ADDITIONAL AID

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23048, 27 May 1938, Page 10

ADDITIONAL AID

PARTY FROM AUCKLAND % WELLINGTON CAMP TO BE ESTABLISHED fe The police party 1 which has been in the Taharoa district for some days, searching for the Indian, Dalu Desai* is to be augmented from Auckland. Sergeant W. S. Brown and Constables .1. Saunders and .T. C. Eossiter, all from the central station, left by train yesterday afternoon on their way ttf Taharoa. Two constables from Wellington wiQ also assist in the search. The party will be accommodated ia r tents on the north-west shore of the lake near a place known as Desai'i landing. •

ISOLATED SETTLEMENT 1 FEW MAORI INHABITANTS!! FARMING AT STANDSTILL [BT TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDED' KAVTHIA, Thursday A settlement more isolated Taharoa is difficult to imagine, and the journey from Kawhia is not one that can be recommended for pleasure. To reach tlic settlement it is first necessary to make a hazardous motorcar journey for an hour and a-half over some of the most hilly back country in New Zealand. Narrow metal and clay roads are traversed for nearly 40 miles before the eastern shore of lake Taharoa, art expanse of water almost 1000 acres in area, is reached. - >• An old dinghy is tiie next means of conveyance, and in this one has to follow narrow channels among theraupo for half an hour before the open waters of the lake are reached. The pull stross.. the lake itself is a long one, and ott the other side masses of raupo are again encountered. A trek across tlie hills for half an hour brings the visitor within sight of the settlement. In the centre is the low-roofed corrugated iron store belonging to Bhagoanji Desai, where the missing man was employed as an assistant before his mysterious disappearance. A few hundred yards further up a narrow, one-way clay track, which serves as Taliaroa's main street, is a small native school. It is there that Detective A. J. White" and Detective J. Hayes, and Constables G. Tait and J. Richardson, of Hamilton, are encamped. The only other European building in the settlement is the schoolhouse next door, wher# the school teacher, Mr. H. Rogers, aid his wife live. They are the only Eur* peans in the village. . v Scattered round about these are huts and whares belonging to ths 100 Maori inhabitants of Taharoa. Farming at the settlement is pra» tically at a standstill. Each day parties of Maoris assemble to search for Desai# but so far their efforts have been ut vain.