A CRUISE TO KAPITI.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17527, 10 July 1917, Page 8

A CRUISE TO KAPITI.

- the boat with the stone ANCHOR. (By JAMES COWAN.) Although Kapiti Island, one-of New Zealand’s native-b’rd sanctuaries, and a spot of unusual historic interest, lies closo to the west coast of the Wellington province, it is not so easily accessible a place as it looks from the railway carriage window on the run north from Paekakariki. Oh a summer day of smooth water, when old Kapiti, with its crocodile-like shapesnout to the north, spiney tail to the south—rises from the sea swimming in a soft blue haze that makes of it an isle of faery, one might row across to it from any point on the coast. But more often a rough sea is running in the five-mile strait that separates it from the Paekakariki-Waikanae mainland, and then it is not always a simple matter either to leave such bar-har-bours as the Waikanao River mouth) the nearest port, if port it may bo called, or to land safclv on the. island. The only bay of easy landing is Waiorua, the old whalers’ anchorage at the

north-east end of the island, and thero is only safe harbourage there in C cr * tain winds. Although in a w 7 esterly it is decent anchorage, the problem 13 to make the bay from Waikanae, and it was only after three attempts to put from the river that wo contrived to mp.ko tho crossing of th® strait one breezy December morning. Of all tho sailing craft in which I have cruised about tho North Island coast, from trading schooners dowp to centreboard half-deckers and open boats, that hooker of Heromaia’s in which we made the Kapiti passage \v&3

til© most curious as well as the most precarious specimen. She .was a twenty-foot sailing boat, carrying an ancient well-patched mainsail and a piebald jib, and furnished out in easygoing Maori style. Tho three of us —Heremaia, the owner, and another Maori from Waikanae, and the pakclja who had to report on Kapiti for the Kawanatanga—prised the boat from tho sand that- half-embedded her at the landing just inside tho Waikanae bar, and launched her on fence-rails that we used as skids, got our water-breaker and provisions, bags and blankets aboard, and hoisted sail for Kapiti with a freshening nor’-west wind. It took Us three or four boards to make tho island with that wind, but wo were assured at least of a sheltered anchorage at Waiorua. The “ Tangaroa,” for all her dilapidated look, was tight and as. to bull

but pretty veil everythin cry ou haul'd came away from sheer old age. When tho jib-sheet parted in my hands as we went about the first time Heremaia simplv remarked nlacidlv. " I fink t at rope broken.” The main-sheet was in similar parlous condition, lint the parhelia soon learned a useful wrinkle from tho owner, which was _t° avoid putting a sudden strain on anything. ‘ You take him easy and he’ll stand a mill all right,” was tho essence of Hermiaia’s advice. So ‘‘he —to wit, tho “ taura,” the running rigging—was handled gingerly, and by go'd luck and some knotting served us well enough for tho run. So did tho anchor, although it was -simply the primitive Maori “ whakataumaha,” a big lump of a stone from the beach,, rounded, and grooved* and fastened witli iron wiro to the rope cable. Heremaia discussed the points of that rock anchor with Ins accustomed placid philosophy. He said, with reason, that it served just as well a 3 any pakeha anchor; it certainly was far cheaper, and if it was lost it could be replaced without a penny of cost. “ Lee-oli!” from Heremaia, tho skipper. Our boom swings across as the helm is put hard over, the weather jibsheet is let go'and the mended lee-shee-t is tenderly hauled in, and wo stand about on our last board. An hour 3 tacking from Waikanao bar has put us in so close to tlie green mountain-isle that already we can hear the notes or tho bell-birds, ringing to us in faint, silvery "ting-tongs” from the wooded slopes of Kalni-o-te-Rangi, • Now and again quick puffs come whistling down the sieeplv sloping gullies on our port fmnd and the order is, ‘‘Stand by the peak-halliards,” in readiness to drop the head of the mainsail to the suddenrusts and piping williwaws that lay our 20-footer almost gunwale under. Heremaia had been whistling for a breeze like any pakeha sailor a few minutes before, when the wind dropped awhile, but now thero is more than enough of it—

I was whistlinf? to Saint Antonio • For a canful of wind to fill our sail, And instead of o breeze ho has sent a sale.

