FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1585, 13 December 1924, Page 10 (Supplement)

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

PIONEER LIFE ON THE FRONTIER,

Looking southward across the Puniu River in the 'seventies and the early 'eighties we, who were bred on the frontier saw a mysterious-appearing land—a land, too ,of dread in the years of unrest, for there in the hinterland only a few miles from tine border river lived Te Kooti and his band and the hundreds of Waikato dispossessed of their good lands on which we pakeha families now dwelt. As far as the eye could range it was a land altogether given up to the Kingites and the Hauhaus—an untamed country painted in the dark purple of broken mountain ranges, merging into the vague, misty blues of great distance, the sombre green of ferny hills and plains, and •the yellow and white of deep flax and raupo swamps. Clear, dashing hillcourses, alive with eels and wild duck, all carrying down their quota to feed the silently-flowing Waipa. And over all, from Maungatautari's shapelesslyrugged mass along the curving sector to Pirongia's fairy-haunted peaks, an aspect and air of solitude; a suggestion of mystery and waiting for the touch of man which was to transform that far-stretching waste. The contrast! On our side the green farms of the pioneer settlers, roads, vilages—each with its redoubt as a rallyingplace in alarm —churches, schools — primitive schools, maybe, in the early stages—the flag of British authority flying. So the border remained, the line of demarcation sharply defined by the confiscation boundary, the southern side inimical, sullen, waiting, for well nigh twenty years after the final shots of the Waikato war.—The foregoing is from Mr James Cowan's absorbingly interesting book, '* The Old Frontier," and affords a splendid basis for comparison of the conditions half a century ago with those of the present day. " The Old Frontier," by James Cowan, F.R.G.S., and published by The Waipa Post, Te Awamutu. Price ss, post free.