Chapter VII.
THE NILE RIVER.
THIS is a small river entering the sea between Point Robertson to the south, and Little Beach to the north, with a tidal basin about half-a-mile from its mouth. This basin, as stated in another chapter, was regularly used by small steamers after Constant Bay was abandoned, and was provided with a wharf for their mooring and working.
Its Maori name was Ngawaitakere, as shown on the Rev. R. Taylor’s map of 1854. The meaning of the word, or the reason for bestowing it, cannot be stated with any authority, though many conjectures have been made, one of which is that it should have a final i, thus Waitakerei or Wai Takerei, to commemorate Takerei, one of the leaders of the Maori invasion of the South-West Coast about 1833. Nga is merely the plural form of the definite article te (the).
In a sketch plan of the Nelson Province compiled in 1871, and now held by the Department of Internal Affairs, this stream is shown as Browning River, possibly in honour of Mr. John S. Browning who was later (12th May, 1876) Chief Provincial Surveyor. On more recent maps it is shown as Waitakere, or as Nile River. Apparently the Maori name was too great a mouthful for the pakeha, so the name Nile was universally adopted; though why that name, cannot be explained. One of the various conjectures is that the early arrivals found gold in the stream, as Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in the ancient river. Another is that the stream had been spoken of to these first-comers as “the river,” a term applied to the Nile in the Book of Exodus and elsewhere in the Bible. Neither is either appealing or convincing.
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