The Maori Meat Safe.

The foreshore of Ohinemutu, Lake Rotorua, is thick with memories and relics of the past. It is a place of curious old tales of primitive Maoridom. On the north-east shore of Muruika Point, in rear of the Church of St. Faith, there are still to be seen three of the moss-encrusted hundred years ago. His favourite dish was man or woman—and when there were no wars a slave would be killed for his delectation. Usually, however, the carved pataka held many taha or calabashes filled with the preserved flesh of war victims. Korokai's dwelling, a carved house called “Matapihi,” stood just behind the present site of the church. The space occupied by this lakeward-looking home is still to be traced on the grassy point. Now the white man's church bell sends its call across land and lake, and the wild doings of Muruika when the fierce tattooed men feasted on long-pig cooked in the “fires of Ngatoro-i-Rangi” —the hot springs—are but a misty memory.