[1] MS. journal lent to the writer by Mr E. Earle Vaile, of Broadlands, Waiotapu. [↑]
[2] The old man Pou-patate Huihi, of Te Kopua, told the writer: “Before we procured European ploughs we made wooden ones, and these were sometimes drawn by men—Ko te tangata te hoiho tuatahi (Man was the first horse).”
Pou-patate also said that when wheat-growing was at its height on the Waipa, before the war, his people received as much as ten or eleven shillings a bushel for the wheat in the Auckland market. [↑]
CHAPTER IV.
THE GOLDEN AGE BEFORE THE WAR.
The period from about 1845 to 1860 was the era of peaceful progress and industry among Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto. It was not until the latter year that the outbreak of the Taranaki War, the forerunner of that in Waikato, interrupted the new and profitable era of wheat-growing and flour-milling and the pleasures of the annual canoeing expeditions down the Waipa and Waikato to the city markets.
These farm-settlements of Morgan’s making were in what may be called their zenith of prosperity in the year 1852, when prices for produce were high. In February of that year a visit was paid to Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia by a party of travellers from Auckland and Onehunga, among whom was young Heywood Crispe, later a well-known Mauku settler and volunteer rifleman. Describing long afterwards this memorable Waikato expedition, Mr Crispe said, after narrating that the canoe voyage ended at Te Rore, on the Waipa:
“I can well remember the first sight we got in the distance of the steeple of the church at the Rev. Mr Morgan’s mission station at Te Awamutu, for some of the party were getting a bit tired when it came into sight, and it seemed to put new life into them. The natives at Rangiaowhia had made preparations for a goodly party, as they had two days’ racing in hand. They allotted to us a large, newly-erected whare, the floor being covered with native mats, and it was on them that we indulged in sweet sleep. There was a line of whares erected on the crown of Rangiaowhia Hill, from which we could obtain a fine view of the surrounding country, and it all had a grand appearance in our eyes. There was a long grove of large peach trees and very fine fruit on them. Such a waste of fruit it seemed to us, but of course they were of no value there. One never sees such trees of peaches now. We, the Europeans, must be the cause by the importation of pests from other countries. A large portion of the ground round the hill was carrying a very good crop of wheat, for the Maoris believed in that as a crop, and they used to convert it into flour at the various flour-mills they had. It was of a very good quality, and some of the Waikato mills had a name for [[19]]the flour they produced, a good deal of which was put on the Auckland market, being taken down the Waikato, via Waiuku and Onehunga. It had taken our canoe party about three weeks to reach this, our journey’s end, but there was no iron horse then by which to make a rapid journey. Now it is only part of a day’s journey to get to the same spot.