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It was at first intended to make this a book of unabridged and unaltered extracts dealing with aspects of life and nature peculiar to New Zealand, and illustrative of its brief history. But in the process of selection it was found that very interesting matter would have to be rejected, unless some liberties were taken with its literary form, and also that there were some gaps that could with advantage be filled up with original articles. A portion of Tasman's journal has been translated from the antiquated Dutch of the original.
Manifest inaccuracies have been either silently corrected, or indicated by foot-notes. Editorial notes are distinguished from authors' notes by being put in brackets. In extracts from early works the author's own spelling of a Maori word has usually been retained, the correct form being given in a note.
Down to the end of the fifteenth century the trade between India and the British Isles was almost entirely in the hands of the Arabs or Saracens. Their four principal marts in the East were Calicut, Ormuz, Aden, and Malacca. Their route lay through the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and all their merchandise was carried across the Isthmus of Suez on the backs of camels, and shipped again at the other side. Thus every bale that was transported from the Indies to Europe, or from Europe to the Indies, had to make two sea voyages, besides a journey over land.
The last few years of the fifteenth century were marked by great enterprise and activity in navigation and discovery. The manifold inconvenience and the expense of the overland route to India had become intolerable; and many of the greatest minds in Europe were occupied with the problem of finding a better way.
The whalers of the North Sea spoke of open waters to the north of Norway and Muscovy: possibly a ship might pass round that way to the Indies. Or, if the world was really round, as thoughtful men were beginning to believe, why should not a man get to India by sailing west instead of east? So said the Genoese mariner Columbus, as early as 1480, but it was twelve years before he could get any one to trust him with a ship to make the attempt.
Now the Portuguese of those days were great navigators, and had made voyages far along the western coasts of
Six years later, Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic with three ships of Spain, thinking to get that way to the eastern coasts and islands of Asia. The islands which he discovered on that voyage were presumed to lie not far from the eastern side of India; and, having been reached by sailing west, they received the name of West Indies, which they bear to this day.
The first to penetrate to India by the Cape route was Vasco da Gama, another Portuguese, who crowned the discovery of his countryman, Diaz, by anchoring before Calicut on the 20th of May, 1498. For about eighty years from that time the naval supremacy of Portugal gave her a monopoly of the trade with the East. Her ships brought the ivory and ebony, the silks and spices and jewels of the Indies to Lisbon; from which port they were carried by Dutch merchants to all the nations of northern Europe.
But there was trouble in store for Dutch and Portuguese both. In 1566 it came into the heart of Philip II., King of Spain, to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into the Low Countries, which were then under his dominion. His sturdy Dutch subjects would have none of his Inquisition, but rose up and rebelled against him; and for ten years they were fighting against his greatest captains, till they had broken the Spanish yoke from off their necks.
Then Philip turned his evil eye on Portugal; and in 1580 he took the crown of Portugal by force, and put it on his own head, and shut the port of Lisbon against the Dutch merchantmen, and flattered himself that he had
But neither the Dutch nor the English of those days were of a temper to submit tamely to the arrogant pretensions of Spain. So, when Philip sent his Invincible Armada in 1588 to annex the British Islands and reconquer the Low Countries, Dutch and English combined to resist him to the death. We have all heard how the great Armada perished off the face of the deep; how the power and the pride of Spain were broken; and how all Europe breathed more freely when that dark tyranny was overpast.
Numerous English, French, and Dutch trading companies were soon fitting out vessels to poach on what had hitherto been the sacred preserves of Portugal and Spain. While the English directed their enterprise more to the Americas and the West Indies, the Dutch, having already for many years been the only European retailers of Oriental wares, naturally gave their chief attention to the East. The first English East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth on the last day of the year 1600. The Dutch East India Company was formed in March, 1602, by the enforced amalgamation of several previously existing associations. By the year 1620 all the principal settlements of the Portuguese in the East Indies had fallen into the hands of the Dutch. Before the middle of the seventeenth century, before either the English or the French had an acre of ground in India to call their own, the Dutch Company were virtually masters of the Island of Java. Under the guns of a strong fortress which they built there, and to which they gave the name of Batavia, they had stablished a factory or emporium for the exchange of European and Asiatic merchandise. Here were the headquarters of the sovereign Company, and here the Dutch Governor-General of the Indies held his court. His courtiers were the noble and wealthy Directors of the Company, who formed the Raad or Council of the Indies, and whose mansions adorned the neighbouring bays and islands.
But it must not be thought that either the French or the English had been idle all this time. Though not so
The increasing influence of England and France in the East was causing much uneasiness to the Dutch Company, which was naturally unwilling to share the immense profits of the East India trade with any foreign interlopers. So in 1642 the Governor-General and Council of the Indies resolved that something must be done without delay to preserve and extend Dutch influence and commerce in the East. Far away to the south and east of New Guinea there might be other lands with which profitable commercial relations might be established. And it was of the utmost importance to secure the new trade for the Dutch Company, and to take care that no other nation got any share of it. They accordingly decided to send out an expedition to discover the Unknown Southern Continent.
In order to insure the success of the expedition, it was placed under the command of one of the Company's ablest and most experienced captains, Abel Jansen Tasman. He was to have command of two ships: the Heemskerk, at whose main he was to fly his flag as Commandeur or Admiraal; and the Zeehaan, which was to serve as a fluit or store ship. Both vessels appear to have been of considerable size for those days, having three masts each, and were well armed, and plentifully provided with everything that was considered likely to promote the success of the undertaking. They carried provisions for twelve months, and rice for eighteen. The officers were all specially selected for the particular service, and the two crews—sixty men on the Heemskerk and fifty on her consort—were all picked men. To assist him in the execution of his task, Tasman was provided with a Raad, or Board, or Council, consisting of the following six officers:—
Ide't Jerksen-Holman, Captain of the Heemskerk;
Francis Jakobsen-Visscher, Pilot-Major, Upper Steersman (or First Mate) of the Heemskerk;
Gerrit Jansen, Captain of the Zeehaan;
Isaac Gilsemans, Chapman, or Supercargo;
Abraham Coomans, Under Chapman;
Henry Pietersen, Upper Steersman of the Zeehaan.
Tasman was chairman of the Raad, with two votes, except that on questions of navigation Jakobsen had the two votes. If anything should happen to Tasman, Captain't Jerksen-Holman was to take his place. When the Raad had to deal with matters of discipline and the administration of justice, the two boatswains were also to be present and to vote. Coomans was to act as secretary, and to keep the minutes of the Raad.
Some of Tasman's principal instructions were as follows: To proceed first to the Mauritius, and anchor under Fort Prince Frederick Henry; to present his letters of introduction to the commandant, Adrian Van der Stel, and with his assistance to complete his stores of timber, fuel, water, and meat; to leave the Mauritius not later than the middle of October, in quest of the Unknown South Continent; to take possession of all discoveries in the name of the States-General of the United Provinces; to be kind and conciliatory to the inhabitants; and to keep a strict and detailed record of everything seen and done on the voyage.
Tasman's Log is the earliest known record of European intercourse with New Zealand. It has been alleged, however, that the country had previously been discovered by the Portuguese; nor is their silence on the matter any disproof of the allegation. A Government that went to the expense of fitting out a costly expedition to explore unknown seas always endeavoured to keep the knowledge so acquired secret, for its own exclusive use and benefit; and any person who presumed to divulge such information would have been liable to severe punishment as a traitor to his country. It is quite possible that among the state papers preserved in the archives of Lisbon a Portuguese logbook may yet be brought to light anticipating by a century the discovery of New Zealand by Tasman.
[These extracts have been translated from the Amsterdam edition of
Journal or description by me, Abel Jansen Tasman, of a voyage from the Town of Batavia in the East Indies, concerning the discovery of the Unknown South Land. In the year 1642, on the 14th of August. May it please Almighty God to give hereto His blessing. Amen.
On the fourteenth of August, Anno 1642, we set sail from the haven of Batavia, with our two ships: to wit, the cruiser Heemskerk and the cargo ship the Zeehaan. The wind N.E., with good weather. On the same date, in the evening, the Zeehaan ran aground on Rotterdam Island, but got off again without serious damage in the night; and we proceeded on our voyage toward the Strait of Sunda.
15 August. At night we came to anchor in front of Anjer in 22 fathoms. We set our ship to rights throughout; for she was in such disorder that it was not possible to go to sea with her so.
16 August. The wind still E.: a steady breeze. The current runs strong out of the Strait of Sunda. In the evening, with the land wind, we hove our anchors up, and got under sail, and steered our course to pass between the Prince Islands and Krakatau. [This, and not Krakatoa, is the name of the place where the great volcanic eruption of
4 September. In the night, about the end of the first watch, [12 p.m. The night and day on board ship are divided into six watches of four hours each, the first watch beginning at eight in the evening. Each watch is divided into eight parts, called by Tasman "glasses," because the time was measured by a sand-glass, which was turned every half-hour; and the half-hours are counted by strokes on the bell, from one up to eight bells in each watch. The crew is divided into two parties, called "watches," which come on duty alternately every four hours. But, in order not to have the same set of men always on duty at the same hours of the day and night, the sixth watch, from 4 to 8 p.m., is divided into two short watches of two hours each, so as to make seven reliefs in the twenty-four hours. These short watches are called on an English ship the "dog watches," and on a Dutch ship the "flat-foot watches." The bells in the dog watches go 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 8. On Tasman's ships the second or middle watch of the night was called the "dog watch," but the glasses or bells were counted straight through from 1 up to 8. "Morning watch" means the third watch, from 4 to 8 a.m.]
[In the original log the distances are given in Dutch miles, of 15 to a degree of the equator; and the longitudes are reckoned east—never west—from the Peak of Teneriffe, which lies 16° 46′ west from Greenwich. In this Reader the distances have been reduced to nautical miles, of 60 to a degree of the equator, and the longitudes reckoned east or west from Greenwich, to suit English maps. But, as in Tasman's time navigators could not find out their longitude exactly, his longitudes often disagree with those of our maps. Here he gives 67° 2′ (but afterwards, 8th October, 62° 1′) for 57° 45′. His error grew less as he went east. Off Tasmania his error by way of excess was about 1° 50′, and on the New Zealand coast about 1° 47′.]5 September. In the morning we saw that it was the Island of Mauritius. We turned and kept on towards it, and came to anchor there about nine o'clock. We had
27 October. In the morning before breakfast we saw several land and fresh-water weeds floating in the sea. So we hoisted the flag, which soon brought the officers of the Zeehaan on board. I then called a meeting of the Council, in obedience to instructions received from H.E. the Governor-General and the Council of the Indies, about finding and observing land, shoals, sunken rocks, &c. I laid the question before the Council, whether it will not be best, so long as we notice signs of the proximity of land, always to keep a man at the topmast head, to look out for land, sandbanks, sunken reefs, or other dangerous obstacles to navigation; also, what is the best reward to offer for being the first to see such things. It was found good by the Council continually to keep a man on the look-out; and that whosoever should be the first to see and notice any land, shoal, sunken rock, or other such object, should [A real of eight, or piece of eight, was a silver coin, worth about 5s. English.] [Rack, arrack, or raki, is any kind of spirit. The rack carried by these ships was no doubt rum, which was then and is still made in great quantities at the Mauritius. A mutchkin was about half a pint.]
24 November. Good weather and clear sky. At noon we found latitude 42° 25′, and longitude 146° 45′. Course held, E.b.N.; and distance [The distance given each day at noon is the distance in a straight line from the position at noon on the previous day.] [The variation of the compass at any place is the angular difference between magnetic north and true north. It is found by observation at sunset.]
In the first watch of the night, when three glasses were out, [9.30. p.m.]
25 November. Towards noon we got the wind S.E., and afterwards S.S.E. and S., and we then turned towards the shore. In the evening, about five o'clock, we got under the shore. Twelve miles from shore we had 60 fathoms, coral; 4 miles from shore we had beautiful fine white sand. We observed that this coast extends S.b.E. and N.b.W., and that it is an even coast.
[The error is about 1° 50′, practically the same as Tasman had on the New Zealand coast.]
This land is the first land that we have met with in the South Sea, and is unknown as yet to any European people. So we have given this land the name of Anthoony van Diemenslandt, in honour of His Excellency the Governor-General our exalted superior, who has sent us out to make these discoveries; and the islands lying round about, so far as they are known to us, we have called after Their Excellencies the Council of the Indies.
12 December. Good weather, and the wind S.S.W. and S.W.: this with a steady breeze. At midday we found latitude 42° 38′, and longitude 168° 31′. Course E.; and sailed 152 miles. The heavy swell [Captain Cook afterwards observed the same swell, and drew the same inference.]
13 December. Observed latitude 42° 10′, longitude 171° 42′. Course E.b.N.; and sailed 144 miles. The wind S.S.W.: the same with a topsail breeze.
Towards the middle of the day we saw a great land uplifted high. [The Southern Alps. From the top of any high hill overlooking Cook Strait the opposite coast often looks as though it were hanging in the air, with the sky-line apparently visible underneath the land.]
At even we found it advisable, and gave orders to our steersmen accordingly, that so long as it should remain fine they should keep on the south-east course; but if the breeze should freshen they were to steer due east, so that we might not run ashore, but might as far as possible
In the first watch, when four glasses were out, [10 p.m.]
14 December. At midday we found latitude 42° 10′, and longitude [Almost certainly 172° 44′ or 172° 47′. In Tasman's figures. 189° 3′ should apparently be 189° 30′ or 33′.] [Cape Foulwind.]55 fathoms, waxy sand: no current. Towards the evening we saw a low point
15 December. In the morning a little breath of air from the land. We hove up our anchor, and had hard work to stand off from the shore a little bit out to sea. Course N.W.b.N. We then had yesterday's most northerly point N.N.E. and N.E.b.N. from us. This country appears to consist of a high double mountain range, not lower than the Island of Formosa. At noon we found latitude 41° 40′, and longitude 173° 3′. Course held, N.N.E.; and distance sailed, 32 miles. The point of the previous day then lay S.E. of us. From this point there runs out to the north of it to a distance of 10 miles a great reef of [The Steeples.] [Karamea Bight.] [Really about 41°45′.]
Here it was plain to behold that in this country the land towards the water was barren, with neither men nor any smoke to be seen. And, as we saw no signs or traces of ships or boats, we inferred that the inhabitants could not possess any. Variation in the evening 8° easterly.
16 December. At six glasses, [3 a.m.] [Cape Farewell.]
We summoned our Council, and the under steersmen as well; and resolved with them to run on to the N.E. and E.N.E until the expiration of the first watch; and then, if the weather remained settled and the wind unaltered, to steer full-and-by;[I.e., close-hauled.]
At night, in the sixth glass, [10.30 to 11 p.m.] [2 to 2.30 a.m.]
We sounded once in the first watch, and again in the dog watch, in 60 fathoms, beautiful grey sand. In the second glass of the morning watch [4.30 to 5 a.m.]
17 December. In the morning at sunrise we were about 4 miles from the shore, and saw smoke rising in several places, where fire had been kindled by the inhabitants. At that time we had the wind southerly, off the land; but the weather afterwards went round to the eastward. At noon, by reckoning, we had the latitude of 40° 32′, and 174° 1′ longitude; and we had sailed 48 miles on a course N.E.b.E. In the afternoon, wind W., and course E.b.S. along a low sandy shore, with good dry weather, in 30 fathoms depth, black sand. One may easily feel his way along this coast at night by the lead on the bottom.
We accordingly ran towards this sandy point, [Farewell Spit.] [To D'Urville Island; not recognised as an island by Tasman.]
18 December. In the morning we got up our anchor, with quiet weather. Latitude by reckoning at noon 40° 49′, longitude 174° 55′. Distance 44 miles on a course E.S.E. In the morning, before we weighed anchor, we took counsel with the officers of the Zeehaan, and resolved that an attempt must be made to effect a landing on this coast, and to find a convenient haven. While approaching the land the launch was to be sent in advance of the ships, in extenso in the minutes of this day's date.
In the afternoon our captain Ide't Jerksen and Pilot-Major Francis Jakobsen, in the launch, attended by the Zeehaan's jolly-boat, with the chapman Gilsemans and one of their under steersmen, went on ahead, to search along the shore for an anchorage and watering-place.
At the going-down of the sun, as it was almost calm, we let go our anchor in 15 fathoms, good holding-ground. In the evening, about an hour after sunset, we saw plenty of lights on shore, and four boats of some kind between us and the land, two of which turned out to be our own. When both our boats returned on board, they reported that no-where could they find less than 13 fathoms water; and that they had been still two miles from shore when they lost the sun, which was hidden behind the hills.
Our boats' crews had scarcely been on board again one glass when the people in the two canoes began to call to us with a gruff hollow voice; but we could not in the least understand any of it. Nevertheless we shouted back to them, in token of reply. Whereupon they began again, several times. Howbeit they came no nearer than the range of a stone-piece. [A small cannon carrying a stone ball instead of an iron one, and shingle instead of grape.]
For the sake of security, and in order to be well on our guard, we made our folk keep watch by whole watches, as is done when at sea. And we took care that there was munition of war in plenty laid ready, such as muskets, pikes, and cutlasses. We fired off and reloaded the guns on the upper deck, to provide against mischances, and
19 December. Early in the morning one of these people's vessels, with thirteen men in it, came within about a cable's length [About a furlong.]
These people, so far as we could see, were of middle height, but gruff of voice and big of bone. Their colour was between brown and yellow. They had black hair, drawn upwards at the back and fast bound on the very crown of the head, in the same manner and fashion as the Japanese. Moreover their hair was quite as long and as thick as the Japanese have it; and there was a large thick white feather standing upright in it.
Their vessels consisted of a pair of long narrow pontoons, a short distance apart, over which were laid some planks or other seats, so that one could see through between the water and the boat. Their paddles were a good fathom long, narrow and sharp-pointed. With these boats they could get over the ground smartly.
Some of these people had their clothing seemingly of matting, some of cotton; others were naked: as indeed were almost all of them from the waist upward.
We made signs to them many times that they should come on board; and we showed them some white linen and some sheath knives, out of what had been supplied to us for cargo. Yet they came no nearer, but finally paddled back again.
Meanwhile the officers of the Zeehaan, on the summons of the previous evening, had presented themselves on board our ship. A council was accordingly held, at which it was resolved to run as close to the shore as we could go; since there was a good anchorage, and these folk were to all appearance desirous of our friendship.
Immediately after the drafting of this resolution, we saw seven more canoes coming from the land; one of which, with a high bow tapering to a sharp point, manned with seventeen hands, passed behind the Zeehaan; while a second, wherein were thirteen stalwart men, came in front of the ship, not half a cable's length from us. We made signs and showed them white linen, &c., as before. But they continued to lie still all the same.
Then the captain of the Zeehaan sent his quartermaster, with his jolly-boat and six men, to carry orders to the under steersman of the Zeehaan. If any of these people wanted to come on board, he was not to let too many of them come over the side at once; but was to be circumspect, and quite on his guard. When the Zeehaan's boat started for the ship, the men in the canoe that was nearest to us shouted and made signs with their paddles to the other that was lying behind the Zeehaan; but what their meaning might be we could not tell. Just as the Zeehaan's boat started on her way back from the ship, they that were lying ahead of us, between the two ships, began to pull so furiously towards her that just about halfway to our ship they struck the Zeehaan's boat on the side with their stem, so violently as nearly to swamp her. Then the foremost rascal in that villainous canoe thrust the quartermaster Cornelius Joppen in the neck several times with a long blunt pike so savagely that he was forced to fall overboard. Meanwhile the rest of them, with short thick wooden clubs, which we took at first to be heavy round-pointed [Big knives shaped like half of a "spade" on a playing card, and used by the Malays instead of tomahawks, slashers, and bill-hooks.]parangs,
After this heinous and abominable deed, the murderers let the jolly-boat go adrift, having dragged one of the men into their canoe dead, and let another sink in the sea. We and the Zeehaan's people, seeing this, began to shoot with
Our captain, Ide't Jerksen-Holman, with our launch well manned and armed, rowed to the Zeehaan's boat, which those accursed ruffians, luckily for us, had set adrift, and immediately returned on board with her, having found in her one of the dead men and one mortally wounded.
We raised our anchors and got under sail, because we deemed that we could not make any friendship here with this people; nor would water or refreshments be obtainable. When our anchors were up, and we were under sail, we saw twenty-two canoes under the land, eleven of which, swarming with savages, were coming off towards us. We kept quiet until some of the foremost of them were near enough for us to fire upon them; when we gave them one or two shots with our pieces out of the gunroom, but without success. The Zeehaan's people fired too, and hit one man in the biggest canoe, who was standing with a small white flag in his hand, so that he fell down. We also heard the rattle of the grape in and against the canoe; but what further effect it may have had remains unknown to us. As soon as they had received this shot, they retreated with haste towards land; two of them setting sails after the fashion of a tingangh. They then remained lying under the shore, without paying us any more visits.
