the lake to one of his settlements, Te Waerenga, on the north side of the lake, announced his intentions to his family and followers. He quickly carried out his re&oJye. He launched his war-canoe, and with a , band of his men, paddled along the lakeshore to Puhirua, where he surprised poor Hunga at his house. The murderous chief advanced as if to greet his victim with the nose-pressing greeting of the "hongi," but just as he reached him he snatched his sharp steel tomahawk from his waist-belt and dealt Hunga a blow on the temple that killed him instantly. Haerehuka and his party immediately returned and announced what had been done, and the tribe, realising the inevitable serious consequences, set about their preparations for war. The great Pukeroa Pa, or the hill overlooking the lake, was put in order and the stockade strengthened, and stores of provisions were gathered in. The savage war that followed, and Te Waharoa's attack on Pukeroa and Ohinemutu, are matters of well-known Rotorua history. The slaying of Hunga occurred at the end of the year 1835. It is said that Haerehuka also had a quarrel with his tribe in connection with the flax-trade and the location of the white traders; but that it was the incident just related which precipitated the tragedy.