Away the little "Tangaroa” goes dancing, “with a bone in her mouth, flying along now almost parallel with th® high coast; and in a few minutes we leave th« glorious green bush of Kahu-o-te-Rangi astern and round up in a half-moon of a bay, rimmed by beaches of grey shingle. Down goes the anchor of stone —later on we pick up the permanent moorings laid down hero by the Maori sheep, farmers for their boats—and we land in a dinghy commandeered from th 9 woolmen’s trolly rails that run down to low-water mark, heave up the dinghy by the shore winch and pitch camp for a four days’ exploration of the storied old island. THE HOME OF. THE " OLD SARPINT.”

Kapiti, or Entry Island, as it was called by the early sailors and coast traders, is a place of many and romantic memories, but most of all, perhaps,, it is celebrated as the ancient island fortress of the great Rauparaha. Heremaia was full of tales or the Rauparaha days, hut it was from the late Wi Parata, the Ngati-Awa chief of Waikanae, and the principal owner of the sheep-running block on Kapiti, that I heard the detailed history of cho Ngati-Toa and Ngati-Awa occupation of these seagirt strongholds, nowadays turned to scientific account- as one of the last places for our disappearing native birds. That history need not bp gone into here; most of it is already on record. More has been written about and around "the Robuller,” os the old whalers called Rauparaha, than about any other tattooed figure in New Zealand’s story. The island which lie took by force of arms on his migration hero from Kawhia has, however, not often been described. It certainly gives one the impression—maybe an Irishism this—that it is remarkably roomy for its size. It is six miles in length, with an average width of about a mile and a half, but its area is just about 5000 acres, but so cut up is it in deep ravines and lofty ridges and spurs, with here and there spacious flats and even a little lake, with well-grassed valleys a thousand feet above the sea, that it, seems of much greater extent to tho explorer. Perhaps two-fifths of Kapiti are covered with bush, which occupies the middle and higher portions of tho island and extends on the eastern side almost down to the water’s edge. This woodland is chiefly the smaller timbers of -he Now Zealand bush, which are more varied in their foliage tintingg than the groat pine and tawai forestsS of the mainland, and so the Kapiti treecovering is a delight to tho eye, with

its many and soft and tender gradations of green. Biggest of the trees arc tho lata antf tho tawa. The Maori laud at tho north ©ndf where there is a good-sized flock of sheep, runs to a little over a thousand acres. Some of the seaside terraces and upper valleys. such as tho head of the Taepiro, nearly a thousand feet above the water, are thick in clovor and cocksfoot. Never-failing little streams of clear, good water, springing from the woody backbone of tho island, near tho western cliffs, run into the sea on tho eastern side, and near the months of these tho old-time Maori built his fishing kaingas and hia palisaded pas. Tho “ Old Sarpint,” a.s the Yankee whalers of the ’thirties called To Rauparaha, had his homes at Knlui-o-te-Rangi and Waiorua Bay, and his long war canoes Jay hauled up aforetime on this beach of grev shinglo on which we step ashore. This bay, too, like half a dozen other spots along the island coast and on the rocky islets that lie close along its eastern shore, were lively with the whalemen of three generations ago. Kapiti once was the busiest whaling Station on tho New Zealand coast, and wo read picturesque accounts in Jerninghnm Wakefield’s "Adventures in New Zealand” of happenings hero in 1839-44, when tho place was in its pakehn-Maori glory. Now we have the story-haunted old

cannibal isle, saturate with tales of ‘ ] ori 2'P'-£ ” and whale-oil. all to ourselves; and the only tangible reminders yve have of the wild past are yon big iron trypot standing on its stone furnace on the Waiorua terrace flat above the beach, and the lingo piles of whale bones that strew the const of the ancient settlement sites froni hero down to Rangatira Point. TITEREMOANA, AND THE WILD GOATS. The three of us wandered around the north of the island, about Olnip® lake, a shallow lagoon alive with wild duck, which were under tho protection of the native “raliui ” or close season. Then, having a- couple of Martini-Henry carbines with us and plenty of ammunition, wo naturally: hunted for something to kill. Heremaia told about the mobs of wild goats that peopled the higher parts of Kapiti, and we made for tho central spur, Titeremoana, the highest point of tho island. A sleep climb up the Pikiwahine hill took us into the bush, and there wo were in tho home of the bellbird and tho tui. In no part of those -islands north of Cook. Strait, excepting only the Little Barrier Island, in tho Hauraki Gulf, is the bell-tongued korimako so plentiful as here: The korimako has sometimes boon described as a bird that sings only in the early morning or at sundown. But hero on Kapiti tho bush was ringing all day long with its honey-sweet note* and with the deep, rioh chuckle and gurgle of tho tui. It is just at grey dawn, however, that tho korimako, like tho tui, is at its best. Then every bellbird in the grove rouses itself and sings fits loudest and its sweetest, in the hour when the forests still lie in thick raw

