Taranaki, or mount egmont. [image of page 15]
plate ii. Taranaki, or mount egmont. This lofty mountain rears its snow-clad summit as a mighty beacon over the blue pacific-- it is an extinct volcano, and its height, as estimated by dr. Dieffenbach, is 8839 feet--the lowest point at which the snow is perpetual, is calculated at 1635 feet from the summit. Mount egmont, like the volcano of tongariro, and other high mountains, is made "tapu," or sacred, by the new zealanders, who have some strange tales and legends respecting it: they affirm that tongariro and taranaki are brother and sister, but that, to avoid the wrath of her angry relative, taranaki removed farther south, and stationed herself at the entrance of cook's straits; they look on the mountain with dread, and people it with ngarara, or crocodiles; and they say that mysterious birds dwell amidst its recesses. Nothing can exceed the loveliness of the country surrounding taranaki--the settlement of new plymouth is at its base, with a rodstead, inside the sugar loaf islands. The effect represented in the plate is one of early day, when the morning clouds are frittered into delicate tracery by the fresh east wind, and drawn up like a curtain, revealing the snowy mountain in bold relief against the sky. A war-canoe, with a sail made of reeds, is introduced into the picture--some of their war-canoes are very large, and hold from one hundred to one hundred and fifty men; they are designated by particular names, such as "marutuahi," which means literally "a slaying or devouring fire. ". Date: 1847.
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