[A Javanese boat. Hence our word "dinghy."]
About noon Captain Gerrit Jansen and Senior Gilsemans a second time came on board. We ordered their upper steersman to be fetched as well; when we convened the Council and resolved as follows:—
Whereas the detestable conduct of these natives towards four of the Zeehaan's crew, as exhibited to us this morning, teaches us to hold the inhabitants of this country for enemies; we shall therefore proceed eastward along the coast, following the trend of the land in order to see whether we can anywhere find a convenient place at which some refreshment and water, may be procurable; as is stated more fully in the minutes.
At this den of murderers, to which, by-the-by, we have given the name of Murderers' Bay, [Afterwards called Massacre Bay, now Golden Bay; but the identification depends on the view taken of the errors of latitude and longitude in the log.] [Apparently a merely temporary course to clear Separation Point.] [From the position at noon on the 18th.]
Then, by the advice of our steersmen, approved by our own judgment, we proceeded N.E.b.N. At night we let her go on, as it was clear weather; though about an hour after midnight we sounded in 25 or 26 fathoms, hard sand. The wind presently shifted to the N.W. We sounded again, and, finding only 15 fathoms, we immediately went about, to wait for daylight, and steered to the west: exactly the opposite course to the one on which we had run in. Variation 9° 30′ easterly.
This is the second [The first being Tasmania. See November 25.]
We have given this track the name of Abel Tasman's Track, since he is the first that has sailed over it.
20 December. In the morning we saw land lying all round us, as we had sailed quite 120 miles into a gulf. We had hitherto presumed that the land where we had been at anchor was an island, not doubting that we should find a passage from that position into the open South Sea; but, to our grievous disappointment, it has fallen out quite otherwise. The wind being then westerly, we had hard [Apparently Stephen Island.]
21 December. At night in the dogwatch we got the wind westerly, with a steady breeze, and let her run towards the north in hopes that the land which we had had on the N.W. of us the day before might fall away before us to the north. But after breakfast we arrived over against that coast again, and found that it extended towards the N.W. When near the shore [Apparently near Whanganui or Waitotara.]
At noon we found latitude 40° 31′, and longitude 176° 9′. Course held, N; and distance sailed, 20 miles; and it was foggy, so that we could see no land. In the middle of the afternoon we again saw the southern shore, and the island, which had on the previous day been about 24 miles to the west of us, was now bearing S.W.b.S.,
22 December. The wind N.W.b.N., and still a heavy gale, so that there was no prospect of getting under sail and making headway against it; indeed, we had hard enough work to hold to our anchor where we lay, and save our ship at all. Here we lay in south latitude [Probably about 40° 45′ and 174° 4′.]
23 December. Still dark, misty, drizzling weather: the wind N.W. and W.N.W.; and still such a storm that we could make no progress, to our great regret.
24 December. Still rough, unsettled weather, the storm continuing from the N.W.; but in the morning, having a spell of calm, we flew the white flag and fetched the officers of the Zeehaan on board. We put it before them that, since the tide flowed from the S.E., there must probably [So near was Tasman to the discovery of Cook Strait.]
28 December. In the morning at daybreak we made sail again, and steered our course due east, to ascertain whether the land before mentioned, which we had seen in the latitude of 40°, extended any further towards the north, or whether it fell away towards the east. At noon we saw a high mountain [Apparently Karioi—north of Kawhia.]
29 December. This morning at daybreak we took in our bonnets, [Additional strips of canvas laced to the upper or lower edge of a sail to make it larger.] [This seems to require an addition of about 25′.]
4 January, 1643. In the morning we were close to a cape, and had an island N.W.b.N. of us. Whereupon we ordered the white flag to be hoisted, so that the officers of the Zeehaan should come on board. We came to a resolution together to run for that island, to see whether one can obtain there any fresh water, green vegetables, &c. At noon we found latitude 34° 35′, longitude 174° 23′. Course held, N.E.; distance sailed, 60 miles, with the wind S.E. Towards noon we drifted in calm, and found ourselves in a very strong current here, which carried us towards the west. There was also at this place a heavy sea rolling in from the N.E., which made us rejoice not a little to think that here we were going to find a way through. This cape, which bore E.N.E. from us, lies in south latitude [As this is the true latitude of Cape Maria van Diemen, and as Tasman's latitudes are generally 5′ too high, it seems likely that Cape Reinga is the cape to which he gave the name of Cape Maria van Diemen.] [This might be said of either cape.]
5 January. In the morning we were still drifting in calm; but about nine o'clock we got a little breeze from the S.E. In consultation with the officers of the Zeehaan we found it advisable to steer for the island. About noon we sent our launch, in charge of the pilot-major, along with the Zeehaan's cutter, in charge of the chapman Gilsemans, to the island to find out whether there was any water to be got. In the evening the gentlemen returned on board, and reported that they had approached quite close to the land, exercising the utmost caution not to be overpowered or surprised by the Natives. They had been into a safe but small cove, where they found good fresh water, which ran down from a steep range of hills in great abundance; but the sea was running so high as to make it dangerous—indeed, absolutely impossible—to fetch any water from that place. Consequently the gentlemen had made their way further round the island to ascertain whether they could find any other convenient place. From several places on the shore there were seen by them, on the highest ridge, some thirty or thirty-five persons—men of tall stature, as well as they could see from such a distance—with sticks or clubs, who shouted to them with gruff, loud voices, which our people could not at all understand. In walking they took immensely long steps and strides. While they were rowing round the island these people occasionally showed themselves to them in small parties on the tops of the hills. Our party accordingly, inferring from the manner of the islanders—as, indeed, there is good reason to believe—that they intended to attack them in canoes, determined to keep the boats [In the oldest available copy of Tasman's chart this island is named Three Kings Island; its true latitude is 34° 8′ to 10′, and longitude 172° 6′ to 9′. Tasman is here 16′ too high in his latitude. It seems most likely that he wrote, or meant to write, 34° 15′, in which case his error was about 6′. He could hardly, even with his crude appliances, have made an error of 16′ of latitude in the short distance from Cape Reinga to the Three Kings. The error appears to be more than 5′ but certainly less than 16′ at Karioi, and probably there is a constant error of 5′ or 6′ all along. The longitudes agree very well with the final position at the Three Kings and show a constant error of about 1° 47′ all up the coast. But when he states his distance from the shore he usually greatly underestimates it.]
6 January. Early in the morning we sent both the cutters, to wit, our own and the Zeehaan's, each mounting, two stone-pieces, with six musketeers, the rowers provided with pikes and side arms, accompanied by our launch, with Pilot-Major Francis Jakobsen and Captain Gerrit Jansen, to the watering-place with barrels to fetch water. While they were rowing thither our people saw in several places a big man standing with a long stick or a pike, apparently keeping watch on our people; he shouted very
Towards midday we got under sail, [Thus Tasman left New Zealand without effecting a landing anywhere.]
As for his personal appearance, several portraits remain of him…. He was, to begin with, over 6ft. high, thin and spare; his head was small; his forehead was broad; his hair was a dark brown, rolled back and tied behind in the fashion of the time; his nose was long and straight; his nostrils clear and finely cut; his cheek-bones were high—a feature which illustrated his Scotch descent; his eyes were brown and small, but well set, quick, and piercing; his eyebrows were large and bushy; his chin was round and full; his mouth firmly set; his face long. It is an austere face, but striking. One thinks, perhaps wrongly, that, without having been told whose face this is in the portrait, we might know it as the face of a man remarkable for patience, resolution, perseverance, and indomitable courage. The portraits of naval worthies are sometimes disappointing—the faces of some gallant admirals have even, if one may respectfully use the word, a fatuous expression, no doubt the fault of the rascal painter. That of James Cook satisfies. It is a face worthy of the navigator. Such was the appearance of the man—tall, thin, grave, even austere. As for his personal habits, he was, as all agree, of robust constitution, inured to labour, and capable of undergoing the severest hardships. Every north-easterly gale that buffeted the collier's boy in the German Ocean, every night spent in battling with the winter gales between Newcastle and the Port of London, helped to build this strength and endurance. He was able to eat without difficulty the coarsest and the most ungrateful food—on what luxuries are even the mates of a collier nourished? "Great was the indifference with which he submitted to every kind of self-denial." A man who felt no hardships, who desired no better fare than was served out to his men, who looked on rough weather as the chief part of life, who was never sick, and never tired—where was there his like?
And a man who never rested, he was always at work. "During his long and tedious voyages," writes Captain King after his death, "his eagerness and activity were never in the least degree abated. No incidental temptation would detain him for a moment…."
He was strong to endure, true to carry out his mission, perfectly loyal and single-minded, he was fearless, he was hot-tempered and impatient, he was self-reliant; he asked none of his subordinates for help or for advice; he was temperate, strong, and of simple tastes; he was born to a hard life, and he never murmured however hard things proved. And, like all men born to be great, when he began to rise, with each step he assumed, as if it belonged to him, the dignity of his new rank. A plain man, those who knew him say, but of good manners…. Such as his achievements required, such he was.
Let us, however, once more repeat briefly what those achievements were, because they were so great and splendid, and because no other sailor has ever so greatly enlarged the borders of the earth. He discovered the Society Islands; he proved New Zealand to be two islands, and he surveyed its coast; he followed the unknown coast of New Holland for 2,000 miles, and proved that it was separated from New Guinea. He traversed the Antarctic Ocean on three successive voyages, sailing completely round the globe in its high latitudes, and proving that the dream of the great southern continent had no foundation, unless it was close around the Pole, and so beyond the reach of ships; he discovered and explored a great part of the coast of New Caledonia; the largest island in the South Pacific next to New Zealand; he found the desolate Island of Georgia, and Sandwichland, the southernmost land yet known; he discovered the fair and fertile archipelago called the Sandwich Islands; he explored 3,500 miles of the North American coast, and he traversed the icy seas of the North Pacific, as he had done in the south, in search of the passage which he failed to discover. All this, without counting the small islands which he found scattered about the Pacific.
Again, he not only proved the existence of these islands, but he was in advance of his age in the observations and the minute examination which he made into the religion, manners, customs, arts, and language of the Natives wherever he went. It was he who directed these inquiries, and he was himself the principal observer. When astronomical observations had to be made, it was he who acted as principal astronomer. He was as much awake to the importance of botany, especially of medicinal plants, as he was to the
His voyages would have been impossible, his discoveries could not have been made, but for that invaluable discovery of his whereby scurvy was kept off, and the men enabled to remain at sea long months without a change. I have called attention to the brief mention he makes of privation and hardships. He barely notes the accident by which half his company were poisoned by fish. He says nothing about the men's discomforts when their biscuits were rotten. These things, you see, are not scurvy. One may go hungry for a while, but recover when food is found, and is none the worse. One gets sick of salt-junk, but, if scurvy is averted, mere disgust is not worth observation. To drive off scurvy—to keep it off—was the greatest boon that any man could confer upon sailors. Cook has the honour and glory of finding out the way to avert this scourge. Those who have read of this horrible disease, the tortures it entailed, the terror it was on all long voyages, will understand how great should be the gratitude of the country to this man. Since the disease fell chiefly upon the men before the mast, it was fitting that one who had also in his youth run up the rigging to the music of the boatswain's-pipe should discover that way and confer that boon.
A Chapter on the mammals of New Zealand might almost be written with the brevity of the learned Swede's celebrated chapter on the snakes of Iceland: "There are no snakes in Iceland." It is one of the most astonishing facts in nature that a country so eminently suited for the support of every description of animal life capable of existing within its wide range of temperature should have been
The country can indisputably claim the bats for its own, but there are some who think that the kiore is merely the descendant of rats brought in Cook's ships, and that it has somewhat changed its appearance from its change of circumstances. It is said to have been very common at the beginning of the European settlement; but it is now seldom seen, the Norway rat having altogether displaced it in the neighbourhood of man. The kiore does not infest houses, though it may sometimes enter them for food, but is a wild animal living in the bush and feeding on roots and berries.
There is an extraordinary and quite unexplained phenomenon connected with the kiore which is worth mentioning here, in the hope that some naturalist or other man of science reading this book may be able to throw some light on it. The kiore, as has been said, is now a rare animal, very shy, and probably nocturnal. But there are times when it makes its appearance in vast numbers, coming no one knows whence, and going no one knows whither, yet evidently governed by some irresistible law of nature. Three or four years ago such a visitation occurred on the West Coast of the Middle Island, a countless swarm of these little creatures travelling southward along the shore for a distance of more than 150 miles, all going one way, and all moving as fast as they could, as if impelled by an inexorable destiny, in spite of all sorts of obstacles. A large proportion of them died of hunger by the way, and the moving host were exposed throughout their journey to terrible inroads by the acclimatised brown rat, a much stronger and fiercer animal than the kiore; just as the revolted Tartars, in their famous flight across Asia in the last century, were pursued and assailed by Cossacks and other ferocious nomads the whole way from the confines of Russia to the territory of the Chinese Emperor.
After passing in procession along the shore for some months, the rats vanished as suddenly and mysteriously as they had appeared; and to this day no one has been able
If we add to the two little bats and the kiore the several kinds of seals which frequent the southern shores of New Zealand at certain seasons, we have already exhausted the whole list of non-introduced land-mammals. There were absolutely no other beasts; while the reptiles are confined to the lizards, the beautiful but insignificant little creatures about as long as the finger, which are found everywhere near the sea-shore, and the weird tuatara, a dark-brown fringed lizard or iguana, from six to eighteen inches in length, which is only found on certain exposed and rocky islets on the coast of the North Island, and in Cook Strait. The tuatara is repulsively ugly, judged by any conventional ideas of beauty, but is perfectly harmless, and is probably very good to eat—for those who have a stomach for such uncanny fare. Its most remarkable characteristic is, however, its unequalled capacity of [Italian—"sweet inactivity."] [The tuatara can bite.]dolce far niente.
Two mythical animals may here be briefly mentioned— these are the taniwha and the kaurehe. Both are aquatic or amphibious [The only New Zealand amphibian is a native frog found in the Coromandel Peninsula and the western and middle coasts of the Bay of Plenty.]tapu or sacred pools or rivers, but sometimes met with in the sea, and devouring persons who profanely violate the sanctity of its haunts, or who have otherwise offended the gods. Some years ago, a Maori clergyman of the Church of England, on the East Coast, reported to the Government that a beautiful and beloved young woman, a member of his flock, had rashly gone to bathe in a tapu pool against his and her friends' entreaties; that she had been missing for some days; and that then her body had been found on a rock beside the pool, badly mangled by a taniwha. There is no English name for the taniwha; but it may safely be classed under the generic name of "bogey." The kaurehe has at least a possible existence. It is supposed to be a kind of large otter—as large as a calf, some say—but the evidences of it are far from satisfactory. Several credible observers have described the trail of some such animal on the mud, or smooth, sandy shore of lakes; and the late learned
Coming now to birds, there is a very different story to tell. New Zealand was once the abode of the largest and most marvellous bird in the world, a bird which actually brings the fabled roc of Sinbad the Sailor within the region of prosaic possibility, and which throws the roc into insignificance as far as outlandishness is concerned. The roc was only a large eagle, large enough to fly away with a man lashed to one of its claws. But the great moa, the gigantic Dinornis of New Zealand, was a wingless bird, standing twelve feet high, stalking about on legs as long and as strong as a camel's, laying greenish-white eggs about a foot in length, and swallowing handfuls of pebbles to aid its digestion. This stupendous bird is believed to be wholly extinct; though there is no positive reason why it should not be found living in some of the hitherto unexplored and all but inaccessible solitudes on the south-west coast of the Middle Island. But its remains are found in immense quantities in both islands, showing that at one time it was exceedingly common. The museums in New Zealand contain a great many fine skeletons of the moa, as well as fragments of the eggs, bones of the chicks, feathers, and stones from the crop, found in the skeletons. There is no more puzzling problem, perhaps, than that of the moa. Judging from the recent appearance of the bones, feathers, and other relics, which are found either in caves or close to the surface of the ground, in all sorts of situations, it might be supposed to have only died out, like some other native birds, within the memory of man. Some old Maoris have been heard to declare that they hunted and ate the moa in their youth. Yet the fact that no allusion to the moa has ever been found in any Maori legend or genealogy, some of which go back nearly eight hundred years—whereas these
There are still in New Zealand in considerable numbers, however, other wingless birds, though on a comparatively diminutive scale. Their name is kiwi, and there are several species. The small kiwi is about a foot high, and about the same length. It has a round body covered with soft plumage, at first sight resembling brown or dark-grey fur; no tail, not a sign of wings, thick legs, and three finger-like toes, and a long, curved, slender bill—sensitive to the point —through which it sucks its food in swamps or shallows. There is a larger kiwi nearly three feet high.
The weka [Known also as the wood-hen.]
New Zealand may be said to consist of two islands—the North Island and the South Island—separated by Cook Strait. The South Island is sometimes called Middle Island, with reference to Stewart Island, which lies to the south of it, and is separated from it by Foveaux Strait. The Chatham, Auckland, Campbell, Antipodes, Bounty, and Kermadec Islands are reckoned as belonging to New Zealand. The whole area of these outlying islands is only 812 square miles, and that of Stewart Island is only 665 square miles. The South Island is larger than the North, their areas being respectively 58,525 and 44,468 square miles. The area of Great Britain is about 84,000 square miles, which is not much more than four-fifths of the area of New Zealand; but in New Zealand there are, perhaps, 14,000 square miles of mountain-tops and other barren land.
The Maori name of the North Island is Te-Ika-a-Maui (Maui's fish); of the South Island, Te Wai-Pounamu (greenstone water); of Stewart Island, Raki-ura (red sky).
The geograpnical insight that enabled the Native mind to recognise this chain as the backbone of the North Island acquires a fresh value in our estimation when a wider survey brings the North and South Island into one view. It is then seen that, except for the great gap at Cook Strait, the chain is practically continuous as far as West Cape, near Dusky Sound, and that it may well be called the backbone of New Zealand as a whole. In the northern part of the South Island the Kaikoura Ranges lie in the great northeast and south-west line already indicated. A range, of which the general direction is slightly more to the west than south-west, connects the Kaikouras with the waterparting of the South Island, near the north bank of the Hurunui, and from that river the water-parting follows the ridges of the Southern Alps—which divide Canterbury from Westland—and then the ridges of the great mountains in Western Otago, and keeps the south-westerly direction
The greatest heights in the chain occur in the South Island. The highest peak in the Kaikouras is Tapuae-nuku, 9,462 feet above sea-level, and the altitude of Mount Cook— which is the highest mountain in Australasia—is 12,349 feet. The grandest scenery is to be found in the Southern Alps, and in the mountains of Western Otago, and in particular on the western side of the ranges. This is due not only to the greater height of the mountains of the south, and the consequent formation of glaciers, but also to the steeper slope on the western side, and to the winds that blow from the Tasman Sea. These are heavily charged with moisture, which, falling as rain on the western slopes, serves to maintain in perpetual freshness and vigour the abundant vegetable life of that region. From Dusky Bay to Pelorus Sound the mountains on this side are clothed with forest.
In the extreme south-west of this region the clefts that form the valleys run down deep into the sea, and become great inlets, or arms of the sea, like the Norwegian fiords, but with a special charm added by the evergreen foliage of the trees that everywhere cover the steep sides of the mountains down to the water's edge. North of the sounds the west coast is destitute of natural harbours of any considerable size, though a few of the river-mouths are accessible to small steamers, and the artificial harbours at Greymouth and Westport are visited by large vessels engaged in the coal trade, for which those places are celebrated. Here and there from Cook River to the Mokihinui there are places where the mountains stand back from the coast-line, leaving room in the short river-valleys and along the coast for flats which are occupied by settlers, and also by miners, for this region is rich in gold. The larger valleys, also, of the Grey and Inangahua are occupied by settlers. The northern end
The great mountain chain sends off many branches south and east; and some of these—especially in Otago—extend nearly to the sea. In the long valleys thus formed in the south part of the island, which generally run north and south, lie the great lakes that may be regarded as the eastern counterpart of the western fiords. Some of these lakes are very deep, their bottom being below the level of the distant sea. Characteristic of the eastern side of the South Island are the plains—some of them very extensive— that lie either between the main chain and the sea, as do the Canterbury Plains and those of Southland; or between the lower valleys of the branch ranges and the coast, as do the Maniatoto, [The usual spelling—Maniototo—is incorrect.]débris from the mountains.
