BOUND ABOUT ROTORUA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8472, 24 January 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

BOUND ABOUT ROTORUA.

[BY rambler.] No. *IV. ROTOEHU AND ROTOMA.

Tapcwahhakuku is said to mean sounding footsteps. Why ib was so named I was unable to ascertain. Winiti-te-Kohu, tho chief man of the village, who came down on the beach to welcome us and gratify a natural curiosity, for strangers do nob arrive here every day, could nob throw any light on the subject. The modern Maori is lamentably ignorant of the traditions of his race, while the very language of his ancestors is fast becoming archaical, and to him unintelligible. The few old chiefs who yet linger among their people, melancholy, tottering relics of a pasb'age, may still speak their words of wisdom, but if they do those words "perish in tho ears that hear them." Footsteps sound no longer at Tapuwaeharuru. The earth rumbles not. Matawhaura rears its head in silent and gloomy grandeur. The waves of the lake break upon the lonely beach with dull and monotonous music. The beach is covered with black gritty volcanic ash which fell at the time of the Tarawcra eruption. Immense quantities must have fallen into this and the other two lakes. All round their shores it is found to a depth of more than a foot, whilo it is everywhere met with on the fern-clad hills, and "in the marshy valleys. It has ruined the soil for years to come, bub it has left untouched tho matchless beauties of the bush. Had mud fallen here as it fell at Wairoa and Tikitapu ib would have destroyocl one of the most picturesque pieces of New Zealand scenery in the whole of the North Island, and turned tho blue and green and purple waters of tho lovely lakes, which are the crowning glory of tho district, into a dirty uninviting colour. Winiti-te-Kohu and his wife and family were at Tapuwaeharuru on that memorable June morning when Mount Tarawera was rent in twain and belched forth fire and destruction. They were not alarmed. They remained within their whares awaiting their fate with stoical indifference. If they had to die, good ; if they were permitted to live, good. Had they been Turks they could not have shown greater nonchalance. But Winiti-te-Kohu'.is a Christian. When a bov he was educated at the Throe Kings College, Auckland. Bub collegiate life did not suit the young barbarian. He ran away and returned to the ways of his fathers. During the war he fought against the Europeans. Then ho turned and fought against the natives. Now he is a sort of unordained missionary to his own people, their spiritual guide and adviser. On Sunday he gathers them around him and expounds the Gospel for their benefit. Ib is to be regretted that so interesting and estimable a man does not by force of precept and example impress upon them the simple but* beautiful virtue of cleanliness. Both he and they would be much improved by a vigorous and regular application of soap and water. It was sometime after the eruption that he heard of the destruction of Wairoa and the terraces. Ho had gone about his daily lite without troubling himself about the strange phenomenon. He did not know what it was and did nob care. When ho learnt its true character he said ib was a judgment of God's upon the wickedness and vices of the Wairoa natives, which observation proves that Winiti-t-o-lvohu is something of a Christian philosopher. Tourists to these lakes would do well to pitch their tent, at Tapuwaeharuru, starting from there early in the morning for Rotoehu and Rotoma, which can be '-done" if need be in a day, although one could easily spend weeks roaming about their shores or idly sailing on their waters. In time an accommodation house will no doubt be built at the head of P.otoiti, and possibly another at the head of Kotoma, where the conveniences of civilised life may be obtainable. At present it is necessary to camp out, although when Messrs. Logan and Mcilroy's steam launch can gob into Rotoi it will bs possible to ctart from Rotorua, visit the lakes and return to Ohinemutu the same day. We had not a teat with us, but Mcllroy and Maxwell are men of resources, and speedily rigged up tho boat sail as a break-wind, and while they went to cut tea-tree and fern for our beds, and collect drift wood for our camp fire, I rem lined in charge of the blanket? and provisions, which were being keenly scrutinised by a group of dusky natives and a pack of hungry-looking mongrel dogs. Human nature is prone to err, and it is always prudent to keep a watchful eye upon your goods and chattels when the unsophisticated communistic children of nature are about. 1 remembered Artemus Ward's experience among the Indians. The chief of the red men said, "Brothers, the pale face is welcome. Brothers 5 the son is sinking in the west, and Wanna-buoky She will soon cease speaking. Brothers! the poor red man belongs to race which is fast becoming extinct." Bo then, says Artemns, whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and whisky, and lied to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions. Our campingground was behind a clump of sweet briar bushes, in what appeared to have been at one time an extensive orchard. Although it was blowing half a gale, and whitecrested waves were breaking sullenly on the beach clo.<e by, we were nicely sheltered, and had soon everything snug and comfortable. After a hearty meal round the camp fire, washed down with copious draughts of bea, and with a circlcof Maori? as interested and amused spectators of our proceedings, Mcliroy and myselfprocecded in the evening shadows to explore the bush at Itho ..foot of.Matawhaura. It is being rapidly destroyed by the axe and saw of the woodman. Traces of his utilitarian Vandalism were everywhere visible. It was dark when we gob back to camp, and the Maoris had departed to their whares a quarter of a mile away. Winiti-te-Kohu had promised to visit us early in the morning and guide us to Rotoehu and Rotoma. I should have liked to have had a long talk with him at our camp tiro, but a few yards away was a white-painted wooden box containing the bodies of some of his people who had died, and nothing will induce a Maori to approach the vicinity of a grave after dark. After replenishing the fire wo turned in— that is, we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and lay down on our springy tea-tree beds. It was a beautiful night. The moon shone bright and clear in the spacious firmament on high, and tho stars looked down upon up from their vast and mysterious solitudes. 'the silence that reigned around us was only broken by the sighing of the wind among the trees of the forestclad heights of Matawhaura and tiie dull thud of the waves upon the beach. From time immemorial the natives hive buried the bones of their illustrious dead in a hole at the top of Matawhaura. It must be a work of considerable difficulty getting the remains up this lofty peak, the sides of which are almost, perpendicular. The hole into which they are dropped is of great depth, how deep no one knows. The natives say that they do nob hear the coffin strike the bottom, bub that a few minutes after it is dropped down, a gust of wind comes up. Maxwell, who had seen service in India, told queer stories of soldiers becoming crazed by sleeping in the moonlight, which were propably meant to justify his coat arrangement on a briar bush, which prevented Luna's rays striking his travelled-stained face. Mellroy had his head and face wrapped in a towel ; nob as a protection against the moon, bub the vivacious mosquitos. These tantalising and irritating insects swarmed in millions. The air was thick with them. They kept off sleep for hours. Bub by and by bhey ceased to trouble. Their buzz mingled with the crackling of the fire, the moaning of the wind, the splash of the waves, the ghostly creaking of the forest. All became blended into one harmonious music, and sleep, gentle sleep, beloved from pole to pole, wrapped our senses in sweet forgetfulness. Moon and stars had gone when we awoke, and the glorious morning sun was brightening and beautifying the face of nature. The wind had died away, and Roboiti was placid as a sleeping child.

