Waikato

“ All the six miles to Wairakei, we follow the Waikato River; watch it sink into a deep green gorge; break into splendid foam and spray down a magnificent fall, that alone might make the fortune of any hotel in a less richly dowered country; wind underneath colossal tree-clad cliffs, in coils and streaks of the strange emerald-blue that is the glory of the river, and finally bend away towards the Arateatea Rapids. Another hotel built after the charming fashion of the Taupo hostelry, receives the coach occupants. The style of architecture sets one thinking. ”

“ At a small village, with an unpronounceable native name, where the Waipa mingles its pellucid stream with the blue Waikato, we see the remains of an ancient Maori burying-place. It is market-day here. Crowds of stalwart lads career madly up and down on horseback, chasing unruly mobs of bellowing cattle to and fro. Substantial-looking farmers and dealers are congregated round the chief hotel. ”

“ This district is situated in the centre of the North Island, and is known as the Waikato, or "King Country." After a long and brave, but unsuccessful, resistance against the encroachments of the whites, a number of the leading Maori Chiefs met, and with a view to the erection of a last barrier against the invaders of their soil, resolved to proclaim the mountainous Waikato country as their sacred territory, to elect a king of their own, and to make all necessary laws for themselves. ”

“ But the Waikato country was flat or undulating, clothed in fern and with only patches of forest. A first-class high road—the river—ran right through it. The sturdy resistance of the natives was due first to their splendid courage and skilful use of rifle-pits and earthworks, and in the second place to our want of dash and tactical resource. Clever as the Maori engineers were, bravely as the brown warriors defended their entrenchments, their positions ought to have been nothing more than traps for them, seeing how overwhelming was the white force. ”

“ Every woman has a child a-straddle on her back, and a short black pipe in her mouth. The men look awkward, shambling, and out of place in their ill-fitting European garments.
Here, the strong Waikato flows with a peaceful, sluggish-looking current. Deceptive enough this, as it is in reality swift and full of eddies and undertows, which make it dangerous to bathers. This most beautiful river we keep with us now all the way up to Cambridge, getting an occasional glimpse of its pure free current as the banks here and there open, while we pursue our onward course. ”

“ Solfataras, mud volcanoes and fumaroles are counted in hundreds in the volcanic zone. If there were not such curiosities, still the beauty of the mountains, lakes, streams and patches of forest would, with the bright invigorating air, make the holiday-maker seek them in numbers. Through the middle of this curious region runs the Waikato, the longest and on the whole most tranquil and useful of that excitable race the rivers of New Zealand. Even the Waikato has its adventures. ”

“ 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.
Life on the old frontier, on one of the farthest-out farms, seems a kind of dream, a fabric of remembrance tinged with a faerie [85] haze, viewed through the vista of years from these times of new interests, new manners, changed modes of thought. ”

“ The Maori said neither yea nor nay; they simply did nothing. Whereon the Governor, wroth at their contumacy, declared his intention to invade Waikato and bring the insolent rebels to their knees. It is hard to see how one who has never taken an oath of allegiance can be a rebel; but that may pass.
The colonists who heard the Governor's fulmination could not believe their ears, called his attention to the state of unpreparedness throughout the colony, and urged that to invade Waikato would be to invite an alliance of the sympathisers with that powerful tribe against the British. ”

“ No method of selection could have been more just, and in February, 1865, the seat of Government was removed from Auckland to Wellington.
The second notable event—the third in order of sequence—was the surrender of the celebrated Waikato chief, Wiremu Tamihana Te Waharoa (William Thompson) , whose persistent energy had put so much heart into the insurgents. With his submission the Waikato war proper ended, and this although many Waikato joined the Hauhau movement. The conflict was not over; but the Waikato as a tribe withdrew from it. ”

“ On the other hand, the natives were far from a happy family. The Waikato had not forgotten that they had been aforetime the conquerors of the Province, now the scene of war, that the Ngatiawa and Taranaki had been their slaves, and that Wiremu Kingi had fled to Cook's Straits to escape their raids. They swaggered among their old foes and servants, and ostentatiously disregarded their advice, much to our advantage. ”