On this side of the Island there is not much forest, and the climate is dry. Maori tradition asserts that the greater part of this area was once covered with timber, and, as a matter of fact, remains of totara logs could be found only a few years ago on most of the open hills. In the early days of the colony the mountains of Banks Peninsula were covered with forest, most of which has disappeared before the axe of the settler to make room for dairy farms. (This peninsula is a group of mountains, the highest of them being 3,050 feet above the sea, and is quite unrelated to the main chain, being of volcanic origin, and many of its picturesque bays are decayed craters.) Forests are to be found on the plains and ranges in Southland, in the Tautuku district of Southern Otago, on the sea-face of the Kaikouras, and in Queen Charlotte Sound; and there are smaller patches of timber country here and there on the eastern
This east coast has good natural harbours at the Bluff, at Port Chalmers, at Lyttelton, and in the many bays of Banks Peninsula, and there are artificial harbours at Oamaru and Timaru.
In the North Island the main chain, with the exception of a few bare summits and a lower patch here and there, is forest-clad for its whole length, and from it the forest spreads out on both sides, sometimes for very long distances. From the Tararua and Ruahine Ranges the forest extends to the western coast, and along that coast it is continued in a great northern extension, with few interruptions, as far as Reef Point in the northern peninsula. On the eastern side of the main chain there are several plains, and much hilly country, nowhere rising to any great height, the whole being watered by large streams, the general course of which—with the remarkable exception presented by the River Manawatu, in the district between Hawke's Bay and Cook Strait—is parallel to the chain. There is in fact an almost continuous valley all the way from Palliser Bay to Hawke's Bay. The space between this long valley and the sea is occupied by broken country, which cannot be called mountainous, and this is the only part of the North Island where any of the rivers have wide beds like those of the eastern side of the South Island. The remarkable fact in the case of the Manawatu is that it deserts this valley, and finds its way, by a very narrow gorge about four miles in length, through the main chain and thence to the west coast near Foxton. North of Hawke's Bay the country is hilly as far as East Cape, with a few wide valleys at intervals.
Lying to the west of the main chain, and parallel to it, is a line of country of very remarkable geographical interest. Its place on the map can be indicated by
Far away from this central line stands Taranaki, or Mount Egmont (8,260 feet), one of the most symmetrical mountains in the world, Fusiyama, in Japan, which does not exceed it in beauty, being its only rival. The solitary mass of this grand volcano constitutes the great circular projection on the west coast of the Island. The diameter of the circle is about thirty-four miles, and all the country from the Waitara River to the Waingongoro is composed of material ejected from the crater.
The volcanic mountain region that includes Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and Tongariro, and the pumice-covered region on both sides of the great fissure, constitute together a great centre of irrigation for the North Island. In this district take their rise the great rivers Whanganui, Whangaehu, and Rangitikei, that flow in a direction generally south-west to Cook Strait; the Waikato, that flows through Lake Taupo, and, after passing right through three ranges of hills in its
The country lying generally to the north-west of the great fissure has a character all its own, and very dissimilar to that of the main structure of the "backbone" of New Zealand, and of the regions naturally connected with that range. The axis, if we may so say, of this north-western extension lies in a line drawn from about the north end of Lake Taupo to Reef Point, at a distance of about two hundred and seventy-five miles from the great fissure, and is not marked by any range of mountains running south-west, No great altitude is anywhere attained in this part of the North Island. The surface is as it were folded or crumpled in all directions. The most conspicuous range is that which reaches from the neighbourhood of Lake Taupo to Cape Colville. In this range Te Aroha Mountain (the highest in the whole area under consideration) rises to the height of 3,576 feet. Pirongia (an old volcano, east of Kawhia), 3,156 feet, and Tutamoe (a volcanic hill—the highest mountain north of Auckland), 2,876 feet, stand next in order of altitude. There are many plains in this part of the colony, the valleys of the Thames and of the Upper Waikato being the largest; but as a rule the country is hilly, and there is a large proportion of forest-land. Many of the rivers are navigable. The northern peninsula (marked off by the very narrow isthmus between Onehunga and Auckland) is generally of a hilly character, and is noted for the large extent of its tidal waters open to navigation. It is the home of the kauri, which is not found south of Kawhia and Tauranga. The kauri forests furnish employment for a large population.
In the North Island generally no counterpart of the plains of the South Island is to be found. But the hilly country is of better quality than the hills of the South, and will support a larger proportional population, living
The North Island has, at Auckland and Wellington, harbours as good as can be found anywhere, and the northern peninsula is noted for the number and excellence of its ports.
Stewart Island is almost wholly covered with forest, and consists of very broken country. Its splendid harbours have no equals in the colony for picturesque beauty. Its highest peak is Mount Anglem, or Hananui (3,200 feet). The climate is milder than that of the nearest part of the South Island. It has been suggested that the climate is tempered by a warm current which, after passing south along the east coast of the Australian continent, turns to the west and impinges on Stewart Island, and then finds its way northward by the Chathams and the Kermadecs to the tropics.
[Impossible as a Maori name. Probably Marereira.]We descended to the lake head by the path up which we had seen the party returning the previous evening. The boat was a long, light gig, unfit for storms; but Tarawera lay unruffled in the sunshine, tree and mountain peacefully mirrored on the surface. The colour was again green, as of a shallow sea. Heavy bushes fringed the shore. High wooded mountains rose on all sides of us as we left the creek and came out upon the open water. The men rowed well, laughing and talking among themselves, and carried us in little more than an hour to a point eight miles distant. Little life of any kind showed on the way; no boat was visible but our own; there were a few cormorants, a few ducks, a coot or two, three or four seagulls come from the ocean to catch sprats, and that was all. Kate, our
We took off our boots and stockings, put on canvas shoes which a wetting would not spoil, and followed our two guides through the bush, waiting for what fate had in store for us—Miss Mari laughing, shouting, and singing to amuse Kate, whose head ached. After a winding walk of half a mile we came again on the river, which was rushing deep and swift through reeds and tea-tree. A rickety canoe was waiting there, in which we crossed. Then we climbed up a bank, and stretched before us we saw the White Terrace in all its strangeness—a crystal staircase, glittering and stainless as if it were ice, spreading out like an open fan from a point above us on the hillside, and projecting at the bottom into a lake, where it was perhaps a hundred yards wide. The summit was concealed behind the volumes of steam rising out of the boiling fountain, from which the siliceous stream proceeded. The stairs were about twenty in number, the
The thickness of the crust is, I believe, unascertained, the Maoris objecting to scientific examination of their treasure. It struck me, however, that this singular cascade must have been of recent, indeed measurably recent, origin. In the middle of the terrace were the remains of a tea-tree bush, which was standing where a small patch of soil was still uncovered. Part of this, where the silica had not reached the roots, was in leaf and alive; the rest had been similarly alive within a year or two, for it had not yet rotted, but had died as the crust rose round it. Clearly, nothing could grow through the crust, and the bush was a living evidence of the rate at which it was forming. It appeared to me that this particular staircase was not perhaps a hundred years old, but that terraces like it had successively been formed all along the hillside as the crater opened now at one spot and now at another. Wherever the rock showed elsewhere through the soil it was of the
The crystallization is ice-like, and the phenomenon, except for the alternate horizontal and vertical arrangement of the deposited silica, is like what would be seen in any northern region when a severe frost suddenly seizes hold of a waterfall before snow has fallen and buried it.
A fixed number of minutes is allotted for each of the " sights." Kate was peremptory with E— and myself. Miss Marileha had charge of my son. "Come along, boy," I heard her say to him. We were dragged off the White Terrace in spite of ourselves, but soon forgot it in the many and various wonders which were waiting for us. Columns of steam were rising all round us. We had already heard, near at hand, a noise like a blast-pipe of some enormous steam-engine. Climbing up a rocky path through the bush we came on a black gaping chasm, the craggy sides of which we could just distinguish through the vapour. Water was boiling furiously at the bottom, and it was as if a legion of imprisoned devils were roaring to be let out. "Devils' Hole" they called the place, and the name suited well with it. Behind a rock a few yards distant we found a large open pool, boiling also so violently that great volumes of water heaved and rolled and spouted, as if in a gigantic saucepan standing over a furnace. It was full of sulphur. Heat, noise, and smell were alike intolerable. To look at the thing and then escape from it was all that we could do, and we were glad to be led away out of sight and hearing. Again a climb, and we were on an open, level plateau, two acres or so in extent, smoking rocks all round it, and scattered over its surface a number [The sound of "gey" is like that of "guy"] [Co-cy′-tus, a fabled river of the under-world.]
Kate was out of spirits, with her headache; we did what we could to cheer her, and partially succeeded. The scene
We were now to be ferried across the lake. The canoe had been brought up—a scooped-out tree-trunk, as long as a racing eight-oar, and about as narrow. It was leaky, and so low in the water that the lightest ripple washed over the gunwale. The bottom, however, was littered with freshgathered fern, which for the present was dry, and we wore directed to lie down upon it. Marileha stood in the bow, wielding her paddle, with her elf-locks rolling wildly down her back. The hot waves lapped in and splashed us. The lake was weird and evil-looking. Here Kate had earned her medal. Some gentleman, unused to boats, had lost his balance, or his courage, and had fallen overboard. Kate had dived after him as he sank, and fished him up again.
The Pink Terrace, the object of our voyage, opened out before us on the opposite shore. It was formed on the same lines as the other, save that it was narrower, and was flushed with pale-rose colour. Oxide of iron is said to be the cause, but there is probably something besides. The water has not, I believe, been completely analysed. Miss Mari used her paddle like a mistress. She carried us over with no worse misfortune than a light splashing, and landed us at the terrace-foot. It was here, if anywhere, that the ablutions were to take place. A Native youth was waiting with the towels. Kate and Mari withdrew to wallow, rhinoceros-like, in a mud-pool of their own. The youth took charge of us and led us up the shining stairs. The crystals were even more beautiful than those which we had seen, falling like clusters of rosy icicles, or hanging in festoons like creepers trailing from a rail. At the foot of each cascade the water lay in pools of ultramarine, their exquisite colour being due in part, I suppose, to the light of the sky refracted upwards from the bottom. In the deepest of these we were to bathe. The temperature was 94° or
The bath over, we pursued our way. The marvel of the terrace was still before us, reserved to the last, like the finish in a pleasant battue. The crater at the White Terrace had been boiling; the steam rushing out from it had filled the air with cloud, and the scorching heat had kept us at a distance. Here the temperature was twenty degrees lower; there was still vapour hovering over the surface, but it was lighter and more transparent, and a soft breeze now and then blew it completely aside. We could stand on the brim and gaze as through an opening in the earth into an azure infinity beyond. Down and down, and softer and softer as they receded, the white crystals projected from the rocky walls over the abyss, till they seemed to dissolve not into darkness but into light. The hue of the water was something which I had never seen, and shall never again see on this side of eternity. Not the violet, not the hare-bell, nearest in its tint to heaven of all nature's flowers; not turquoise, not sapphire, not the unfathomable æther itself could convey to one who had not looked on it a sense of that supernatural loveliness. Comparison could only soil such inimitable purity. The only colour I ever saw in sky or on earth in the least resembling the aspect of this extraordinary pool was the flame of burning sulphur. Here was a bath, if mortal flesh could have borne to dive into it! Had it been in Norway, we should have seen, far down, the floating Lorelei, inviting us to plunge and leave life and all
The inhabitants of this part of the world are by no means unskilled in arts and manufactures. Among the former is their cultivation of the ground; which, though remarkably successful as far as it goes, is mostly confined to the growth of one vegetable—the potato. Indeed, I never met with that root of a better quality than in New Zealand. They keep remarkably well; and we provided a stock of them sufficient to supply the whole ship's company for several months. And here it may be not improper to remark that in my opinion no kind of food taken to sea has a greater tendency to preserve the health of a ship's company or to recover it from the effects of a long voyage. I think I have observed more benefit derived in cases of scurvy from the root eaten raw with vinegar than from any other remedy: it appears to be most efficacious if taken in the morning fasting.
I could not learn when they first became possessed of this invaluable root; they have, however, had some opportunities of changing their seed, which has been of great advantage to them. Cutting is not in practice, the smaller potatoes being always preserved for seed. Their cultivation has hitherto been attended with considerable disadvantages, owing to the want of proper implements, the only mode of turning the soil being with a wooden spade; but as the soil is light this impediment is not so great as might be imagined. Their potato enclosures are not planted with European regularity, but they are productive, and do no discredit to their owners. Though the Natives are exceedingly fond of these roots, they eat them but sparingly, on account of their great value in procuring iron by barter from European ships that touch at this part of the coast. The utility of this metal is found to be so great that they would suffer almost any privation or inconvenience for the
Their mode of storing them is upon a platform, erected upon a single post about ten feet in height. The mode of bringing potatoes to the ship is in small baskets made of the green native flax, and of various sizes, containing from eight to thirty pounds weight. In dealing for this article the Natives make as good a bargain as they possibly can, adding to your demand one small basket at a time, of the value of which they are perfectly aware. I believe they usually have two crops in the year; and I have not heard that they ever fail from accidental causes. The potato is the only vegetable cultivated by the Natives; they have had the seed of several others, but as they are found ill calculated for trade they have been neglected. The diffusion of cabbage seed has been so general over this part that you would suppose it an indigenous plant of the country. Nature has spared them the trouble of cultivating their favourite haddawai, or fern, as it is found everywhere in great abundance.
[Aruhe.]
The next art I shall speak of, as subservient to the purposes of existence, is their mode of catching fish; but, as their methods do not differ from those in use amongst the natives of other islands of the Pacific Ocean, it will not be necessary to dwell upon them long, or to detail them minutely. The larger fish are sometimes speared; but the usual method of taking them, of all sizes, is by means of nets and books. The nets arc composed of line formed of the native flax, and are large, and well adapted to the purposes for which they are intended. Their hooks are formed of the outer rim of ear-shell,[Haliotis (Maori, pauo).]matau. The bait is usually a limpet or a piece of raw fish; and from the great dexterity of the fishermen, and the
I have commenced my account of the arts in New Zealand with those relating to the means of procuring food, as being the primary consideration in savage life; and as it will be understood that the Natives in general are abundantly supplied, it will be proper in the next place to say something of their culinary operations. Roasting and broiling are the common modes of cooking in most uncivilised countries; they are much in use here, but they have a method of dressing fish that struck me as rather uncommon, and therefore I shall describe it. The fish, being cleaned, is enveloped in a quantity of leaves of the cabbage, and bound with tendrils; it is then laid upon a stone that has been previously heated, upon which it is occasionally turned; and the steam from the leaves serves the purpose of boiling water. The leaves being taken off, the fish is found to be well cooked and unbroken. I have tasted them cooked in this manner by the Natives, and thought them excellent. They probably would not have recourse to this method had they any way of boiling water. This method, however, is an admirable substitute for boiling. The greens forming the immediate covering of the fish are eaten with it. Potatoes are also cooked in the same manner. As salt or other savoury substances are not in use among the Natives they are not excited to eat more than their natural appetite prompts them to do; but perhaps this is a fortunate circumstance, as, were means employed to increase their appetite, abundant as the supply of food is in this part it would not prove equal to the demand.
The dog, as an article of food, is, I believe, always roasted, and is esteemed good eating. Indeed, as the dog in this country is not an unclean feeder, I see no reason why it should not be considered so, particularly as it is almost the only animal food to be obtained. Thus it will
Intimately connected with the arts which the Natives of New Zealand employ to procure subsistence is that of making their canoes, for it is chiefly in these that they take their fish. Their canoes are formed of the trunk of a tree, hollowed out by the adze, and usually have their gunwales raised by the addition of a plank a foot broad on each side. They are of various dimensions, from thirty to sixty feet in length and upwards, and from two feet six inches to more than five feet broad; sharp at each extremity, and about three feet deep, including the plank before mentioned. This plank is united to the body of the canoe by ligatures, and a quantity of rush or flax is placed in the seam, so as to answer the purpose of caulking. Their war canoes are ornamented with carving and painting, and many of them are really very handsome. These will contain upwards of thirty warriors, and they sometimes lash two of them together. Ten or fifteen of these double canoes must form a powerful fleet, and would prove formidable to a European merchant ship. The common canoes are seldom more than about thirty feet in length; these sometimes contain two families, that come off to the ship for the purpose of trade. There is usually a division in the canoe, formed of wattle, [Woven or plaited work—not the tree called wattle.]
Next in point of consequence to the arts subservient to the purposes of existence is that of war, of which I shall say a few words. It did not happen during my stay here "Mate, mate, Urutuki!" (I will kill Urutuki); and I am convinced that want of opportunity alone will prevent him from carrying his threat into execution.
The spear—the common instrument of destruction in use all over the Pacific Ocean—is also employed here, and is nearly thirty feet long. It is made of hardwood, and is sometimes pointed at each extremity, but not universally. The Natives, by indefatigable practice, are particularly expert in throwing this weapon.
The battle-axe is also made of hardwood, and is about five feet in length. The head is nearly semicircular, and about eight inches in diameter, and the edge of it is made moderately sharp. It is all made of one piece of wood. The extremity of the handle is pointed, and is intended to to be used as a pike occasionally. When acting on the defensive they are very dexterous in turning off a spear with the battle-axe. The waddy [An aboriginal Australian word meaning a club. Waddies are often sharp at the thin end, and are used as missiles.]
The purposes for which the instruments of war are formed in New Zealand, I believe, seldom fail of being accomplished. In Europe, the musket, even during a war between two nations, may in many instances only be used in firing harmlessly at a review, or exultingly in volleys or feux de joie; the sword may slumber peaceably in its scabbard, except when its dazzling brightness is displayed upon the same occasions; but I believe the instruments of destruction of New Zealand are rarely formed without their subsequent performance of some death-doing deed, either in the service of the chief or to execute the vengeance of their owner in cases of individual animosity.
There are exercises peculiar to each of their instruments of war, and much time and attention are devoted to render the young warriors expert in their various uses. An essential part of their warlike operations is their grimaces, gestures, and shoutings: these are all intended to set the enemy at defiance, and are undoubtedly well calculated to inspire the beholder with terror; but as the Natives are so much accustomed to these exhibitions, they in all probability are not easily terrified or intimidated by them. The same mode of warfare is employed on the water as on the land; after the preparatory shouting, grimace, &c., have been carried on in the adverse canoes for some time, the paddles impel the warriors to the contest, which instantly commences with unbounded fury.
Of their manufactures the principal articles are their mats, which I have before spoken of as the only clothing in use among them. Those worn as their ordinary covering are made of a strong-bladed grass, woven into a coarse mat of flax so as to leave the outside shaggy, and form a coating similar to thatch; it is two inches in thickness, and, from the grass being so disposed as to turn off the wet, it must be almost impenetrable to the weather. These, I imagine, are made with little labour, from their setting but a small value upon them. Their dress mats are made of the untwisted flax, in which state it has much the appearance of floss silk of a light-yellow colour. The war mat is made of the flax very tightly twisted into threads; the twisting of which is performed by rolling with the hand
The manufacture of their implements of war, their tools, and musical instruments, is carried on by the men; many of them are finished with a great degree of nicety, and in many instances much time and labour is bestowed on carving them. The implements of war have been spoken of, and of their musical instruments I shall speak hereafter; but in this place I shall say a few words respecting their common tools. These consist of adzes, chisels, small carving tools, and needles for working the ornamental parts of their mats. The tools properly belonging to the Natives are all formed of the greenstone before mentioned, and their names render any particular description of them unnecessary.
They prefer iron for all their tools when they can procure it; but as they are unacquainted with the method of hardening this metal they have almost as much trouble in keeping an edge to the tool as in performing the work they are employed upon.
I Like to hear of belated travellers, when they have had to camp out, and I have lived in constant hope of meeting with an adventure which would give me a similar experience; but I am gradually becoming convinced that this is almost impossible by fair means; so I have been trying, for some
As soon as they were sufficiently enthusiastic on the subject, I broached my favourite project of our all going up there overnight, and camping out on the highest peak. Strange to say, the plan did not meet with any opposition, even from my husband, who has had to camp out many a winter's night, and with whom, therefore, the novelty may be said to have worn off. Two gentlemen of the proposed party were new chums, like myself, and were strongly in favour of a little roughing—new chums always are, I observe. Frederick hesitated a little about giving his final consent, on the score of its being rather too late in the year, and talked of a postponement till next summer; but we would not listen, to such an idea; so he ended by entering into it heartily. Indeed, when at last the happy day and hour came, an untoward shower had not the least effect in discouraging him.
