THE OTAGO PENINSULA. RURAL RAMBLES. THE OTAGO PENINSULA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2057, 27 July 1893, Page 35

THE OTAGO PENINSULA.

RURAL RAMBLES.

By Apabata Rbfa'ta. The inhabitants of the Peninsula when the first whites landed belonged to tribes descended ' from the Ngai-tahn, who' had exterminated the Ngatimomoe, and they havjng previously done the same to the peaceful Waitaha." The first white man who lived among the natives at the heads for any time was Mr John Hunter, who was one of the first whites to assume the duties' of pilot to vessels entering tha Otago Heads. His experiences among them were very exoiting and interesting, and he had seen* the natives even in his day patiently wearing a groove in a piece'of greenstone, working from sunrise bo sunset, only leaving off for bwo meals, which were placed handy, ready cooked, daily till such time as the groove had become so deep that it was considered safe to use a great * stone hammer and break the worked piece through with one blow -at the desired place, and then patiently ' proceed to sharpen up an adze from the piece 1 required. He also saw them bury their dead in sandhills, cook their food with heated stones, and kill slaves, or cookies, as they were called. He used to talk of Rowbuller, the *whaler 6' j name for Rauperaha, the great enemy of the Ngai-tahu. He would speak of Tuawaike, or " Bloody Jack," and how he nearly finished off Rauperaha in a naval engagement, and how he had the "Old. Serpent" (so called by the whalers) by the cloak, and had his mere-mere uplifted ready to sbrike, when the "Old Serpent " slipped his cloak and dived under the water and escaped in another canee during a fog, leavjDg his allies to finish the fight. This happened at Fighting Bay, a. place near Te-awa-iti, ab the north end of this island. What a vast difference the want of success of Tuawaike has made in the history of the colony ! > If he had killed Rauperaha there would have been no Wairau massacre in ibs history, in which 20 Europeans lost their lives one way and another. Mr B. J. Wakefield, in his book "Adventures in New Zealand," mentions having met Taiaroa, the father of the Hon. H. K. Taiaroa, and asked him why "Bloody Jack," or Tuawaike, the great chief of his tribe, had not accompanied him north, and Taiaroa told him that there was a riri, or quarrel, between Rauperaha and Tuawaike, and that the latter would sot trust himself in the former's power. This was when Taiaroa went north to make peace with Rauperaha. And no wonder he would not trust the cunniDg " Old Serpent." I h*ve heard the halfcastes and Maoris recite the adventures of Tuawaike and his warlike followers, and they all seemed to get excited when talking of his valour. How this great chief got the name of Bloody Jack I do not know, except perhaps for the fact that he procured muskets or flintlocks from all quarters, and used to drill his men at the Kaik, as he had seen the British soldiers drilled during a visit to Sydney, j Taiaroa belonged to a sub-tribe that often lived in a village called Omheo, whioh was near the present mouth of the Water of Leith. Mr John Hunter was an American, and had seen many ups and downs in life. He had been in the employ of the Egyptian Government, or Bashaw, as he called the Khedive, and had been skipper on board a steamer that used to do the official work en the Nile. Nile, fever induced him to leave, and whaling was his next occupation. On the South American coast pirates boarded his whaler and forced him to serve with them, till he escaped with some, other prisoners of the pirates and joined a whaler bound for New Zealand, on board of which his hand was disabled through the wad of a gun, which exploded, entering it and otherwise injuring it, so that he was never again able to use it freely, and was put ashore as incurable at the Otago Heads early in' this century. The Maoris at the heads tell no end of tales about wars on the Peninsula. At Tomahawk, where there was a village, there was a great battle. After the. whalers began to frequent these shores, however, trade occupied their minds to such an extent that war was put aside , and their best men went into whalers or became attached to whaling stations, and worked at different occupations forwagesamoDg and under Europeans. A large store was kept at the Lower Kaik by a European, and settlers began to buy and take up land from the Maoris. The descendants of these have their' properties to this day, and the Peninsula became, the first place where Europeans began to make a start at cultivating the land. Potatoes^ and other crops were grown, the produce being' sold to whalers at good prices. I can remember my first visit to the Maori Kaik, and the native huts or whares and heated sleeping houses, and the;great quantity of cooked fish hanging up between, high poles to dry in the sun, and dozens of artistically tabooed Maoris talkiDg to the whites. A visit to-day is simply disappointing, as there are no k beautiful carvings or interesting tatpoed natives^ to be seen. In fact, there are no Maoris proper now; only a few Europeariise,^ natives, speaking and dressing in modern manner. The old settlers havealmoßt all passed away, their descendants in some cases occupying the land in their place. The modern or later settlers who bought land from the Government are still numerous and prosperous, and these and their families constitute the greater part of the present population. Most of them are occupied in dairy farming, a few go in for sheep, "and the majority plant a few potatoes. Early potatoes from the Peninsula are always in demand, and 0 generally fetch a" higher price than those grown anywhere else. Many Dunedin citizens hold land < on the Peninsula, and a number of gentlemen who carry on business in town livo on it. The Hon. W. J. M. Larnnch and his beautiful castle is a case in point. The Camp is the most complete and beßt finished residence on the Peninsula, and no one who has not been in it can understand from a, description the uniqueness of the bird's eye view that can bo obtained from its highest turret. The whole of the Otago Hartfcur, the sea coast bo Shag Poinb toward the north, and the Nuggets towards the south, including all the bays and inlets formed from Shag Point to the. Nuggets, are seen below the spectator as if he -was up in a balloon. The view is simply magnificent, and for completeness cannot be rivalled south of the line. Another prominent resident is Mr George Grey Russell, who owns a, 'property bhat embraces everything that is necessary to conduce to man's comfort. It is ' well sheltered, well watered by a never-failing creek and fine spring, has splendid soil, and faces the north, a faot which makes it a very warm place in summer and pleasantly so all the winter. Mr Soobie Mackenzie, M H R., has a very complete dwelling at Grant's Braes, opposite Dunedin, ,and which overlooks the ciby. ' From here every street can be traced at nighb by the position of the lamps. .The effect of the lighted city reflected in the bay on a calm night is very beautiful, the reflection often varying with the reality in brillianoy. From here to Anderson s Bay, and in it, there are a considerable number

