-
- The new settlers had arrive at their
destination.
- Full of gratitude at a safe landing,
they looked eagerly to having their land allocated to them and being able to start their
farms.
- Their radiant hopes were soon to be
crushed. Grandiose dreams and schemes were to dwindle away before hard reality.
-
- They were taken by cutter from
Auckland to the entrance of the PUHOI River. Captain KRIPPNER may have joined the party by
this time for they had to have an interpreter and all accounts cite him as the
interpreter. He probably explained to them that the Maori's were amicable but it does not
take much imagination to picture the apprehension of Europeans who had never seen a Maori
before but had heard terrifying tales of human meat and long pig cooking in earth ovens.
-
- Although it was evening and they were
all exhausted and the children tearful and irritable, it must have been a relief to them
to know that they were to go on at once to their new home.
- They climbed into the canoes among
the Maori paddlers and started off up the river with sinking hearts.
-
- In the nightfall they could scarcely
see where they were being taken. They seemed to be, and were being paddled into the heart
of a dense forest with trees hanging low and manacling over the river on either side and
sometimes meeting in the centre.
-
- The laughter and the talks would be
hushed then - as it is even now in the heavy, brooding atmosphere on the bush.
-
- Silent in the canoes were mothers
with babies in their arms and frightened children leaning against them, fathers suddenly
and shockingly conscious of their responsibilities and of the slenderness of their
resources.
-
- Maori canoe men at a loss to
understand why anyone should need to come into the middle of the bush like this and they
were desirous to get back to their friendly pa at the mouth of the river.
-
- All the time, the steady beat of the
paddles and the splash of water round every bend in the river, another bend waited: and on
every side, the trees, the trees which where to be their curse and their hold on life, the
enemy which they were to defend and by which they were to be saved.
-
- Ultimately, the end of their lengthy
months of journeying, the landing..... a clearing in the bush on the river bank, two nikau
whares (Maori houses) each 10 feet by 30 feet..... and naught else.
- The Bohemians had come into their
own, their awesome opportunity in the promised land, the dream they had across the
earth..... and it was more dreadful than anything they could have imagined.
-
- It was a gloomy night and in the
heart of winter. Shivering, underfed and exhausted, the women lay on the ground in one of
the whares and instead of sleeping they wept. The men sat outside the other whare around a
camp fire and communicating in low voices.
- The PUHOI settlement had been
born.... in tears, misery and anxious discussion.
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