Each man has got his little parcel of bread or biscuit and meat, tied up firmly in flax, and fastened to his belt; but besides this, the bush is affording us other kinds of tucker. Katipo killed a kiwi in the course of our morning's hunt, and this bird is now being skinned, cut up, and roasted on sticks. We wish it had been a weka, or bush-hen, as that is more succulent eating; but we have hearty appetites, and will do justice to the kiwi, anyhow.
Then the Maoris have cut out the livers of a couple of young pigs, and these are toasted in strips, and are not such bad eating after all. By way of desert we have some berries from the trees around, that prove very nice.
After our appetites are satisfied, and the digestive pipe duly smoked, we resume our hunting operations. But luck is no longer with us, and when, after walking and scrambling for two or three miles, and feeling that the time is fast slipping by, we do come upon pigs, we get separated in the chase that ensues, and I find myself very shortly after that completely alone.
I keep walking on, however, in the direction I judge will bring me out upon the place of assembly; and, after an hour or two, I begin to hear sounds of life. I am on somewhat high ground, which gradually slopes downward in the direction I am taking. It is all heavy bush in this part; huge trees, covered with ferns and creepers, soar upwards on all sides. The sunlight falls in patches here and there, through the canopy of branches far overhead, and occasionally there occur little glades and dells and openings, quite open to the light.
Below the great trees are many smaller ones, among which I notice nikau-palms, cabbage-palms, fern-trees, and tingahere, attracting the eye with their stranger forms. Below these, again, is a thick jungle of shrubs of many species, masses of creeping-plants matting the bushes together, or depending from the trees and ferns in infinite profusion and luxuriance.
The late afternoon sun is slanting from behind me, so that when its rays shoot through the branches they light up the scenes in front, and thus the picture I presently witness comes before me with proper artistic effect. I hear sounds of life coming through the trees in advance of me--the sounds of men shouting and yelling in excitement; the noise of dogs barking and yelping; and through it and above it all, clearer and clearer heard as I run hastily forward, the horrid hoarse "hough-hough"--that sound so hollow and booming as heard in the "echoing woods,"--with the sharper metallic clashing of savage jaws, that I know can only proceed from some patriarchal boar.