There was a great bustle about the little homestead on that eventful Tuesday afternoon. Two very steady old horses were saddled—one for me, and the other for one of the new chums, who was supposed not to be in good form for a long walk, owing to a weak knee. Everything that we thought we could possibly want was heaped on and around us after we had mounted. The rest of the gentlemen —four in number—walked; and we reached the first stage of our expedition in about an hour.
Here we dismounted, as the horses could go no further in safety. The first thing done was to see to their comfort and security. The saddles were carefully deposited under a large flax-bush, in case of rain; and the long tether-ropes were arranged so as to insure plenty of good feed and water for both horses, without the possibility of the ropes becoming entangled in each other or in anything else.
Then came a time of great excitement, and laughing, and talking, for all the swags had to be packed and apportioned for the very long and steep ascent before us. And now I must tell you exactly what we took up. A pair of large double blankets to make the tent of: that was one
The rest distributed among them a couple of large heavy axes, a small coil of rope, some bread, a cake, tin plates and pannikins, knives and forks, and a fine pigeon-pie. Concerning this pie there were two abominable proposals: one was to leave it behind, and the other was to eat it then and there. Both of these suggestions were, however, indignantly rejected. All these things were divided into two large, heavy swags, and to poor Frederick was assigned the heaviest and most difficult load of all—the water.
He must have suffered great anxiety all the way, for if any accident had happened to his load he would have had to go back again to refill his big kettle. This he carried in his hand, whilst a large tin vessel with a screw cap, also full of water, was strapped on his back. He was particularly charged not to let a drop escape from the spout of the kettle, and. I must say that though he took a long time about it, for he could not go as straight up the hill as we did, he reached the top with the kettle full to the brim. The other vessel was of course quite safe. All these packings and repackings, and the comfortable adjustment of the swags, occupied a long time; so it was past live when we began our climb.
The ascent was very steep, and there were no sheep-tracks to guide us. Our way lay through thick high flax-bushes; and we never could have got on without their help. I started with a stick, but soon threw it aside and pulled myself up by the flax, hand over hand. Of course I had to stop every now and then to rest, and once I chose the same flax-bush where three young wild pigs had retired for the night, having first made themselves the most beautiful bed of tussock-grass bitten into short lengths. The tussocks
The first thing to be done was to pitch the tent on the little flat at the top of the hill. It was a very primitive affair: two of the thinnest and longest pieces of totara, with which Flagpole is strewed, we used for poles, fastening another piece lengthwise to these upright sticks as a roof-tree. This frame was then covered with the double blanket, whose ends were kept down on the ground by a row of the heaviest stones to be found. The rope we bad brought up served to tie the poles together at the top, and to fasten the blanket on them.
As soon as the tent had reached this stage, it was discovered that the wind blew through it from end to end, and that it afforded very little protection. We also found it much colder on the top of this hill than in our valley. Under these circumstances it became necessary to appropriate my solitary blanket to block up one end of the tent and make it more comfortable for the whole party. It was very little shelter before this was done.
The next step was to collect wood for a fire, which was not difficult, for at some distant time the whole of the hill must have been covered by a forest of totara-trees; it has apparently been destroyed by fire, for the huge trunks and branches which still strew the steep sides are charred and half burnt. It is beautiful wood, with a strong aromatic odour, and blazed and crackled splendidly in the clear, cool evening air.
We piled up a huge bonfire, and put the kettle on to boil. It was quite dusk by this time, so the gentlemen worked hard at collecting a great supply of wood, as the night promised to be a very cold one; whilst I remained to watch the kettle, full of that precious liquid poor Frederick had carried up with such care, and to prevent the wekas from carrying off our supper, which I had arranged just inside the tent. In this latter task I was nobly assisted by my little black terrier Dick, of whose sad fate I must tell you later.
By eight o'clock a noble pile of firewood had been collected, and we were very tired and hungry, so we all crept, inside the tent, which did not afford very spacious accommodation, and began our supper. At this point of the entertainment everybody voted it a great success, although the wind was slowly rising and blowing from a cold point, and our blanket tent did not afford the perfect warmth and shelter we had fondly hoped it would.
The gentlemen began to button up their coats. I had only a light serge jacket on, so I coaxed Dick to sit at my back and keep it warm; for, whilst our faces were roasted by the huge beacon-fire, there was a keen and icy draught behind us.
The hot tea was a great comfort, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. After the tea was over the gentlemen lit their pipes. First I told them a story, and presently we had glees. By ten o'clock there was no concealing the fact that we were all very sleepy indeed. However, we all loudly declared that camping-out was the most delightful experiment. Frederick and another gentleman kindly went out armed with knives and cut all the tussocks they could feel in the darkness to make me a bed after the fashion of the pigs. They brought in several armfuls, and the warmest corner in the tent was heaped with them. I had my luncheon-basket for a pillow, and announced that I had turned in and was very comfortable, and that camping-out was charming. The gentlemen were still cheery, though sleepy.
When I awoke I thought I must have slept several hours. Though the fire was blazing grandly the cold was intense. I was so stiff 1 could hardly move; all my limbs ached dreadfully, and my sensations altogether were new and very disagreeable. I sat up with great difficulty and many groans, and looked around. Two figures were coiled up like huge dogs near me; two more, moody and sulky, were smoking by the fire, with their knees drawn up to their noses, their hands in their pockets, and their collars well up round their throats—statues of cold and disgust. To my inquiries about the hour the answer, given in tones of the deepest despondency, was, "Only eleven o'clock, and the sun doesn't rise till six, and it's going to be the coldest night we've had this year." The speaker added, "If it
Here was a pretty end to our amusement. I slowly let myself down again, and tried to go to sleep, but that relief was at an end for the night; the ground seemed to grow harder every moment, or, at all events, I ached more, and the wind certainly blew higher and keener. Dick proved himself a most selfish doggie: he would creep round to leeward of me, whilst I wanted him to let me get to leeward of him.
Whenever I heard a deeper moan or sigh than usual, I whispered an inquiry as to the hour; but the usual reply, in the most cynical voice, was, "Oh, you need not whisper: nobody is asleep." I heard one plaintive murmur: "Think of all our warm beds, and of our coming up here from choice!" I must say I felt dreadfully ashamed of myself for my plan; but it was impossible to express my contrition and remorse, for they were all too cross to be spoken to. It certainly was a weary, long night.
About one o'clock I pretended to want some hot tea, and the preparation for that got through half an hour, and it warmed us a little, but everybody was still deeply dejected, not to say morose. By three o'clock subdued savageness was the prevailing state of mind.
I tried to infuse a little hope into the party by suggestions of a speedy termination to our misery, but my own private opinion was that we should all be laid up for weeks to come with illness. I allotted to myself in this imaginary distribution of ills a severe rheumatic fever: oh, how I ached! and I felt as if I never could be warm again. The fire was of no use except to afford occupation in putting on wood; it roasted a little bit of you at a time, and that bit suffered doubly from the cold when it was obliged to take its share of exposure to the wind. I cannot say whether the proverb is true of other nights, but this particular night, certainly, was both darkest and coldest just before dawn.
At last, bo our deep joy, and after many false alarms, we really all agreed that there was a faint streak of grey in the east. My first impulse was to set off home, and I believe I tried to get up, expressing some such intention, but Frederick recalled me to myself by saying, in great surprise, "Are you not going to stop and see the sun rise?"
Presently some one called out, "There's the sea." And so it was; as distinct as though it were not fifty yards off. None of us had seen it since we landed. To all of us it is associated with the idea of going Home some day.
While we were feasting our eyes on it a golden line seemed drawn on its horizon; it spread and spread, and all the water became flooded with a light and glory which hardly seemed to belong to this world. Then up came the blessed sun to restore us all to life and warmth again. In a moment all our little privations and sufferings vanished as if they had never existed, or existed only to be laughed at. Who could think of his "ego" in such a glorious presence, and with such a panorama before him?
I did not know which side to turn to first. Behind me rose a giant forest in the far hills to the west—a deep shadow for miles, till the dark outline of the pines stood out against the dazzling snow of the mountains behind. There the sky was still sheltering the flying night, and the white outlines looked ghostly against the dull neutral tints, though every peak was sharply and clearly defined.
Then I turned round to see before me such a glow of light and beauty! For an immense distance I could see the vast Canterbury Plains; to the left, the Waimakariri River, flowing in many streams, "like a tangled bunch of silver ribbons" (as Mr. Butler says), down to the sea. Beyond its banks the sun shone on the windows of the houses at Oxford, thirty miles off as the crow would fly, and threw its dense bush into strong relief against the yellow plains. The Port Hills took the most lovely lights and shadows as we gazed on them; beyond them lay the hills of Akaroa, beautiful beyond the power of words to describe. Christ-church looked quite a large place, from the great extent of ground it seemed to cover.
We looked on to the south. There was a slight haze over the great Ellesmere Lake, the water of which is quite fresh, though only separated from the sea by a slight bar of sand. The high banks of the Rakaia made a deep dark line
Between us and the coast were green patches and tiny homesteads, but still few and far between. Close under our feet, and looking like a thread beneath the shadow of the mountain, ran the Selwyn, in a narrow gorge; and on its bank stood a shepherd's hut. It looked a mere toy, as if it had come out of a child's box of playthings; and yet so snug, for all its lonely position.
On the other hand lay our own little home, with the faint wreath of smoke stealing up through the calm air, for the wind had dropped at sunrise. Here and there we saw strings of sheep going down from their high camping grounds to feed on the sunny slopes and in the warm valleys.
Every moment added to our delight and enjoyment; but, unfortunately, it was a sort of happiness which one can neither speak of at the time nor write about afterwards; silence is its most expressive language. Whilst I was drinking in all the glory and beauty before me, some of the others had been busy striking the tent, repacking the loads —very much lighter without the provisions—and we had one more excellent cup of tea before abandoning the encampment to the wekas, who must have breakfasted splendidly that morning.
Our last act was to collect all the stones we could move into a huge cairn, which was built round a tall pole of totara. On the summit of this we tied securely with flax the largest and strongest pocket-handkerchief in the party; and then, after one look round to the west—now as glowing and bright as the radiant east—we set off homewards about seven o'clock.
It was a long while before we reached the place where we had left the horses, for the gentlemen began rolling huge rocks down the sides of the hills, and watching them crashing and thundering into the valleys, sometimes striking another rock and then bounding high into the air. They were all as eager and excited as school-boys, and I could not go on and leave them lest I should get below them and be crushed under a small stone of twenty tons or so. I was therefore forced to keep well above them all the time.
At last we reached the spur where the horses were tethered. "We saddled and loaded them, and arrived quite safely at home, just in time for baths and breakfast.
I was amused to see that no one alluded to or seemed to remember the miseries and aches of that long cold night; all were full of professions of enjoyment. But I noticed that the day was unusually quiet; the gentlemen preferred basking on the verandah to any other amusement, and I have reason to believe they indulged in a good many naps.
I was roused one morning at daybreak by my servant running in with the intelligence that a great number of war canoes were crossing the bay. King George had told us but the evening before that, ho expected a visit from Tareha, a chief of the tribe called the Nga-Pubi, whose territory lay on the opposite side of the bay. He had also given us to understand that Tareha was a man not to be trusted; and it was feared that some mischief might happen if he really came. The sight, then, of these war canoes naturally caused us considerable alarm; and we sincerely wished that the visit was over.
We dressed ourselves with the utmost expedition, and walked down to the beach. The landing of these warriors was conducted with a considerable degree of order; and could I have divested myself of all idea of: danger, I should have admired the sight excessively. All our New Zealand friends—the tribe of Shulitea [Not Maori: the author's "English spelling of To Uruti, the name of the native who called himself "King George."] [patupatusPatutpatu, a club.]
As the opposite party landed, ours all crouched on the ground, their eyes fixed on their visitors, and perfectly silent. When the debarkation was completed, I observed that the chief, Tareha, put himself at the head of his men, and marched towards us with his party formed closely and compactly, and armed with muskets and paddles. When they came very near they suddenly stopped. Our party continued still mute, with their firelocks poised ready for use. For the space of a few minutes all was still, each party glaring fiercely on the other; and they certainly formed one of the most beautiful and extraordinary pictures I had ever beheld.
The foreground was formed by a line of naked savages, each resting on one knee, with musket advanced, their gaze fixed on the opposite party, their fine broad muscular backs contrasting with the dark foliage in front, and catching the gleam of the rising sun. The strangers were clothed in the most grotesque manner imaginable—some armed, some naked, some with long beards; others were painted all over with red ochre; every part of each figure was quite still, except the rolling and glaring of their eyes on their opponents. The background was formed by the beach, and a number of their beautiful war canoes dancing on the waves; while in the distance the mountains on the opposite side of the bay were just tinged with the varied and beautiful colours of the sun, then rising in splendour from behind them.
The stillness of this extraordinary scene did not last long. The Nga-Puhi commenced a noisy and discordant song and dance, yelling, jumping, and making the most hideous faces. This was soon followed by a loud shout from our party, who endeavoured to outdo the Nga-Puhi in making horrible distortions of their countenances. Then succeeded another dance from our visitors, after which our friends made a rush, and in a sort of rough joke set them running. Then all joined in a pell-mell sort of encounter, in which numerous hard blows were given and received. Then all the party fired their pieces in the, air, and the ceremony of landing was thus deemed complete.
They then approached each other, and began rubbing noses, and those who were particular friends cried and lamented over each other. The slaves now commenced the
Though the meeting of these hostile tribes bad thus ended more amicably than King George and his party could have expected, it was easily to be perceived that the Nga-Puhi were determined on executing some atrocity or depredations before their departure. They accordingly pretended to recollect some old offence committed by the English settlers at the other end of the beach. They proceeded thither, and first attacked and broke open the house of a blacksmith; and carried off every article it contained. They then marched to the residence of an English captain, who was in England, and plundered it of everything that could be carried away, and afterwards sent us word that they intended to return to our end of the beach.
Our fears were greatly increased by finding that our friends were not sufficiently strong to protect us from the superior force of the Nga-Puhi; and our chief, George, being himself, we supposed, conscious of his inability, had left us to depend upon our own resources. We now called a council of war of all the Europeans settled here, and it was unanimously resolved that we should protect and defend our houses and property, and fortify our position in the best way we could.
Captain Duke had in his possession four twelve-pounders, and these we brought in front of the enclosure in which our huts were situated, and were all entirely employed in loading them with round and grape shot, and had made them all ready for action, when, to our consternation and dismay,
Our situation was now perilous in the extreme. The buildings, the work of English carpenters, were constructed of dry rushes and well-seasoned wood; and this was one of a very respectable size, and we had hoped that in a very few days it would be finished fit for our removing into.
For some seconds we stood in mute amazement, not knowing to which point to direct our energies. As the cry of "Fire!" was raised, groups of natives came rushing from all directions upon our devoted settlement, stripping off their clothes, and yelling in the most discordant voice. I entered the house, and brought out one of my trunks; but, on attempting to return a second time, I found the house filled with naked savages, tearing everything to pieces, and carrying away whatever they could lay their hands upon. The fierce raging of the flames, the heat from the fire, the yells of the men, and the shrill cries of the women, formed a horrible combination. Added to this was the mortification of seeing all our property carried off in different directions, without the least possibility of our preventing it.
The tribe of the Nga-Puhi, who, when the fire began, were at the other end of the beach, left their operations in that quarter, and poured down upon us to share in the general plunder. Never shall I forget the countenance of the chief as he rushed forward at the head of his destroying crew. He was called "the Giant"; and he was well worthy of the name, being the tallest and largest man I had ever seen. He had an immense bushy black beard, and grinned exultingly when he saw the work of destruction proceeding with such rapidity; and he kept shouting loudly to his party to incite them to carry off all they could. A cask containing seventy gallons of rum now caught fire, and blew up with a terrible explosion; and the wind freshening considerably, huge volumes of smoke and flame burst out in every direction.
Two of our houses were so completely enveloped that we had given up all hopes of saving them. The third, which was a beautifully carved tabooed [Taboo is for the Polynesian word tapu, sacred, forbidden.]
About this time we noticed the reappearance of King George, which circumstance rekindled our hopes. He was armed with a thick stick, which he laid heavily on the backs of such of his subjects as were running away with our property, thus forcing them to relinquish their prizes, and to lay them down before his own mansion, where all was safe. By this means a great deal was re-collected. The fire was now nearly extinguished, but our two really tolerably good houses were reduced to a heap of smoking ruins, and the greater part of what belonged to us was taken away by the Nga-Puhi.
This calamity had made us acquainted with another of their barbarous customs, which is that whenever a misfortune happens to a community, or to an individual, all persons, even the friends of his own tribe, fall upon him and strip him of all he has remaining. As an unfortunate fish, when struck by a harpoon, is instantly surrounded and devoured by his companions, so, in New Zealand, when a chief is killed, his former friends plunder his widow and children; and they, in revenge, ill-use and even murder their slaves: thus one misfortune gives birth to various cruelties.
During the fire our allies proved themselves the most adroit and active thieves imaginable; but previously to that event we had never lost an article, although everything we possessed was open to them. When we questioned them about our prperty, they frankly told us where it was; and, after some difficulty in settling the amount of its ransom, we got most of our things back again, with the exception of such as had been carried off by the Nga-Puhi.
Upon the cruelty of this custom [Called muru.]
The high state of excitement into which the savages had been thrown by the late conflagration gradually subsided; and as we had escaped the dreaded calamity of our magazine blowing up, we began to look with calmness on our desolate condition, and draw comfort from thinking how much worse we might have been circumstanced than we then were. I hope our distress may prove a benefit to future sojourners in this country, by showing them the great importance of forming a proper magazine for powder. The agonies I suffered in contemplating the destruction which six barrels, each containing a hundredweight of powder, would cause amongst a mob of several hundred naked savages it is impossible to imagine.
King George, as well as all his people, were most anxious to build us a new habitation entirely themselves. They requested us to give them the dimensions of the various dwellings, and said we should have no further trouble about them. A party accordingly proceeded to the bush to collect materials. They first formed the skeleton of a cottage, containing three rooms, with slight sticks, firmly tied together with strips of flax. While this was in progress another party was collecting rushes, which grow plentifully in the neighbourhood, and are called raupo. These they spread in the sun for twenty-four hours, when they considered them sufficiently dry. They then thatched every part of the house, which for neatness and strength was equal to anything I had ever seen. The doors and windows we employed our carpenter to make, these being luxuries quite beyond the comprehension of the Natives.
We were thus tolerably well lodged again, and our time passed on tranquilly, almost every day developing some fresh trait of character amongst these children of nature.
At last the words "Land on the starboard bow" came from the look-out on the forecastle, and dimly through the mist we saw a black rock with white breakers shooting up its side. Another moment, and emerald-green foliage showed above it, and, as the steamer's head swung round to the northward, there appeared a high sloping headland all covered with fern vegetation. The north-westerly gale had driven us too far to the southward, so we dashed along through the seas, skimming close to the land, which was now and then completely hidden by heavy showers of rain.
As we passed the headland there was often not two waves' distance between us and the rocks, and had we not had the greatest confidence in our captain we should have considered it a perilous style of navigation on a lee-shore. The contrast between the white breakers, black rocks, and green foliage was lovely. At short intervals we passed little bays into which foaming streams tumbled from the hills above, and found their way to the sea over sand-bars which seemed almost to dam them back. There were, however, no high sea cliffs as might have been expected on this the weather side of the island. Dr. Hector concludes that the sloping form of the headlands is a proof that at present the land is either rising or sinking, and, though there is important evidence on both sides of the question, showing that various oscillations have taken place, the former theory seems the most probable.
After pounding through a head sea for about twenty miles we came to an outlying sea-swept rock, over which a few albatrosses soared, and, rounding it in a furious squall of wind and rain, we entered the still waters of Milford Sound. Vertical cliffs rose for thousands of feet on either hand, and we drove in before a blast so strong as almost to make steaming unnecessary; the surface of the sea would now and then be torn off in sheets, driven along in spindrift, and again all would be as calm as glass. Waterfalls resembling the Staubbach came down the cliffs from far above the clouds, and were blown away into spray while in mid-air by the fury of the storm. Wherever vegetation could get a footing on these immense precipices lovely treeferns and darker shrubs grew in profusion, all dripping with
The mists now showed an inclination to clear off, the rain ceased, and as we entered the inner basin of the sound the forests increased in beauty. The totara pines, draped with festoons of grey lichen, contrasted well with the soft green of the great fern-fronds, and formed a suitable background to the scarlet blossoms of the rata, which here and there lit up the upper surface of the forest with patches of intense colour. Gleams of sunshine began to dart through the clouds, giving a momentary flash on one of the numerous cascades, and then, passing over forest and cliff, added new beauties of light and shade. When about eight miles from the open sea, a booming sound rose high over the voices of the numerous cascades, growing louder as we advanced, and, rounding a forest-clad point, we came upon the grandest of New Zealand waterfalls—the great Bowen Fall. Its first fall is only about 50 feet, into a rock basin, but, leaping from it upwards and outwards in a most wonderful curve, it plunges down with a deafening roar in a single leap of 300 feet.
