“Kai-Paipa.”

In the summer time of the year in many a Maori settlement, and in quite a lot of pakeha gardens in the warmer parts of the North Island, you will see the fences covered with long hanks of tobacco leaf laid out to dry in the sun. Tupeka has been grown by the Maoris for some seventy years; in Governor Grey's time, in the late 'Sixties, a pamphlet of instructions in its cultivation and treatment was issued by the Government and translated into the native tongue by John White. The finished product is called torori, or raurau. Sometimes the Maori flavours it with molasses, which gives it a special tang of its own. I have known a pipeful of toroi to be likened to old socks on fire. That is perhaps a libel; nevertheless it takes a strong stomach to withstand the aroma of a hutful of the old folks with their pipes of torori in full blast.