“ Fortunately hearing stood them in the stead of sight; shortly a nearer sound of water indicated that the confluence was at hand. At eight o’clock the little troop arrived at the point where the Waipa loses itself in the Waikato, with a moaning sound of meeting waves.
“There is the Waikato!” cried Paganel, “and the road to Auckland is along its right bank.”
“We shall see that to-morrow,” said the Major, “Let us camp here. It seems to me that that dark shadow is that of a little clump of trees grown expressly to shelter us. Let us have supper and then get some sleep.” ”

“ The turbulent Waikato tribes had lost their high chiefs, their bravest young men. The flower of the land of Maui lay low. The universal wail rose high in a hundred kaingas. Taught by bitter experience, the more intelligent natives had arrived at the conclusion that the resistless pakeha must be obeyed. His soldiers and his sailors, his volunteers and his allies (leading tribes of their own blood) , his guns and his mortars, were all too powerful. Their chiefs who had visited England and seen the might of Britain had told them as much before. ”

“ In the years 1870 and 1879 large accessions were made to the inmates of Dunedin gaol by the arrival of two batches of Maori prisoners from the North Island, the first being Waikato warriors taken in the field, the second the disturbers of the peace who knocked down the settlers' fences at Parihaka. The Waikato men were a fine, noble body. They conducted themselves with amazing good humour, and joined heartily, as if in competitive spirit with the white men, on the works in various places. ”

“ The heart of the army was the fierce Waikato tribe under William Thompson. This native general commanded at the outset 2,500 warriors, afterward increased to 8,000. The men of Shongi and Heki, two powerful chiefs, came to his assistance. The women took their part in the most trying labors of this patriotic war. But right has not always might. After severe struggles General Cameron succeeded in subduing the Waikato district, but empty and depopulated, for the Maories escaped in all directions. ”

“ He it was who by his precepts and personal example made the natives of Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi, and Orakau a farming and fruit-growing people, with the result that long before the Waikato War adventurous travellers to this district found to their astonishment a series of eye-delighting oases in the wilds, with great fields of wheat, potatoes, and maize, and dwellings arranged in neat streets and shaded by groves of peach and apple-trees; each settlement with its water-driven flour-mill procured by the community and busily grinding into flour the abundant yield of the cornfields. ”

“ The next day we spent in a launch on the lake, whose beauties cannot be imagined from the shores. There are said to be forty-two rivers and creeks running into Taupo, but the Waikato is its only outlet, and that runs into the sea about twenty miles to the south of Onehunga.
On Wednesday we drove to Wairakei and explored the geyser valley there. It is more a gorge than a valley, and is simply a succession of boiling pools and geysers on either bank of the river, almost hidden in some places by the wealth of fern and manuka, trees and undergrowth of all kinds. ”

“ At last one of the Waikato chiefs, regardless of the fact that his tribespeople were only in the Rohepotae by sufferance of Ngati-Maniapoto, had the hardihood to declare that the sod would not be turned because it was Waikato’s land. “Oh, well,” said the Premier, quietly regarding the deeply-incensed Wahanui, “if it is Waikato’s land we have come to the wrong place.” Then the tall, dignified rangatira Taonui, almost as big a man as Wahanui, arose and said, with angry determination: “It is our land ”

“ Around Auckland, the country seems pretty populous. Farm-houses are frequent, villas numerous, cultivation common, and every now and then a modest little spire marks the site of a snug little village. The strata we note in the cuttings is ridgy, wavy, and streaked like a ribbon, showing the volcanic influences that have been at work.
Nearing the Waikato Hills, whose broken outlines loom out dark on the horizon; we pass great rich flats, with a black, peaty soil ”

