The unique physical features of the Mamaku tableland and its important historical associations, afford ample material for the descriptive art of the interpreter. Few have a greater knowledge of the country than Mr. James Cowan, and fewer still have his gifts of vivid picturisation.

I suppose that few travellers to Rotorua by the daily trains are aware of the geographical and geological significance of the high country they cross; fewer still who have heard anything of the history and tradition that belong to the district.

The section in my mind is the much-dissected tableland known as Mamaku, to which the railway ascends from the Matamata-Patetere Plains and bounded on the Rotorua side by the party-wooded slopes near Tarukenga and the Ngongotaha Mountain. This plateau, of volcanic origin, some ten miles wide where the train crosses it, is part of the Hautere Range, which extends from the back-country of Tauranga in a great sweep to the Patetere country; its southernmost section ends abruptly in the lofty wall of Horohoro, which looks from the Taupo road a true table mountain. All this territory, thickly forested before the pakeha rail-builders and setters came, is coated with pumice, and it is remarkable for its lack of running water. It is seamed everywhere with deep, steep-sided gorges and gullies, but these natural cuts in the pumice are usually dry. It is only on the edges of the central plateau where the tablelands slant to the plains that the head-streams of the rivers issue from the underworld.

The place-name Mamuku, as will be explained presently, is of quite modern origin. The general name for the broken plateau where it sweeps up from the north and east is Hautere, a famous name in Maori story. A glory of all this high bush country is the abundance of ferns, but above all of the tete-kura or heruheru, the crepe fern, popularly called Prince-of-Wales' feather, botanical name, todea superba. The forest floor, in its untouched state, is covered in many parts with this beauty of the bush in such a soft, clinging jungle that it is difficult to force one's way through it. There is a native proverbial saying used especially by the Coast tribes, and those on the plains, in reference to these forests: “E kore koe e puta i nga tete-kura o Hautere.” It means, “You will never be able to penetrate the thick ferns of Hautere (which cover the bush tracks).” There is an inner meaning, an allusion to the human element. “You will never be able to fight your way through the enemies that infest your path, the wild tribes of the bush.”