The Government built them a mill at Wairoa, but the Maoris did not think well of it, so they took out the machinery, and now use it as a dwelling-house. It was too hard work to grind corn.
Their homes (wharis) are, to look at, like the roof of a thatched cottage minus the side-walls. At one end there are usually a number of elaborately carved pieces of wood, many of the figures on which are highly indecent.
They have churches, where they pray and sing according to formulæ taught them by the missionaries.
In the afternoon we had an eleven miles’ drive over to Wairoa, the headquarters from which one visits Rotomahana and the terraces—the glory of Wonderland.
The drive was over a pretty country, past two crater lakes. One of these, with a white bottom, has an exceedingly beautiful blue appearance. The other is dark green.
Part of the way is through bush, very similar to what we had seen on the way up from Cambridge. If we except skylarks, which are everywhere in New Zealand, the country appears to be entirely without bird life. In the sixteen-mile bush, a road-mender told me that in three months he might have seen six birds.
We stayed at the Terrace Hotel. Here there is a large quantity of sweetbrier. You meet with the plant in many parts of the northern island. It is said to have been introduced by a missionary. It is now a pest.
At Wairoa we were introduced to a curiosity in the form of an animal-plant, or true zoophyte. The animal is undoubtedly a caterpillar; but the plant, which appears to grow out of one end of the caterpillar, may be anything. It is usually from six inches to two feet in length, and looks like a flexible root or piece of a vine.
Our host said it was a young rata-vine, and the way in which the combination of plant and animal came about was as follows. The caterpillar lives beneath the rata-tree, and when the seeds are shed they fall upon the caterpillar beneath. Most of the seeds roll off the caterpillar’s back, but it sometimes happens that one will lodge in a particularly large crease at the back of the caterpillar’s neck. Here it germinates, and the caterpillar, being irritated by the process, digs into the ground, where it dies while struggling to release itself from the parasite. The parasite then grows, and the natives seeing the shoot, carefully dig it up, dry it, and keep it as a curio to be sold to the guileless tourist.
Our coachman who was there said: