A WAIKATO GHOST STORY.

Patea Mail, Volume II, Issue 157, 11 October 1876, Page 2

A WAIKATO GHOST STORY.

A. Cambridge correspondent of out Waikato contemporary supplies the following account of a ghost alleged to hate been seen. The narrative is as follows : —“ Last Week, one of the Ngatihua was going along the bank of the Waito about dusk, when he saw someone coming towards him. Thinking it was the Ngatimaru, who have, a feucTwith his tribe, he tried to get away from- him ; but the faster he ran, the man, as ho thought him at that time, appeared to get closer to him. He turned round, and saw something that frightened him a great deal more than any Ngatimant could have done. What he saw then is described as something like a man, only his teeth Were longer - than a man’s fingers usually are, and in his mouth ho held a light, which the Maori thought proceeded from a candle fastened in the lower jaw. Directly he saw wbat was following him he said, ‘ It is an Atua,’ and took to his heels and ran for his life. He reached the house of a settler, and fell down exhausted, and could scarcely speak. After a while he managed to tell what had followed, him, and a Maori who happened to be in the house went outside, and he saw the Atua standing on a rise a little way from the house. He-went in again and asked the pakehas who were in the house to come out and bring a gun. One took a rifle and the other a long polo. The man with the rifle ' fired, and the shot took no effect. The man with the pole then went in to stir him with the pole, hut every time he made a blow the spirit jumped* round to his side. After ,he had tried five or six times to strike, his arms seemed to get powerless, and the spirit, with a wave of its hand, knocked the pole about tw'enty yards away from : the man that was Using it. The Atua then rose slowly up into the'air, hovering over the unfortunate man, and he was pressed dowli.. hy the spirit into the loose enrrt. He at last managed to crawl on his hands and feet to the house, where all the others had locked themselves in. They opened the door for him, and it is reported that he is still lying there very iii.: