"The Urewera Country.

"The present trip of the Premier of the colony, the Hon. R. J. Seddon, through a portion of that erstwhile terra incognita, the Urewera country, at the invitation of a large section of the Urewera Natives themselves, is attracting special attention, as it deserves, on account of the novelty of the journey by a Minister of the Crown, and because of the fact that the Urewera Natives were until lately the most hostile and intractable of any of the Maori tribes, and were most bitterly opposed to the Europeans, and to the advances of the pakeha. It is only within a very page 109 short time that the celerated Urewera have allowed Europeans within their inhospitable and forest-clad domains. It will be of some interest now to recall descriptions of the Urewera some years back.

"In February, 1871, after the East Coast War was over. Major Ropata, with his friendly Ngatiporou, was sent on a mission into the heart of the Urewera country in order to meet the scattered members of the Urewera, and try and wean them from the influence of Te Kooti. The Urewera assembled at Tanaki, and sent an insolent answer to the effect that they would not allow booted feet to pass beyond the boundaries of Maungapohatu. Major Ropata marched on with his two hundred men to Ruatahuna, into the far interior. 'Here,' says an account of the time, 'they met the Tuhoe Tribe—wildest and most savage of bushmen. A spectator might well have imagined himself in the New Zealand of Captain Cook's time, so wild and fierce was the appearance of these people. Their long hair was tied up in a bunch like the scalp-lock of the American Indians, and ornamented with white feathers. The effect was ferocious in the extreme. In their speeches to Ngatiporou they denied that Te Kooti was a man of crime, arguing that the slaughter of women and children was only an old Maori custom. Like all the inland tribes, who could have no grievance against us, they expressed undying hatred to the pakeha.'

"In February, 1886, Captain J. E. Rushton, of Ohiwa, returned to Opotiki from the heart of the Urewera country, where he had been, on behalf of the Government, endeavouring to take a census. 'His report was most unfavourable,' said a newspaper report at that time—only eight years ago. 'He found the Natives very sullen and morose, and unwilling to give him any information, declaring themselves averse to pakeha rule and pakeha religion, the greater portion having adopted the Hauhau religion of Te Kooti instead. There are, it appears, fully six hundred fighting men of this savage tribe occupying a large area of country almost surrounding Opotiki, while Opotiki itself, with its thousand men, women, and children, lies unprotected and defenceless. There is not a single rifle in the district. A few of the settlers have applied to the Defence Minister for permission to get arms, and form themselves into a rifle association, but no reply has as yet been received.'

"Since that time the Urewera seem to have been somewhat reconciled to the ever-advancing pakeha, and they now give evidence of a disposition to abandon the policy of isolation which they lave stubbornly maintained for so many years. The rumours of gold in the Urewera Range are not lost sight of, and it is probable that prospecting parties will take the earliest opportunity of spying out the land when the old antipathy of the Natives to gold-prospectors is overcome."