United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On the right a towering scaur shows the abrupt termination of the range behind it. The tide in the Arapaoa flows swiftly by, but within the bay the water lies smooth as glass. Between these two points may be a distance of about a mile straight across. The curving line of the shore, sweeping round from one to the other, forms a complete crescent.
I must, however, try to convey an idea of its outlines. We are lying in the Arapaoa Firth, at the point where it loses its distinctive name and divides into three heads. These three lesser firths, together with the main creek that flows into each above the point where the tide reaches, are respectively the Pahi, the Paparoa, and the Matakohe.
At least, I remembered only some confused account of a conflict having taken place at the latter spot, which, being our show-place, I had often seen and knew well. "Well," said Old Colonial, "there's no time now; but we've got to get some schnapper for supper to-night, so you and I will go and fish down the Arapaoa yonder; then I'll tell you."
Our boat seems to be floating in a lake, rather than in a river, for here the Arapaoa is between three and four miles across. Looking down to the right we see it stretching away, between bold, high banks of irregular outline, flowing down to the harbour and the sea thirty miles off. To our left is our own river, the Pahi, narrower than the other. It is, perhaps, a mile across at the mouth.
Tama's place is some seven or eight miles away, down the Arapaoa. He has a very comfortable little kainga, a fenced-in enclosure, wherein are raupo wharès built in the best styles of Maori architecture, with little verandahs in front of them, and curiously carved doors and fronts.
"That must have been the way they went," said Old Colonial, looking in a direction where a strip of the Arapaoa was visible through a gap made in the ranges by a narrow gully. "Who went?" I asked, for I did not follow his thought. "Hoosh!" cried he. "Do you mean to say you've never heard the story of the battle and capture of Marahemo, the tale of Te Puke Tapu?" No, I had not heard it.
Opening from the harbour are sundry great estuaries, resembling the sea-lochs of Western Scotland. They are the Kaipara, the Hoteo, the Oruawharo, the Otamatea, the Wairau, the Arapaoa, and the Wairoa. Several of these have branches. Thus the Pahi, to which we are going, branches out of the Arapaoa. They are fed by creeks that is to say, by freshwater rivers, as one would call them at home.
We started about five o'clock in the morning, but it is late in the day before we get into the Arapaoa. By taking advantage of the tides, the Lily manages to accomplish ten knots an hour. But the going in and out of different rivers, though we do not go far up any of them, and the various stoppages, short though they be, make it late in the afternoon before we sight Te Pahi.
We are coming up the broad Arapaoa, and before us we suddenly see Te Pahi, a vision of loveliness, "our" township, as we are already calling it. A high, wooded bluff, the termination of a hill-range behind, rushes out into the tranquil, gleaming water. Round the base of the bluff, on a little flat between it and the white shingly beach, are the houses of the settlement.
Word Of The Day