Scene II.

Tableaux.—Vide "Chapman's Wonders of New Zealand."

Curtain.

Mokoia was the scene of a great battle once. The Ngapuhi natives, under command of the great chief Hongi, dragged their whole fleet of war-canoes overland for thirty miles, and then swarmed over in them to the island, hitherto considered a safe refuge, where they slew and plundered the Ngatiwhakaue no end. We were shown where the battle and subsequent feast took place. We were shown, also, a place where lie buried some stone images, sacred, and said to have been brought from Hawaiki by the first Maoris. None but Sir George Grey and Mr. Robert Graham have ever been permitted to look on these images. The natives say that Mr. Graham can have them for his own whenever he pleases to claim them.

Another curiosity of Mokoia is a tree, in the branches of which the bones of a chief were once buried. Now the bones have grown into the wood, or the wood around the bones, in a most singular fashion.

A variety of fruits grow on Mokoia—figs, peaches, apples, and cherries. The figs were at their best when we went there, and were delicious. The island is luxuriantly wooded with karaka, pukapuka, pohutukawa, &c., &c.; and one grand totara, more than a century old, flourishes there in royal solitude. This pretty water-girt Mokoia must be a pleasant place to dwell in, and that probably accounts for the clean, wholesome, contented appearance of the natives there.

Mr. Graham made us hospitably welcome at his private residence, Te Koutu, during several days of our stay at Rotorua. Te Koutu is the piece of land that the natives presented to page 39 him in 1879, in gratitude for his successful peace-making efforts at Maketu, in 1878; their only stipulation being that he should take up his dwelling there, and continue to live among them and be their friend. Several Maoris spoke of him to me as "father," and said that but for his intervention there must have been serious bloodshed at Maketu.

At the time of the presentation, Te Koutu was a mere wild; now it presents an aspect of cultivation and comfort, and, thanks to our genial host and hostess, we had a very good time there.