gloom. The korimako has a curious variety of notes; ndt all its song is a chiming. We listened to a loving couplo chattering away to each other on opposite boughs, one harping on a note or two just like the epund a schoolboy makes with a comb and a piece of paper, with a tiny “tingting, tong-ting-tong ” in between now and again. Another went tac-tacking away on a tiny anvil concealed in its little throat. Then wo climbed on to the topmost height—Titeremoana—a good name y it means " Look out over the Ocean' the olden Maoris’ sentry peak, where they watched for invading wav canoe fleets. Hero we were 1780 ft above the sea. At our feet the land, honeycombed by tho burrows of the titi or muttonbirds, drops suddenly in a great cliff, almost perpendicular, to the rockfitrewn iine of surf. This western face of Kapiti is an utter contrast to tho eastern, which slopes gently and handsomely to the inner waters. We looked down a huge slant of grey rock and gliding shingle to the furious smother or tho rollers that came smashing in before the strong nor’-wester: and wo gazed far out and saw nothing to break the vast expanse of wild water Australia-wards.

Half-way down tho tremendous cliff there were moving specks of grey and white, clear against tho dark rock. Nothing; that lacked wings, one would have imagined, could traverse that faco and savo itself from a tumble into th® surf, but my field-glasses showed that they were wild goals, threading gludy routes that 6eemetl impracticable for anything on four feet. Wo travelled southward along tho backbone of the island, sometimes through thick patches of bush, sometimes over open, wind-swept places, hoping for a close-range shot-. We saw hundreds of goats, but never near enough to make certain of the result of our carbine practice. At the head of the grassy valley of Taopiro was sighted what seemed to be tho biggest flock, but although it was more than half a mile away, it was over the ridges and out of sight like a held of deer. Tho wind blew from us toward tho goats, and the country was so rough with the unclimbablc cliffs on the one hand, that wo could not easily stalk round them. The goats were veritable deer for swiftness; and they post sentries like deer. Topping a ridge cautiously with our carbines ready, wo spied a shaggy old patriarch mounting guard, snufling the air and wagging his grey beard suspiciously. Then his signal passed, and lie vanished into a gully. A few moments later wo saw a mob of his charges, perhaps a hundred of them, charging in open order with the speed of the wind over a cliff edge and down into another gully. Our shots, at 500 to 600 yards range, only seemed to encourage them to more astonishing leaps, and the old captain of tlie flock was the most agile and artful dodger of the crowd. Our half-day’s trudge

to Taepiro and tack convinced 113 that for schooling a rifleman in the art of sniping an enemy at long range thero ivpro not many things to beat a day after the hardease goats of Kapiti. A MEMORY OF EAXGATIRA POINT. Clambering down from tlie hills of the wild goats and tho wilder bush cattle v.e emerged after a rough passage through the low-growing bush on to a richly grassed clover fiat, where the deserted cottage of 011 c of tho former sheep-run proprietors stood on a beautiful slope backed by the forest and facing a prospect of sunlit sea and the white dunes and blue ranges of the mainland. A wide flat here spread down to the shingly shore where the ground was thick with whal-ing-day relies. On this roomy terrace there stood .eighty or ninety years ago tho great palisaded pa Jtangatira, extending out with the trend of the beach on the eastern coast of tho island. Here in tho wild old days of .*• long pig ” lived an uncommonly foreeful chieftainess, the lady Topeora, of the fighting Ngafci-Toa. Slip was a tattooed Amazon; she had played a nimble tomahawk on her enemies on occasion, and she was famous among all the tribes for the vigour and tho picturesque viruienpe ol her “ Ka,ioraora ” songs, a kind of satiric composition in which she specialised. Topeora took part in tho battle of Waiorua at Kapiti in 1826, when the mainland tribes made a great assault upon tho island To Rauparaha was tnen living at Wliarekohu, at tho south end of Kapiti, and did not share in the fight on shore. Tho Ngati-Awa bore the brunt .of tho battle, and then Rauparaha’e people pursued the retreating war canoes in tho early morning. They caught some of the crews ail'd there were lively combats out in the sea between the island and Otaki. Tho Wanganui chiefs, I’ehi Turoa and To Paetalii, were captured amongst others and were brought back to tho walled villager of Rangatira. When the victors and. thoir prisoners were landing from the canoes, amidst terrific excitement, Topeora climbed up on tho palisade at tho entrance and