There was no breeze upon the fern, No ripple on the lake. It was a deliriously cool and lovely morning, and after a bathe and breakfast I started with Mcllroy and Winiti-te-Kohu for the other lakes, leaving Maxwell in charge of the camp. A party of natives, with a bullock sleigh, on their way to their planta-Roto-ehu for supplies of potatoes, formed an animated and characteristic retinue. The distance between Rotoibi and

Rofco-ehu is under two miles, and the path lies for nearly the whole way through the Tebuna bush, the scenery of which wo"* 6 most lovely description. One would tain linger in this cool and umbrageous avenue, with its wealth of fragrance and beauty, its great varieties of foliage, its inviting nooks and verdant bowers sparkling with countless gems of dew—no dust or glare, coolness and shadow and refreshing greenness everywhere, and the sweet smelling kawasawa filling the air with its agreeable odour. We startle the wild pigeons, and with a whirr and flutter they disappear into the recesses of the bush. They need fear us not. We have come out without our guns. The native children run ahead of the sleigh singing their sad sounding songs, and the stalwart Maori youth who is driving the bullocks swears at his team in man-o'-war English. Winiti-te-Kohu carries our lunch and smokes his pipe. The path is broad and even. It is crossed about half-way by the Taupo stream, a narrow rivulet of clear water. By-and-by we emerge from the pleasant shade of the bush into the open sunshine. We are on rising ground, and at our feet lies Roto-ehu, the nose-shaped, stretching with many a bond and sweep to the wooded slopes of Tawarimurimuri. Its shore-line is zig-zag and irregular. From north to south the lake is about three miles in extent, and at its two ends is about the same distance in width, but contracts in the middle, where it is nob more than a mile across from cast to west. At tho point where we strike it on quitting the bush it forms a large and beautiful bay, bounded on the north by the Matawhaura Range, and on the south by the Tautara bush, the former terminating in a high wooded bluff, whose waving foliage is reflected in the waters that lave its base, and the latter in a cone-shaped hill covered with acacia. There are two canoes drawn up on the beach, and a group of Maoris about to launch them. By "the time we reach them their frail crafts are afloat, and are being slowly paddled across the lake. The unruffled surface of the dark blue water, fringed with an emerald green, the wooded ranges rising sheer out of the lake, and their lofty and graceful palm ferns reflected in its stilly depths, the canoes with their swarthy occupants lazily gliding on their way, black swan and duck disporting themselves in tho morning sun, and over all an azure sky, form a charming picture. Here in very truth may bo reaped

