by James Cowan · 1923
Fantasy · Classics · History
Six chapters of Maori traditions and tales gathered around the Port Hills near Christchurch in Canterbury, New Zealand, by the historian James Cowan.
Content note: Written in the 1920s by a Pakeha historian, so some words and views are outdated.
THE STORY OF THE ROCKS.
With the opening of tracks along the bold range of heights between the Canterbury Plains and Lyttelton Harbour, and the acquisition of new reserves for the public, mainly through the efforts of one tireless worker, Mr. H. G. Ell, Christchurch residents are perhaps coming to a more lively sense of the value of the Port Hills as a place of genuine recreation. The Summit Road has made city people free of the grandest hilltop pleasure place that any New Zealand city possesses within easy distance of its streets, and the worth of this mountain track, so easily accessible and commanding so noble a look-out over sea and plains and Alps, will increase in proportion to the growth of the Christchurch population. The fragments of the native bush which survive in the valleys will be of surpassing botanical interest in another generation or two, but the vegetation of the hills inevitably will suffer many changes, and an exotic growth will for the most part replace the ancient trees. With all the alterations which man’s hand may make in the reserves and along the public tracks, however, the monumental rock-beauty will remain the great and peculiar feature of the hills, their most wonderful and unalterable glory.
