KARIOI.
Our commissariat gives out--The Murimotu Plains--The
settlement--The homestead--The welcome--Society at Karioi--The
natives--The Napier Mail.
When morning broke over our camp on the Onetapu Desert the rain poured
down without intermission, the flood waters of the great mountain swept
over the plains in every direction, and the whole country, obscured for
the most part by heavy mists, looked indescribably desolate. To remain
camped where we were was simply to court starvation. We were now nearly
100 miles from where we had started, and, while our horses were so weak
as to be hardly able to walk, through exposure and want of proper food,
our own commissariat was reduced to its lowest. Yet, up to this point,
we had not accomplished one-half of our intended journey. It is true we
had ascended the great mountains, and had seen their wonders, but there
were still dense forests and unknown regions to be traversed. We had
been told before setting out from Tapuwaeharuru that a sheep-station
known as Karioi could be reached by travelling in the direction of
Whanganui. This was out of our course, but there was no alternative
but to make for it, in order to recruit our horses and replenish our
commissariat. We therefore looked towards this place as a kind of Land
of Promise, flowing with the proverbial milk and honey.
Once clear of the sterile desert, we took a southerly course along the
Whangaehu River, until we reached the magnificent tract of open country
known as the Murimotu Plains. This wide district, which forms, as it
were, the southern slope of the great central table-land, stretches
in the west to the borders of the forest country which extends to the
valley of the Whanganui, while to the eastward it is bounded by the
lower hills which branch out in the form of extensive ridges from the
southern end of the Kaimanawa Mountains. These plains, which resemble
in general features those to the north of the desert forming the
Rangipo plateau, are covered with a network of streams and rivers,
and, for the most part, with a luxuriant growth of native grasses, the
ridges and lower hills which dot them towards the east being carpeted
with low fern. We travelled across the plains principally by compass
bearing, and we had to cross many swollen streams in our course, the
waters of one pouring in the form of a cascade into a deep circular
basin. Beyond this point we again struck the Whangaehu, which had now
become a wide stream, but its waters were still quite white. After
a journey of nine hours, during which time the rain and wind never
ceased, we sighted a "three-rail fence," which we joyously hailed as
the first sign of civilization we had seen for some time.
The fence proved to be the horse-paddock of the station, and following
it along, we soon came to our destination. We found the various
_whares_ and rustic huts composing the settlement of Karioi scattered
promiscuously about the banks of the Tokiahuru River, a tributary of
the Whangaehu, which wound through the station in its course to the
south. The site of the settlement was most delightfully chosen, and the
views from every part of it were most attractive.
Upon arrival at the homestead all hands came to greet us, although
nobody knew who we were, nor where we had come from; nor were we asked
whether we were hungry. With true bush etiquette, that was taken as a
matter of course, and we were soon invited to partake of what was to us
a magnificent repast.
We found the good people of Karioi true cosmopolites, ready to enter
into conversation and to furnish all the news in their power in
exchange for what we could tell them of the country we had passed
through. Strange as it may appear, in this small settlement of whites
and natives, which formed the last link in the chain of European
settlement stretching from the East Coast into this portion of the
country, our pleasant party at Karioi was composed of representatives
of many nations. A Mr. Rees, who had come up from Whanganui, was a
native of Australia, and had served in the armed constabulary at
Parihaka; Mr. Newman, our host, hailed from the South of England; one
of the "hands" was a New Zealander, another an Austrian, a third came
from the Alpine districts of the Tyrol, and another from the Land o'
Cakes, while the native race was here represented by several _hapus_
of one of the principal Whanganui tribes. To listen to the spirited
description given by Mr. Rees of the Parihaka campaign, and to his
delineation of Te Whiti[52] and other notable chiefs, to participate in
the varied conversation upon the wonders of the surrounding country,
to chat with the Tyrolese in his native tongue, and to feel that a
great vacuum had been filled in our insides, was so great a change to
what we had recently experienced, that we now seemed to be partaking
of the pleasures of the varied society and seductive luxuries of a
first-class antipodean caravansary, where hospitality was boundless and
good-fellowship the order of the day.
In the evening we visited the native _kainga_, and spent some time
with the Maoris in the _wharepuni_. There were about twenty natives
present, men, women, and children, and in the centre of the primitive
apartment blazed a huge fire, which threw out a terrific heat, and
rendered the place almost unbearable. The natives were mostly short
of stature, with hard features, and I remarked that they spoke with
a much harsher accent than those further to the north, and that they
clipped many of their words in a remarkable way. When Turner inquired
for an explanation of this habit, they stated that their great
ancestor, Ngatoroirangi, when he came over in the _Arawa_ canoe was
engaged in baling out that craft during a storm, and that whilst so
doing he caught a severe cold, which caused him to speak in a sharp,
halting kind of way, which has been imitated ever since by many of the
Whanganui tribes, who claim descent from that celebrated chief, and who
has been before alluded to in a previous chapter as the first explorer
of the country.
On the second evening after our arrival at Karioi, and when all hands
were assembled in the homely _whare_ watching the big pots boiling for
supper, in fact, when everything looked _couleur de rose_, a horseman
rode up bespattered with mud from head to foot, bringing a packet of
papers and a handful of letters. This was the Napier mail, and we
hailed it with delight, as it was the first tidings of civilization we
had obtained since we left Tapuwaeharuru, over twenty-four days past.
We anxiously scanned the telegrams, to see what had arisen with regard
to the Mahuki difficulty, when we learned that the native minister
was about to leave Alexandra to travel by way of the Mokau River to
Taranaki, in company with a body-guard of armed natives, under the
chief Hone Te Wetere, that Mahuki's tribe was going to oppose his
journey through that portion of the country, and that a gallows had
been erected at Te Kumi, to hang the native minister and all other
whites that might be caught across the _aukati_ line. This news, which
was about the most exciting item of intelligence the papers contained,
was discussed with much gusto. The mere idea of war in the King
Country--Alexandra in flames and a minister hanged--seemed to act like
magic upon the heroic hearts of the cosmopolitan community at Karioi.
This new phase of the native difficulty Turner and myself treated with
apparent indifference, but in reality, coming as it did at that moment,
we secretly deemed it of no small concern, as we had determined to
leave Karioi on the following day, re-enter the King Country at its
southern end, and come out somehow across the northern frontier. In the
suggestive words of the schoolboy, we never "let on;" but, as a matter
of fact, from the time we left Karioi until we crossed the _aukati_
line at Alexandra, five weeks afterwards, this significant item of
intelligence was our _bête noire_, as during our progress northward we
could never tell from day to day what difficulties we might run into
with the natives by reason of the Hursthouse-Mahuki episode.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 52: Te Whiti and Tohu, the Maori prophets, were captured in
1882, at the instance of the Government, by the armed constabulary at
the native settlement of Parihaka, for inciting their followers to
commit acts of lawlessness against the European settlers.]