stood on the top of the carved “kuwaha,” the gateway to the pa. She stood with her legs extended, ono foot on one side, of tho "kuwaha,” and one on the other. All she woro was a rapaki or mat round her waist; her breasts were bare; she gripped a carved and plumed "taiaha” in her right hand;- sho grimaced with rolling eyes and protruded tongue—the grimacing of the "pukana.” She stood in that attitude while Ngatli-Toa with their prisoners entered the pa, stooping os thoy did so under the top crosspiece of tho "kuwaha,” which was about five feet high. Tho captives had to pass beneath her legs. This was an old Maori custom; its object was to " whakataurekareka ” or degrade and enslave the captured chiefs. Topeora and her people could alwavs thereafter taunt the Wanganui chiefs and other prisoners and their descendants with the memory of this entrance into their captors’ fort. Such were the amiable customs of the emancipated wahine Maori of old-time. . ~ About T"peora there are innumerable cnr’ous tales illustrative of her haughty d’vnity. In her later years sbo came to he called the " Queen of the South. When the first Bishop Selwyn baptised her in the earlv forties at. Otala, tho name sbo selected for her christening was ‘ Oimen Victoria ” ; and for her husband that of Albert, after the Prince Consort; hence her Maori title ot " Kuini W’kitoria ” and her husband s " Aran eta.” Topeora and her husband were proud to a degree, and they picked the most exalted names in their ken when thev adopted Christianity, .ho was one of the women—there were only two or three of them—who signed the Treat-v of Wnitnnm. Thev s’gned at Kapiti, when Mr Williams brought the document thero in a man-ox-war, HOW HINE LOST HER SLAVE. Tliera was another masterful brown lady of those tomahawking years. Her story came from old Wi Parata. of

Waikanae. Her name was HmeWairc.ro, and sbo lived at Waiorua. our bnv of anchorage. In tho battle ot 1826, fought just at grey dawn, sho saw, as the beaten assailants took to tlisiv canoes, n man who was in such a hurry to escape that ho plunged into tho sea and swam off for his life. The athletic Hine. unencumbered with clothing, dashed in after lum, and struck out like a warrior in her eagerness to secure a slave as, a trphy of the fight. She was a powerful swimmer, and presently overtook the fugitive, and gripping Mm by bis liair. told linn that ho was lior captive, and must rctuin to th« shore. Tlie man. whose name was Pitihono, turned willingly enough on nine’s assurance of his safety, and taking him by tlie band, she swam ashore with him. She took him to fho village, and made proclamation that lio was her bond-slave arid under her protection. But I-line-Waivoro reckoned without her husband, a dour cannibal by the name of Te Toko. He inspected Pitihono as he squatted on tho marno, with downcast head, listening to th© shouts

and war-songs of the victors. Pitihono was a young follow, well tattooed as became a chief, and of a tall and warrior-like build. Ho was altogether too handsome a. man to bo loos® around th® Teke-llinc-Wairoro domicile. That was To Toko’s line of reasoning; ha feared that his wife, being accustomed to tako her own way, would tall m love with the prisoner aucl take lnm as her slave-husband, as was a fashion of Maori society. So up went the grim husbands tomahawk and down the blade flashed on tho prisoner’s skull, and poor Pitihono’s troubles were over. He went into tlio oven.with the rest of the man meat, and helped to furnish out a square meal for victorious Ngati-Awa. . and No-nti-Toa. No terbium quid was wanted in To Tclcc’s raupo-tliatehed menage. . Ono only hopes that Emo liorself, in spite of the interdict on women at tho "long pig” feasts, contrived to secur® a choice basket morsel of wont was onco Pitihono, by way ot some slight consolation for her disappointment-.

BILL JENKINS AND " THE ROBULLER.”

About Waikanao and Otaki ono hears still lingering yarns about Kapiti s old .whalers and their ways; downngbcharacters, who swigged rum by tho cask when tlioy could get it, who fearlessly made fast, to whales in half a gale of wind, who toiled nko heroes and opposed an unafraid front, oven when only armed with their cutting-in spades and their lances and harpoons, to the bullying old Rauparaha, a ways a rather troublesome neighbour. About the most famous of thorn locally at any rate up to recent years, was Bill Jenkins, sometime of Kapiti, and later of Otaki. One story concerning tins old Devon sailor I may interpolate here, in censored form; it has not previously =een print—because, if tlie exact truth must bo told, it could scarcely bear cold type in all its native verbatim forceor two before bis death Bill Jenkins was called as a witness by one of the tribes concerned m a dispute before tlio Native La «l Court touching .the ownership of a blocx of lanrwat Waikanae, bordering the sea. The Gar»o turned upon the conducu oi Ivau-m-ralia and his tribe in the battle ofthe Kuititanga. which was fought on the sandhills near the Waikanao River mouth,, iu 1839. Jenkins, as a young whaler, witnessed the fight,; which occurred just before the visit of the pioneer ship Tory. to Kapiti. Ho was called into tho witness-box.

