AT TUHUA-“THE MAYOR”-ISLAND OF BASALT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 152, 17 September 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

AT TUHUA-“THE MAYOR”-ISLAND OF BASALT

Romantic Island, Summit of Submerged Volcano, Named By Captain C00k... Home of Tuatara Lizards & Katipos... The “Corsair” Te Haramiti..

(Written, for THE SVN by

FERGUS DUNLOP)

a_, ASALT, obsidian, tuatara lizards, unfathomable 2j surge, dark winding V] caverns, in whose black * recesses the water rSj gurgles and clutters, katipo spiders, make sharks and swordfish, a mountain top ablaze with the crimson glories of the pohutukawa, or Christmas flower, in bloom: these are some of the characteristics of the curious romantic island that Captain Cook dubbed •The Mayor.” The original native name is "Tuhua” (obsidian, or volcanic glass), and of this there are immense quantities, both on the slopes of the volcano and also in the black cliffs that form the shore of the island. On sunny days the cliffs may be seen to gleam and flash, as though heavily bejewelled, but the sparkle that catches tile eye of the passing mariner is from no gems of price but the meretricious glitter of great blocks of dark obsidian throwing back the sun’s rays.

Mayor Island is the summit of a great submerged volcano, rising to a height of some 2,000 feet from the bottom of the sea; about 600 or 700 are submerged. All round about it the ocean depth is about 100 fathoms, save here and there were great reefs, representing the summits or backs of underwater spurs and ridges, approach the surface. None of the reefs, in fact, rises visibly above the surface, but on some of them the sea at low tide breaks in surge and foam. For this reason the waters about the Mayor are extremely dangerous to ships, for soundings give no warning of the approach of these great underground crags that fall in sheer precipice from the ocean surface to the ocean floor. The principal impression that the Mayor produces on the mind is that of solitude, loneliness, and the vast immensity of ocean, for all round it the sea surges and moans deep against sheer basalt precipices. There have been times when Tuhua was a scene of many activities. An abandoned whaling station, with its iron sheds and great heavy timber skids, evidences an enterprise of the early seventies. It is said that the whaling venture failed because the whales passed by too quickly, and

without dawdling or staying to play about the shores of the island. Apparently the aspect of those rocky shores was too grim and forbidding even for the whales. But the whalers have left their trace in a few English flowers and vines scattered through the native forest, and in a knoll of white-picketed graves whereon still blows here and there an English rose. The vines and roses, with their sug-

gestion of home and of children playing, seem in strange contrast to the wildness of that desolate place. But if any pirate or smuggler, who is in need of a first-class lair, should read these lines, I gladly proffer him the Mayor. Indeed, piracy is the principal purpose for which the island has in former days been used. The pirates were not the traditional bearded ruffians in jack boots, witli belts crammed with dirks and pistols, but i.ithe brown men in fleets of some fifty to a hundred heavy war canoes, men naked, save for mats, and much addicted to prancing, yelling and brandishing weapons. For in the

early part of the nineteenth century, at a date when the first missionaries were beginning to establish their settlements in bays along the coast, a kind of pirating or free-booting was the principal occupation of a large tribe of semi-civilised Maoris who dwelt far to the north, and annually made free-booting raids down the coast in search of glory, revenge and plunder. Of the latter they won little, except in the form of prisoners and slaves. For to the credit of these brown Polynesian rovers be it said that their piracies were, in the old phrase, unsullied by the crime of stealing. But revenge was always sweet, and of glory they gained a plenty. So much so, that in the traditions of their race, their deeds and words and actions, their genealogies and their looks, and the very pet names of their weapons and their dogs are recorded, and by the cook-house fires, and many a shearing shed and bushfallers' camp, they are sung and told.

The island of Tuhua, standing as it did some twenty miles off shore, commanded from a primitive naval point of view a large section of the mainland, and when a fleet of the mar-

auders put forth from their native creeks and islets and banded for a raid, the word passed would be “To Tuhua.” The last of these raids was under the command of one, Te Haramiti, and took place about the year 1832. Te Haramiti was scarcely the proper type for a pirate —there was little about him of Edward Teach, Morgan, or Bartholomew Sharp. He was old, decrepit, and blind, and in appearance rather sanctimonious, with a lean face, white tutt of beard, and features regular and gentle. But the actual deeds of this gentle-faced old man would have shocked even the hearts of those rough buccaneers of

the Spanish Main. It was a long and stormy career that was brought to its just conclusion at or near Tuhua. It happened that at Russell two native girls were playing together in the surf, and one, becoming angry at the roughness of the other girl’s play, called her an unseemly name. It seems that among these people injury might be forgotten and forgiven, but insult never. A conflict between tie girls’ families led to bloodshed; the trouble grew and spread (as the pebble thrown in a pool spreads news of its calamitous fail to every corner of the pool) until, in some far distant bay, a skirmish involved the people of the Southern Coast and there was a killing. Revenge to tie Maori was a religious duty, and an expedition of one hundred and forty men was sent under Te Haramiti to obtain it. A distance of about five hundred miles the fleet paddled, skirting, no doubt, the shores, and camping from time to time in deserted bays, until after many days Tuhua showed blue-grey on the horizon. Waiting till nightfall the raiders made their landing, and at first blush of the early summer’s dawn, rushed and captured the unsuspecting and unguarded fortress of the garrison of the island. The defenders, a hundred in number, were quickly slain, and the raiding party, exultant, paddled on toward a more southern island, some forty miles away, to repeat if possible the performance.

But from Tuhua a single canoe had escaped to the mainland, and a fleet of avengers, some hundred in number, was soon afloat, bound for Tuhua in pursuit. All night they paddled, and at dawn reached the island, only to find that the raiders had departed. Guessing their course, the avengers foil awed in hot pursuit. Toward midday the raiders on the beach at Motiti saw in the distance a fleet which they took to be reinforcements, and a feast of welcome was prepared. But it was eaten by no welcome guests, for the pursuing canoes were swift, and a sharp struggle on the sands and in the surf saw the raiders conquered. That they were promptly slain to a man, we need hardly say. But old Te Haramiti’s sacred person, must be respected. His blood must not be shed. He was beaten to death with fists.

The only landing place on Tuhua is a pretty bay some five chains in width, calm and clear in fine weather or when the prevailing winds are blowing, but in south-easterly weather a surging, seething whirlpool of spume and froth and raging breakers. The tuatara lizards were to be found on the top of a small islet near the shore. It is about eighty feet in height, flattopped and circular, a column of basalt unscaleable save with ladder and grappling iron. No wonder the tuatara here survived the Maori and his dog, the European whalers, and all his other natural enemies of earlier days.