WAIEOA AND TARAWERA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XII, Issue 1735, 16 June 1886, Page 2

WAIEOA AND TARAWERA.

Maoriland, the guidebook published by the Union Steamship Company, gives the following particulars about Wairoa, and description of Tarawera : — ' The settlement of Wairoa has seen many vicissitudes during the last forty years. It was m 1845 that the veteran missionary, the Rev. G..M. Spencer, first took up mission work amongst the natives of this district at Kariri (Galilee), a strongly fortified settlement on the West shore of Tarawera Lake. In 1850 he commenced the present settlement of Wairoa, where, with the assistance of an old carpenter, he pat up the parsonage, utilising for the pur pose the best of the ritau. timber which had been killed by the Maori cultivation firesi ,Te Wairoa was considered quite a model. settlement. The land was laid oft m half -acre fenced lots, each lot being -.occupied by one family. Mr Spencer instructed them m all useful industries, helping them to erect a church, schoolhouse, and mill, and encouraged them to plant English trees. At that time the Maories grew a considerable quantity of wheat— two of their own people serving as millers. Wairoa saw its best days m 1856. and .1864, • when the Maori war broke out and disturbed the peace of the settlement. In 1867 the native populalution retired to the more easily defended pah of Kariri, and did not return to Wairoa till 1873. During the war Mr Spencer's family had to move three times ; but the missionary himself, true to his colours, remained throughout at his post. Mrs Way, the present mistress of the parsonage, is Mr Spencer's daughter, and is therefore well Versed m the traditions and history of Wairoa. Since the war Wairoa has never recover- ■ ed itself. Mount Tarawera lias three summits (Tarawera, Ruawahia, and Wahanga)," rising to a height of nearly 2000 feet.. There is a strange fascination abput : this curious truncated mountain. It looks Imro and scat red, its/stejp walls rising up black and terrible as if blasted with lightning — the very sublimity of desolation. No wonder that the Maori ' imagination invests this spot with horror. It is to them a city of the dead, and may not lightly, bo approached ; .", and when clouds gather round its summits, and roll m heavy masses along ite sid?s, driven by the fierce winds that play about the crest, it requires no active imagination to people it with weird and spiritual terrors. The following brief but interesting extract from a description of Tarawera Js trow JJoohstetyer's " New Zealaud" : — " The scenery of Tarawera Lake sarpasies m wildneis and grandeur that of •ny of the lakei m the b»ke diitriot. The word ifgnifini burnt cliffs. Iti general fowl, wolmlve ot Uirtepp p|4i>

coves, is that of a rherabua, with its main diagoDal running from west to east. In this direction it is seven mills long, having a breadth of about five miles. . . Its shores are mostly rugged rocUy bluffs, ahaded by pohutukawa trees. The chief ornament of the adjoiuing landscape is Tarawera Mountain* with its crown of rocks divided into three geakß,. by deep ravines. It rises on the south-eastern side of the lake to a height of at least 2000 ft above the level of the sea. It is an imposing table mountain, consisting of obsidian and rhyolitic rocks, and it is not to be wondered at that its dark ravines and vertical sides have given rise to many an odd story m vos;u« among the Maoris. Among others, a huge monster _ 24ft long, resembling a crocodile, is said to haunt the 'clefts of the rocks, devouring .everyone who dares to scale the mountain. N