Waimate is the most important centre to the north of the Bay of Islands; it lies about ten miles inland from Waitangi Falls. The roads from Waitangi to Waimate, to Ohaeawae and Okaehau, are really good. A buggy might even be driven along them with perfect ease. Only, between Waitangi and Waimate there is a formidable creek, the bridge over which is continually being swept away by floods. Then one must cross by a difficult and shifting ford, and, if the creek be full, it may be necessary to swim one's horse over, as once happened to me, I remember.
On proceeding inland in this district, the ground loses its ruggedness. It is not flat, exactly, but it is only gently undulating, and not so violently broken as in most other parts of the north. The soil is volcanic, the ground mostly open, and much of it splendidly fertile, like that of the Bay of Naples. There are extinct craters and old lava streams here and there; but there has been no evidence of activity in them within the memory of man or of Maori tradition. The district of active volcanoes, solfataras, hot-springs, geysers, and so on, lies beyond the limits of the Land of the Kauri altogether.
Waimate was settled by the early missionaries. It includes lands held by the representatives of three parent Societies. It is a large village, composed of residences that may well be termed villas. Nearly all the inhabitants belong to missionary families, and they form a sort of little aristocracy here to themselves. There is a kind of old-world air about the place: it seems to be standing still while the rest of New Zealand is progressing fast and furiously around it. The people are the soul of kindly hospitality, but they are a little exclusive from the very fact of having lived here all their lives, and of having seen but little of the outside world. For the same reason, and because new settlers do not come up, owing to the land not being readily obtainable, they are somewhat averse from movement, and inclined to jog along in a settled groove.
I know of no place in the colony that presents such a striking resemblance to a quiet, stick-in-the-mud, rural locality of the old country. The Europeans are the gentry, and the Maoris round might pose as the rest of the population.
There is a handsome church at Waimate, but there is no hotel, though there are very good ones at Waitangi and Ohaeawae. There are yards and pens to accommodate a horse, cattle, sheep, and pig-market, which is held here at regular intervals. Waimate is a great farming centre, some of the lands about it having been under the plough for fifty years; still, it is a trifle backward in its modes, the farmers not striving to make a pile, but being content to keep themselves in competence. This may also be esteemed a central point of modern Maori civilization.
There are a number of young families growing up at Waimate, amid the softening influences of its homely refinement. Among them are an unusual number of young ladies. Whatever may be the faults of the place, with regard to its lack of energy and backwardness in farming industry, it redeems them all by the abundant crop of first-class British rosebuds it is raising for the delectation of hungry bachelors.
Well do I remember, once, Dandy Jack rejoining a party of us, who were up at Kawa-kawa on business. There was such a look of beatified content upon his face, that we all exclaimed at it. He told us he had been stopping at a house where there were ten lovely girls, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-six. He had come to bring us an invitation to go and visit there, too. Within half an hour every horse was saddled, and every individual of us, having completed his most killing toilette, was on the road to this bush-nursery of Beauty!
Six or eight miles from Waimate we come to Ohaeawae, a place of very great interest. The most conspicuous object is the beautiful church, whose tall spire mounts from a rising ground in the centre of the settlement. That church occupies the very site of the old pa, and, what is more, it was built entirely at the expense, and partly by the actual labour, of the very Maoris who fought the British here in Heke's war.
With the exception of the principal store and hotel, and possibly of one or two other houses near, Ohaeawae is a Maori town. A few miles further along the road is yet another straggling settlement, whose name I forget, and all is mainly Maori. These natives here are even further ahead than we are in the Kaipara. They have good frame-houses in all styles of carpentering; they have pastures fattening their flocks and herds and droves; they have their ploughs and agricultural machinery; and fields of wheat, potatoes, maize, and what not. They use the telegraph and the post-office for business or pleasure; they have their own schools, police, and handicrafts of various kinds. In short, as a body, they seem quite as much civilized as if they were white instead of brown. I suppose that, round Ohaeawae and Okaehau and Waimate, the Maori may be seen in the highest state of advancement to which he has anywhere attained. But more of him anon.
Between these settlements and the Hokianga waters, the roads become more inchoate again, and one passes through wild land, which gets more and more covered with bush as one proceeds. Hokianga, though it has its history of the early days, in common with the Bay, is far behind it in progress. In fact, Hokianga is a long way less forward than the Kaipara, and there are very few settlers in it. Its principal features are steep and lofty ranges, and a rich luxuriance of forest. The scenery is magnificent.