TONGAEIEO AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 146, 24 November 1870, Page 6

TONGAEIEO AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.

The following extract from a letter of a member of the constabulary force in the North Island to a Tuaoeka resident will be interesting to our' readers : —

I left Napier for here the 3rd Miy, and had a stiff two days ride over an

exceedingly rough and broken country. I was fortunate enough to have very fine weather, which enahled me t<> enjoy some beautiful sieiiery en route to the front. Ou my arrival atOpepe, the key or centre of tne North Islanrl, [ found the men located in smail bark huts and tents ; the walls of some o.* the huts composed of slabs taken from the H. iuh.au Ciiurch which they puiUd down to, suit their own convenience, and not because the Hauhaus of this place are not so fashionable as the Tuapeka ones as to put in an appearance witii white bellt >ppers. T.iis station is 100 strong. We have now. fine wooden houses, and offi.e inside the redoubt w u'ch is w.'ll palisaded, and slabbed. We subscribed anl «^ot a band, and have music and dancing every night, and also a library, aud kitchen gardens have beon made at each station — all of course by the Commissioner's directions.

Tle d.iy after my arrival, I went to see the graves of the nine poor fellows who were murdered by Te Kooti and his followers, and could not help thinking of the morning when at breakfast we were reading the account, when T said there ou^ht to be a chain of stations run through the island, rf.nv little I then thought that I should be one of the number on one of the posts.

Tne great burning Mount Tongariro is about fifty miles' from here. Ju about a week after my arrival it became quite active — indeed more so than it was ever known to be. The first symptoms of its activity were about 9 p.m., when we heard a tremendous noise like an earthquake, and the ground shook md trembled beneath our feet; presently a great body of flame rushed from the top of the mount, giving a beautiful appearance to its base which was covered with snow. This lasted for about a week, and every day we used to stand and look at the great body of smoke like a huge pillar reaching to the heavens. During this time on two or three occasions we could notice the water in the well tepid.

A bout twelve miles from Tiere there are hot sulphur springs, and in some of the water ponds a person wishing to bathe can have the water from cold to boiling hot. Our men go to visit this place frequently, and there is one spring in which they boil t'e : r billy. About a mile from here there is one of these hot springs in perpetual action, continually sending up volumes of smoke and steam. The surrounding country seems to me to have been all burned at one time, for it is nothing but pumice.

I have given you? proposal about the missionary arrangement consideration, but think it would be a useless speculation amongst the Maoris. We would have to deal out favours t> them with a no penuioua hand to •win them over from their dielikeß and prejudices to .men of the order you mention, brought on by shameful and wicked abuse of the power they possessed over the native mind. I will give you one instance of a clergy-, man's carrying on. Whenever he fancied he required a fat fowl or pig, a horse, a cow, or land, heNl wend hi» way to a pah,' and, say. Go<T had sent him^ and his demarta .would* be met without hesitation, bui at 'length they began to tire of his eleemosynary visits, so one day he mtfde one. of 'his usual, calls, and said Gad w tntecL $fty aoreß 'of land, and, to huj. and I suppose chagrin, he vij,sait<Aty by one the chiefs if God wante^'tiM/land^ hp, should come for it himaeid * ' f '"'* •/ *