“ Shortly after the return of the northern raiders a noted Waikato warrior, named Te Uira, came into the disputed Aotea territory, and while there varied his sport as a fisherman by killing a stray Ngati-Toa tribesman. On hearing of this tragedy Te Rauparaha and a war party promptly went over and retaliated by slaying Te Uira. Though to all appearances strictly within the code of morality which sanctions the taking of a life for a life, the Waikato people chose to regard this act as one of treachery, and the magnitude of the crime was measured by the value of the life taken. ”

“ Even on the very top of Mount Kakepuku, crowning the ancient crater rim, are the ruins of two fortresses of the Ngati-Unu tribe.
Te Awamutu was inhabited, when the first pakeha ventured into these parts, by the Ngati-Ruru, a section of the great Waikato tribe. Rangiaowhia was peopled by two other large Waikato clans, Ngati-Apakura and Ngati-Hinetu. Ngati-Maniapoto held all the Puniu country and the land to the southward; their northern outpost was Kihikihi. The Orakau district was held by the Ngati-Raukawa and a hapu of Waikato called Ngati-Koura. ”

“ They were soon aware, from a few English words used by the natives, that they were a retreating party of the tribe who had been beaten and decimated by the English troops, and were on their way back to the Upper Waikato. The Maori chief, whose principal warriors had been picked off by the soldiers of the 42nd Regiment, was returning to make a final appeal to the tribes of the Waikato district, so that he might go to the aid of the indomitable William Thompson, who was still holding his own against the conquerors. ”

“ In this waiata the Commissioner of Waikato was requested to [33] “plug up” the boundary river between pakeha and Maori lands and make it a close frontier, and thus prevent the King’s followers passing below its mouth to trade in Auckland, so that presently, for want of European clothing, their naked bodies might be seen protruding from their scanty native garments. ”

“ The outlying farmers and settlers, abandoning homes, stock and everything they owned, rushed into town, where each man anxiously asked his friends: “Can we trust the Lower River natives?” “Will they become converted and join the Hau Haus?” “If so, what then?” True, they possessed one great factor in their favour, and that was the firm and undeviating friendship of old Hori Kingi Te Anaua (the paramount chief of the Lower Waikato) , whose name should be remembered and treasured by every white man, woman and child on the west coast of New Zealand. ”

“ Towards sundown we gained the upper waters of the Waikato, which here wound across the desert in the form of a small stream coming from the direction of Ruapehu. After crossing this we struck up towards the Kaimanawa Mountains, to the Mamanui stream, where there was a deserted Maori camping-place, and where we found excellent feed for our horses. The spot where we pitched our camp stood at an elevation of 3727 feet above the sea, on the banks of the Mamanui, which wound from the mountains to form one of the many tributaries of the Waikato which have their rise in these extensive ranges. ”

“ I found out that the road we had travelled was one which formerly led to some part of the Waikato country, but now disused, and that it was the only place where the base of the cone could be seen; that nobody had ever approached nearer than we now were; and that the reason was, they were afraid. They said that formerly when they passed this point of the road they used to cover their heads with their mats, because it was "taboo" to look at the mountain, or at least the peak. The night was exceedingly cold, but I did not feel it so much as I did on the Waikato. ”

“ Several feeders empty themselves into the Waikato, more especially on its western bank; most of these are of tortuous course, running for many miles among the hills. A description of the chief features of the Opuatia Creek, which was explored for twenty-five miles from its mouth, may be taken as a general representation of those of other creeks. The first five or six miles passes through extensive raupo swamps, occasionally relieved by large patches of New Zealand fiax and various sedges ”

“ The events of the New Zealand war need not here be recited, but it may be easily imagined that during the continuance of the fighting the extensive are [Pg 7] a of country ruled over by the Maori monarch was kept clear of Europeans. But in 1863 and 1864 General Cameron, at the head of about 20,000 troops, composed of Imperial and Colonial forces, invaded the Waikato district, and drove the natives southward and westward, till his advanced corps were at Alexandra and Cambridge. Then followed the Waikato confiscation of Maori lands and the military settlements. ”