The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart. The outlet of the lake is a hole at its northern end or opening in a rocky cliff, and after an underground journey of three miles, the water finds its way into the Waitahanui river. Since the eruption the lake has subsided twenty or thirty feet. There are very few natives now around its shores, although in former times there were many large settlements here. We skirt the southern end of the lake, a flat stretch of land watered by the Te Maiero and Rakaumakari, and backed by wooded heights. The track runs through a clump of tall teatree, and over some fernclad hills. At the foot of one of these we come suddenly upon two dusky natives bathing in a tepid stream fed by an effervescing spring close by. This is the Waitangi soda-water stream. Wo dip our pannikins into a clear pool at the foot of the hill where the water comes bubbling out of the sandy bottom, and take a drink. The name of this sparkling pool is Orongoiri, and the temperature of its water is lower than the other and larger spring. It is very pleasant to the taste, being very largely impregnated with soda. There is a fortune in these springs for an enterprising man. 1 suggest to Winiti that he should bottle the water and commence business in the sodawater line. He laughs. His forte does not lie it. that direction. But 1 should not be surprised were he to permit no one to drink from the springs without payment. A little abovo the Orongoiri pool there is a large depression in the side of the hill. This was formerly a geyser, the gases arising from which were so powerful that birds flying over it were suffocated. Eleven years ago the natives filled it in, and shortly afterwards the spring below it broke out. Winiti's nephew had been out pig-hunting. He was a young man of weak intellect. The pig took it into its head to plunge into the geyser and its pursuer followed its example. Neither, of course, came out again alive. Then all the men of the tribe came and tilled up the geyser, while Winiti paused a carved wooden imago to be erected near the spot in memory of his nephew's fate. It is still there with an old battered hat stuo';: on its head. The Waitangi stream at this point is about twenty feet wide, and in its shallowest part is about four feet deep. Winiti undresses, and carries us across. We traverse more fern-clad hills, then, striking off to the right, enter the Whangaroa Bush. Very cool and refreshing wo find it after the heat "of the sun, for the foliage is wet with dew, and verdant shades twine in amorous embrace overhead, and everything is delightfully green and pleasant. After a quarter of an hour's walk, wo come cut into a long, narrow loopshaped opening, surrounded on three sides by luxuriant bush, and having in its centre a shallow sheet of water, known to the natives as Roto Whangaroa, or long lake. It is rapidly drying up, and is now nothing but a pond from two to three feet deep, looking intensely green where it catches and reflects the tints of the overhanging bush, in the days of yore it was a lake of considerable dimensions, forming an arm of tlotoma, and filling toagreatdepth the whole of the lobe-shaped basin up to the edge of the forest. We cross its former bod, sandy and springy, and proceeding along its whole length, teach the mouth of the opening, to stand on the shore of Rotoma, -which lies glistening in tho sunshine in all its pristine beaut}'.

Kotoma, or the White Lake, ho called from its white sandy beaches, is about four miles and from one to two milos wide. It is enclosed by high, wooded lulls, the Rarangi range on the north, the Papa bush on the south, the Tauwhareroa range on the east, and the Ngamutu bush on the west. Its Hhores are a series of beautiful bays and promontories, with a background of primeval forest covering the purple mountains to their summit. The colour of its water varies with every fluctuation of the condition of the atmosphere. Blue and green and purple mingle and deepen with bewitching effect. Kotoma is incomparably the most beautiful of all the lakes. There is a subtle charm in its exquisite combination of hues and shades, its alluring environments, the unbroken stillness of the landscape, the absence of all human life.