of residences of leading citizens, and with the facilities afforded for getting backward and forward by steamer or coach, no doubt in time many more will make the Peninsula their home. I can never think of the stretch of mud flats between Dunedin and Anderson's Bay withoub calling to mind the immense number of ducks, snipe, oysber cabohers, and sea birds that frequented them before there was any road along the margin of the bay. Thirty years ago these flats were the resort of all sorts of game, and the lagoons at Tomahawk werestocked with ducks of all sorts. The whole of the Peninsula was stocked with native game and birds, and a good shot could have a capital day's sport with gun and dog almosb anywhere on ib. Originally there were only a few thousand acres on the Peninsula without dense bush, and then ib was one of the besb places in New Zealand for native birds of all sorts. Both marine and land birds conld be found breeding here in unlimited numbers. In the red pine forests abonb Macandrew's Bay and farther down pigeons and kakas were to be had ab any season of the year in unlimited numbers, and the original settlers could go shooting for half a day and secure more game than they coald consume in a week. Such places as Papanui Inlet were alive with snipe and oyster cabchers. Why they are called oyster catchers I cannot say, bub there is a peculiarly about the way in which bheyprooare their food that is worth mentioning. 1 shob some at' a feeding ground, and found their crops filled wibh fresh pipis— a sorb of cockle. They were shot ab low water, which is always bheir feeding time. This fact about the cockles puzzled me nob a little, so nexbdayl hid close to the feeding grounded watched bhem return and start work. One bird close to me, with beautiful black feathers, bright red legs and beak, presently draws a pipi oub of the sand and starts toeatit, when "bang " goes my gun, and " he's a deader," as Tom Sawyer would say. Thepipi was nob eaten, bub bhe bwo feeb or pads that hold bhe bwo valves of the shell together were cub through as if done with a pair of scissors, and on examining the bird's long red beak one could see thab the bwo mandibles are formed to be used like a pair of scissors. The truth is the bird watches the shellfish, and when it sees the shell open for the fish bo breathe and eat, ib inserts its beak and cubs bhe two feeb, thus destroying the only means the fish has of closing its shell. Ib is quite possible some species of these birds eat oysters in this manner, but our bird of that name I have never seen do so, nor have I found oysters in its stomach. The flab land easb of Papanui Inlet was a network of small lagoons half filled wibh raupo or bullrusb.es, and these lagoons were the resort of thousands of swamp turkeys, grey ducks, paradise ducks, and every species of native duck. Twenty years ago or Ics3 a good day's shooting coald be had among these lagoons, but to-day —heaven help us!— they are simply rabbit warrens. What a come down ! In spring the ground was besprinkled with beautiful blue orchids, and inautumnbhepieberry or Gaulbheria rupestris covered the land wibh ibs beautiful white, pink, and scarlet berries.*'" Bub to return to the sea birds. Starting at the Tomahawk rocks we find thab they still have the temerity to build, and terns and large and small gulls lay their eggs here *«very year. Ab bhe edge of bhe cliffs whioh end in Highcliff a few mutton birds still manage to secure bheir eggs in the crevices and holes from boys and men. When the sebblers first wenb down Seal Poinb was covered wibh bhousands of gulls' nesbs and eggs ; now a few build in secure ledges only. The small coneshaped rock ab the entrance bo Hooper's Inlet has sometimes a few nests on it. The cliffs from Sandfly Bay to this spob were a favourite resort of bhe mutton birds or black petrels, and there they were bo be found in bhousands. In some places where ib was sandy in bhe bush the traveller was continually breaking through the sandy soil into bheir nesbs. As bhe bush is cleared they desert these building and breeding places. An island on the way bo Cape Saunders along the coasb has thousands of gulls' nesbs on ib in summer, and Cape Saunders has rookeries of shags in its caves, and gulls, build on ibs points. A few. penguins still lay their eggs in hollow trees and holes on the ground ab' Libble Papanui. My lasb haul of gulls' eggs and mutton birds' egg 3 were gob on the Cape. My companion and myself filled our handkerchiefs with both sorts, and had a big feast of bhem before sundown. We boiled bhem, and having plenty 'of pepper, salt, and bread and butter, made no mean meal, wibh a billy of tea, by the banksjof a small stream nicely placed on the edge of the hush at Papanui Inlet. Mutton birds' eggs in our opinion are the besb of all eggs, with gulls' eggs nexb, and then turkeys' and domestic hens'— and we should know, having tried so many. One friend asked me if sea birds' eggs are nob very salt. Certainly nob ; no more so than is a red cod or other fish that inhabits the sea. There is a cave at the Obago Heads (Taiaroa Head) where shags build, and bhey can be shob as bhey come and go if one can shoot .on the wing downwards. A lob of native birds hare almost disappeared on bhe Peninsula, such as the kingfisher, which was once quite common. Native canaries, wibh their never-ceasing song, are getting scarce, while native thrushes have been extinct on it for many jjears, also the saddlebacks or smaller wattle birds. White cranes coald be often seen on trees aloDg the shore, but they have entirely disappeared. The (disappearance of the native birds is a real loss, as they were harmless and cheerful. The rising generation do nob of course miss them, for they knew them not, but in the case of the older settlers their disappearance leaves a blank.