Our Great Fishing River.

The fame of the Tongariro River is world-wide. Anglers come from England, America, India and elsewhere, attracted by the reports of the big trout and the fine sport catching them in that swift stream of the mountains and the plain. Tongariro is synonymous with good fishing, as all know, from Royalty down. It is a good name and historic withal, and is particularly apropos because it identifies with the Tongariro National Park the river which has its sources in the high places of that mountain sanctuary. But there is an effort in some quarters to displace the ancient name by, or at anyrate make it only of secondary importance to, the term “Upper Waikato.” This name is most misleading, if applied to the Tongariro. It is the old and generally used term describing that section of the Waikato River from its source in Lake Taupo to the head of navigation at Cambridge. That is the sense in which “Upper Waikato” is used by nearly everyone, and certainly by evenyone in the Waikato district who knows anything of the geography of his land.

So, naturally, there is strong opposition to this attempt to oust Tongariro from its rightful position. One of the Ruapehu sources of the river is called the Waikato, but it is an unwarrantable liberty with geographical facts to make this the name of the whole stream down to its mouth in the lake. The Maoris call the river the Tongariro be-cause it draws its waters from the Tongariro mountain group, which in native usage includes Ruapehu as well. The largest river-sources are those which come from Tongariro-Ngauruhoe range and the lava plains at its base. Tongariro is the great name of the territory from the days of old, so Tongariro may the name of our wonderful stream of pumiceland and volcanoland long remain.

Value of the Toheroa.

A North Auckland friend of mine assures me he wouldn't be the man he is to-day if it wasn't for the abundant oyster and toheroa supplies of his native district in his youth. He is especially loud in his praise of the excellent toheroa shellfish, and he hopes the Government will take measures to assure that the beach beds will not be ruined by greedy hunters with their motor cars. “One toheroa,” he says, “is quite enough for a meal. It is as nourishing as an egg and as satisfying. page 50 You may eat a dozen or more oysters and ask for another lot, at a sitting, but one toheroa is plenty. There is nothing of its size so rich and sustaining.” To which it might be added that toheroa soup goes down the throats of quite a lot of crowned heads and other great ones of the earth to-day. It is one of the many little things that have helped to place New Zealand on the map.

The Garrulous Kaka.

Our kaka parrot is called by the scientific name Nestor Occidentalis, Nestor, I take it, connotes wisdom! Wasn't there a very wise old Greek counsellor the first of that name? But Mr. Kaka, I contend, is quite wrongly labelled by the bird-men. His ways are not those of the wise old bird whose praises are preserved in the little verse:

“A wise old owl lived in a wood,

He never spoke more than he should,

The less he spoke the more he heard;

Why aren't we all like that wise old bird.” No, nothing like that for the kaka, no matter how owl-like and sage he may look with that old hooked beak of his. There is no noisier bird in all our bush. He can't for the life of him keep a still tongue in his head, and the more he talks the more easily is he fooled and captured by the pot-hunter.

In the Urewera forest, or parts of it, the kaka's is the voice most often heard. It is a screech, a rasp, and it is heard all day long. It quite annoyed an old Maori with whom I was once tramping over the Huiarau Range to Waikaremoana. The brown parrots were all around us, screeching their “Ka-Ka-Ka.” At last he was provoked to retaliate. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “you are like a lot of old women with your ‘Ka-Ka-Ka!’ Be quiet, you silly old women!”

It is easy to collect a flock of the birds around you by imitating their screech. And that is when the Maori hunter gets busy. No bird of the bush is more easily snared or knocked over with a stick, and none makes better eating, not even the pigeon. But hist and belay! They are on the protected list, so hands off the talkative old kaka, who so belies his classic beak of wisdom.

Sand for the Kumara Patch.

Many railway travellers have noticed those great round excavations in the sandy delta plains just south of Ngaruawahia, where the Waikato and the Waipa meet, and have speculated on their origin. All kinds of theories have been advanced by visitors. An Englishman took them for shell craters. The most remarkable diagnosis I have heard came from an erudite lady, who explained that she had been informed they were holes, made by the Maoris in the war-time to pro-tect themselves from the fire of British rifles.

These sand-pits were delved out by the Maoris of old time, but not for dug-outs, nor yet for funk-holes. No, not so. They are runs for sand supplies for the sweet potato, otherwise the kumara (and please don't spell it with an “e”).

The kumara was in other days grown in very large areas over this fruitful plain, and a necessary item in the soil composition was sand. Vast quantities of sand were dug out of the plain near the river, and were used in its kumara fields. Sand, as all gardeners know, helps to keep a plant warm. It was put around the kumara in small heaps (ahuahu) and it protected the semi-tropic plant from severe frosts at night, and gathered the heat of the sun by day, besides giving a necessary element to the soil. So in time the sand-shifting, done by working-bees of men, women and children, pitted all the flat land with round ruas—many of which remain to-day, though many have been filled in—memorials to the old industrious age.

Our Native Timbers.

A forestry expert declares that our indigenous timber supply will be “exhausted commercially” about the year 1965. This seems a helpless kind of attitude. There is no sound reason why our forests should even be exhausted as a source of timber supply if a really scientific system of sylviculture were adopted which would devote at least as much attention to the splendid native forest as it does to the planting of exotic trees. Nothing in the world of timber can ever altogether take the place of the trees native to a country; no artificial forest can be so useful or so beautiful as the original varied woodland. But nothing what-ever has been done to regenerate and extend page 51 the indigenous forests of our country. All efforts have been concentrated on planting more pinus insignis and other quick-growing foreign trees, mostly American. Our own forests respond quickly to regenerative measures, and the principal trees are of quicker growth than the principal timber trees of Europe, including the oak. Had the excellent counsel of that greatest of foresters, the late Sir David Hutchins, been followed out the improved condition of our forest lands would already be apparent. It is not too late to put his advice into practice, and so ensure a perpetual supply of the finest timbers any country can have.

Passengers in Sail.

There has been some discussion as to the last voyages of passenger-carrying sailing ships from England to New Zealand. There was a time when everyone bound to this part of the world had to make the passage under sail, and so many a passenger in those long-voyage days was half a sailor by the time he landed, and the knowledge he gained at sea was often of much use to him in his after colonial life. This period lasted longer than most New Zealanders of to-day perhaps imagine. People were still coming out to the colony in leisurely sailing vessels long after railways had been pushed well on through the country.

Although steamship lines began services from London to New Zealand in 1883, it was some years after that before immigration by the fine old clippers ceased. I think the last batches of passengers under sail came out in 1888–89. I remember going on board the “Zealandia” on her arrival in Auckland harbour at that period, with a party of saloon passengers from London, who praised the comfort and pleasure of their voyage. They published a little newspaper on the way out and got a lot of fun out of it. The “Zea-landia” (Captain Phillips) was a handsome iron ship under the Shaw Savill flag.

Then, about the same time some passengers came out to Auckland in that grand old three-skysail-yard ship the “Lady Jocelyn,” which had been “trooping” to the colony in the days of the Maori war. She was without exception the most beautiful ship I have ever seen, that graceful, lofty “Lady Jocelyn,” as she came in to the Waitemata on her last voyage to Auckland. A year later she made a splendid fast run from Lyttel-ton to London, the final flying effort of an ocean beauty all of the olden time.

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