قراءة كتاب An Old New Zealander or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South.

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‏اللغة: English

An Old New Zealander or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South.

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Buick T Lindsay

دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

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From a photo by Jonston BURNING OF THE "BOYD" 48 From a painting by W. Wright, Auckland.
By kind permission of the Artist TE ARAWI PA, KAWHIA 64 The Point from which the Ngati-Toa
migration commenced THE MEMORIAL TIKI, KAIAPOI 128 Erected on the site of the pa destroyed
by Te Rauparaha GILLETT'S WHALING STATION, KAPITI, 1842 144 By kind permission of Miss Gilfillan.
From a sketch by her Father MONUMENT ON MASSACRE HILL, WAIRAU 256 Erected by public subscription, 1869.
Photo by Macey TAUPO PA, PORIRUA 288 After a drawing by G. F. Angas TE RANGIHAEATA 304 After a drawing by C. D. Barraud, Esq. MAP DELINEATING JOURNEYS OF TE RAUPARAHA
AND TE PUOHO At end

LAMENT ON THE CAPTURE OF TE RAUPARAHA

Composed by Hinewhe, and supposed to be sung by Te Rangihaeata.

I Alas! my heart is wild with grief: There rises still The frowning hill Of Kapiti, in vain amid the waters lone! But he, the chief, The key of all the land, is gone! II Calm in the lofty ship, O ancient comrade, sleep, And gaze upon the stillness of the deep! Till now, till now, A calm was but a signal unto thee To rise in pride, and to the fray Despatch some martial band in stern array! But go thy way, And with a favouring tide Upon the billows ride, Till Albion's cliffs thou climb, so far beyond the sea. III Thou stood'st alone, a kingliest forest tree, Our pride, our boast, Our shelter and defence to be. But helplessly—ah, helplessly wast thou Plucked sword-like from the heart of all thy host, Thy thronging "Children of the Brave," With none to save! Not amid glaring eyes; Not amid battle cries, When the desperate foes Their dense ranks close: Not from the lips of the terrible guns Thy well-known cry resounding o'er the heath: "Now, now, my sons! Now fearless with me to the realms of Death!" Not thus—not thus, amid the whirl of war, Wert thou caught up and borne away afar! IV Who will arise to save? Who to the rescue comes? Waikato's lord—Tauranga's chief, Thy grandsons, rushing from their distant homes, They shall avenge their sire—they shall assuage our grief. While you, the "Children of the Brave," Still sleep a sleep as of the grave, Dull as the slumbering fish that basks upon the summer wave. V Depart then, hoary chief! Thy fall— The pledge forsooth of peace to all— Of Heaven's peace, so grateful to their God above, And to thy kinsmen twain, by whom Was brought us from the portals of the "land of gloom," This novel law of love— This law of good: Say, rather, murderous law of blood, That charges its own crimes upon its foes— While I alone am held the source whence these disasters rose!

An Old New Zealander

CHAPTER I
WHENCE AND WHITHER?

Probably no portion of the globe is so pregnant with the romance of unsolved problem as the Pacific Ocean. For thousands of years before Vasco de Balboa, the friend of Columbus, stood upon the heights of Panama and enriched mankind by his glorious geographical discovery, this great ocean and the islands which its blue waters encircle had remained a world in themselves, undisturbed by the rise and fall of continental kingdoms, unknown even to the semi-civilised peoples who dwelt on the neighbouring continental shores. But although thus shut out from human ken and wrapt in impenetrable mystery, we are entitled to presume that during all this period of time Nature, both animate and inanimate, had been there fulfilling its allotted part in the Creator's plan, though no pen has fully told, or ever can tell, of the many stupendous changes which were wrought in those far-away centuries either by the will of God or by the hand of man. That vast and far-reaching displacements had been effected before the Spanish adventurer's discovery of 1513 broke this prehistoric silence, there is little room to doubt, for the position and configuration of the island groups are as surely the results of geological revolutions as their occupation by a strangely simple and unlettered people is evidence of some great social upheaval in the older societies of the world. Precisely what those geological changes have been, or what the cause of that social upheaval, it would be imprudent to affirm, but there is always room for speculation, even in the realm of science and history, and there is no unreasonable scepticism in refusing to subscribe to the belief that the