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A Week among the Maoris of Lake Taupo.

ON Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1874, the writer found himself on the borders of Lake Taupo, at Tapuachararu, a town consisting of an inn and a military outpost. Long had it been his wish to reach the great lake, with its giant volcano, Tongariro, its geysers, and its memories of Maori chiefs, and Maori courage, and Maori cruelty. Yet when he arrived, on a pouring November afternoon, he felt inclined to turn tail at once, and leave early next day. There before him lay Taupo Moana-" the great sea"-sure enough, lying on its bed of pumice; there flowed a warm stream, making a little inlet of the lake warm enough for a comfortable bath; there were the great jets of steam bursting from the hillsides with noise and fury; but no Tongariro was to be seen. The rain, which had fallen unceasingly for many hours, threw a dark wet blanket over the landscape. The astonishing desolation and dreary brownness of the country damped all ardour to proceed. No grass, no fern even, seemed to flourish on these desolate shores, whose only vegetation was manuka scrub, and a certain poisonous shrub which had proved fatal to a fine horse on the way. No living creatures, birds or four-footed things, had been seen, and the country, buried ages ago under a desolating storm of pumice and ashes, looked dreary and desolate as the banks of the Dead Sea. So, in melancholy mood, disappointed of his dreams, the solitary traveller sat in the inn at Tapuaehararu, by the waters of Taupo.

The sight of another still more miserable wight revived him. A second traveller, the ne plus ultra of wretchedness, entered. "Give me some brandy-and-water hot, and a bed." It was about six o'clock in the afternoon, so it may be conceived that he must have been somewhat fatigued. His horse had eaten of the poisonous shrubs and died under him fifteen miles away. Over hill and dale he had tramped, in the pouring rain, guiding himself by the telegraph-posts across the roadless country. Anyone who has seen a rough volcanic country, covered with a baffling scrub, will understand the difficulties and weariness of such a walk. Tea and a little brandy-and-water gave us both courage, and we determined to voyage together up the lake next morning. Let me introduce my travelling companion as W. Henceforth at various odd. places on this globe we two "globe-trotters" kept meeting, arriving often from most diverse directions at the same spot on the same day; until at last, on arriving at New York on the way home, although I thought my friend was thousands of miles away, I looked in the travellers' list with

a sort of half-expectation, and saw his name first among the arrivals at the hotel that day.

There is a steamer at Taupo, thanks to New Zealand enterprise and to Mr. Vogel, the Prime Minister. It was to start next morning for the head of the lake. "When would it return?" "Whenever suited our convenience," was the answer. So next day we steamed peacefully over the waters for about twenty-eight miles up the lake. Everything had changed from the day before. Tongariro showed his great white snow-clad cone against the southern sky, with a light fleecy cloud hovering over his crater. Behind him Ruapehu lifted still broader shoulders and a still whiter head. The lake, blue and astonishingly clear, supported on its bosom little fleets of pebbles, and even large rocks of pumice. Its dark banks rose not unpicturesquely towards the western hills. A little bay, about half-way up on the northern side, disclosed a site of great beauty, and even a picturesque-looking house, bosomed in bright peach-trees, but falling to decay. It was a little nook, angulus terrarum-beautiful as those which nestle round the shores of Windermere. It was a deserted Mission Station.

At the head of Taupo, and immediately under Tongariro, lies Waihi, a Maori village, which fell by a sad disaster some forty years ago. An avalanche of soft warm mud overwhelmed the village, and buried the chief, Te Heu-Heu, grandfather of the present chief, and most of his tribe. The remnant moved but a few steps, and built the present village. Just above, on the mountain-side, can be seen the literal fons mali. Innumerable steam-jets burst from the soil, and give the hillside the appearance of one of our Lancashire glens when the bleach-works are in full play. We came to anchor opposite the village, and rowed away about a mile up a small stream to Tokano, another Maori settlement, where there is an inn and many geysers.

