WAIRAU—THE GRAVES.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 429, 12 September 1849, Page 4

WAIRAU — THE GRAVES.

After morning prayers, I started with my friend Joseph, the native teacher, as ray guide, to walk to the plain of Wairau. The path lay for a shoit distance through the native cornfields, but soon led to a woody passage between two high .hills, with an ascent so easy and

gradual that a native road for dragging canoes out of the wood had been made for seveiaj miles, on both sides of the lovr intervening ridge which separates Queen Charlotte's Sound from the talley of the Tuamarino, one of the tributaries of the Wairau. In about half an hour we reached the summit of the bank on the side of Waitohi, but the descent to the Wairau is longer and more gradual. At first we followed the direction of the native canoe road, but when that was lost in the various branches which led to the plices where the great trees had been felled, we turned off into the surveyor's tracks, with which the whole of the valley of the Tuamarino is now intersected. After three or four hours' walking, a distance probably of eight or ten miles, we emerged from the wood into a narrow valley closed in on either side with steep barren hills, with the Tuamarino winding through it in tht midst of a narrow strip of marshy flat. The whole of the valley could be drained without difficulty, as the bed of the swamps is high above the ordinary level of the river. A few clumps of trees oa the river's banks seemed to indicate that the whole valley bad once been a part of the forest. Another hour's walk brought us to the end of our journey, and a plaoe of deep interest tome, — the scene of the conflict of the Wairau. My native guide understood at once, <rom his own national custom, that I came to show ray respect for the dead by visiting their graves. I had another object also, which was to examine the, spot, with a view to making an application to have it reserved and set apart as a site for a church and burial-ground. The whole history came painfully before my mind, as I stood on th,e place where so many useful lives were uselessly lost, and where some of the best friends of the native people were visited with the penalty deserved only by their bitterest enemies. There was the deep unfordable stream of the Tuamarino, with its rotten and hollow banks ; and the crossing-place where Rangihaiata's canoe, moored across the stream, formed a temporary bridge ; and on the other side the thick jungle of flax and I'eeds, backed by a copse of large timber, which made it almost impossible for an English force to" cope with the natives ; and which, if we had been the victors, would have prevented us from making a single prisoner among the vanquished. Oa the other side of the river, along which the path to the Wairau lies, the ground itself explained the circumstance of the affray. Close to the river, within a neat fence of stakes, are the graves of those who fell at the first affray which followed the random shot accidentally fired while the party were recrossing the river. From this point the line of retreat was evident, by which some were led into the plain of Wairau, where they escaped to the sea ; but Captain Wakefield and the other gentlemen, with a view no doubt to save the lives of their men, ascended, in sight of the pursuers, a round knoll of fern rising immediately from the river ; and there their grave is marked by a simple fence, in full sight of the plain or the WairrfU, for which they los»t their lives in vain. The half of the Middle Islaud would have been too dearly purchased at the price of the life of Captain Wakefield alone. The whole ol the plain has since been boaght, at a price which I will not mention, lest I should seem to place it in comparison with these inestimable lives. Peace to their mortal remains in the lonely graves by the still waters of the Tuamarino ! From the top of this knoll, upon which I hope to see a church erected, t e whole plain of the Wairau is clearly seen, with the rivet winding in its wide bed of gravel, which, in all the rivers of the Middle Island, is the only sign visible in dry weather of the torrent which often deluges the plain. On the side of the sea the view is bounded by the headland of Pannuiowhiti, connected with the grassy downs of Kaparatehau, at the southern extremity of which the snowy peaks of Tapuaenuku close in the view over the plain. The distance from Nelson is very considerable, whether by land or sea ; the nearest road at present practicable being sixty or seventy miles in length. But an easy chain of communication cart be established by water, from Nelson to Croixilles Harbjur, in Blind Bay ; from the northern arm of Croixilles, over a native canoe portage into the Pelorus (Hoieri) River, and thence by a similar portage' into Queen Charlotte's Sound, and so to Te Wera-a-Waitohi, and through the Tuamarino valley to the Wairau. This route would only iuvolve about twenty miles of easy land carriage ; all the rest being a good navigation in inland waters. (To be continued.)