SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREENSTONE COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE ISLAND.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 20, 27 September 1849, Page 3

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREENSTONE COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE ISLAND.

[Continued from our last.) At Te Miko, the cli ff of the high-wooded table land which has been gradnally approaching the tide line and narrowing the beach, juts abruptly out into the sea, with a perpendicular wall of C'ill ot about I'2o lect hi;;h, and seems to bar further progressTwo otatjes "f laddetf., mad'; ol th'i Aku or laij-c rope-lino pniM<( depend respcctively from a Iclg-j on the t;ice nt thu vock and l:om its summit, an;! oilbnl tiie moans of the ascent of tli'i eiiir. The Aka is about lour inches in diameter, and is tiseil to stag's driven into n crevice of the rock, and around the stems ol trees in the I nr. st above : straight pieces of wood are lashed longitudinally to the Aha ill order 1o ttill'i 11 the ladders, which, hanging perpendicularly, sway considerably durir. r T the nacfiit. The rounds or steps, which aio made of short pieces of wood or ot vine, lr-vv to he renewed by the traveller, as they rjuickly di'cay. The baggage and do:,'s have to bo drawn up with a rope, as nolhimr ein he c.irried up tha ladders. Inland of the | Cliff, the mountain is of so abrupt a nature as to l)e almost impassible. I-'oi" about 15 miles the way lies over a i succession of such rocky ptoinnnturies, or aliing beaches composed of huge fragments of the f lien clill' as far as the l'oint of I'unakaike, beyond which the Grseustoue country may be said to commonoe. The mountain range retires from the coast, fine level plains, covered with Tolara and other timber extend far inland, with large and deep rivers (lowing through them. l'omleen miles larther on is the Village of Kaiaroa, the first settlement from Taitapu.

Upon the I'akeroa beach, to which the tiav.ller descends from L'utiakaike, small pebbles of 'l'augi W«i, a b:i::ht and transparent greenstone crystal, may be found. About eighteen miics south of l ' lo P a "' descends uponthu Pakeroa beach is the rocky point of iMaukiuv.nui, ami beyond "'j 3 is the liay in which tha settlements of th? Lti'CCiistonj s:re sitliatci!. On the morning of ihe I'Jtli May, IS4-U, 62 <lavs alter leaving Nelson, t!ie wriur of ibis nr.d tin; parly, consUling cf ar.otlur whits man and (sto natives of tliu Tuinata Ko.'iira Irihe, reach:d the iMar.karanni Clill's. Upon passing quietly lound the point, the parly immediately observed by two women an I some children, who were out on thu reefs gathering sliell-lUh ; they immediately scampered off towards u small pah, which we observed at about u mile's distance, and we shortly heard the buzz and shouting amongst them occasioned by the surprise which the appearance of white men in their vicinity had occasioned.

Upon arriving at tlie settlement wo found its inhabitants, consisting of nbcut Id natives, drawn up in a line to receive us on the beach, near the entrance of the poll. The. men appeared foremost, and behind them the women and children. Nothing was spoken until wc had completed the " liongi," or nosu rubbing salutation, with every one of tliein ; but then a clamour commenced about who we we/e, where wo had coma from, and how bad wc possibly got there r Tlieie itnirea had never before seen a white man, and our arrival in their settlement was the' most import.tut tin-J extraordinary

:ift air tlint had occurred for years. In no part of New Zealand had the writer ever experienced better or more kind treatment than at this and the other villages in the Greenstone country. Immediately on the natives in the pah detecting ns, tfiey had placed on the (ire a large mess of potatoes, which they knew woujd be most ncceptable to us after the privation which we liful undergone on tho journey. While we ate our meal, they talked over what they had heard of the white people, and the traditions and stories which they remembered of the sealers who had formerly frequented the coast, On our undressing to turn in, under some fine mnts they had spread for us, 'hey examined us as minutely ns if we had been some animals of a new species, and continued watching us while we slept: this, however, was n«it for a long period, for ere we had finished our first nap, the cooking of a second mess of Inanga, or sprats, anil potatoes had been commenced, and we were aroused lo eat it. finch one in the pah Tjow dfemt-d it his or her duty to supply us wiih a basket full of cooked provisions, and during the whole of the first day and night filter our arrival heaps of food—more by ten times than we could dispose of—were continually being placed before us. From this place—the Kararoa Village—which is a settlement in the midst of some Potato and Taro plantations on a sunny part of the coast, we proceeded onward to the Mnhuera and Tara Makau Villages, which are respectively ten and twenty miles larlher to the southward. All the natives of Kararoa accompanied us, save one or two who had previously been sent on with the extraordinary intelligence of our arrivel. On this part of the journey we picked up several pieces of Poenamu. the green colour of •which, amongst the pebbles of the beach, quickly attracts the eye. We found the community, consisting of about 40 men, women, mid children, at Tara IVlakau Village nearly all employed in the manufacture of articles out of the greenstone. Two very handsome meri were in the course of formation, together with some Ilei Tiki, or the grotesque grinning figure with starinu eyes which the women liang to their ueeks ; and every woman or child had a Whakakai, or ear pendant, Mhicli they ground away at or polished up during a moment's leisure. About the corners of the pah, or thrown out on the beach, lay chips and fragments of Poenamu which had been knocked off the misshapen slabs, when tliey were first being brought into the form of meris, together with larger pieces, the colour or texture of which did not please the finders. In the houses «ere specimens of tho handsomest and most piized varieties of Poenamu, either in the rough fragment, or wrought and polished. Ilei Tiki formed out of the bright and transparent Kauraugi; a fine flat slab of the whitish green, and veiny Inanga reserved for a first-rate meri; several pebbles of the dark olive-green Knua-kaua, and pieces of the brilliant transparent and glassy crystal, the «'Tangi Wai," (literally " tears") in the eves of the white people far the most beautiful of all, but not by the native prized so ' much as the Kuurangi. _ . . i The Poenamu appears to exist in a vein in the high snowy range of mountains, called by 1 Cook the " Southern Alps," inland of Tara Makau; one peak of which—the"Hauraki" — is said to he the highest elevation in New ' Zealand, and from the height with which it towers above the surrounding summits, all of them suoiv-covered, it appears probable that such is the case. Alter a fresh in the Ara Hura River, a stream about 200 yards in breadth, the natives wade in the shallow water on the fords and about the banks, where, from its bright colour, the Poenamu is easily detected. It is us»ally found in small slabs of about or 2 inches in thickness. The greenstone that is washed out of the river in its Ilood3 is thrown again on the bench by the surf, and may be found there in the form of the shingles and pebbles which I have described. (To be continued in the next.)