The Watch-tower.

One of our Maori place names carrying a military and historical significance is Taumaihi, which means a sentry-tower, such as were built in the war-stockades of old. The wooded peninsula which runs out into that pretty lake of the bush, Okareka, between Rotorua and Tarawera, was called Taumaihi. The name applied particularly to the rounded knoll in which the peninsula terminates; in former days this was inhabited; a palisaded village stood there.

A Pakeha old-timer of my acquaintance, the late Major Benjamin Harris, gave the name Taumaihi to his home in Epsom, Auckland, many year ago. He did not know of the old pa at Okareka, but he drew the name from his Maori knowledge; and it fitted the home quite well, for he had a cosy little glassed look-out tower on the house top.