"Something truly uncommon, personally. You would then have carried away an idea of a Maori Rangatira—one of the olden time. A giant in stature, he must have resembled old Archibald Douglas in 'Marmion'—'So stern of look, so huge of limb.' He lived in a valley some distance from here, among the hills you see yonder. But life in these regions has always been uncertain. One fine night—or perhaps it was a stormy one, for there had been a deluge of rain—the soil about here in the valley, even the rocks, they say, became loosened and came down in a kind of avalanche. It filled the whole valley, covering up Te Heu Heu, his people, his wives and children, numbering in all some seventy souls. They were never seen alive or heard of any more. There was a lament composed by his brother to his memory. I remember a verse or two.
'Lament for Te Heu Heu.
'See o'er the heights of dark Tauhara's peak The infant morning wakes. Perchance my friend Returns to me clad in that lightsome cloud. Alas! I toil alone in this cold world; for thou art gone.
'Go, thou mighty one! Go, thou hero! Go, thou that wert a spreading tree to shelter Thy people, when evil hovered round. Ah! what strange god has caused so dread a death To thee and thy companions?
'The mount of Tongariro rises lonely in the South, While the rich feathers that adorned thy great canoe, Arawa, Float on the wave. And women from the West look on and weep. Why hast thou left behind the valued treasures Of thy famed ancestor Rongo-maihua, And wrapped thyself in night?'
There are as many more verses," said Erena, "but I have forgotten them. They all express the deepest feeling of grief—almost despair—as, indeed, do most of the Maori love-songs and laments. The grief was by no means simulated in the case of relations. I know myself of several suicides which took place immediately after funerals or disappointments in love."
"There is strong poetic feeling, with a high degree of imagination, in the native poems and orations," said Massinger. "It is a pity that these recitations should die out."
"The Te Heu Heu we refer to was a remarkable man," said Warwick. "Standing as near seven feet as six, he looked, I have heard people say, the complete embodiment of the Maori chief of old days—terrible in peace or war; and, arrayed in his cloak of ceremony, with the huia feathers in his hair, and his merepounamou in his right hand, was enough to strike terror into the heart of the bravest."
"Didn't he refuse to sign the Treaty of Waitangi?" said Massinger.
"Of course he did. It was just like his pride and disdain of a superior. 'You may choose to be slaves to the pakeha,' he said scornfully to the assembled chiefs, as he turned away; 'I am Te Heu Heu!'"
The pah, or fortress, of the present chieftain was one of considerable strength and pretension, covering an area of nearly five acres. Reared upon a promontory which prevented assault, except by water, on three sides, it was well calculated to defy all manner of enemies in the good old days before breechloaders and artillery. The whole area was walled in, so to speak, with excessively strong palisades, the only entrance being by heavy sliding gates. This historic keep possessed all the natural advantages of the sites selected for the purpose, with the important addition of unlimited water-supply. Scarcity of the indispensable requisite, rarely possible to secure on the summit of a hill, often led to the surrender of the castle when besieged for sufficient time to exhaust the water-store. One of the ancient Maori romances, indeed, describes the dramatic incident of a beleaguered garrison, including the aged chief, at the point of death from thirst. The youthful leader of the besieging force, touched by the beauty of his daughter, the far-famed Ranmahora, relieves the veteran's suffering, and naturally receives the hand of the maiden, after which peace is ratified, amid general congratulations.