But far pre-eminent among the young ladies of Tanoa is Rakope. She is the daughter of Mihake, the nephew and heir of Arama, and who is himself a great favourite and good friend of ours. Mihake is a jolly, good-tempered kind of man, very knowing in stock and farming matters, and a frequent guest of ours. His daughter, as Arama is childless, ranks as the principal unmarried lady of the tribe, and most worthy is she to bear such a dignity.
O Rakope! princess of the Ngatewhatua and queen of Maori beauty! how am I to describe the opulence of your charms, your virtues, and your accomplishments? How am I to convey an idea of what you really are to the dull and prejudiced intellects of people in far-off foggy Britain? Yet have I sworn, as your true knight, O beautiful Rakope! to noise your fame abroad to the four corners of the earth, with the sound of shouting and of trumpets!
Prepare, O reader! with due reverence, with proper admiration, to hear of our Maori paragon.
For she is a beauty, our Rakope; and more, her intelligence amounts almost to what is genius, by comparison with her companions. You can see it in her broad, low brow, in her large, clear, liquid eyes, shaded with their black velvety fringe of lashes. Her features may not be good, judged by Greek art standards; but what do we care about art and its standards here in the bush? We can see that Rakope is beautiful, and we know that she is as good as she is beautiful.
Her colour is a soft dusky brown, under which you can see the blood warming her dimpling cheeks. Her figure is perfection's self, ripe and round and full, while every movement shows some new grace and more seductive curve. Her rich brown hair reaches far below her slender waist, and when it is dressed with crimson pohutakawa blossoms, the orange flowers of the kowhaingutu kaka, or the soft downy white feathers that the Maoris prize, then it would compel the admiration of any London drawing-room. And what is it in Rakope's cheeks and chin, and rare red lips and pearly teeth, that makes one think of peaches and of rosebuds and of honey, and of many other things that are nicest of the nice?
Away, away with your washed-out, watery Venuses, your glassy-eyed Junos, your disdainful, half-masculine Dianas! Away with all your pretended and pretentious beauties of the older Northern world! We will have none of them. Give us our Rakope, our Rakope as she is, glowing with the rich warm colour, the subtle delicacies of form, and all the luxuriant beauty that is born between the South Sea and the sun!
And is she not clever? Words fail the schoolmaster when he attempts to sound her praises; for she has learnt nearly all that he can teach her. She is the apple of his eye and the crown of his labours. To hear Rakope sing is to believe in the Syrens; to chat with her and receive her looks and smiles, to dance with her—ah!
She is the pet of the tribe. Men and women, girls and boys are never weary of admiring or caressing or spoiling her. She can coax and wheedle her father and Arama, mihonere and kuremata alike, to do almost anything she desires, and through them she may be said to reign over the Ngatewhatua. She is the delight and darling of all the settlers round. She is the idyll of our shanty, and our regard for her approaches to idolatry. O Rakope, Rakope! I hope you will some day marry a Pakeha rangatira, and endow him with your ten thousand acres; for if you mate with even an ariki from among your own people, your lot will be but a hard one when age has dimmed the brighter glories of your beauty!
There was a spree at the township; an event that had been looked forward to by everybody for months past. English people are given to associating the idea of a "spree" with that of a bacchanal orgy. Not so we. With us the word is simply colonial for a festivity of any kind, private or public. And whatever may be the primary object of the spree, it is pretty certain to conclude with a dance.
On this occasion "The Pahi Minstrels," who had advertised themselves for long beforehand, were to give a musical entertainment, disguised as niggers. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to explain who these personages were, since it will be remembered that our shanty was given to sending out serenading expeditions. We were the Pahi Minstrels; having laboriously trained ourselves in a certain repertoire, and having been reinforced by one or two other amateur instrumentalists.