The Te Anau was allowed to drift up in the eddy caused by the fall, and, being caught by the stream in the midst of drenching clouds of spray, she was spun round as though she were a mere floating twig; then, steaming to a short distance, she stopped again. The weather had now taken up sufficiently for us to see through an opening in the clouds the snow-clad top of Mitre Peak, which rises in one great precipice of 5,000 feet from the surface of the sound. The glacier on Pembroke Peak showed for a few minutes.
While pausing to admire the scenery, and fire shots to awaken the echoes, a boat with three men in it put off to us from the shore. At this we were not a little surprised, as we had believed we were in one of those secret places of nature untenanted by man.
On reaching our side they stepped on board, and we learned that two of them had resided in these solitudes for several years, keeping possession of a seam of asbestos which they have discovered till the time comes when it may be worked with a profit. They trust for supplies to the occasional visit of one of the Union Company's steamers, and to the Government vessel which goes round periodically inspecting lighthouses and looking after a few straggling settlers like our friends. The third man who came off in the boat, and who remained on board the Te Anau, was an enterprising explorer, who had spent some weeks trying to discover, what many others tried to discover with no better success, an overland route from Milford Sound to the inhabited country to the eastward. Only ten miles of mountain and forest divide the head of Milford Sound from the Greenstone Track to Lake Wakatipu, with its steamers and railway, but the scrub is so dense and the mountains so rugged that it has never been traversed.
The boat now put off from the steamer laden with supplies we had brought to the men, and the signal "easy ahead" being given, we slid gently through the still water, and, skimming along the shore close under Mitre Peak, passed Anita Bay—famed for its vein of the precious jade or greenstone, from which the Maoris made their axes— and then out into the long rollers of the Pacific.
Our course was now to the southward, and we thought we were done with sounds; but the afternoon cleared so rapidly, the sun shining out and the sea going down, and only a few tattered fragments of the white mists lingering over the wooded headlands and higher peaks, that the
We were leaning on the rail admiring the charming bays and rich woods when a great vista opened between the hills, with domes of forest reflected in the still sunlit water. We exclaimed involuntarily, "How delightful it would be to go up there," when, to our surprise, the steamer's head spun round, and we steamed straight in. Immediately every one ran for their friends, and heads were popped through the skylights calling all on deck. The grandeur of Milford Sound—its great precipices and waterfalls, which reminded us of the Geiranger Fjord in Norway—was not so striking a feature in George Sound, where all was rich beauty. One fall, indeed, embowered in trees like the Giessbach, we passed near the entrance, but the dense forests reaching from the sea-level to the snowy hill-tops, the fern foliage and the red flowers of the rata, gave to the scene a glory quite its own.
The expanse of water which we saw on entering reminded us somewhat of the Lake of Brienz, and on reaching its inner end, we expected to turn round and come out. But this was only the vestibule, for a deep gorge opened to the right, so narrow that the steamer could barely have turned in it. And now we steamed through the most lovely corridor of rich forest scenery, rising tier above tier to the highest limits of vegetation. On and on we went, past an islet covered with fine trees draped with lichens, the whole reflected gem-like in the still water, thinking that every bend and branching arm would be the last, till, on reaching it, another charming vista opened ahead.
When about twelve miles from the sea we reached the inner sanctuary, a fitting home for the nymphs. A strong rush of water here met us, while the filmy haze and dull booming of a waterfall filled the air. The screw now ceased its motion. The eddy of the fall drew us along, grazing the rocks and trees which hung their branches almost over our decks; we slipped past a point and entered a little basin in which we were quite shut in from the view of more than half a square mile of water. Immediately before us the foaming fall plunged into the sound, filling the air with its roar. For a moment we felt as if we were at the bottom of a deep well, so small was the patch of sky overhead, the Te Anau was a vessel of some 1,500 tons burthen, she was instantly spun round, and drifted out of the sacred spot in which we can imagine an extraordinary meeting of oreads, dryads, and naiads was immediately convened to denounce the modern abomination of steam navigation.
The law of muru is now but little used, and only on a small scale. The degenerate men of the present day usually content themselves with asking "payment"; and, after some cavilling as to the amount, it is generally given; but if it is refused, the case is brought before a Native magistrate. I think the reason that the muru is so much less practised than formerly is the fact that the Natives are now much better supplied with the necessaries and comforts of life— especially iron tools and utensils—than they weve many years ago; and in consequence the temptation to plunder is proportionately decreased. Money would still be a temptation; but it is easily concealed, and most of them have very little of it.
When I first saw the Natives the chance of getting an axe, or a spade, or a canoe by the short-hand process of muru was so great that the lucky possessor was continually watched by many eager and observant eyes, in hopes to pick a hole in his coat by which the muru might be legally brought to bear upon him. I say legally, for the Natives always tried to have a sufficient excuse; and I absolutely declare, odd as it may seem, that actual, unauthorised, and inexcusable robbery or theft was less frequent than in any country I ever have been in, though the temptation to steal was a thousandfold greater.
I must now take some little notice of the other great institution—the tapu. The limits of these flying sketches of the good old times will not allow of more than a partial notice of the all-pervading tapu. Earth, air, fire, water, pakehas, who were continually from ignorance infringing some of its rules. The Natives, however, made considerable allowance for this ignorance, as well they might, seeing that they themselves, though from infancy to old age enveloped in a cloud of
[Pakeha, foreigner.]
The original object of the ordinary [tapu seems to have been the preservation of property. Of this nature, in a great degree, was the ordinary personal tapu. This form of the tapu was permanent, and consisted in a certain sacred character which attached to the person of a chief and never left him. It was his birthright—a part, in fact, of himself, of which he could not be divested, and which was well understood and recognised at all times as a matter of course. The fighting men, and petty chiefs, and every one else that could claim the title of rangatiraRangatira is nearly equivalent to gentleman.]tapu was then of great real service.
An infringement of it subjected the offender to various dreadful imaginary punishments, of which deadly sickness was one, as well as to the operation of the law of [Skilled person, magician.]muru already mentioned. If the transgression was involuntary, the chief, or a priest, or a tohunga,muru—would most likely have to take its course, though possibly in a mitigated form.
I have stated that the worst part of the punishment of an offence against this form of the tapu was imaginary; but, in truth, though imaginary, it was not the less a severe punishment.
Conscience does make cowards of us all;
And there was not one man in a thousand with sufficient resolution to dare the shadowy terrors of the tapu. I actually have seen an instance where the offender, though an involuntary one, was killed stone dead in six hours by what I considered to be the effects of his own terrified imagination, but what all the Natives at the time believed to be the work of the terrible avenger of the tapu.
The case I may as well describe, as it was a strong one, and shows how, when falsehoods are once believed, they will meet with apparent proof from accidental circumstances.
A chief of very high rank, standing, and mana was on a war expedition with about five hundred men. His own personal
[Authority, influence.]
[War-party.]
The expedition halted to dine. The portion of food set apart for the head chief, in a neat paro or shallow basket of green flax-leaves, was, of course, enough for two or three men, and consequently the greater part remained unconsumed. The chiefs, having dined, moved on, and soon after a party of slaves and others, who had been some mile or two in the rear, carae up carrying ammunition and baggage. One of the slaves, a stout, hungry fellow, seeing the chief's unfinished dinner, ate it up without asking any questions; but, just as he was finishing his meal, another slave, who had remained behind when the taua, had moved on, saw, to his horror, what the man had been doing, and immediately told him of the awful deed he had committed.
I knew the unfortunate delinquent well. He was remarkable for courage, and had signalised himself in the wars of the tribe. (The able-bodied slaves are always expected to fight in the quarrels of their masters, to do which they are nothing loth.) No sooner did he hear the fatal news than he was seized with the most extraordinary convulsions and cramps in the stomach, which never ceased till be died, about sun-down the same day. He was a strong man, in the prime of life; and if any pakeha should have said he was not killed by the tapu of the chief, which had been communicated to the food by contact, he would have been listened to with feelings of contempt for his ignorance and inability to understand plain and direct evidence.
It will be seen at once that this form of the tapu was a great preserver of property. The most valuable articles might, in ordinary circumstances, be left to its protection, in the absence of the owners, for any length of time. It also in a very great degree prevented borrowing and lending. It was much laughed at and grumbled at by unthinking pakehas, who did not know its real object or uses. They were constantly trying to get the Natives to give it up, without offering them anything equally effective in its place. Yet it held its ground in full force for many years; and, to a certain extent, but in a less observable way, it exists still.
This form of the tapu, though latent in young folks of rangatira rank, was not supposed to develop itself fully till they had arrived at mature age, and set up house on their own account. The lads and boys "knocked about" amongst the slaves and lower orders, carried fuel or provisions on their backs, and did all those duties which this personal tapu prevented their elders from doing, although the restraint was sometimes very troublesome and inconvenient.
A man of any standing could not carry provisions of any kind on his back; or, if he did, they were rendered tapu, and consequently useless to any one but himself. If he went into the shed used as a kitchen—a thing he would never think of doing except on some great emergency—all the pots, ovens, food, &c., would at once be rendered useless; none of the cooks or inferior people could make use of them, or partake of anything which had been cooked in them. tapu, and could be used for no common or culinary purpose. Even to light a pipe at it would subject any inferior person, or, in many instances, an equal, to a terrible attack of the tapu morbus; besides being a slight or affront to the dignity of the person himself.
[Morbus, Latin for disease.]
I remember being on a journey on a rainy day, when I saw two or three young men fairly wearing themselves out with trying to make a fire to cook with by rubbing two sticks together. There was a roaring fire close at hand all the time, at which several rangatira and myself were warming ourselves; but it was tapu—sacred fire. One of the rangatira had made it from his own tinder-box, and blown upon it in lighting it; and as there was not another tinder-box amongst us, fast we must, though hungry as sharks, till common culinary fire could be obtained.
A Native whose personal tapu was, perhaps, of the strongest, might, when at the house of a pakeha, ask for a drink of water. The pakeha being green would hand him some water in a glass, or, in those days, more probably, in a tea-cup. The Native would drink the water, and then gravely and quietly break the cup to pieces; or he would appropriate it by causing it to vanish under his mat. The new pakeha would immediately fly into a passion, to the great astonishment of the Native, who presumed that the cup or glass was a very worthless article to the pakeha or he would not have given it into his hand, and allowed him to put it to his head—the part most strongly infected by the tapu. Both parties would be surprised and displeased; the Native wondering what could have put the pakeha into such a taking, and the pakeha wondering at the rascal's impudence and what he meant by it.
The proper thing for the pakeha to do, supposing him to be of a hospitable and obliging disposition, would be to lay hold of some vessel containing about two gallons of water—to allow for waste—and hold it up before the Native's face. The Native would then stoop down and put his hand, pakeha would send a cataract of water into the said funnel, and continue the shower till the Native gave a slight upward nod of the head which meant "enough." By this time, from the awkwardness of the pakeha, the two gallons of water would be about expended, half at least on the top of the Native's head, who would not, however, appear to notice the circumstance, but would appreciate the civility of his pakeha friend.
I have often drunk in this way in the old times. On my asking for a drink of water at a Native village, a Native would gravely approach with a calabash, and hold it up before me ready to pour forth its contents. I, of course, cocked my hand and lip in the most knowing manner. If I had laid hold of the calabash and drunk in the ordinary way as practised by pakehas I should at once have fallen in the estimation of all bystanders, and been set down as a tutua—a nobody—who had no tapu or mana about him, a mere scrub of a pakeha whom any one might eat or drink after without the slightest danger of being poisoned.
These things are all changed now; and, though I have often in the good old times been tabooed in the most diabolical and dignified manner, there are only a few old men left now that remember it. But I perceive by little unmistakable signs that they would hold me guilty of great incivility if I were to act as though I supposed my tapu to have disappeared before the influx of new-fangled pakeha notions.
This same personal tapu would hold its own in some cases even against the muru, though, not in a sufficiently general manner to affect seriously the operation of that well-enforced law. Its inconveniences were, on the other hand, many; and the expedients resorted to in order to avoid them were sometimes comical enough.
I was once going on an excursion with a number of Natives. We had two canoes, and one of them started a little before the other. I was with the canoe which had been left behind; and, just as we were setting off, it was discovered that amongst twenty stout fellows, my companions, there was not one who "had a back"—as they expressed it—and, consequently, no one to carry our [Carry on the back.] [Carry in the arms.]rangatira, who could not carry their own provisions into the canoe, and who at the same time could not go without them. The provisions consisted of several heavy baskets of potatoes, some dried sharks, and a large pig baked whole. What was to be done? We were all brought to a full stop, though in a great hurry to go on. We were beginning to think we must give up the expedition altogether, and were very much disappointed accordingly; when a clever fellow, who, had he been bred a lawyer, would have made nothing of driving a mail-coach through an Act of Parliament, set us all to rights in a moment. "I'll tell you what we must do," said he; "we will not pikauhikihiki'd it, in his arms like an infant; another laid hold of a shark; others took baskets of potatoes, and carrying them in this way deposited them in the canoe. And so, having thus evaded the law, we started on our expedition.
I remember other amusing instances in which the inconvenience arising from the tapu was evaded. I must, however, notice that these instances were only evasions of the tapu of the ordinary kind—what I have called the personal tapu—not the more dangerous and dreadful kind connected with the mystic doings of the tohunga, or that other form of tapu connected with the handling of the dead. Indeed, my companions, in the instance I have mentioned, though all rangatira, were young men on whom the personal tapu had not arrived at the fullest perfection. It seemed, indeed, sometimes to sit very lightly on them; and I doubt very much if the play upon the words hiki and pikau would have reconciled any of the elders of the tribe to carrying a roasted pig in their arms; or, if they did do so, I feel quite certain that no amount of argument would have persuaded the younger men to eat it; as for slaves or women, it would be dangerous to them even to look at it.
The other instance of dodging the law was as follows: I was the first pakeha who had over arrived at a certain pakeha before. As I advanced the whole juvenile population ran before me at a safe distance of about one hundred yards, eyeing me, as I perceived, with great terror and distrust. At last I suddenly made a charge at them, rolling my eyes and showing my teeth; and to see the small savages tumbling over one another, and running for their lives, was something curious; and though my "demonstration" did not continue more than twenty yards, I am sure some of the little villains ran a mile before looking behind to see whether the ferocious monster called a pakeha was gaining on them. They did run.
When I arrived at the centre of the village I was conducted to a large house or shed, which had been constructed as a place of reception for visitors, and as a general lounging-place for all the inhabitants. It was a whare noa, a house to which, from its general and temporary uses, the
[Noa, mere, simple, common, free from tapu.]
[In Maori, when of two words one is substantive and the other is adjective, the adjective follows the noun. Tapu rangatira, gentleman's tapu, tapu arising from the dignity of a gentleman.]
I took my seat. The house was full, and nearly the whole of the rest of the population were blocking up the open front of the large shed, all striving to see the pakeha, and passing to the rear from man to man every word he happened to speak. I could hear them say to the people behind, "The pakeha has stood up." "Now he has sat down again." "He has said, 'How do you all do?'" "He has said, 'This is a nice place of yours,'" &c.
Now, there happened to be at a distance an old gentleman engaged in clearing the weeds from a kumara or sweet potato field. The kumara, in the old times, was the crop on which the Natives depended chiefly for support, and so, like all valuable things, it was tapu; and the persons who tapu, pro tem., also. One of the effects of this temporary extra tapu was that the parties could not enter any regular dwellinghouse, or, indeed, any house used by others. The breach of this rule would not be dangerous in a personal sense, but the effect would be that the crop of sweet potatoes would fail.
The industrious individual I have alluded to, hearing the cry of "He pakeha! he pakeha!" from many voices, and having never had an opportunity of examining that variety of the genus homo, flung down his wooden kaheru, or weed-exterminator, and rushed towards the town house before mentioned. What could he do? The tapu forbade his entrance; and the front was so completely blocked up by his admiring neighbours that he could not get sight of the wonderful guest.
In these desperate circumstances, a bright thought struck him: he would, by a bold and ingenious device, give the tapu the slip. He ran to the back of the house, made with some difficulty a hole in the padded raupo wall, and squeezed his head through it. The elastic wall of raupo closed again around his neck; and the tapu was fairly beaten! No one could say he was in the house. He was certainly more out than in; and there, seemingly hanging from or stuck against the wall, remained for hours, with open mouth and wondering eyes, this brazen head, till at last, the shades of night obstructing its vision, a rustling noise in the wall of flags and reeds announced the departure of my bodiless admirer.
[Pronounce kay′-ah, rather than key′-ah.]
The kea was first made known to science as early as 1856, by the Hon. W. B. Mantell, from specimens which were obtained from the southern alpine country. Mr. Gould, the eminent naturalist, described the species under the name of Nestor notabilis. A few years later another good example, astray from the higher ranges, was procured at a sheep-station on the Orari, in South Canterbury. The fame of rara avis spread through the province, and soon afterwards skins were got from the back-country sheep-runs; and in a short time museums were able to quote the green parrot as one of the choice and rarer articles in their traffic of exchanges.
In order to convey a correct impression of the kea and its habits, it is necessary to give a brief outline of the features of the country in which it is to be found. Where we have most frequently observed it has been above the gorge of the Rangitata, one of the great snow-rivers. This stream, which derives its source from the glaciers embedded in the gloomy and secluded fastnesses of the Southern Alps, is periodically swollen by the melting of the snow and by the heavy north-west rain that falls during the spring and autumn months. Fed by numerous creeks and tributaries from every converging gully, its volume increases, and it rushes noisily and impetuously over its rough boulder-bed till the junction of the Havelock, the Lawrence, and the Clyde swells its waters into a large river. The lofty, rugged mountains which imprison it present almost every conceivable variety of outline. There are jagged peaks crowned with snow, and countless moraines show where the avalanche and snow-slip have thundered down into the valley below. The river is bordered here and there by grassy flats and hanging woods of timber trees, in which the brown-tinted totara, [ [Or celory-top pino of sottlors—tanekaha, [ [Lace-back, Podocarpus totara.]Phyllocladus.]Sophora tetraptera.]Plagianthus.]Fagus. Far above, dwarf vegetation in all the wonderful variety of alpine shrubs and flowers struggles up the steepest slopes, adorning the frowning precipice and foaming cascade, lending its aid in forming scenes of picturesque and romantic grandeur, in which rich and varying tints of perennial verdure gratify the eye of the spectator with their beauty. This is the home of the kea—amongst holes and fissures in almost inaccessible rocks, in
[Beech, usually called birch by settlers.]
[The kaka.]
The rigour of a hard winter, when the whole face of the alpine country is changed so as to be scarcely recognisable under a deep canopy of snow, is not without its influence on the habits of this hardy bird; it is driven from its stronghold in the rocky gully and compelled to seek its food at a far lower elevation, as its food-supply has passed away gradually at the approach of winter, or lies buried beyond its reach. The honey-bearing flowers have faded and fallen long before; and the autumn, with its lavish yield of berries and drupes, has succumbed to the stern rule of winter. Nor has this change of seasons affected the flora of the Alps alone; the insect world, in a thousand forms, which enlivens every mountain-gully with the chirp and busy hum of life, now lies entranced in its mummy state, as inanimate as the torpid lizard that takes its winter sleep sheltered beneath some well-pressed stone. Under the effects of this great change that cuts off the main supply of food, the kea gradually descends the gullies, where a certain amount of shelter has encouraged the growth of the kowhai, that yields a supply of hard, bitter seeds, as well as of the beautiful [The gonus to which the Matipo belongs.] [The wineberry.]Pittosporum,Aristotèlia.
Within the last few years it has discovered the out-stations of some of the back-country settlers. Of course, every station has a meat-gallows. The kea has found out and fully appreciates the value of this institution, as occasionally affording an excellent supply of food. The gallows is generally visited by night: beef and mutton come alike to the voracity of this bird, nor are the drying sheep-skins despised. These visits may be looked upon as social gatherings, as it is by no means a rare occurrence for a score of these noisy parrots to be perched on the roof of a hut at one time. It has been before observed that some species of the brush-tongued parrot [Trichoglossinæ. Not found in New Zealand.]
