Good Place-names.

We stand here on the lofty places of the olden Maori fairy tales, I remember, for all this great crescent ridge, with its rugged watch-towers of rhyolite rock, was the chosen home and haunt of the Patupaiarehe, the furtive folk, the tribe of the twilight woods and the cloudy skyline. The olden names are not now borne on any map, but from the central peak of Tarawera (now Mt. Sinclair), yonder in the north-west, the centre of the Peninsula, and from its craggy neighbour Te U-Kura—“The Red Cloud's Rest”— round to Mt. Berard and Brazenose, every peak and every valley had its name. Te Umu-raki, or “The Oven of Heaven”— “Heaven's Furnace,” fit name for a volcano !—is that tall pointed peak at the head of the Otakamatua Valley Puke-Ariki, “The Chief's Hill,” is north of us; nearer is the Piki-o-te-Ake, or “Te Ake's Climb.” which embraces Purple Peak. Bold Brazenose, on the other side, was called Otoki, or “The Place of Axes.” These ancient names and many another came from the old man Tikao, of Rapaki, the last of the learned word-of-mouth folk-lorists of these parts.