162 Willis’s Guide Book oe New Route for Tourists.

From the Market Place , Taupo Qauy extends along the R.bank. On this are the principal wholesale buildings, the SteamPacket Hotel, the Railway Stations , Murray’s Foundry, and theSash and Door Company’s works. Both the latter are worth avisit.

S. of the town, a quarter of a mile distant, are the Cemeteries.Just S. again is the Racecourse , which is, in fact, a fine park .Beyond this, again S., is the Rifle Range, at which several of theN.Z. champion shots have graduated, and a little further is the newHospital. Perhaps the best way to get at these four places is toleave the Castlecliff Train at Balgownie, and walk back to the town, adistance of about a mile and a half.

Campbelltown (sometimes called Durietown) is a pretty suburbof Wanganui on the hill on the L. bank. The easiest way to theFlagstaff , from which a fine view may be obtained, is by the roadwhich turns up from the River Bank at the Red Lion Hotel.

Putiki-whara-nui-a-Tamatea-pokai-whenua is a kainga onthe L. bank below Campbelltown. Its name (usually abbreviated toPutiki) arises thus :—

Tamatea-pokai-whenua, one of the ancestors, came down theWest Coast, and each place he came to he named. “ Tamatea wenton,and came to Whanga-nui (Great Harbour), where, being weary [afterhaving forded the river], he rested, and combed his hair, and tied itup in tufts on the top of his head; whence the place was calledPutiki-whara-nui-a-Tamatea-pokai-whenua. (The hair of Tamatea-pokai-whenua tied up with scraped flax).” After going a long way S.,he returned, and “ went on to Rangi-tikei (The Day of Walking),Turakina (Thrown Down), Whanga-ehu (The Harbour of Spray), andWhanganui. He then paddled up the Whanganui River to the Tara-roa, and threw seeds of harakeke fN.Z. flax) up on the cliff, and seedsof kotukutuku ’’ (N.Z. fuchsia). He went on to Taupo, and again tookcanoe down the Waikato, “ but at the fall—probably Orakei-korako—he was carried over, and drowned.” [From “ Ancient History of theMaori” by John White .] *

At Putiki there is a good ivhare-runanga, and in the grounds ofthe Mission Church are some interesting Maori monuments. Thegarden of the Mission Station, planted by the late Rev. Richard Taylor,is the parent of all the gardens for miles around. It contains a weep-ing willow grown from a cutting taken by the Rev. Mr. Taylor, on hisway out from England, from the willow at the tomb of Napoleon atS. Helena. From this originated all the weeping willows which fringethe banks of the Wanganui.

* Mr. White told me, in 1862, that another version of the origin of the nameof Wanganui was that Tim 'one of the Ancestors) having, as he came down theW est Coast, easily forded ail the rivers, was stopped by the Whanganui. the tidebeing high. As it was too wide to swim, and too deep to wade, he had to staytill the tide ebbed, and hence he called the river, “The Great Waiting/’(Whanga-nui). Many of the down-river natives drop the “ h” in this and otherwords, and are laughed at by those of other tribes, as Cockneys are laughed atHome. There is no doubt that the word should be sounded and spelt withthe “ h ” ; and it is so sounded and spelt throughout N.Z. , except in the townand district of Wanganui.— Geo. Allen.