No. 12.
Memorandum on Te Koro's Letter by Mr.
Hamilton.
As I do not understand Maori sufficiently, I have no means of informing myself where Kaitoreti is, but I believe it to be the spot of land between Waihora Lake and the sea (Lake Ellesmere) just at the north extreme of the Ninety-mile Beach.
If so, this point has already been raised, I think, and a Memo sent on it by me some months (?) back.
I had no mission to deal with the spit or any part of the plains, only Banks Peninsula, which was then understood to be the hills of the Peninsula, and the valleys taking a line from spur end to spur end. My purchase only took in the Wairewa (Little River) Valley.
If neither Mr. Kemp's nor Mr. Mantell's deeds of 1848 (? 1849), include Kaitoreti as part of the plains bought by them, then there is still a portion of land over which Native title is not yet extinguished; but as I never could contrive to get copies sent me from Mr. McLean's office, I never could tell what boundaries my purchase should reach to.
The other Maoris of Canterbury should know if Te Koro's claim is good at all. From all the Maoris have told me, and so far as I could understand them, I doubt if Kaitoreti ever was ceded by them to Mr. Kemp or Mr. Mantell.
Mr. Stack is the only Maori scholar I know here who could obtain information.
J. W. Hamilton