At once on our arrival, like Homeric heroes, we were led to the bath. I would that the father of Epos had viewed and described that bathing scene. It was an immersion Homeric-indescribable. The natives offered us soap! Then they led us away towards the springs. Within a small space, on either bank of the stream, innumerable geysers some of water, some of mud, some merely of steam-rise in the soft, rich soil. There are great boiling vats of mud and of water, and little boiling caldrons. Clouds of steam rise in all directions. It requires care and circumspection to avoid the little scalding pitfalls scattered everywhere. Through the midst of all this, and across the little river, - we were led towards a patch of ground by the riverside, where more than usual boiling seemed to be going on.

Arriving there we were transfixed with astonishment and amusement. The ground was as hard as stone, covered with a rock-like deposit of silica, which formed a sort of platform. As if scooped out of this were three almost circular basins, of about twelve feet in diameter, and immeasurably deep. The right and left pools were nearly boiling--

the central basin just right for a dip. In this caldron were forty-eight persons "hitched" on round the edges, shoulder to shoulder, and with heads just out of water, or sporting in the midst. We soon decided what to do; and immediately there were fifty persons instead of fortyeight, smiling and laughing, and shaking hands or rubbing noses in the water. There were all sorts and sizes, and all en costume d'archange. Some were old tattooed grandsires, some babies hardly able to walk; there were fathers of families and mothers of the same; young men and maidens, boys and girls laughed together. The most perfect decorum and propriety were observed. Little brown babies nestled in their fathers' arms; and the latter, to amuse us, pitched the little things into the midst, to show how they could swim. They would sink for a moment, and then disclose a little brown solemn face above the waters and strike out for their fathers' arms again. I shall never now believe that children cannot learn to swim as soon as they can walk, or before.

There was one bright-eyed Maori, handsome but cunning-looking, whose face attracted attention. On asking his name we found that this was Kingie Herekiekie, the last of a long line of Herekiekies, to whom W- had an introduction from Sir George Grey. This chief, the legitimist head of the tribe, is a very Comte de Chambord in descent and Toryism. But what a reductio ad absurdum-the Comte de Chambord naked in a geyser! Suddenly the whole company caught sight of the crescent moon, with Venus almost occulted between her horns. A loud shout of Hau-Hau! the fanatical cry of the horrible Pai Marire superstition, startlingly reminded us that we were on the very verge of the "King" country, that pale into which entrance was then said to be death to a European. Were our good-natured friends Hau-Haus? I think it probable, though we asked no impertinent questions on this head.

The question, however, suggests the thought of one of the saddest corruptions of Christianity that ever existed among a half-taught people. The Pai Marire is a religious fanaticism which rose at the beginning of the last struggle between Maori and European, and was no doubt intended to draw a line of hatred and demarcation between the two. Its creed is a horrible mixture of Christianity, Spiritualism, and Maori superstition. Its liturgy-for its votaries framed a liturgy-is a jargon of phrases from the Prayer-book, the Missal, and the multiplicationtable, and is not understood by those who use it. One phrase repeated to the writer was Koti Pata mai merire said to represent "God the Father, miserere mei.” The "service" is, in short, an incantation, for the Maori seems never to have risen from the thought of incantation— Maoricé "Karakia"-to the thought of prayer.

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The practices of this novel creed are as bizarre as its liturgy gamy, the Tapu, and (in war at least) cannibalism are enjoined. Of polygamy we found no traces at Tokano or elsewhere. wife, and children live together in simple patriarchal fashion, and the

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morality of married life does not seem low, a strict and ancient law of "damages" being enforced.

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The Tapu seemed to be in greater vogue. I approached, out of curiosity, the image of a little child set up beside a boiling spring, where a little one had been drowned, and was vociferously warned not to violate the sanctity of the spot. This same well-abused system of Tapu seems to have been not without its benefits. Its original object was, no doubt, the preservation of property, secular as well as sacred. Earth, air, fire, water, goods and chattels, men, women, and children, were subject to its provisions." Chiefs and priests and all their property were tapu; their persons, especially their heads, Leing fearfully sacred, so that in the Maori legend, when Relva, the genius of the forest, shook his flowing locks, and bade Rupe satisfy his hunger on the Tui-birds which came forth, Rupe religiously refused to eat the birds which had rested in the hair of so great a chief.

