"I AM A COLONIAL"

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4818, 2 August 1939, Page 6

"I AM A COLONIAL"

ACROSS NEW ZEALAND RUBICON.

JOURNEY IN 1889

WHEN KING COUNTRY WAS STILL MAORILAND.

There in a party set out to climb the snowy slopes of Ruapehu ,on a week-end in June. The second day —following the successful summit climb—dawned radiant and clear. As the crisp frosty air warmed in the winter sunlight a panorama opened out far below the hut, soul-stirring in its variegated colours, writes "Minnehaha" in the Te Awamutu Courier. As the three sat talking there, perched like eagles on a mountain eyre, various subects flitted before them.

But transcending all in importance there was this unwritten story in the changing landscape below. Not so long before, in a brief second of history as that chronicle is recorded, the tilled fields, the cultivations and the extensive runs had been hewn by man labour from an area practically all virgin bush. Wonderful as the changes appeared the intrusion from one angle was impudence itself. For nowhere else in New Zealand could be found a domain so rich in the lore of the ancient ov/ners of the land. Even were this not enough the moods of Nature had wrought on the mountain plateau all the beauties which her versatile hands could fashion.

So they fell to discussing the future; three climbers made lazy by the purity of alpine air. "How long would it be before the imaginations of those who had bent their backs to toil soared upwards to recover something of the grandeur of the lost romance?" asked one. Five years, fifty, five hundred? There was a glory in these mountains equalled by nothing else in a country of variety, and settlement had encroached so far as to hem the fortresses of snow and ice to their last eternal defence, the cupidity of the wintry elements. Man's victory all but won. But the professor held a winning hand. "Of course," he said, "one cannot sit upon these emotional mountains all one's life!"

He was right. The story in a country is not appreciated until an atmosphere of sophistication gathers round. Regarding the rugged outline of the central King Country from the altitude of Ruapehu one can reflect on the vast changes that will still take place. It is not for us, however, to sit back and live in fancy while the unbridged streams and the unformed roads mock to the lazy thinker. There is work still to do and the cosy fireside, the mantleshelf of books on King Country story, the orchard of ripe fruit, and the driveway flanked with graceful English trees will be a privilege far, "far, much farther on.

Further north, the path of evolution can be traced with the aid of a literary record for nearly a century. Cultivation around Te Awamutu over a period 'of many decades has wrested a verdant down country from an area once clothed in the ugly sameness of fern and manuka. A lively interest is already awakened to. events of the past, an interest that with passing years will be fanned into an enthusiasm, become crystallised in tradition, and establish that loyalty to the soil that has meant so much to the character of Anglo-Saxon people.

Articles of the Early Days.

Some years ago the opportunity was taken of quoting from a Canterbury journal of 1889 some pen pictures of the Waikato and Waipa districts of the day. These well written articles have become so interesting with the passage of time that it is not too much to expect that they will some day be reprinted in whole or part, to satisfy the appreciation of the many who live about the places mentioned.

The author, a correspondent of the Weekly Press, makes the following prescient introduction:

"Long before I have, forgotten my voyage up the Waipa, New Zealand papers will contain such advertisements as:—

"Land for sale in King Country; splendid estate in the limestone region of Kouto (Kuiti) ; fertile flats at Otorohanga, good soil, lovely climate, railway communication!"

At the time the railway from Auckland was in daily use as far as Te Awamutu, but the Waipa River was stilla navigable river and the writer of the eighties enjoyed his leisurely exploration by sailing his craft up his somnolent waters.

He called the Puniu the Rubicon of New Zealand, "it seems like a winding path from the south. Beyond the Puniu, as far as the eye can reach, stretches the King Country, a land of swamps and rounded hills as far as the limestone region which rises in the wooded ranges to a purple horizon." The value of this chronicle lies in the fact that it reveals the sympathy and understanding of an unprejudiced mind, and was written at a time when the first Land Court was partitioning the land among the native claimants. The writer could not claim with William Baucke, "I am a colonial and sweet to me are the scents of the land of my. birth," b\i*; he was equally at home with Baucke in his oneness with the countryside so vastly different from any he had known hitherto.

"It is pleasant to do anything in a beautiful country in summer weather," observes the Press correspondent. Conscious of the fact that he was going to push over the Rubicon and taste the mystery of a land that a few years before had promised certain death for the curiosity of the white man, he" was interested to see how the railway had split the Maori kingdom—"a wedge that has divided the Maori nation." He wanted also to see the work of the first Native Land Court at Otorohanga.

Impressions of the King Country

"Yes, I see the King Country in its last days of Maoriland," he writes on 25th Januay, 1889. "I have drawn attention to the King Country," he notes in another place, "because I propose to visit it and see it while it can yet be called Maoriland." "I reached Te Awamutu,' the narrative goes on, "a station on the North Island Grand Trunk Railway." On the station a Maori of commanding physique was having an altercation with the officer in charge. It appeared he had no change less than a £1 note to proffer for a 3s 9d ticket. The train came in swarming with Maoris. (This article was written during February, 1889, the Land Court being due to open on the day following the incidents related here.) "One would think that all the Maoris in the country were migrating thither to settle for life. Bags of potatoes, pigs, babies, rolls of blankets, cooking utensils, dogs, men, women and children were piled on the train." Each succeeding station contributed a fresh quota of the mixed cargo. "But the journey was really delightful for the good-natured fun and humour that prevailed and for the laughter." History has rather proved that the next observation was correct. "There is really nothing but swamps, lowlying hills and Maoris from Puniu to Otorohanga, but between Otorohanga and Te Kuiti is a limestone country, fertile enough, I should say, to suit anybody, but not cultivated, and not likely to be." A description of Te Kuiti, "in the very heart of the King Country," then the terminus of the railway, is perhaps more alluring than the view which greets the traveller's eye at the end of a dry summer day. "It may become a big market town. Low wooded hills rise in every direction without regularity or conformation making a lovely picture on a summer afternoon.

