THE AWAKENING OF THE NORTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12240, 8 April 1903, Page 7

THE AWAKENING OF THE NORTH.

I; BAY OF ISLANDS DISTRICT. — - • A ROMANTIC REGION. No. XII. [BY OVB. SPECIAL EEPOKTER.] T srEST a week at the Bay of Islands, end found it ° ne °f tne most delightful places I ■have ever seen. Cook, I believe, gave it its name over a hundred years ago, but it s; inigM just as well be cal'ed the Bay of I ' promontories, or the XII. Inlets, or, more [BY OTTK SFECIAi EErOKTER.] T srBST a week at the Bay of Islands, end found it one of the most delightful places I ■have ever seen. Cook, I believe, gave it its flame over a hundred years ago, but it plight just as well be called the Bay of Promontories, or the Bay of Inlets, or, more H I simply and effectively still, the Bay of If Beauty. This marvellous harbour has no i »asfc heights or gloomy depths, no frowning If precipices or beetling cliffs. There is I scarcely a mile in its hundreds of miles of I ' shoreline but offers some novel and charm--1 ing site for a homestead, some warm and f sheltered slope for orchard or garden. I I 'know that a large number of people judge I 'natural beauty by size, and to such people I : the gaunt, schist mountains about the Cold 1 'Lakes or the stupendous masses of granite I and slate that rise .black, forbidding, and I inaccessible about the Sounds are more inte--1 ' resting than anything in the North. I 1 have cruised about the Sounds, visited the I famous harbours in Stewart Island, voyaged I over most of the Cold Lakes, but not one of I them can compare in actual beauty with the :f Bay of Islands, and certainly not one of I them, or even all of them put together, can I offer such advantages for human settlement. | . The view of the Bay of Islands from the ;'|" summit of Pukewhakarupu on a, summer's I evening is sublime in its beauty. It does H not awe one like the black, mountainous I .shores of Dusky Sound, or repel one like the snow-capped Southern Alps when seen from a vast altitude. It charms, pleases, attracts. The wonder is that man lias not seized every available portion of its shores. .Men look with envy on the possessors of Pa.r- ---,,,: nell and Pvemuera water frontages, and lei- ■ sured wealthy people pay great sums for the IMen look with envy the possessors of Parnell and Remuera water frontages, and leisured wealthy people pay great sums for the privilege of ownership. There is material for thousands of Parnells I and Remueras on the Bay of Islands; but ■ where are the people to make use of this | material? In older countries there are I . " 'thousands of people who long for a beautiful 1 climate and delightful surroundings, and I have enough money to enable them to'make ! the best of such conditions. What charming homes such people could make in the Bay of Islands! There are rich Australians who desire a summer seaside residence. Australia offers them no such choice as this ■part of New Zealand. There are in the South Island many delicate persons to whom the severe winters are dangerous. To such the Bay might become what the South of France is to England. But it is not only the wealthy who can make homes there, for - it offers scope for the planteis of vineyards, of lemon groves, of orchards of any kind of fruit, who could cany on their work under almost perfect conditions. There is scope for men who .vill undertake the raising of sub-tropical garden products— capers, and the score other odd things used in this and other countries. There is scope for the farmer if he will plough and cultivate the flats and slopes, and manure if need be. Men are talking of erecting freezing works at Opua, oil the Bay, and if this is done there should be money to be made by those who will grow mangolds and rape and maize 'to top off the store cattle and sheep raised in the rough back country. The Otago and Canterbury farmer raises crops of various kinds for this purpose, and thousands of acres of land on the Bay shores would produce many valuable craps with the same amount of cultivation and only the same amount of manure as is given, the best lands of the South. , The Auckland people are convinced that the country about the Bay of Islands is unutterably poor. This is not the case. Much "" of the land is now growing heavy manuka, and puriri, such manuka and such puriri as • will only grow where the soil is good. And much of the land which looks so barren only requires cultivation to make it productive. It is true that only the valleys and flats take English grasses naturally, but hilltops and slopes will cany danthonia, rat-tail, and Poa pralensis, and many other similar grasses, which in that climate will throw almost as much feed as English grasses elsewhere. This is not mere idle statement. There are not many farmers in the district. I only saw two of the smaller settlers who are working their land in any way. One was a retired railway official, and the other a young goldminer, but they have proved ■ that