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An infringement of the Tapu subjected the offender to various dreadful imaginary pains and penalties, of which deadly sickness was From these the Tohunga (priest) could absolve the penitent; but not from the operation of the "muru," the law of temporal punishment, which must take its course, though in a mitigated form.

Another very convenient provision of the law of "Tapu" rendered the bodies of chiefs sacred, so that they could undertake no menial work. In Maori language "they had no backs," and could carry no burdens. And another equally convenient provision rendered sacred any vessel or implement which a chief had used. If, for instance, a high "rangatira " (chief) happened to drink at the house of a "pakcha" (stranger), he would, after drinking, either pocket the glass or smash it, as being unfit for common use thenceforward.

For chiefs and priests, therefore, it is obvious that such an institution had its benefits; it was, as a New Zealand poet puts it, "the basis of their savage church and state."

Cannibalism seems now even physically repugnant to the Macri. Not long ago a read-maker named Sullivan was murdered, or rather executed, according to Maori notions. He had Leen warned not to trespass on native property, I believe, and informed of the consequences of disregarding the warning. Persisting in his work, he was put to death by the natives, and his heart is said to have been sent to the head-quarters of the native king, who at once gave orders that it should be buried. If this story be true cannibalism must be on the wane, even among the straitest Hau-Haus, as the votaries of the Pai Marire are called.

Shortly after suns we quitted our unique bath; and returning to the little inn, we "received" during the evening three Maori chiefs, to whom W had letters from Sir G. Grey. They were Herckiekie, already mentioned as one of our " companions of the bath," Paurini, and Heu-Heu.

* Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori

If Herekiekie may be called the Comte de Chambord of Tokano, Paurini is the preux chevalier of his party. He was once a great warrior against the English, but is now said to have accepted the inevitable and to be a "friendly." The honourable traces of English bullets have given him a portentous ugliness. One eye and half his face, including more than half his nose, seem to have been shot away. His bravery, however, has raised him to the rank of a high Rangatira, or chief, and in influence he is said to surpass his legitimate leader, who is trusted, if report be true, by neither party. Old fires are, I fear, still smouldering, and these chiefs are actively opposing road-making in the neighbourhood of Taupo. Te Heu-Heu, the third chief, a goodnatured, easy-going individual, is grandson of him so tragically overwhelmed by the catastrophe at Waihi.

State interviews are not lively, whether with pasha or Maori chief, or any other unknown-tongue-speaking dignitary. Luckily, Mr. Hull, a Government official who accompanied us, acted as interpreter, or our interview would have passed entirely in dumb show. Sir G. Grey's letters were presented and received with much respect. It is astonishing what an affection the natives, against whom he was constantly fighting, have for this ex-Governor. The letters, in quaint Maori fashion, introduced the traveller, and always ended with the words, "Be very kind to him, for he is a friend of mine." "What," asked the chiefs, can we do who have nothing but cabbage and potatoes?" They could show us a "Haka," was the answer.

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A "Haka" is the native dance, answering to the corroboree of the Australian aboriginals, and we were anxious to see it. A religious scruple intervened. News of the death of one of their number had just been brought to the tribe. The village was holding a "tangi," or wailing, the melancholy sound of which could be heard in the distance. A public "Haka" was out of the question. Later in the evening, however, the complaisant Herekiekie entertained a small and select party at a "Haka in his "whare" or house (pronounced wharry). It was exactly what I expected. The performers, all male, stood in a row, one, slightly advanced, acting as fugleman. They shouted and gesticulated with the most hideous and revolting gestures, grimaces, and yells. One little imp of a boy excelled in devilry anything I ever saw elsewhere. The object of the dance seemed to be to incite to all the seven deadly sins at once. We left the hut, hoping never to see a " Haka" again. Then we went to bed, conscious of many dusky faces and glittering eyes peering at us through the darkness.

While rambling about next morning we came upon a graveyard, and on a large church-bell in its midst, lying idly in the sand, broken. It was inscribed with the following words in the Maori language, which must be pronounced like Italian, sounding, however, the aspirate: "He mea homai noa tenei kia koutou e te hunge whakapono o Mawhera (scratched out) no etahi wahine pai o kotirana, April 3, 1853"-being VOL. XXXIII.-NO. 193.

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