No habitation can bo seen ; but they Who journey tliithtr find themselves alone. It is in truth an utter solitude..

lb was not always Mm*. We sit down on the sand and VVinibi-t-s-Kohu tells us the traditions winch have, come from his forefathers. In the olden days, he says, many hundreds of Maoris had their homes here. There, find there (pointing with his finger to various bays on the opposite shore) were large settlements. Their en noes covered the water of the lake. They sometimes made long journeys, and were absent many days. Yonder win the village of Omarutarawera. You sue jutting out into the lake a rock. That rode is called Kawau. When the canoes had been gone along time a native sat on that rock nil day watching for their return, so that he might give timely warning to the women to prepare food. When the canoed came round the bend the natives in them saw the solitary watcher on the rock. He looked to thorn like a shag (Kawau), and so the rock got its name. Then look across the lake. You see near the centre a rock rising a little above the water. Before the eruption it was covered to a great depth. There was once a native village there. The villagers were famed for their carvings, and Maoris came from all parts of the island to obtain them. One day a strange Maori came, and wanted to reach the island. He asked the natives to send a canoe for him. But they were afraid. This stranger, whose name was l-tarau, then spoke to all his evil spirits in and out of the water. There was a taniwha in the lake, and he caused it to destroy the village. It sank into the lake, and all the villagers were drowned. Then all the natives living round the shore were afraid and went away. They were very numerous in those days, but, concluded Winiti wh'\ a tinge of sorrow in his voice, I am all mat remains of them.

We travelled round the western side of the lake, being able by clambering over rocks and boulders to keep to the shore line. Before the eruption this was nob possible, the level of the - lake being then much higher than it is now. Indeed, Winifci was doubtful whether it could be done, as no one had ever before been that way on foot, lb was here that some weeks afterwards a party comprising Messrs.

Josiah Martin, A. E. Tomlin, T. Ryan, and C. A. Olsen, under the guidance of Warbrick, discovered what is supposed to be an old Maori sepulchre. One of the party tells of the discovery as follows:— "We were passing a rocky cliff at the time, and a heavy rain storm coming on drove us for shelter into a cleft or recess in the rocks. While in this position Warbrick discovered a small opening, which seemed to be the entrance to a cave. After some difficulty he was able to force his way in, and was followed by others of the party. We found ourselves in a gloomy cavern, and on our eyes getting accustomed to the light, we found we were in an ancient sepulchre, and were surrounded by skeletons in great numbers. Not having candles and only a few matches, we were not able to find out the extent of this gruesome cave, but that it is of considerable size there is no doubt, and when properly explored might rival in mysterious horrors the wonderful caves we read of in Ryder Haggard's novels. We did not stay in very long, as Warbrick was afraid the Maoris who were with us might find out as much as we had, and if that had been the case, then no more pakehas or Maoris would ever be allowed anywhere near the cave, as it would be proclaimed ta-pu, or sacred ground, and would be jealously guarded from one and all. There can be no doubt that this cave is a former burial-place of the Arawa tribe, and must be of great antiquity, as none of the Maoris at present in this vicinity are aware of its existence." At the north-western end of the lake is Ngakoihu Bay, a perfect picture of beauty. From here we struck across the hills on 0"r homeward journey, our steps being accelerated by a roaring fire behind us, for Winiti had set light to the fern. We reached our camp in safety; and the wind having changed we launched our boat, and set sail for Rotorua, which we reached shortly before midnight, after a most enjoyable trip. It is one which no tourist to New Zealand's wonderland should miss.

No mere verbal description, however graphic or minute, can convey any adequate idea of the exquisite loveliness of Kotoma, the Queen of Lakes, and it would be difficult to match a scene so delightful and interesting.

Whore .shall we find in foreign land So lone a lake, .so .sweet a strand V

The lakes of other countries in the old world owe much to their historic associations. The lakes of New Zealand have little or nothing but their own secluded beauty to commend them. They have no historic past. .No poetic wizard has cast his magic spell over them, investing them with human pathos and romance. Yet one might wander far in European lands without rinding lakes to equal the witching loveliness of Rotoiti, Rotoehu, and Rotoma. O'er no sweeter lakes Shall morning break or noon cloud sail, No fairer face than their's shall take The sunset's golden veil. Long he it ere the tide of trade Shall break with harsh resounding din, The quiet of their banks of shade, Ami hills that fold them in. * « » »

Farewell around this smiling hay, Gay-hearted health and life in bloom, With lighter steps than mine may stray In radiant summers yet to come. But none shall more regretful leave These waters and these hills than I; Or distant, fonder dream how eve Or dawn is painting wave and sky. How rising moons shine sail and mild o'er wooded isle and silvering hay; Or netting suns beyond the piled And purple mountains lead the day.