even surface-sown, rough grasses will make good pasture, and that potatoes, , .onions, maize, kumaras, and other things thrive splendidly on the cultivated flats. Much of the Bay of Islands country reck is ' 'pakegoric slate, much the same as the greater portion of Canterbury. In other parts there are considerable areas of volcanic country of a similar formation to that about Ohaeawai. One can see by a thousand signs that the lands only require human labour intelligently employed to make much of the Bay highly productive. It will not, I acknowledge, except in a few places, grow English grasses surface sown, nor will the rougher grasses conquer the scrub unless helped by mmi. There is not, I acknowledge, at the present time much inducement to go in for farming, for there is no local market, no local dairy factory, and freights , to Auckland are a big handicap , but I tun ready to believe that if there were a dairy factoiy Southern farmers would soon raise plenty of milk from the poorest of the Bay lands, and if there were a freezing factory Southern farmers would be able to top off cattle and sheep on country thai, now grows i manuka scrub. It is little use, however, to write about what might be or what will bo. What has been and what is appeals more forcibly. . When one thinks of what has been in the '. Bay of Islands one recognises that all the best and noblest of Maori history, with much of the worst, lies there. Ruatara. the ■;.'".. 'chivalrous Maori patriot and reformer ; Hongi Kaitangata. the fiery ravager, the eater of man ; Te Pahi, noble and unfortu- -, nate ; Moehanga, the bold voyager. Moe.'hanga was the "first Maori to visit England. .To Pahi planted the first acorn in New Zea- • land. Buatara sowed the first wheat. Hongi was the first chief to use guns in tribal warfare. The first sermon was i preached here, the first mission station established, the first house built, the first . store opened. The history of the Bay is full ■ ■ ! of strange interest and importance, and yet-to-day it is one of the least important places in New Zealandthe most beautiful, the ■ least prosperous. Nowhere in New Zealand did the Maoris rise to such power and learning as in the Bay ; nowhere did Europeans "at first see such promise ; and yet how little ■■■ . of this promise has been fulfilled. The whole Bay of Islands district, with its area of 826 square miles, has only a population of 2587 f ■', People. And yet the' district is a rich one. ' it has forests and srumfields and flax swamps, . beds of coal, veins of manganese and copper, 1 . antimony and iron, reefs containing silver and gold". Its seas and inland waters swarm . with fish, and its lands will produce all the ; fruits of the earth in great profusion. All r - it requires is an active and industrious population to make it productive, and if those : ] men leaving the old countries to seek homes ' in distant lands could only see the marvelous beauty of the Bay, and understand the r : glory of its climate, there would be no lack of population. The chief vehicle in the Bay is the boat; one rarely sees anything on wheels, for there are few roads. People'pay calls in boats, go j } ; " ■>. to church in boats carry their stores in boats ; the Bayites are wonderfully proficient :.; 'at sailing or with oars. I saw fashionably- ,.~ dressed young ladies handling small yachts there in a manner that would win approba- ■ tion from the commodore of the squadron, p?,. and I saw schoolchildren handling boats with the courage and skill of veterans. In .. . -those sheltered waters and far-reaching sea►V, arms, with their thousands of snug coves and ;•■ "inlets, what wonder that the boa*- is so com- \ monly used! It is only by boating voyages ■'. that one can see the wonders and beauties °f the Bay. No matter whether one takes f • up one's quarters at Russell or Opua or anyV Where else on the Bay the boat must be ;••;■: used to see the country. One can row or /;, ."■Hair.to the Waitangi Falls ; to Keriken, L-, :. where the earliest missionaries dwelt wdhm =■* J. ?$ ht of the famous Hongi's Pa; to Te t , nina, where Samuel Marsden preached the ;■ / ' nrst sermon in New Zealand, and gentle l\/l "uatara planted the first wheat. One can 11 row or sail to the myriad of small islands & ,«t the mouth of the Bay, oi go far inland by

mar hj?* W- Sometimes one fibers^\r° m ? any the sha P« of mulletSi ° nS returam to tneir villages ; Ek whir ay ? et amon S School Of s nuil hVf°% thraSherS ' tod if one tows a isS, f ait ° l s 001 ? or Pawn shell there kaS S , ? t ? be had With tie salmon-like 3f'» d other game fish. It seems i. ways holiday weather in the Bay, and the people are.the most kindly and hospitable in the world. The beauty of summer time there is indescribable, for the glory of the tropes meets the softness of thf south and point and bay, isthmus and peninsula, broad expanse of water and narrow sea river seem forever to he " where spring and the middle" Hummer sit each in the lap of the breeze »