A son of the writer obtained some fine specimens by means of a very simple snare, the noose made of a very slender strip of flax-leaf attached to the end of a ricker or rod. He describes them as exhibiting great boldness and confidence, clambering about the roof of the hut, and allowing a very close approach. When caught, they remained quite still, without any of the noisy fluttering which usually accompanies the capture of birds, even when managed with adroitness. They preserved this quiet demeanour till the noose had been removed. One of these birds was placed on the floor under an inverted American bucket, the places for the handle not permitting the rim of the bucket to touch the ground; the kea quickly took advantage of this, and moved the bucket, raising it sufficiently to effect an escape from its prison.
On the other side of the river, just opposite to the homestead where this is being written, one station is greatly favoured by these visitors. During the winter season they become a perfect nuisance. On one occasion the hut was shut up, as the shepherd was required elsewhere for a day or two. On his return he was surprised to hear Something moving within the hut. On entering he found it was a kea, which had gained access by the chimney. This socially - disposed bird had evidently endeavoured to dispel the ennui attendant on solitude by exercismg its powerful mandibles most industriously. Blankets, bedding, and clothes were grievously rent and torn, and pannikins and plates scattered about. Everything that could be broken was apparently broken very carefully. Even the window-frames had been attacked with great diligence.
[French. Pronounce ahn-wee′.]
One more instance of this bird's mischief, or rather, perhaps, love of fun: On a back-country sheep-run, a mule packed with a full load of stores and sundries for one of the out-stations was peacefully pursuing its way, when suddenly a kea perched on the neck of the animal. This unexpected arrival was too much for the gravity of the mule. Startled from its accustomed demure and patient demeanour, it plunged and kicked till it had freed itself both from the kea and from its well-packed burthen, and the contents of its load were scattered in all directions.
Notwithstanding the high character various individuals of the species have earned for occasional indulgence in mischief, several have been kept as pets—not in wooden cages, by-the-by, for a kea has been seen by its gratified captor to eat its way out of such a place of confinement almost as quickly as it had been coaxed to enter into it. Two which had been tamed by a neighbouring friend were permitted to wander at large. They regularly returned to the house for their meals, and then rambled away again, scrambling and clambering amongst the trees and outbuildings. Any kind of food appeared to suit their accommodating appetite, but a piece of raw meat was evidently the tit-bit. On the level ground the bird's mode of locomotion is very peculiar; it is not so much a walk as a kind of hopping jump, which imparts a very odd appearance to its tarsi are also unfitted for walking.
[Tarsus, the straight part of the "leg" between the feathers and the "foot."]
In addition to the superior size of the bird and the colour of its plumage, the beak presents a marked contrast to that of the kaka; it is smoother, less curved, and much slighter, with a length of two inches from the gape to the point. The upper mandible at the widest part—that is, in a line with the nostrils—measures five lines [A line is 1/12 of an inch.]
In flight the two species greatly differ, and in voice, and in their breeding habits also. The tree-loving kaka does occasionally make its nesting-place and rear its young amongst rocks in wooded gullies. The kea breeds in the deep crevices and fissures which cleave and seam the sheer facings of almost perpendicular cliffs that in places bound as with massive ramparts the higher mountain-spurs. Sometimes, but rarely, the agile musterer, clambering amongst these rocky fastnesses, has found the entrance of the "run" used by the breeding pair, and has peered with curious glance, tracing the worn track till its course has been lost in the dimness of the obscure recesses beyond the climber's reach. In these retreats the home or nesting-place usually remains inviolate; its natural defences of intervening rocks defy the efforts of human hands, unless aided by the use of heavy iron implements that no mountaineer would be likely to employ.
The eggs, as yet, remain to be described. Young birds have been taken on the Minaret Run, and on the Mesopotamia Station on the Upper Rangitata, as well as in other places. A few years back a prospector, returning to the pale of civilisation from the distant mountain he had explored, brought with him in his camp-kettle or "billy" a pair of nestlings. On his long and solitary march these had shared his fare, and they reached Christchurch in good and healthy condition. The mountaineer has sometimes employed his staff to get out the young; the
Although comparatively few people are acquainted with the bird, it is not on that account to be considered rare; the reason that it is so little known is the remoteness of its habitat from the centres of population. It certainly appears to be very local in its distribution. A straggler has now and then been observed far from its usual haunts; for in one instance we have a note of its occurrence at the Hororata, in the Malvern Hills, close to the edge of the Canterbury Plains. The beak of the kea can inflict a severe wound; a friend of ours incautiously handling a pet had his hand bitten through by its powerful mandibles.
At the shearing muster of 1868, at Mr. Campbell's station at Wanaka, at Te Anau, and Wakatipu, and possibly on some other runs, it was noticed that many sheep appeared to be suffering from a hitherto unknown disease, which took the form of a sore or scar on the back immediately in the front of the hips. In some cases, the part affected had a hard, dry scab, or merely a patch of wool stripped off; others showed a severe wound—in some instances so deep that the entrails protruded. Every victim had been injured in precisely the same spot, fairly above the kidneys. It did not fail to strike the keen-eyed shepherds that the animals so maltreated were in the best condition. Amongst them were found hoggets, fat wethers, dry ewes, and double-fleeced sheep. Many discussions ensued in the whares as to the cause of these scars and deadly wounds, which thinned out some of the best sheep of the mob, and left others in a more or less sorrowful plight. Many a pipe was smoked out whilst shrewd heads were meditating and speculating on what could have occasioned such an inexplicable and mysterious visitation. At last, a musterer gave it as his opinion that the hurts were inflicted on the sheep by a kind of parrot, a rather tame sort of bird that was to be met with on the tops of the rauges, and that was uncommonly like a kaka. This suggestion was received with ridicule, and his sharp-witted audience overwhelmed the observant musterer with jokes and quaint expressions of unbelief. But the shepherds saw keas visiting the meat-gallows, and tweaking off mutton-fat with their strong
Now that the men were on a track there was no mistaking, plenty of evidence was soon forthcoming as to the mischievous and destructive propensities of these bold assailants. The examination of the animals so injuriously mauled showed that in the majority of cases very little of the flesh had been devoured; it had been torn away, apparently, not so much for food, but rather as an obstacle that prevented the birds from reaching the kidney-fat. The flocks that suffered most from these marauders were almost invariably tmhose that were depastured on the higher mountain ranges, where the nature of the country was exceedingly rugged. In these regions, their peculiar domain, about the snow-line (for they seldom quit the tops), the birds, although gregarious, do not move about in large flocks. If as many as fifty are seen together, it is of rare occurrence; they are usually scattered in small flights, from a pair up to, perhaps, the number of a dozen individuals. It is no exaggeration to place the extent of their range as covering some millions of acres. It stretches northwards from the towering highlands that enclose the picturesque shores of Te Anau and Wakatipu, through the whole length of the Mackenzie Country, as far as the jagged peaks against the sides of which rest the numerous glaciers whence spring the Rangitata, the Ashburton, and the Rakaia. Their dominion appears to be yet extending, for whilst this paper has been preparing for the press we have heard of keas being found at Grassmere, by the West Coast Road. Further north, it is found at Lochinvar, at the head-waters of the Esk, and towards the sources of the Hurunui.
Sheep, whilst being got out of snowdrifts, are often mortally hurt by the attacks of keas. Especially are these birds prone to molest sheep that carry double fleeces, as though they knew how firm a foothold they could maintain with their grip on such fleeces. When one of these sheep, temporarily exhausted with its exertions in toiling through deep snow under the burthen of two years' growth of wool, breaks off from the mob and leaves the track, desperately floundering into deeper snow-wreaths, the parrots in a flock, ever
The spoil obtained by the sheep-killer is the much coveted kidney-fat; that once plucked out and devoured the remainder of the carcase of the mutilated beast possesses no further attraction; it is quickly abandoned, and the dealer of mischief hies him off in quest of a fresh victim. The majority of the sheep thus attacked die under the infliction, but many recover, though woefully disfigured. When flocks are got into yards a certain proportion bear the sear that tells of the onslaught of the kea, and some of the wounds appear quite dried up, the bones bleached, and the sinews hard and dry. One would be almost inclined to think that the parrots were actuated more by a, spirit of mischief than by the pressure of hunger, as usually a very little of the flesh is eaten, the bird restricting itself to the kidney-fat, for which dainty only it exhibits an appetite. To obtain this much-prized delicacy such a large hole is pierced that the loins are lacerated and torn so that the bones are often exposed, and the sinews "look like fiddle-strings," as a shepherd expressed it. In the months of winter these attacks are most frequent. Newly-shorn sheep are as a rule unmolested, either because the shortness of the wool affords a less secure hold than a full fleece, or more probably because there is an ample supply of food easily obtainable during summer and early autumn. The
Some of the forms of the tapu were not to be played with, and were of a most virulent kind. Such was the tapu of those who handled the dead, or conveyed the body to its last resting-place. This tapu was like the uncleanness of the old Mosaic law. It lasted about the same time, and was removed in almost the same way. It was a most serious affair. The person who came under this form of the tapu was cut off from all contact, and almost all communication, with the human race. He could not enter any house, or come in contact with any person or thing, without utterly bewitching them. He could not even touch food with his hands, which had become so frightfully tapu or unclean as to be quite useless. Food would be placed for him on the ground, and be would then sit or kneel down, and, with his hands carefully held behind his back, would gnaw it in the best way he could. In some cases he would be fed by another person, who, with outstretched arm, would manage to do it without touching the tapu'd individual; but this feeder was subjected to many and severe restrictions, not much less onerous than those to which the other was subject.
In almost every populous Native village there was a person who, probably for the sake of immunity from labour, or through being good for nothing else, took up the undertaking business as a regular profession, and in consequence, for years together, was never for a moment clear of the tapu, as well as its dangers. One of these people might easily be recognised, after a little experience, even by a pakeha. Old, withered, haggard, clothed in the most miserable rags, daubed all over from head to foot with stinking shark-oil and red ochre, silent and solitary, often half insane, he might be seen sitting motionless all day at a distance of forty or fifty yards from the common path or thoroughfare of the village. There, under the lee of a bush or tuft of flax, he would gaze with lack-lustre eye on the busy doings of the Maori world, of which he was hardly to be called a member. Twice a day some food would be thrown on the ground before him, to gnaw as best he could without the use of hands; and at night, tightening his greasy rags around him, he would crawl into some miserable lair of leaves and rubbish to sleep.
What will my kind reader say when I tell him that I myself once got tapu'd with this same horrible style of tapu? There is not one man in New Zealand but myself who has a clear understanding of what is meant by the word "excommunication," and I did not understand it myself till I got tapu'd.
I was returning with about sixty men from a journey along the West Coast. I was a short distance in advance of the party when I came to where the side of a hill had fallen down on to the beach; and exposed a number of human bones. There was a large skull rolling about in the water. I took up this skull without consideration, carried it to the side of the hill, scraped a hole, and covered it up. Just as I had finished burying ib, up came my friends, and I saw at once, by the astonishment and dismay depicted on their countenances, that I had committed some most unfortunate act. They soon let me know that the hill had been a burying-place of their tribe, and jumped at once bo the conclusion that the skull was the skull of one of their most famous chiefs, whose name they told me. They informed me, also, that I was no longer fit company for human beings, and begged me to fall to the rear, and keep my distance. They told me all this from a very respectful distance, and if I made a step towards them they all ran as if I had been infected by the plague. This was an awkward state of things, but, as it could not be helped, I kept clear of my friends for the rest of the day.
At night, when they camped, I was obliged bo make my solitary abode at a distance, under shelter of a rock. When the evening meal was cooked they brought me a fair allowance, and set it down at a respectful distance from where I sat, fully expecting, I suppose, that I should bob at it as Maori kai tango atua, or undertakers, are wont to do. I had, however, no idea of any such proceeding; and, pulling out ray knife, began to operate in the usual manner. I was checked by an exclamation of horror and surprise from the whole band. "Oh, what are you about? You are not going to touch food with your hands?" "Indeed, but I am," said I, and stretched out my hand. Here another scream: "You must not do that, it's the worst of all things; one of us will feed you; it's wrong, wrong, very wrong!" "Oh, bother," said I, and fell to at once.
[The words appear to mean one that handles an object of dread.]
I had no sooner done so than I felt sorry. The expression of horror, contempt, and pity observable in their faces convinced me that I had not only offended and hurt their feelings, but that I had lowered myself greatly in their estimation. Certainly I was a [Spirit.]pakeha, and pakehas will do most unaccountable things, and may be in ordinary cases excused. But this I saw at once was an act which seemed to roy friends the ne plus ultra of abomination. I now can well understand how, sitting there eating my potatoes, I mast have appeared to them a ghoul, a vampire—worse than even one of their own dreadful atua,tapu, enters into a man's body, and slowly eats away his vitals. I can see it now, and understand what a frightful object I must have appeared.
My friends broke up their camp at once, not feeling sure, after what I had done, but that I might walk in amongst them in the night, when they were asleep, and bedevil them all. They marched all night, and in the morning came to my house, where they spread consternation and dismay amongst my household by telling them in what a condition I was coming home. The whole of my establishment at this time being Natives, ran at once; and when I got home next evening, hungry and vexed, there
The instinct of a hungry man sent me into the kitchen; there was nothing eatable to be seen but a raw leg of pork, and the fire was out. I now began to suspect that this attempt of mine to look down upon the tapu would fail, and that I should remain excommunicated for some frightfully indefinite period. I began to think of Robinson Crusoe, and to wonder if I could hold out as well as he did. Then I looked at the leg of pork. The idea that I must cook for myself brought home to me the fact more forcibly than anything else how I had fallen from my high estate—cooking being the very last thing a rangatira can turn his hand to.
But why should I have anything more to do with cooking? Was I not east off and repudiated by the human race? A horrible misanthropy was fast taking hold of me. Why should I not tear my leg of pork raw like a wolf? "I will run amuck," said I. "I wonder how many I can kill before they bag me? I will kill, kill, kill! but—I must have some supper."
[Malay word, amok—insanely wild and murderous.]
I soon made a fire, and after a little rummaging found the matériel for a good meal. My cooking was not so bad either, I thought; but certainly hunger is not hard to please in this respect, and I had eaten nothing since the diabolical meal of the preceding eveniug, and had travelled more than twenty miles. I washed my hands six or seven times, scrubbing away and muttering, with an intonation that would have been a fortune to a tragic actor,—
Out, damned spot!
And so, after having washed and dried my hands, looked at them, returned and washed again, again washed, and so tapu last! I wonder if there is to be any end at all to it! I won't run amuck for a week, at all events, till I see what may turn up. A plague, though, to have to cook!" Having resolved as above not to take any one's life for a week, I felt more patient.
Four days passed somehow or another, and on the morning of the fifth, to my extreme delight, I saw a small canoe, pulled by one man, landing on the beach before the house. He fastened his canoe and advanced towards the kitchen, which was detached from the house, and which, in the late deplorable state of affairs, had become my regular residence, I sat in the doorway, and soon perceived that my visitor was a famous tohunga, or priest, who also had the reputation of being a wizard of no ordinary dimensions. He was an old, grave, stolid-looking savage, with one eye—the other had been knocked out long ago in a fight before he turned priest. On he came, with a slow, measured step, slightly gesticulating with one hand, and holding in the other a very small basket, not more than nine or ten inches long. He came on, mumbling and grumbling a perfectly unintelligible karakia, or incantation.
I guessed at once he was corning to disenchant me, and prepared my mind to submit to any conditions or ceremonial he should think fit to impose. My old friend came gravely up, and putting his hand into the little basket pulled out a baked kumara, saying, "He kai mau."
[Some food for you.]
I of course accepted the offered food, and took a bite; and as I ate he mumbled his incantation over me. I remember I felt a curious sensation at the time, like what I fancied a man must feel who had just sold himself, body and bones, to the devil.
For a moment I asked myself the question whether I was not actually being there and then handed over to the powers of darkness. The thought startled me. There was I, an unworthy but believing member of the Church of
"Blacken his remaining eye! knock him over and run the country!" whispered quite plainly in my ear my guardian angel, or else a little impulsive sprite who often made suggestions to me in those days. For a couple of seconds the sorcerer's eye was in desperate danger, but just in those moments the ceremony, or at least this most objectionable part of it, came to an end.
He stood back and said, "Have you been in the house?" I said "No." "Throw out all those pots and kettles!" I saw it was no use to resist, so out they went. "Fling out those dishes!" was the next command. "The dishes?—they will break." "I am going to break them all." Capital fun this—out go the dishes. "Fling out those knives, and those things with sharp points"—the old villain did not know what to call the forks—"and those shella with handles to them"—(spoons)—"out with everything!" The last sweeping order is obeyed, and the kitchen is fairly empty. "The worst is over now at last, thank goodness," said I to myself. "Strip off all your clothes!" "What! strip naked, you desperate old thief? Mind your eye!" Human patience could endure no more. Out I jumped. I did strip. Off came my jacket. "How would you prefer being killed, old ruffian? Can you do anything in this way?" (here a pugilistic demonstration.) "Strip! he doesn't mean to give me five dozen, does he?" said I, rather bewildered, and looking sharp to see if he had anything like an instrument of flagellation in his possession. "Come on! what are you waiting for?" said I.
In those days, when labouring under what Dickens calls the "description of temporary insanity which arises from a sense of injury," I always involuntarily fell back upon my mother tongue; and in this case it was perhaps fortunate that my necromantic old friend did not understand the full force of my eloquence. He could not, however, mistake my warlike and rebellious attitude, and could see clearly that I was going into one of those most unaccountable rages that pakehas were liable to fly into without any imaginable cause.
"Boy," said he, gravely and quietly, and without seeming to notice my very noticeable declaration of war and
The perfect eoolness of my old friend, the complete disregard he paid to my explosion of wrath, as well as his reasoning, began to make me feel that, looking at the affair from his point of view, I was just possibly not making a very respectable figure; and then, if I understood him rightly, there would be no flogging.
"Well," said I, at last, "fate compels; to fate, and not to old Hurlothrumbo there, I yield—so here goes."
Let me not dwell upon the humiliating concession to the powers of tapu. Suffice it to say, I disrobed, and received permission to enter my own house in search of other garments. When I came out again my old friend was sitting down with a stone in his hand, battering the last pot to pieces, and looking as if he was performing a very meritorious action. He carried away all the smashed kitchen utensils and my clothes in baskets, and deposited them in a thicket at a considerable distance from the house. (I stole the knives, forks, and spoons back agaiu some time after, as he had not broken them.)
He then bade me good-bye, and the same evening all my household came flocking back; but years passed away before any one but myself would go into the kitchen, and I had to build another.
And for several years also I could observe, by the respectful distance kept by young Natives and servants, and the nervous manner in which they avoided my pipe in particular, that they considered I had not been as completely purified from the tapu tango atua as I might have been. 1 now am aware that, in consideration of my being a
[Tapu arising from the handling of an object of dread.]
One hot and blazing Christmastide we invited all the married people that lived within anything like reasonable distance to visit our shanty—"Bachelors' Hall," as the ladies termed it. Such an entirely novel and unusual event as the visit of some of the gentler sex to our shanty was an occasion of no light moment. Old Colonial determined to banquet our visitors in the superbest possible style, and vast preparations were at once undertaken.
Two days before the expected arrival, all hands set to work in the arduous and unavailing endeavour to render the shanty approximately clean and respectable. Such a turnout as that was! Such an unlooked-for bringing to light of things that must be nameless! We broomed and we scrubbed, we washed and we sluiced; we even tinkered and mended. We cleaned and we grumbled and made our lives temporarily miserable; and yet, with all this, how grimy, and dirby, and mean, and wretched that shanty of ours would continue to look! Never has our household property been subjected to such a cleaning-up as that was.
Gradually some order was introduced into the chaos, and at last we began to think we should convey a favourable impression after all. But our chief concern was in the matter of table equipage. One of us was sent over to the township with orders to beg, borrow, or steal all the crockery and table-cutlery in the place. Another was despatched on horseback through the bush somewhere else, and on the same errand, that something like proper table furniture might grace the feast.
Then our wardrobe underwent inspection. Some one had to go over to the township and buy new shirts for all of us, with sevçral pairs of trousers and other things. O'Gaygun stormed and wept at this outrage, but our boss was firm for the proprieties, as he estimated them. The worst of it was we had to contemplate frightful expenditure. And more, it was humiliating that our previous condition should be made known to the mayor, who, with his wife, was to be among the guests. But what matter? The mayor is a good fellow, and a friend; and what can be too great a sacrifice to make for "England, Home, and Beauty"?
