CHRISTMAS RAMBLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 December 1922, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHRISTMAS RAMBLE.

A TARANAKI WAR TRAIL. COVERING ROMANTIC GROUND. SOME GLIMPSES OF THE PAST. Taranaki is full of historic associations, both Maori and Pakeha, separately and combined. Settlement has much changed the face of the country, but imagination will help to reconstruct the past with the aid of such natural features or land marks as remain untouched or unaltered by the hand of man. Picture a still, warm summer's day on the Taranaki coast, near the mouth of the Mokau River, the sea tinted the deepest of blue save where the curving lines of breakers swing shorewards in dazzling foam to leap among the outer reefs and run smoothly over the wide beaches. Sheer cliffs face the ocean, their clefts and crevices green with flax and toi-toi. From their summits, the land slopes gently back to the foot of the coastal range, the whole face of the country being clothed in the soft tints of the evergreen, ancient, primeval forest. Magnificent groves of kanaka trees, their branches laden with masses of golden-yellow berries, mingled with the mixed forest of the plateau, and on all sides can ibe heard the sweet bell-like notes <of the tui, the soft swishing of pigeon’s wings, and the occasional harsh grating cry of the kaka, or brown parrot. So appeared in its day, the Taranaki coast when, as yet, but few white men had landed to found a settlement where now stands the flourishing centre of New Plymouth. The whole of this coast line from Cape Egmont to faraway Waikato Heads remained a savage land, inhabited only by the fierce and war-like tribes of Maoris, Who, for centuries, had held sway over the great forest kingdom of Tane. Beneath the shade of the great trees clothing the coastal plateau, there once wound a narrow pathway worn by the passing of countless human hosts, its origin laying far back in the dim past pictured by the ancient wise men of the tribes. Used as the main high road of the‘coast, this pathway’s chief claim to fame lay in the fact that it was also the great war trail for the savage expeditions which periodically swept down from the Waikato to slake their blood thirst on the more peace-loving tribes- of the south. Stoutly-palisaded pas crowned nearly all the commanding ]x>ints along the sea coast, and from several of these could be heard the doleful tooting of war horns, that a war party was even now wending its way along the ancient trail. With shrill cries of alarm a tui flew from the outermost tree of one of the big karaka groves, and then passed silently like a long line of brown shadows the grim warriors of the war party come into sight in a little clearing. High up in a kie-kie clothed eyrie in the fork of a great gnarled purirl tree, a Taranaki scout armed with an old flintlock gun, sank lower amid the friendly leaves and watched with bated breath and fierce hawk-like eyes the passing of the enemy. The least sound from his hiding place and -a 'hundred savage foes would have been upon him. and his end would have been short and sharp indeed. This war party was worthy of particular notice, for it was representative, save in its more modern armament of trade guns, of many thousands of similar expeditions that have passed this way before. The leading scouts were well ahead, dodging silently along, on the lookout for any luckless individual who might be loitering on the trail. The main body came swinging along with roving eyes that noted the flight or movement of every bird and insect; for this war game demanded the very highest state of efficiency on the part of everv warrior.

The clothing worn by these braves was scant enough, indeed many of them were stark naked save for a belt and cartridge pouch about their waists. Gne or two wore short pio-pios or woven kilts of flax that reached half-way to the knee, and above this their brown, •sinewy bodies glowed warmly under the sunlight. Nearly every face was covered with the blue lines of an elaborate tattoo pattern, spiralling from nos-e to chin and radiating in curving lines from the centre of the forehead to the temples. Sharks’ teeth and pieces of greenstone hung from the lobes of their ears, and feathers of various birds were set jauntily in their shock heads of hair. They carried ancient muskets and fowling pieces, and each man had a mere or tomahawk tucked in his belt for close-quarter fighting. , Ahead of this war-like party stalked the grimmest figure of all, a tall and powerful man, a little beyond middle age, whose hideously tattoed face bore the scare of many a hard-fought campaign. Very proudly he carried himself, as became a fighting man of renown. His fierce eyes flashed from beneath heavy lowering brows, and the unyielding lines of his mouth and chin gave a ready index to the stern, relentless character of this descendant of a long line of fighting leaders.

Many years have rolled past since that day, and now, where once savage fighters roamed, we find the forest paths open, smiling pastures over which feed the flocks and herds of the white man. A few of those great groves of karaka trees that provided food for countless birds of the woodland remain. Their trunks show scars made with axe and mere by long dead human hands. In the summer time the air beneath the over-reaching domes of glossy foliage is sickly sweet with the perfume of ripening berries, and as the evening shadows gather about the ancient trunks the ghostly figures of the old warriors seem to slip among them once more. i Like a slowly receding tide the edges of the primeval forest which once enclosed such a marvellous wealth of foliage and unique bird life have been rolled back before the advent of the settler. The coast hills are bare, and bare of any signs of timber are the ranges beyond them, and far away into the heart of the country to where darkbrowed Ngauruhoe sits brooding over the destinies of thia newer race of men. A wonderful charm lies about this Taranaki coastline. Here landed the hardy pioneer settlers, men of Plymouth in Devon, who, with their rifles at hand, hewed homes for themselves from the ancient forest. The glorious peak of Egmont, which won admiration from Tasman and Cook when those intrepid navigators first visited these shores, (

towers high above the smiling plains, it® symmetrical base still clothed in native forest and forming a sanctuary for many rare and beautiful forms of bird life. To the visitor, Taranaki offers a field of exceptional interest, and in Egmont alone has a never-failing attraction,

whose beauties only need to be studied at close quarters to claim a unique place in the records of a land rich in scenic wonders.—By A.H.M. in Wellington Evening Post.