MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 March 1940, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

SEEN FROM BAY OF PLENTY. (Recorded by J.U.S. for the "Times-Age."-) Moving out from Tauranga (the landing) on an early summer morning on horseback, I fortunately had the company of an old Maori who had fought against General Cameron half a century before. Reaching an elevation in ihe track he pointed back .to a dense solid white cloud on the shining surface of the sea. "Na te motu Whnkari tera" (See. that’s White Island, he said, then gave us a graphic description of this little known marvel of volcanic action, reaching from sea level to 800 foot at the top of its split semi-circular cone, nearly two miles round at its base. Spouting geysers and boiling springs send off druse volumes of sulphur fumes will) scarcely a pause. "Enough," said his white companion, "to encircle New Zealand with bombs of poison gas." There are warm lakes and millions of tons of golden sulphur. The Maori pointed in the direction of Ruahine, Tongariro and Rotorua in a straight line, "al! connected by an underground tunnel," he assured us. Within the land-locked harbour we saw the rocky islands of Tuhua. Motiti. and Karewha. where he said we could see the Tuatara, a rare lizard from 18 to 24 inches long, with a fringe of sharp spines, erected in fear or anger, and laid flat when al rest, ft has a complete third eye on the back of the head, now dormant beneath the flesh and skin, once used to protect it against birds of prey. It is of interest as the solo survivor of reptile life found in fossils of the Saurian period thousands of years past.