“ Beggin’ yer pardon, yer Honor, said Bill respectfully to the Judge, "but ceein’ 1 as I’m not accustomed to courthouses, not bavin been a criminal of any ldnd, so fur ns'l can recollect, it *ud ectno easier if so bo as I was to rpiri tbs yarn in me own words, so to speak.” _ ~ “ Heavo ahead, Mr Jenkins,” said the Judge, an old colonial soldier, who sized up the rough -diamond bo had before him; " give tho Court tho story in your own way.” " Well, yer IIonoi\” said Bill, taking a firm grin of the witness-box rail with both mighty hands, "this is tho gospel truth of it. I pulled across from Kapiti in my boat to have a look at the fight, and who should lio there waitin’ to have a go in if his friends won.but tho Robuller, tho murderin’ swinol When ho secs tlm fight was a-goin’ agin his mob, ho ups and mia.ltcs for tho tide, and strikes out for his canoe, which was aiyin* at anchor, leavin’ as much white water behind ’im as a whale. That’s what the Robuller did bolted when lie saw the odds was agin his crowd, the ———- son of a gun!”— and down came Mr Jenkins’s right fist with a punctuating thump on the boxrim. When th® Court had assimilated Bill’s emphatic evidence, tho counsel for the opposing party ventured to say: “Do yen really mean to tell the. Court, Mr Jenkins, that you actim!l\ rowed across from Kapiti to witness this savage encounter between two cannibal tribes?”

“D’ye mean to say I didn’t puli across?” asked the old man, his constitutionally warm temper rising. “No, no, Mr Jenkins,” said the lawyer hurriedly, "but I really mu t say I should uot like to have ventured it myself.” “ P’r’aps not,” said Bill, with a look of scorn, “but I’m made of very different stuff to you, sir I” "Thank you, Mr Jenkins,” interpos-

eel th® Judge, his eyes twinkling; "you may stand down. ’ "TAKING THE BAR.” But Kapiti and thereabouts are chock-a-block, as a sailorman would say, with " Robuller ”-cum-whalor tales. Wo must be getting homewards; indeed, it is Christmas Eve morning by tlio time we manage to say good-bye to Waiorua Bay, after being stormbound for two days over our time, and wo havo no wish to forage for our Christmas dinner on the island. The first peep of day sees our traps aboard tho Tangaroa and our moorings cast off. It has been blowing a galo from tho nor’-west, but the early morning easing-down in its strength gives us hope that we will bo able to make the passage of the surf-bound Waikanao mouth safely. With a single reef in our old mainsail we ease out the sheet and go soaring along over rather than sibling through tho heaving waters at steamer pace as wo run clear of tho dark mountain island, and feel the growing weight of tlio grand pushing wind. Heromaia’s mate is squatting forward peering through the misty morning for tho river entrance. The land is a dim expanse of sandhills, halfsmothored in tho flying spray of a great surf. The voice of tho rollers crashing in or the long stretch of sand to north and Eouth comes thunderously on the ear as wo rush shorowards. Heremaia is doubtful about the bar entrance. Ho is not sure of his exact passago iu this stormy half-light and spume-filled air. But he keeps her right before wind and sea, and trusts to tho god of good luck and his native sense. of direction.

Wo drive down on the sea-beaten shore at ns lively a speed as the old Tangaroa’s timbers have ever groaned under. Now we are right in the surf, with hugely broken water whitening all about us. Thump! comes down our keel on something more solid than water. "I think that’s tho bar!” remarked Heremaia, without excitement. Thump 1 again, as we banged on through tho broken water, taking a liberal dose of it aboard. "Yes,” said Heremaia again, Ms nautical diagnosis confirmed, “that’s the bar all right!” No more bumps; I don’t think the 20-footer would have stood another without opening up her ill-used planking and spilling us all in the surf. In another moment we were floating in smooth water, the roar of the breakers safely astern ; and up the old Tangaroa’s nose slid on tho soft white sand of our port of departure in Waikanae River mouth.