BATTLEFIELD OR BURYING PLACE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11510, 17 February 1903, Page 5

BATTLEFIELD OR BURYING PLACE.

AN OLD-TIME REMINISCENCE. (bt o.rh.) Tho unearthing of some human remains in Hereford street West has induced me to record some old-time reminiscences which may not prove uninteresting. In the days when I was a school boy—alas, looked at across the gap of half <a century', how long ago it seems—a favourite rendezvous, -amongst others of my schoolmates and myself used to he what is known as the Mill Island. In those days it was covered with fern and tutu and flax, and there were numbers of bushes of koromiko with their delicate lilac-coloured and deep purple flowers. Here were haunts and }airs where, hidden from parental and scholastic eyes, the wag was played by us on hot summer afternoons with perfect security. When the big black bunches of tutu berries, larger than black currants, were ripe then the band used to go in for an afternoon's dissipation on tutu wine. It was made very simply, by gathering the bunches into our handkerchiefs and then squeezing the liquid of the berries into our mouths. If one hod a particular chum then each performed the service for the other, but as a rule every one made his beverage for himself. Not even the most rigid prohibitionist—had the genus been extant at the time—could have objected to the harmless beverage. There was only one drawback, and that was that after a carrouse of tutu wine one's lips became so deeply, stained that no amount of washing would get rid of it. This infallibly betrayed us to the maternal eye, and sometimes resulted in a good thrashing for duties —such as carrying water or chopping wood—neglected for the superior charms of the island. It was no use denying the fact, the indelible marks were there, but we took our punishmenfr— and. went again. To us, because perhaps we were young, the island was a perfect haven of delight. Here we used to have fierce combats —in those days always French against English—with the stout green flax sticks, which made a most admirable substitute for swords. Sometimes the literature of the day available to us, mostly Mayne Rent's stories and tales 6f adventure, received illustration by a band of youthful Pilgrims decorated with toi plumes and the flowers of the koromiko and with faces painted most elaborately with- the - yellow pollen of the flax honey cup flowers). So it fell out one day that the delights of , the island palled upon us. We panted for a change. We had beaten away at each other with flax swords till we were fared, and now there was a longing for J_w_b fields and pastures new. At that time there ran across the tussock-clad plain at the back of where the Publio Library and the Canterbury Club now stands a range of sandhills of pretty good height. Thew-ex-tended over what is now-Worcester, Here-

ford, and Cashel streets. To us boys at the time I speak-of this was a terra incognita, though we explored it pretty thoroughly afterwards. The smooth glistening sides of the sandhills, running steeply down into the valleys, offered visions of rolls innumerable and vistas of "King of the Castle" games with the ignominious descent into the valley of the bold challenger __ of sovereignty, which possessed great attractions to us. Time-, fore, one sunny half-holiday we deserved our erstwhile bland of Dreams, and, like lour fathers, in connection with Canter- ' bury, went forth into the. unknown land-. All the afternoon and late into the summer night,, we remained, though we knew well what awaited us on our return home, but* the fascination of the new resort was strong upon usT For many days, toj. after this, we sought the delights of thj sandy slopes, which the sun kissed into warmth. We paid flying visits, to- the island, mainly,, liowever, with a view of having surreptitious bathes in the cool river flowing past the 'island.' One day, when we assembled as usual at our sandhill resort, a gruesome sight met our eyes. A more than ordinarily fierce nor'-wester had stripped all the sand off one of the Tai-' leys, and there we saw closely packed in rows a pavement of Maori skulls. ,It seemed to our frightened senses that there were hundreds, but this could not have been. However, there they were, and there did not seem to be anything else but the skulls. We crept out of that valley with bated breath, and for a couple or three days we kept away, from- that, particular portion of the rango of sand dunes, and confined our play to a less gruesome part. There is a saying that "familiarity breeds contempt," and that truth of this was most strikingly illustrated in our cose. After about a week we were once more in that valley and playing a game known as "duck" with some of the loosened Maori skulls. Soon after, however, the traces of what might have been a gory conflict amongst the Maoris, or, perhaps, a tapu burying place, was obliterated by the wind driving the sand over it. And then came the days when youth was no more, and the very range of sandhills disappeared before the advancing civilisation of the growing city. To-day, as I pass the spot where that range of sandhills once stood, . I think whether it could be possible that where now -magnificent buildings are reared, wae wjthin my recollection a - mass of sand heaps on a wide spread tussocky plain, containing the relics of a fierce tribal contest, or the burying place of the Maoris who roamed over the wide expanse before the advent of the white men. Yet so it is, and the discovery of the remains in Hereford street has suggested to me that they may be a portion of those which we boys saw so many years ago. And so I close these somewhat rambling reminiscences of long ago.