We all had our tasks. There was the path between the shanty and the landing-place to be put in proper condition; various muddy places in it to be coveted with fascines; a certain watercourse we were in the habit of jumping to be newly bridged; and so forth. Then there was the catering. Two of us were out with guns, shooting turkeys, pheasants, pigeons, fowls, and anything else that was eatable. Others were butchering the fairest and fattest pig in our drove, and doing the same by a lamb. Two were out on the river diligently fishing, or collecting oysters and cockles. Some, too, were employed in the garden, picking fruit, gathering vegetables, and so forth, and so on.
All day and all night the stove was red-hot, while a supplementary fire blazed outside the shanty. Between them oscillated Old Colonial, pipe in mouth, hirsute and unkempt, grimy, and naked to the waist. His two aids, the Saint and the Fiend, had a bad time of it. They were his scullions, marmitons, [French word.—Inferior kitchen-servants.]
The preparations were stupendous. Victuals enough had been laid in to feed a regiment, and the variety of them was endless. But Old Colonial, having once given way to the mania of extravagance, was determined to lay under contribution every conceivable thing, and to turn out more dishes than even an American palace hotel would put on its bill of fare.
Finally, it was discovered that the shanty was far too small a place for our banquet, so on the appointed morning we were up at sunrise, and from then till noon we laboured at the construction of a bower, while Old Colonial was busy with his hot meats and confections. The bower was an open shed, running all along the shadiest side of the shanty and beyond. It was a rude erection of rough poles, latticed and thatched—Maori fashion—with fern-fronds and flax. Under it was the table, supplemented by another of loose boards on such supports as we could fabricate; and round it planks, resting on kegs and boxes, made sufficient seats.
Hardly were our preparations finished, when the first boat was descried coming through the mangroves from the river down below, and a parasol was visible in the stern. Then there was a hasty stampede down to the gully to wash, an agonized scuttle into the new shirt, and a hot and anxious assumption of restful calm. And so we welcomed the guests as they came.
What a feast that was, and how it astonished everybody! And such a party as our shanty had never witnessed before! For curiosity brought half a dozen ladies—all there were in the district; and fully a score of masculine friends honoured our establishment with their presence. It is not to be supposed, of course, that all our neighbours inhabit rude shanties like ours. Some are further forward, or had more capital at the start; and men do not bring wives into the bush until they can manage to furnish forth a decently comfortable house for them. Our married friends live in respectable comfort. Still, the ladies living in the bush get to know its more primitive ways, though they may not experience them themselves. So our domestic arrangements, though made the occasion for a great deal of banter and fun, were neither unexpected nor novel to our lady visitors. But the banquet that was provided for them made them open their eyes indeed. It was something altogether new to the bush. Such a miracle of catering; such marvellous, unheard-of cookery! It surpassed anything any one of them had ever seen before anywhere.
The table was covered with white linen, borrowed at the township, and all the equipage we could muster was displayed upon it. Plates, forks, spoons, and knives were there in plenty; but we had not been able to collect enough dishes and bowls for the profusion of viands Old Colonial had provided. Some parts of the service were therefore peculiar, and caused much addition to the merriment: there was always such incongruity between the excellence of the comestible and the barbaric quaintness of the receptacle that happened to contain it. Soups in billies, turkeys in milk-pans, salads in gourd-rinds, custards in cow-bells, jellies in sardine-boxes, plum pudding in a kerosene tin, vegetables, fruits, and cakes in kits of plaited flax! Anything and everything was utilised that possibly could be.
High enthroned upon a pile of potato-sacks, Old Colonial presided over the feast he had created; while, as Vice, sat O'Gaygun, his barbaric conservatism laid aside for the nonce in favour of grace and gallantry. What glorious fun we had! What a flow of wit beneath the august influence of ladies' smiles! And we were cool in our ferny bower out of the strong, hot sunshine. And in the intervals of eating and drinking we could look about us on the splendid perspective of bush and river across the clearings, where the air shimmered in the heat; where the crickets whistled and hummed, and where the cattle were lazily lying among the stumps.
It was a magnificent picnic, so everybody declared. There never was anything to match it in all New Zealand! I can fancy that in the days to come, when the full tide of civilisation has overtaken this fair country, some of those ladies will be sitting in boudoirs and drawing-rooms talking to their children. They will tell them of the early pioneering days. And one of their best-remembered stories will be that of the Christmas-time when they were banqueted by Old Colonial and his chums at our shanty in the bush.
Tohu, a sign or omen; hence Tohunga, a dealer in omens, an Augur.
Some of these powers are attributed to a sorcerer in Sir George Grey's Polynesian Mythology.
Coriaria ruscifolia. A large bush, with deep green leaves. "The juice of the berries is purple, and affords a grateful beverage to the natives." The fruit hangs in thick fringes. The seeds "produce convulsions, delirium, and death."
Deinacrida heterocantha [the Weta].
Psittacidæ; two species, Platicereus auriceps and P. Novæ Zealandiæ. First has a yellow, second a crimson crest.
Karamu. Fruit and seeds like small coffee-berries, in scarlet colour, arrangement, and taste.
Alcedinidæ; Halcyon vagans.
About the size and shape of a wasp; thorax, pure golden; abdomen, bright ruddy brown; both very hard.
[Formerly writton Duaterra.]
[Otaheite (old spelling) is Tahiti, in the Society Islands.]In the year 1807 the Santa Anna whaler anchored in the Bay of Islands, on her way to Bounty Island, whither she was bound for seal-skins. Ruatara embarked on board this vessel, commanded by a Mr. Moody. After she had taken in her supplies from New Zealand she proceeded on her voyage, and arrived at Bounty Island in safety, when Ruatara, with one of his countrymen, two Otaheitans,
About five months after the Santa Anna had left Bounty Island the King George arrived there, commanded by Mr. Chase. Before the arrival of this vessel the sealing party had been greatly distressed, for more than three months, for want of water and provisions. There was no water on the island, nor had they any bread or meat, excepting seals and sea-fowl. Ruatara often spoke of the extreme sufferings which he and the party with him endured from hunger and thirst, as no water could be obtained, except when a shower of rain happened to fall. Two Europeans and one Otaheitan died from hardship.
In a few weeks after the arrival of the King George the Santa Anna returned, and the sealing party during her absence had procured 8,000 skins. After taking the skins on board, the vessel sailed for England; and Ruatara, having long entertained an ardent desire to see King George, embarked on board as a common sailor, with the hope of gratifying his wish. The Santa Anna arrived in the River Thames about July, 1809. Ruatara now requested that the captain would indulge him with a sight of the king, which was the only object that had induced him to leave his native country. When he made inquiries by what means he could get a sight of the king, he was sometimes told that he could not find the house; and at other times, that nobody was permitted to see King George. This distressed him exceedingly, and he saw little of London, being seldom permitted to go on shore.
In about fifteen days, he told me, the vessel had discharged her cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the Ann, which had been taken up by the Government to convey convicts to New South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Ruatara asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing, but he refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson would pay him two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but these he never received.
About this time Ruatara, from hardships and disappointments, was seized with a dangerous illness. Thus friendless, poor, and sick, he was sent down to Gravesend, and
I was then in London, but did not know that Ruatara had arrived in the Santa Anna. Shortly after Ruatara embarked at Gravesend, the Ann sailed for Portsmouth. I had been ordered by Government to return to New South Wales by this vessel, and joined her in a few days after she had come round to Spibhead. When I embarked, Ruatara was confined below by sickness, so that I did not see him or know he was there for some time. On my first observing him he was on the forecastle, wrapped up in an old greatcoat, very sick and weak, and was coughing blood. His mind was very much dejected, and he appeared as if a few days would terminate his existence. I inquired of the master where he had met him, and also of Ruatara what had brought him to England, and how he came to be so wretched and miserable. He told me that the hardships and wrongs he had experienced on board the Santa Anna were exceedingly great, and that the English sailors had beaten him very much, which was the cause of his spitting blood; that the master had defrauded him of all his wages, and prevented his seeing the king. I should have been very happy if there had been time to call the master of the Santa Anna to account for his conduct; but it was too late. I endeavoured to soothe Ruatara's afflictions, and assured him that he should be protected from insults, and that his wants should be supplied.
By the kindness of the surgeon and master, and by proper nourishment administered to him, he began in a great measure to recover both his strength and his spirits, and gob quite well some time before we arrived ab Rio de Janeiro. He was ever after truly grateful for the attention that was shown to him. As soon as he was able he did his duty as a common sailor on board the Ann, in which capacity he was considered equal to most of the men on board,
After being taken to Norfolk Island in a ship on which he had embarked for New Zealand, he was with me at Parramatta on a second visit when the Ann whaler, belonging to the house of Alexander Burnie, of London, arrived from England. As this vessel was going on the coast of New Zealand, he requested me to procure him a passage on board the vessel, and said that he would try once more to see his friends. I accordingly applied to the master, and he agreed to take him on condition that he would remain on board and do the duty of a sailor while the Ann was on the coast. To this Ruatara readily consented, and when the Ann left Port Jackson he embarked, taking with him some seed-wheat and tools of agriculture a second time. The vessel was five months on the coast when Ruatara, with inexpressible joy to himself and his friends, was landed.
During the time he had lived with me he laboured early and late to acquire useful knowledge, and particularly that of agriculture. He was well aware of the advantages of agriculture in a national point of view, and was a good judge of the quality of land. He was very anxious that his country should reap the natural advantages which he knew it possessed, as far as related to the cultivation of the land. He was fully convinced that the wealth and happiness of a nation depended much upon the produce of its soil.
When he was landed from the Ann he took with him the wheat he had received at Parramatta for seed, and immediately informed his friends and the neighbouring, chiefs of its value, and that the Europeans made biscuit of it, such as they had seen and eaten on board of ships. He gave portions of wheat to six chiefs, and also to some of his own common men, and directed them all how to sow it, reserving some for himself and his uncle Hongi, who is a very great chief—his domain extending from the east to the west side of New Zealand.
All the persons to whom Ruatara had given the seed-wheat put it into the ground, and it grew well; but before it was well ripe many of them grew impatient for the produce, and as they expected to find the grain at the root of the stem, as with potatoes, they examined the roots; and, finding there was no wheat under the ground, they pulled it up and burnt it; excepting Hongi. The chiefs ridiculed Ruatara much about the wheat, saying that because he had been a great traveller he thought he could easily impose upon their credulity by telling them fine stories; and all he urged could not convince them that wheat would make bread.
His own and Hongi's crops in time came to perfection, and were reaped and threshed; and though the Natives were much astonished to find that the grain was produced at the top and not at the bottom of the stem, yet they could not be persuaded that bread could be made of it. About this time the Jefferson whaler put into the Bay of Islands, commanded by Mr. Thomas Barnes. Ruatara, being anxious to remove the prejudices of the chiefs against his wheat, and to prove the truth of his former assertion that it would make biscuit, requested the master of the Jefferson to lend him a pepper-mill or coffee-mill, in order, if possible, to grind some of his wheat into flour, that he might make a cake. But the mill was too small, and he could not succeed.
By the arrival of a vessel at Sydney from New Zealand he sent me word that he had got home at last, and had sown his wheat, which was growing well; but he had not thought of a mill. He requested me to send him some hoes and other tools of agriculture, which I determined to do by the first opportunity. A short time after the Queen Charlotte, belonging to Port Jackson, cleared out for the Pearl Islands. As this vessel would have to pass the North Cape of New Zealand, I thought there was a probability of her touching at the Bay of Islands. Unfortunately, the Queen Charlotte passed New Zealand without touching anywhere, and was afterwards taken by the natives of Otaheite; and while the vessel was in their possession all the wheat I had put on board, as well as some other things, were either stolen or destroyed.
When I received this information I was much concerned that Ruatara should be so disappointed from time to time
As many dreadful massacres had been committed at New Zealand, both by the Natives and Europeans, at different times (the whole crew of the Boyd having been [At Whangaroa, in
After I had purchased the vessel I waited upon His Excellency Governor Macquarie, and acquainted him with my intention, and explained to His Excellency that the Society wished to form a settlement there, and requested permission to visit New Zealand. The Governor did not judge it prudent to give his permission for my going at that time, but told me that if I sent the Active, and she returned safe, he would then give me leave to accompany the settlers and their families when the vessel returned a second time, and then I might see them properly fixed. With this
When the Active sailed I sent a message to Ruatara to inform him for what purpose I had sent over Messrs. Hall and Kendall, and invited him to return with them to Port Jackson, and bring along with him two or three chiefs. I sent him a steel mill to grind his wheat, a sieve, and some wheat for seed, with a few other presents. On the arrival of the Active the settlers were very kindly received by Ruatara and all the other chiefs, and every attention was paid to them for the six weeks they remained there.
Ruatara was much rejoiced to receive the steel mill. He soon set to work and ground some wheat before his countrymen, who danced and shouted for joy when they saw the meal. He told me that he made a cake, and baked it in a frying-pan, and gave it to the people to eat, which fully satisfied them of the truth he had told them before, that wheat would make bread.
The chiefs now begged some more seed, which they sowed; and there can be little doubt but that they will soon appreciate the value of wheat. I saw some growing in January last exceedingly strong and fine; the grain was very full and bright when reaped, which leads me to believe the climate and soil of New Zealand will be very congenial to the production of that grain.
Before the arrival of the Active Ruatara had determined to visit Port Jackson in the first vessel that sailed from New Zealand for the colony, in order to procure a mill, hoes, and some other articles he stood in need of. He greatly rejoiced when the Active entered the Bay, as he hoped to get a passage in her; but on receiving the mill I sent, with the seed-wheat, &c., he altered his mind, and said he would now apply himself to agriculture for two years, from his having the means of carrying on his cultivation and of grinding his wheat.
His uncle Hongi had at this time a great desire to visit Port Jackson, and as he is a very powerful chief, and had no friend in Port Jackson who could speak both the English
During his stay at my house I often saw him very thoughtful, and asked him what was the cause of his uneasiness. He would reply, "I fear my head wife is either dead or very sick." What the priest told him relative to his wife dying in his absence evidently made a strong impression on his mind. Though he had been about three years in my family before, and acted with great propriety all the time, and upon all occasions was willing to receive religious instructions, yet the superstitious notions of their religion, which he had imbibed from his infancy in New Zealand, were, deeply rooted in his mind. He had great confidence in what the priest asserted, and in the efficacy of their prayers.
On my arrival with him at New Zealand with the rest of the settlers, he appeared now to have accomplished the grand object of all his toils—an object which was the constant subject of his conversation—namely, the means of civilising his countrymen. He thus observed to me with much triumph and joy, "I have now introduced the cultivation of wheat into New Zealand, and New Zealand will become a great country. In two years more I shall be able to export wheat to Port Jackson, to exchange for hoes, axes, spades, tea, sugar, &c." Under this impression he made arrangements with his people for a very extensive cultivation, and formed his plan for building a new town with regular streets, after the European mode, on a beautiful situation which commanded a view of the mouth of the harbour and of the adjacent country. I accompanied him to the spot, and we examined the ground fixed upon
At the very time when these arrangements were to have been executed, he was stretched upon his dying bed. I could not but view him with wonder and astonishment as he lay languishing beneath his affliction; and could scarcely bring myself to believe that the Divine goodness would remove from the earth a man whose life appeared of such infinite importance to his country, which was just emerging from barbarism and gross darkness and superstition. His death has been a subject of much pain and regret to me, and appears a very dark and mysterious dispensation. No doubt he had done his work and finished his appointed course, though I fondly imagined he had only just begun his race. He was a man of clear comprehension and quick perception, and of a sound judgment, and a mind void of fear; at the same time he was mild, affable, and pleasing in his manners. His body was strong and robust, and promised a long and useful life. At the time of his death he was in the prime and vigour of manhood, extremely active and industrious. I judged his age to be about twenty-eight years.
[Tangi means lamentation. In the poem "Sounding Sea" is given as equivalent to the name of the warrior, Tangi Moana.]
[Phigalia—or Phialia—is in the south-west corner of Arcadia. Near it are the remains of a celebrated temple with sculptured frieze.]
[The Parthenon is the temple of Athene at Athens. Parthenaic is an unauthorised form.]
[The frieze here referred to represents the strife of the Lapithæ and the Centaurs.]
[Thesous was a legendary Athenian horo.]
[Te Whetu means "The Star."]
A volcano, 6,500ft. in height, in the centre of the northern island; in active eruption when this was written (
[Pronounce "Ah'mo-hee' ah."]
We now came in sight of the rich kauri forests which skirt the Kaipara district. Here the kauri grows, not, as more northerly, a few here and there among the miscellaneous vegetation of the forests, but in grand masses, claiming sole possession of large portions of country, and enriching the landscape with its lovely green.
Again we entered a wood, and, in the course of our journey through it, had to cross the Kaihu River six or seven times, sometimes wading knee-deep. So very intricate are the windings of some of the rivers that in one journey the same stream has been crossed thirty or forty times. In returning from Whangaroa to the Kerikeri with
While we were travelling through the wood the fruit of the kohutuhutuFuchsia excorticata.
One of the principal edible fruits is the berry of the karaka,Corynocarpus lævigata.
The tupakihiCoriaria sarmentosa.tutu, and is drunk with avidity. The berries, of the size and colour of elderberries, and hanging in long bunches, are squeezed by hands none of the cleanest, and the juice, of the rich colour of elder wine, is usually collected in the half of a large calabash, the seeds being carefully rejected. No undue excitement is produced by drinking this harmless wine; but the berries, eaten with the seeds, are of a poisonous nature, producing a degree of intoxication approaching to raving madness. I knew a case of a white man who had imprudently eaten tupakihi berries, and who was obliged to be held by three or four strong Natives till the violence of the fit was over.
Tupakihi bushes are found in abundance in rich land, growing among the high fern. The leaves are a favourite food with cattle; and, if in a district where there is no abundance of grass as a corrective, the consequences of eating it
The height of the tupakihi, as generally seen, seldom exceeds seven or eight feet, but this must be owing to the frequent form fires constantly keeping the growth down; for I saw at Coromandel Harbour a tupakihi tree with a trunk as large in circumference as a man's body.
One species of the ti, [Putrid maize.]Cordyline australis [i.e., the cabbage-tree.]mauku. The young seedlings are carefully selected, though but little care is taken in planting them out; and the following year the root is fit, for use. It is dug up, and stacked in small piles to dry in the sun. The filaments are burned away by making a fire under the pile, and the roots are then left for some days for further drying. When sufficiently dry, the roots are scraped and put into the hangi, or Native oven, to remain from twelve to eighteen hours, when the preparation of the mauku is complete. It is either chewed for its sweet taste, or it is pounded, washed, and squeezed, to get rid of the fibre, and then used as a sweetener with the kaanga pirau,
The Natives also chew the ripe fruit of the kawakawa, [Piper excelsum.]
Paukena brought me for examination some berries of the titoki. [ [Not unlike the berry of the common yew (Alectryon excelsum.]Taxus baccata).]
In the evening we reached the village of Kaihu, and found Parore, the principal chief, sitting in his house. At first he received me very coolly, and appeared reserved, but soon became more sociable; and while the lads were getting the tent ready he conducted me to Paora's harvest field. Paora had been busy the whole day cutting his wheat, and I found him and his people engaged in ricking and housing it. His field of wheat surprised me, as I did not expect to find in this part so great an advance towards civilisation.
Returning to the village, I found my tent pitched not far from the low rush building used as a chapel, in which I would have met the Natives, but was warned not to enter on account of the fleas. It is usual to ring the bell, or some substitute for one, to call the people together to prayers. Sometimes a suspended axe or hoe, struck with a stick or stone, answers the purpose. One party that I used to visit had a bent gun barrel hung up for a bell. The chiefs, however, like to have a proper bell, and, if I recollect right, we had one at Kaihu.
About forty Natives assembled in front of the tent, and very attentively listened while I addressed them. Although 1 rose at five the next morning the Natives had met for prayers among themselves before I left my tent. They generally retire to rest early at night, and rise with daylight in the morning; but in days of excitement, or to chat over news, they will sit round the fire a good part of the night. During the day they often spend much time in sleep, and, when resident with white men, they soon acquire the habit of later rising.
When ready to start I ventured near the front of the chapel to look in. A moment was quite enough, The hopping hosts could be distinctly heard among the dry rushes and litter which strewed the ground. My light trousers were literally covered, and Paukena, to whom I had handed my cloak to clear it, significantly said on bringing it back, "Tenei ano tou kete puruhi" (Here is your basket of fleas).
The land in the immediate neighbourhood of the Kaihu village, being level and exceedingly rich, is admirably adapted for cultivation. Further on, the scene changes to barren hills and swamps, with here and there a patch of wooded land, and some kauri.
