And, in their several seasons, the blossoms which all the evergreen trees and shrubs put forth bloom more brightly here than elsewhere; and, while creepers of strange and beautiful forms twine and suspend and stretch from tree to tree, the woodland greenery is set with a rich variety of scarlet cups and crimson tassels, of golden bells or flesh-pink clusters, or the darker depths are lit up by showering masses of star-like clematis. Terrace above terrace, receding from the water's edge, the encircling lines of bush rise upwards and away, until at last the leafy mantle flows over the summit of the topmost range. Far back, and central, in the wide sweep of the amphitheatre is a sudden dip in the outline. It is the opening of a little gully, through which a hidden stream comes down below the trees and babbles out across the shingle; and that opening just reveals Mount Marahemo behind. His wooded crest has caught the tinted radiance of the sunset, and stands out in glorious relief against the purpling background of sky, framed in the glowing beauty of the nearer Puke Tapu. Such is our show-place, the "Sacred Soil," where sleep the departed warriors of the Ngatewhatua. The bell-bird and the tui sing a requiem over them by day, while the morepork and the kiwi wail for them at night. And the wonderful loveliness of this spot, where they fought and died, might well inspire a Tennyson to pen another "Locksley Hall." "Jee--roosalem!" sighed Dandy Jack. "Only put _that_ on canvas, and hang it in Burlington House, and what an advertisement it would be for us!" Old Colonial goes on to tell the tale of Te Puke Tapu, in the intervals of hauling up schnapper. He says-- "The boys call it 'The Burying Ground,' because of the bones and skulls that are lying about or stuck up in the trees. That's rather misleading, though, for it was never a wahi tapu, or native cemetery. This bay was evidently the landing-place or port for Marahemo, and the subordinate kaingas on the ranges yonder. You can see it was naturally that. As such there would be constant traffic through it, even if there were no whares in the place itself. Now a wahi tapu was so sacred that no one but a tohunga dared to approach its boundaries, even under pain of death and damnation; so that such a place was always in some very out-of-the-way locality, certainly never near a spot so much frequented as this would be. "It's tapu enough now, though, and has been ever since the battle, which, I opine, must have been fought somewhere about 1825. The chiefs won't sell an inch of this piece to any one; and not a Maori dares go near it. Lots of people have tried to buy it, and have even offered as much as five pounds an acre for its magnificent soil; but the Maoris are not to be tempted, and, what's more, say they'll have utu from any Pakeha that goes into it.