made forest in the world.) The employment officer tells me that he has vacancies at Wairapukao, but he also feels obliged to inform me that it is eight miles off the main highway, at the end of the road, and that nearly all the workers are Maoris. I say I'll give it a go. A land-rover takes us to the camp, I feel the trees are closing up behind me, and yet I have the sensation of going back to some other existence, almost as though I was becoming closer to the Earth Mother, to Papatu-anuku e takoto nei. Drip, drip, drip, then in a hollow the lights of the camp twinkling through the rain. Nobody runs out to see who is in the car, perhaps the storm is too bad. The truck leaves me standing in the door of the cook-house, and after a while a Pakeha appears, and arranges to cook up something for me. One or two wild-looking characters enter the room and nudge each other. ‘Ko wai tenei Pakeha?’ I tell them I am a quarter-caste, but I do not think they believe me. They think of all things that I am a Pommie; they say that the only Pakehas who go to that camp are immigrants who are sent there. A few minutes later they show me to my hut, and their words are confirmed for on the wall is scrawled the text ‘Watford to Wairapukao—the sublime to the Gorblimey’, underneath another person has written ‘Pine Tree pine over me’. ‘They never stay long here, some were hard-case jokers, like that fellah that made a noise like a gramophone running down when he ate his kai. One or two stayed on long after the others. That's the funny thing about this place, you either hate it, or every time you go away you like it so much you want to come back.’ It did not take me long to become accepted, and I really felt that I belonged to that group of huts in the forest. The days went by swiftly enough, and the evenings were spent in listening to the radiogram or playing the guitar. There were always pigs to hunt, and the pictures at Kaingaroa, if you could get there, and of course the occasional trip to Sulphur City, to the bright lights of Rotorua. As Maori was the language of the camp I soon became an expert especially with the aid of Rua's grammar book, which I had kept with me. Soon, the cold winter nights followed by the cloudless warm days gave way to the heat of summer, when the one thought dominating everything in the forest was ‘Fire’. I was not on fire-duty and one of the boys asked if I would like to go back to his place near Ruatahuna for Christmas. I accepted gratefully and leaving the forest behind, we came out to Murupara and the plains, covered with farms, with the gaunt bush-covered hills quite close coming down to meet them. After the last house on the left there is a narrow pass through the hills, like a gateway to a forbidden land, and I know that I am in the Urewera Country at last. Here and there are scattered settlements along the banks of the fast-flowing rivers, in clearings in the eternal bush. Their names are like music to my ears—Te Whaiti, Heipipi, Ngaputahi, Tarapounamu and so on to Ruatahuna. I am introduced to the family and really feel at home. The mountain air makes me very sleepy, and the next day I awake refreshed. Rather to their surprise, I ask if Mrs Ihaka lives near here, and one of the boys arranges to take me over the hills to the next pa to visit her. I explain that I knew her grandson in Auckland and before he died he made me promise to visit her. Now my mate's amazement knew no bounds, he explains that the old lady is blind, but is highly regarded by all the people because she was a chieftainess and also had a bit of the second sight. As we near the settlement, I see an old woman standing at her doorway peering down the valley. I know at once that she is Rua's kuia. She calls out ‘Haeremai, haeremai’, and explains that she has been expecting me. Not only did her grandson write all about me in his letters, but she had known before that a man of mixed Maori and Pakeha blood would be her grandson's best friend, and after Rua's death would take his place as her adopted child. I thought this was going a bit far and could hardly believe this was reality. Over a brew of strong tea she sadly describes how the sons and daughters of her people are forced to leave their homes and the forest they love for the cities. They have to go, for there is little work for them here. The boys go to the sawmills and the girls go to the boarding houses in Rotorua as domestics. The Government has taken much of their land for a National Park, and is talking about giving some other lands to them instead; even if they do this, we do not want to leave our own native bush. Some Maoris are selling their trees to the Pakeha mills, although even the Pakeha is worried about cutting down much of the forest, because then there will be no trees to hold the waters when the rains come. In the old days all this land was alive with the voices of happy people, now even the sites of the old villages are lost…. Then I thought that if this forest land supported such a large population before, why not again? I was becoming excited and my Maori was becoming a bit disjointed. I said, ‘Why not establish small farming communities right here in the Urewera country, only in the valleys, and leave all the bush on the steep hills, and of course the National Park would be untouched.’ She was growing enthusiastic too, and quite a crowd of people had gathered by now listening intently to my words. Then a refrain is taken up from mouth to mouth. ‘Haere ki te whare-hui’—so we all go to the Meeting House to discuss my ideas. I tell them my whole story from the beginning and show the greenstone tiki that their relative had given me, now indeed they realise something momentous is afoot. An old tohunga stands up and says that such a thing was forecast by his father years ago, that a part-Maori, part Pakeha,