For the priceless gift of free access to these grand tops of the Port Range the people are indebted to the efforts and the gifts of a few public spirited residents, but most of all to the exertions of Mr. H. G. Ell, whose enthusiasm, prescience of vision, and singleness of purpose in developing the Summit Road along this mountain park have properly earned him the admiration and the thanks of thousands of his fellow-citizens who daily lift up their eyes to the Hills and who find on those hills their pleasure and their solace for town-tired body and brain. And maybe if Mr. Ell’s name were bestowed, like Tamatea’s of old, upon one of these monumental crags still unchristened, it would but fittingly preserve the memory of a man whose title to such local honour and fame is certainly greater than that of some of his forerunners whose names the landscape bears.
J.C.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER I. The Story of the Rocks. | |
| The Port Hills and their geological history—The Dead Fire-Cones—“TheFire of Tamatea”—Bold Cliff andMountain Scenery—Beauties of the Port Range | [1] |
| CHAPTER II. The Port Hills and Their Names. | |
| Maori Nomenclature of the Port Range—Hills of theRainbow God—“The Pinnacle of Kahukura”—Crags ofthe Sounding Footsteps—Ancient Lyttelton: “TheBasket of Heads”—Ambuscades in the Bush | [7] |
| CHAPTER III. Round the Sugarloaf. | |
| The Flanks of Te Heru-o-Kahukura—Tracks on the MountainSide—At Dyer’s Pass—Maori Name of Marley’s Hill—Exploringthe Kahukura Bush—Needles of the Ongaonga—TheValleys and the Small Timber—“Crest of theRainbow” | [24] |
| CHAPTER IV. Rapaki: A Village by the Sea. | |
| The Bell on the Ribbonwood Tree—Tikao and his Traditions—TheDays of the Ngati-Mamoe—Te Rangiwhakaputa’sConquests—The Crags of Tamatea—A Sturdy Pagan—EveningPicture at Rapaki | [39] |
| CHAPTER V. The “Ahi-a-Tamatea”: How the Sacred Fire Came toWitch Hill. | |
| The Giant’s Causeway—A Volcanic Dyke—Tamatea thePolynesian Explorer—A Great March—The Camp atWitch Hill—Tamatea’s Call for Fire—The Tipua Flamesfrom Ngauruhoe—“The Ashes of Tamatea’s CampFire” | [52] |
| CHAPTER VI. Hills of Faery: The Little People of the Mist. | |
| Legends of the Patu-paiarehe —The Fairies of the Port andPeninsula Hills—Mountains of Enchantment—“TheRed Cloud’s Rest”—The Fairies and the Mutton-birds—TheMaero of the Woods—Mount Pleasant and itsTapu | [61] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| Map of Lyttelton Harbour and Port Hills-Akaroa, Summit Road | [map] |
| Hone Taare Tikao, the Narrator of the Legends | [Frontispiece] |
| The Seven Sleepers | [5] |
| Te Tihi o Kahukura, Castle Rock | [9] |
| Te Moenga o Wheke, Giant Tor | [10] |
| Witch Hill and the Giant’s Causeway | [13] |
| Orongomai, the Place of the Voices | [15] |
| View from Cass Peak | [17] |
| Whaka-raupo, Lyttelton Harbour and Quail Island | [21] |
| Te Heru o Kahukura, Sugarloaf | [25] |
| “The Sign of the Kiwi” Rest House and Marley’s Hill | [27] |
| The Port Hills south-west of Dyer’s Pass | [31] |
| The Old Maori Church at Rapaki | [33] |
| Whaka-raupo, Lyttelton Harbour from Kennedy’s Bush | [35] |
| Old Church Bell at Rapaki | [40] |
| Rapaki Village and Tamatea’s Breast | [43] |
| In a Rapaki Garden | [47] |
| Witch Hill | [53] |
| The Summit Road, overlooking Governor’s Bay | [55] |
| Te Poho-o-Tamatea, or Tamatea’s Breast | [59] |
| Rhodes’s Monument, Home of the Fairies | [63] |
| Kennedy’s Bush, Cockayne’s Cairn, and Cass Peak | [67] |
| Through the Devil’s Staircase | [70] |
| Hinekura | [73] |
MAORI FOLK-TALES OF THE PORT HILLS
Chapter I.
THE STORY OF THE ROCKS.
With the opening of tracks along the bold range of heights between the Canterbury Plains and Lyttelton Harbour, and the acquisition of new reserves for the public, mainly through the efforts of one tireless worker, Mr. H. G. Ell, Christchurch residents are perhaps coming to a more lively sense of the value of the Port Hills as a place of genuine recreation. The Summit Road has made city people free of the grandest hilltop pleasure place that any New Zealand city possesses within easy distance of its streets, and the worth of this mountain track, so easily accessible and commanding so noble a look-out over sea and plains and Alps, will increase in proportion to the growth of the Christchurch population. The fragments of the native bush which survive in the valleys will be of surpassing botanical interest in another generation or two, but the vegetation of the hills inevitably will suffer many changes, and an exotic growth will for the most part replace the ancient trees. With all the alterations which man’s hand may make in the reserves and along the public tracks, however, the monumental rock-beauty will remain the great and peculiar feature of the hills, their most wonderful and unalterable glory. The Port Range and the Banks Peninsula system of mountains are indeed the most remarkable heights in the whole of the South Island, not excepting the snowy Alps; there is nothing like them outside the northern volcanic regions, and in some aspects they carry a greater scientific and scenic value than even the crater-cones around the city of Auckland. What the Canterbury coast would have been like but for the vast volcanic convulsions which formed these ranges and huge craters is not difficult to imagine. It would have been a uniform billiard-table on an enormous scale, very gently sloping to the sea, with scarcely a break but for the snow rivers and with never a usable natural harbour. Volcanic energy gave us Lyttelton and Akaroa harbours, and shaped for us also the ever-marvellous hills that are at once a grateful relief to the eye from the eternal evenness of the plains and a healthful place of pleasure for our city dwellers.