CHAPTER XVI
North Auckland—Up the Wairoa River—Historic Bay of Islands—Charming Whangaroa and its Celebrated Massacre—Kauri Gum—Life in the Back Blocks—Tarts and Pies—A Maori School and Zealous Pupils.
The voyager to New Zealand who lands first at Auckland, and begins his projected tour of the country by setting a course for the vaunted scenes of the south, leaves behind him one of the most interesting parts of the Dominion—North Auckland. Among oversea visitors to Maoriland, North Auckland is not celebrated as a tourist district, and though in guide-books they may read something of its charms, they are more impressed by descriptions of scenery south of it. Yet until this peninsular extension has been toured New Zealand has not been properly seen.
Deeply indented with beautiful harbors and for miles exhibiting bold rocky coasts, this foot of Aotearoa's boot-like shape stretches northwest from Auckland for more than two hundred miles. More than any other part of New Zealand, this is the land of kauri gum and the home of the vanishing kauri, greatest of Niu Tirani's trees. Under the Treaty of Waitangi the sovereignty of Queen Victoria was here proclaimed; here the pakeha's government was first established; here Christianity was first preached to the Maoris; here lived Hongi, "Napoleon of the Maoris," and friend of the