Wonderful Waitete Viaduct

There is time to dwell on some observations made as to the effect of the railway on the Maori mind. On the journey south the train had disgorged its entire complement at Otorohanga with the exception of three passengers, including the journalist, who went on to Te Kuiti. From the conversations he had the pressman discovered that the Maoris were under no illusions as to some of the deals that were made to secure the passage of the iron trail. He thought that natural resentment would have risen more quickly had not the wonders of the engineering completely absorbed Maori interest. When he professed an interest in the celebrated meeting house at Te Kuiti he was astonished at the attitude of the Maoris, who were equally asonished at his. "What," they incredulously, "you come all this way and not go to see the Waitete Viaduct?" A writer who had seen some of the marvels of the European work quickly sensed the change that was taking place, a change which surely no Government agent contemplated in the original conferences with the chiefs. Suspicion and dissatisfaction had been effectively lulled by the spectacle of the engineer's skill hammering out his iron road across these wild hills and valleys, and transporting loads that the old tracks worn deep with the march of naked feet could never bear.

Unfortunately there is not time to dwell long enough on a paper which ia probably the most interesting of the series.

To reach Otorohanga on returning from Te Kuiti a horse was hired and some splendid descriptive passages cover a journey made over low hills, creeks and streams, to find the well worn track to Hangatiki. It was a blazing hot day and the shimmering heat which Elsdan Best says was known to the Maori as ttie Summer Maid, danced across the view. The horseman on reaching a clear cool stream rested while his horse "propped itself up against a giant fern and went to sleep." Passing through a large forest the traveller reflects with pain that some day the dark precincts will resound with the ringing axe. "The beauty of summer rested on all things and the glorious balm so perfect here gave peace to the landscape." The water in the creek was clear as crystal and cool as a glacial stream, but when a thirsty palate sought a refreshing draught the water was found to have a "fleshy taste" and the traveller did not drink.

Through the narrative there runs a vein not actually mentioned but known to those who have journeyed alone into some of these remoter places of the land; a suggestion of mystery, even a feeling of fear, maybe a fear of silence or of one's own company, but more likely than not to be attributed to the same human sense that prompted the Maori in his lute-like spirits response to such premonitions, to invest trees with spirits and rocks and hills with human personalities.

The writer describes a visit to a deserted dwelling place where the signs of habitation and the complete quiet combined to unnerve his curiosity so-that he retreated before losing command of his own thoughts. Even the horse was aware of some strangeness in the surroundings and breaking loose from a post to which it had been tied, instead of running away came forward to meet its master. These things, of course, have (as always) an easy explanation. The horse found itself in a cul-de-sac and returned on the only path through the high fern to meet its owner, and the deserted state of the pah is accounted for by the migration of the Maoris to the Land Court.

Otorohanga Like a Mining Encampment.

For all these misgivings the ride proved a pleasant one. On the outskirts of Otorohanga horse and man descended a bank to ford another river and found about fifty people bathing in a large pool. Winding out on the other side a few minutes ride found them at Otorohanga. The settlement looked like a mining encampment. There were tents of all sizes and shapes, more varied indeed than a diggers' town, whare of reed and manuka were conspicuous, and tin and bark huts had been hastily erected. "Pigs and dogs lie about in all directions, women are squatting on the earth scraping potatoes, and doing all sorts of odd things." A large temperance hotel had just been erected, presumably, as the author notes, on the strength of the Land Court meetings becoming more or less regular fixtures. Talking, smoking and drinking temperance drinks made the Tiotel a lively place" of meeting. The Land Court had the task of dividing something like 2,000,000 acres amongst 2000 claimants without a single title deed.

Otorohanga boasted another importance. It was a place where there was an eel weir—a diagonal fence of stakes running across the river which trapped the eels in large baskets. Eels were the only fish in the rivers. The settlement appeared-picturesque but with the traveller having other places to see, hardly inviting to stay. "It is," he concludes, "a fertile spot, where there are clear brawling streams, rich alluvial flats and undulating fern country-

Vast then, as are the changes that have occurred in this country that can be traversed now on an afternoon's motor journey, what will be the transformations to occur in the Central King Country aided with scientific soil survey and mechanical farming aids? It is an engrossing question, but as the professor said, "We dare not sit astride emotional mountain tops." The next fifty years may not show the progress that has been won in the fifty years past for the reason that the heart of endeavour has been eaten out of the country. Why this is exactly no one can certainly judge, but that it is not a good omen (or was) of easy proof. A good approach to endless (!) discussion on the subject for those who think that the question is of more than frivolous interest, can be gained from the preface to Guthrie-Smith's story of a New Zealand station, "Tutira,' and by reading the last two

chapters of Baucke's "Where the White Man Treads." "I am a colonial!" cried Baucke, proudly. "Whence, then, this new infusion?" asks the shade of his spirit. "This modern softness, this new illegitimacy?"