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Pioneering in Poverty Bay (N.Z.)

XXIV — Some Foreigners

page 175

XXIV
Some Foreigners

To make a world each kin' o' man
   Is wanted—else a botch.
We need the thrifty Chinaman,
   We even need the Scotch.

Seeking a shepherd's billet, a well-dressed blonde-bearded young man came up to me in town and addressed me, though he said he was a Hungarian, in quite excellent English. Seeing me look at him rather doubtfully, he, with his very distinct and careful enunciation remarked, "You must not think, sir, that because I am very well educated I am therefore haughty." He was right, for though he turned out to be inefficient, he was never anything but perfectly affable.

But there were not many foreigners in the country. A settlement of excellent Danes there had been early on, and now and then, but not often, one came across a useful German. A stray Portuguese or so I have heard of, but they for the most part are not classed as white men in the Pacific, There were quite a number of Austrian subjects, page 176of what race I do not know, who went about the country as pedlars. One of these started up our coast with all his merchandise on a pack-horse which was far too full of zeal. When driven on to the ferry punt, this overwilling beast walked straight on and over, and in, and finding no bottom, swam round back to land again in the salt water, not at all to the improvement of the poor man's stock in trade.

Though the immigration tax on them is, I believe, about £100 a head, there are a few Chinamen in every town, and very useful they are with their green-grocer's shops and eating houses. In Gisborne there were Luck Chang and Foo Chu, and between them was the big sign of A H. Budd, an Englishman. Naturally, but much to his disgust, he was everywhere spoken of as Ah Bud.

Down in Dunedin, which is almost entirely Scotch, a tender for some corporation contract was sent in over the signature James Macpherson. This was accepted without demur or inquiry, but the contract was actually, and very well, carried out by a certain Hang Hu, who was no fool, and quite alive to the local conditions.

Negroes were very rare, though we had for a week or two, working on one of the bush contracts, a darky stoker who had page 177run away from a ship. He had left on foot and not being reported down the road, all hands turned out to search for him, as a new chum can easily get lost for good in the bush. He was found before he had been out three days, not at all put about by his position. But what then absolutely and entirely overcame him was the idea that anyone at all, let alone the whole countryside, should have thought for a moment of troubling about him. He felt in a new world, and was not quite himself again for days.

Concerning the more nearly allied tribes, I have already spoken of the value of the men from the north of Tweed. Those from the Island to the West we roughly divided into two classes. One, the more cultured individuals of which are the delight of one's life, at any rate when present with you, and the other consisting of those who, starting with pick and shovel, advanced as elsewhere; through the stages of police and public-houses, to do themselves permanently well in politics.