In travelling through Now Zealand you must often encounter swamps of greater or less extent, covered with raupo, or korari. The raupo,[Typha angustifolia.]
In raupo swamps there is always a ferruginous deposit; and the water, especially in dry seasons, is strongly chalybeate. The Natives collect the yellow farina of the raupo, form it into a cake, and eat it.
The korari, [Phormium tenax.]Phormium tenax valuable as an article of commerce. The flax is mvariably procured from the korari swamps, some of which are very extensive. There is one between the Thames and Matamata, and another to the east of Maketu, in the Bay of Plenty, covering many square miles.
The Native mode of preparing the flax for use is by scraping with shells, so as to leave the fibre clear. This is
We stopped by the Waimata River for an early dinner;. and, again moving onward over hills skirted by woods, with a sprinkle of kauri, we came to open country, with the Wairoa and Kaipara Rivers in the distance. A little more exertion over the hills brought us to the Wairoa, and opened a splendid prospect before us. The broad river, sweeping in bold and elegant curves through forests of kauri, mingled with a variety of other native trees, formed a landscape which brought English scenery to mind.
My intention now was to visit the Wesleyan Mission settlement near Aotahi, about thirty miles up the river; but, on account of the ebb tide, we had to wait some hours at Te Wharau, where we procured a canoe.
There is a great difference between the canoes of different tribes. The simplest form of canoe is a single tree, hollowed out into the required form, chiefly with adzes. This is called tiwai. In former days adzes of basalt or green jade were used for the purpose; but now that iron tools abound, if a carpenter's adze cannot be obtained, a plane iron, fixed into a handle adze-fashion, answers the purpose. To build a canoe of larger dimensions, thick planks or bulwarks of the required height are added on to the tiwai by secure ties, a band of flexible wood being fastened over the seam. In a war canoe this band is blackened, and ornamented with snow-white albatross or gannet feathers. The vessel is completed by the addition of a carved stem and stern, and is stained all over with red ochre.
A single war canoe will sometimes carry from eighty to a hundred men. The Natives row with short paddles, and one of the party, called the kai-tulci, generally stands up in the middle, to give the time, and to incite the crew to vigorous effort by his song. In boating with the Natives, who can pull a long oar desperately for a while, and will then slacken off to little more than just dipping the oar in the water, I have often found an advantage in getting a sharp lively fellow to tuki. His extemporaneous song will consist of such matters as arise from the circumstances or feelings of the moment; grumblings for want of food; complaints of small payments; remarks on the pakehas in the boat; rejoicing that soon there will be plenty to eat; with occasional phrases and short sentences addressed to the rowers, bidding them to be strong, to let the oars dip deep, to pull all together, &c. But whatever be the burden of the song, it admirably answers the purpose of keeping them in time and tune, and of speeding the boat on its way.
A stranger would be astonished at the cool indifference of the Natives, even, in cases of emergency. Going up the Waitangi River in Mr. Busby's boat to see the Haruru Tall, we grounded on a low reef in the middle of the river, and, the swell setting in strongly from seaward, we were placed in a situation to require prompt righting of the boat and shoving her off; instead of which, the fellows most provokingly waited carefully to tuck up or take off their trousers to save wetting them, regardless of the risk we ran of being swamped. It is common with Natives in your employment, when told to do a thing immediately, to answer "Taihoa." This word has been translated "by-and-by"; but it has all the latitude of directly, presently, by-and-by, a long time hence, and nobody knows when. You, perhaps, have an engagement for the afternoon, and are in haste for dinner; you know that everything is ready, and call the girl to bring it in; but the deliberate reply is "Taihoa"—and how long you may have to wait who can tell? Just the same if bread is burning in the oven, and you bid them take it out,—"Taihoa." In fact, this patience-trying word meets you at every turn.
The most glaring instance I ever met with of total unconcern as to the consequences of delay was in the sending of our mission boat Kahawai from the Bay of Islands to Tauranga. As the boat was needed for the Tauranga station, and some Natives from the southward were at the Bay of Islands, wishing for an opportunity of returning, but having no canoe, we intrusted the Kahawai to their care. The distance they had to go, making allowance for the indentations of the coast, was rather more than two hundred miles—it might have been two hundred and fifty or three hundred. It was five weeks after the boat left the Bay that we at Tauranga were first informed that she had started, and, nothing having been heard of her, we felt great apprehensions that the Kahawai and her crew were irrecoverably lost.
These apprehensions appeared to be fully realised when, nearly a month afterwards, we heard from some of our people that pieces of broken board and an old Native blanket had been picked up at Katikati, supposed to be from the wreck of our boat. And now Mr. Chapman, at Rotorua, began to be much annoyed by the Natives, on account of the loss of the chief Wharetutu, to whom the boat had been given in charge.
Six weeks more passed on, and the Kahawai had ceased to be talked about or thought of, when, to our no small astonishment, she suddenly made her appearance close to Te Papa station, with Wharetutu and all the Natives, twenty in number, perfectly safe, after spending nearly as much time in going over two or three hundred miles as it would have taken for an ordinary vessel to make a good voyage to England. Their only excuse was that they had sometimes been detained by the weather, and sometimes waiting for three canoes which they fell in with and had in company; though, in fact, they had no business to linger for any canoes to the detention of our boat, the hindrance of our work, and the annoyance of our friend at Rotorua. As there had been plenty of fair wind and weather, they had doubtless passed the time comfortably here and there ashore, just suiting their own convenience or pleasure.— W. R. Wade ("
The colonisation of New Zealand may be said to date from the year 1840. In 1887 an association which had for its object the setting-up of a New Zealand land company made unsuccessful application for a royal charter. In 1839 the company was formed without a charter. John Lambton, Earl of Durham, was its governor, and Mr. Joseph Somes was deputy-governor. The ship Tory left England under the company's auspices on the 12th of May, 1839, and arrived in Queen Charlotte's Sound on the 17th of August. Colonel William Wakefield, who was on board as the agent of the company, bought land of the Natives at Port Nicholson, and on the 30th of September the New Zealand flag was hoisted, a royal salute (iced, and formal possession taken in the name of the company. In this month of September the pioneer settlers sailed from Gravesend in four ships—the Cuba, the Aurora, the Oriental, and the Adelaide—bound for Port Nicholson. The Aurora arrived first, on the 22nd of January, 1840. The first settlement, which bore the name of Britannia, was at Pito-one (i.a., end of the beach, now erroneously written Petone). After suffering some inconvenience from a flood consequent on the rising of the Hutt River, the new-comers removed to the present site of the City of Wellington, which was named in honour of England's greatest military commander. The memories of the early days are preserved in such names as Somes Island, Lambton Quay, Tory Street, Cuba Street, Aurora Terrace, Adelaide Road, and Oriental Bay.
The New Zealand flag was not the symbol of royal authority. New Zealand was not then recognised as part of Her Majesty's dominions. In 1769 Captain Cook had taken possession in the name of King George the Third; and in 1787 the commission of Captain Philip, appointing him Governor of New South Wales and its dependencies, so defined the limits of that colony as to include New Zealand. But there were several Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain in which New Zealand was referred to as a foreign land; and King William the. Fourth, having received from a number of Native chiefs a letter begging
The Wellington settlers had no legal powers of self-government, and there was among them no representative of the British Government. Further, the company's private purchase of land from the Natives was opposed to the views of the Government of the day. The provision of settled government for British subjects resident in New Zealand, and the ascertaining of their titles to the lands they held, were problems that had been for some time under consideration. In 1836 the missionaries addressed a petition to the Crown, and the London merchants and others concerned in the South Sea trade presented a memorial, directing attention to the state of confusion arising from the haphazard settlement of Europeans here and there upon the coast of New Zealand, and from their relations with the Natives. Captain Hobson, R.N., in command of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, was sent by Governor Bourke, of New South Wales, to protect British subjects, and to report upon the situation, His report, made in August, 1837, excited much interest. In May, 1838, when the Europeans at Kororareka numbered perhaps a thousand, a society called the Kororareka Association was formed for the protection of life and property. In December, 1838, Lord Glenclg officially intimated to Lord Palmerston his opinion that the time had come for the appointment of a British Consul to reside in New Zealand. To this office Captain Hobson was appointed on the 30th of July, 1839, before the Aurora and her sister-ships left England. He was also made Lieutenant-Governor in and over any territory "that is or may be acquired in sovereignty by Her Majesty" in any part of New Zealand. The "former
Captain Hohson, having been sworn in before the Governor of New South Wales, arrived at Kororareka on the 29th of January, 1840, and on the next day issued a proclamation of his assumption of the duties of the office of Lieutenant-Governor, and another proclamation announcing that all claims to land would have to be submitted to the judgment of a Commission, and that any purchase of land made direct from the Maoris after that date would be null and void. Six days after this he met the northern chiefs at Waitangi, and presented for their approval the famous Treaty of Waitangi, of which the three items are—(1) that the chiefs cede their rights of sovereignty to Her Majesty the Queen; (2) that they retain possession of their lands, and yield to Her Majesty the right of pre-emption over any lands they may wish to sell; (3) that Her Majesty extends to the New Zealand Natives her protection, and imparts to them all the rights of British subjects. On the 21st of May, 1840, Lieutenant-Governor Hobson proclaimed the Queen's sovereignty over the North Island by virtue of the Treaty of Waitangi, and over the South Island by right of discovery. On the 11th of August, 1840, Captain Stanley, of H.M.S. Britomart, acting under instructions from Governor Hobson, landed at Akaroa, hoisted the British flag, and held a Court, as a sign of British authority. This step was taken in anticipation of the arrival of French emigrants. On the 15th of August a French frigate entered the harbour, having been four days off the point; and on the
On the 16th of November, 1840, New Zealand was created a separate colony, and the proclamation of the change was made in Auckland on the 3rd of May, 1841. To Kororareka, the first seat of government, the name of Russell was given, in honour of the celebrated Whig statesman, Lord John (afterwards Earl) Russell, who then led the House of Commons, Lord Melbourne being Prime Minister. In January, 1841, Governor Hobson removed to Auckland, which he had selected a few months before as the site for the future capital, the area of suitable land for settlement at the Bay of Islands being considered too small. He named it Auckland in honour of Lord Auckland, First Lord of the Admiralty and Governor-General of India. Lord Auckland's family name was Eden. The earliest direct emigrant ships to arrive at Auckland appear to be the Duchess of Argyle and the Jane Gifford, which landed 560 passengers in October, 1842.
The New Zealand Company soon followed up the colonisation of Wellington by a settlement under the name of Petre, at Wanganui. The name of Petre was given to it in honour of Lord Petre, one of the directors of the company, but it has fallen out of use. Almost at the same time a society was formed in the West of England under the name of "The New Plymouth Association." The first settlers sailed from Plymouth on the 19th of November, 1840, in the ship William Bryan, and reached New Plymouth on the 28th of March, 1841.
In February, 1841, the New Zealand Company obtained a charter, and in the same year the company began to settle another district, to which was given the name of Nelson, in honour of the greatest of sea captains. The street names of Nile and Trafalgar commemorate Nelson's great victories, and that of St. Vincent another great victory in which he was largely concerned; the Vanguard was his flagship at the battle of Copenhagen; and such names as Collingwood and Hardy remind us of his famous lieutenants. Captain Arthur Wakefield was the leader of the Nelson settlement. He was one of the victims in the Wairau massacre in 1843.
In 1843 plans were on foot for the establishment of a settlement in New Zealand to consist chiefly of members of the Free Church of Scotland, and of another that should be a southern home for members of the Church of England. But during that year, and for several years after, hostilities between the Natives and the European settlers stood in the way of such projects as these. In 1843 the white population did not amount to 12,000, while the Natives were probably not fewer than 56,000, and in troublous times this disparity tended to check the ardour of intending immigrants. But in 1848 the Eree Church settlement was planted at Port Otakou, which received a new name—Port Chalmers—in honour of the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, the celebrated Scottish divine, and leader of the Free Church party at the disruption. The name of Otakou was transformed into Otago. The chief town was named Dunedin, in honour of the Scottish capital, Dunedin being the Celtic form of Edwin's borough or Edinburgh. Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel, i, vii.Marmiou, Intro, to canto V.
It was not till 1850 that the Church of England settlement was founded by the Canterbury Association. The leader—John Robert Godley, whose statue stands in Cathedral Square, and whose name is given to the headland on which the lighthouse stands—arrived at Port Cooper in April, 1850. In September, 1850, the first lour ships left Plymouth, and on the 16th of December two of them—the Charlotte Jane and the Randolph—anchored in Port Cooper, a third—the George Seymour—coming in next day, and the Cressy a few days later. The new settlement was named Canterbury, after the cathedral city of Augustine and the
Immediately before the passing of the Abolition of Provinces Act, in 1875, the form of government of the colony bore the marks of the separate origins of the several settlements. Auckland, Wellington, Taranaki (New Plymouth), Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago had their several Provincial Councils, or local Parliaments, in subordination to the General Assembly, yet with very considerable powers. Wa-nganui was part of the Province of Wellington. There were three other provinces similarly constituted—Marlborough, Hawke's Bay, and Westland. Marlborough and Hawke's Bay were offshoots from the original settlements of Nelson and Wellington respectively; Westland, the settlement of which originated in the discovery of gold about the year I 1864, was formed out of parts of Canterbury and Nelson. Marlborough is named in honour of the great duke, and the name of Blenheim commemorates his greatest victory. The name of Napier, the chief town of Hawke's Bay, commemorates the successes of Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sindh. The hilly site of the town is called Seinde Island, and the name Meanee refers to the decisive battle of the Sindh campaign. Hastings and Clive, too, are names chosen with reference to the history of India. The street nomenclature of Napier indicates a desire to do honour to great literary names, such as. Shakespeare, Milton, Emerson, Tennyson. Southland, a part of Otago, was for a short time a separate province. Invercargill, its chief town,
Westland is not the only part of bhe country where settlement has been greatly promoted by the discovery of gold. There was a large accession to the population of Otago in 1862 on this account, and a similar rush to the Thames a few years later. In all such cases there were many new-comers from the Australian Colonies.
Many English geographical names in New Zealand date back to times prior to the era of settlement. Tasman was off Three Kings Island on the 6th of January, 1643—the Feast of the Epiphany—and it is said that he gave the name Three Kings with reference to the Magi and their visit to Bethlehem. Cook Strait was discovered by Captain Cook in his first voyage of circumnavigation; Endeavour Inlet was named after his ship; Queen Charlotte Sound after the consort of the reigning sovereign, George the Third; Banks Peninsula (then called Banks Island) and Solander Island after Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander, who were naturalists attached to the expedition. Cook's voyages supply the key to the names of Poverty Bay and the Bay of Plenty, of the Bay of Islands, and of Mercury Bay, where he landed to take observations of a transit of Mercury. He named Hawke's Bay after Admiral Hawke, and Mount Egmont after the Earl of Egmont. To the great mountain mass that Tasman bad seen at his first approach to our coast Cook gave the name of the Southern Alps. Hicks Bay was named after Cook's first lieutenant. The Prench explorer D'Urville was the first to take a ship through the French Pass—the Pass of the French, as he called it—between the main land and D'Urville Island. His account of New Zealand as he found it in 1827 is a work of great interest and high authority. Foveaux Strait was discovered in the early part of this century by Captain Stewart, engaged in the seal-fishery, and his name was therefore given to the southern island.
Notwithstanding many failures, the search for gold was still continued by a number of persons, whose faith in its existence survived repeated discomfitures. Their constancy was at length rewarded; but, strangely enough, it was by accident, and not design, that the first workable goldfield was eventually found. Vague rumours of this discovery reached Dunedin, by way of Oamaru, in March, 1861; but the earliest definite account appeared early in April, in the Lyttelton Times:—
"A party of men, employed in road-making by the Otago Government, picked up some nuggets in the River Lindis, a tributary of the Molyneux, where they were engaged making cuttings for the main road to cross. Mr. McLean, on whose run the gold was found, saw some gold in possession of one of the men. It weighed about 4oz., and consisted of some waterworn nuggets, from the size of a grain of wheat to that of a bean, and apparently of a very fine quality. As the stream where the gold was found is small, and close to the hills, it offers no prospect of a large field sufficient; to induce diggers to go there from any distance at this time of the year."
So little was known of the interior of the province in those days that the Otago Witness newspaper, after having variously described "the new goldfield"—a phrase invariably used, as though goldfields had been numerous and well established—as being seventy, sixty, and ninety miles from Dunedin, finally declared, "the precise locality is quite a mystery."
The exact scene of the discovery was in the Upper Lindis Gorge, situated on the north side of the Lindis Peak, the southernmost termination of the Grandview mountain range, which overlooks Lake Hawea, and extends its vast ramparts to the Ahuriri River. Beyond the Lindis are the valleys and pastures of the Upper Clutha and its tributaries, where, in the early days of settlement, some enterprising colonists had found or forced their way, bringing with them their flocks and herds, The only available route to this country was then by way of the Waitaki Valley and through the Lindis Pass. The pass being then wholly impracticable ior wheeled traffic, the pioneer runholders — prominent
The reader who is unable to draw upon memory and personal experience cannot possibly conceive more than a very faint idea of the absolute solitariness which in those days pervaded and enveloped the interior of Otago—the solemn loneliness of its mountains, the ineffable sadness of its valleys, the utter dreariness of its plains. The weary traveller pursued his lonely way from point to point, always viewing around and before him a continuous and apparently interminable expanse of lofty hills—range succeeding range in monotonous uniformity, everywhere clothed in a sober livery of pale-brown vegetation, relieved only by grim, grey rocks, of fantastic form, sharing the desolation to which they contributed—backed by distant mountain-peaks, which bounded and encompassed the horizon in every direction, piercing the blue ether, and clad in dazzling snows—an expanse diversified by no pleasant forests; devoid of animal as of human life; where the profound stillness was painful in its prolonged intensity, and the only sound that greeted the ear from dawn to dusk was the melancholy wailing of the wind among the tussocks.
Such was the character of the country through which the gold-seekers of that time had to find or make their way, unaided by roads of any description, and seldom assisted even by "cracks" of a defined character. To this account must be added the uncertainty prevailing as to the locality of the "new" goldfield, the length of the journey, and the inclement season of the year. The news reached Dunedin at the end of March—that is to say, at the commencement of winter. That the country was then covered with snow is apparent from the frequent warnings, having reference to this form of danger, which
This assurance was well founded, for the legislators of New Zealand were wise betimes. An "Act to make provision for the Management of Goldfields in the Colony of New Zealand" was passed in 1858, before any well-defined goldfield had been discovered. And in the same year, still taking time by the forelock, they also passed an Act imposing an export duty of 2s. 6d. per ounce on gold, extending (unless the clause is wrongly punctuated) to foreign coins, and "articles of plate, jewellery, or ornament actually worn upon the person or made elsewhere than in the colony." And now, having become possessed of the long-desired goldfields, the settlers regarded their new acquisition with something like dismay. "Gold," writes the editor of the Witness, who, no doubt, faithfully reflected the prevailing opinion, "is not an unmixed blessing. … We are not of the number of those who look upon the discovery of gold as the greatest of blessings."
But circumstances do not halt for opinions. For a brief space there was a general stampede to the Lindis, though Lyttellon Times proved to be correct. The field was an exceedingly limited one, and early in July the Witness was enabled to state, with an approximation to accuracy, that the Lindis was a, "complete failure."
Before that time came, however, the people of Otago had been thoroughly aroused by the following letter in the Witness of the 8th June, 1861:—
"Tokomairiro, 4th June, 1861. "To Major Richardson, &c. "Sir,—I take the liberty of troubling you with a short report on the result of a gold-prospecting tour which I commenced about a fortnight since, and which occupied me about ten days. During that period I travelled inland about thirty-five miles, and examined the ravines and tributaries of the Waitahuna and Tuapeka Rivers.
"My equipment consisted of a tent, blankets, spade, tin dish, butcher's knife, and about a week's provisions. I examined a large area of country, and washed pans of earth in different localities. I found at many places prospects which would hold out a certainty that men with the proper tools would he munificently remunerated; and in one place, for ten hours' work with pan and butcher's knife, I was enabled to collect about seven ounces of gold. I have now had constructed proper machinery and tools, and will be able, in the course of a few days, to report with more certainty. Mr. John Hardy, the member for this district, will accompany me, and, on his return, communicate personally with your Honour. His earnestness in favour of a gold-fields discovery has so pleased me that I have been induced
to make him my confidant, and he has kindly placed his time at my disposal. "Had I made anything like an exhibition of my gold the plain would have been deserted by all the adult inhabitants the next day, and the farmers would have suffered seriously from a neglect of agricultural operations at this season of the year.
"Although the being able to work secretly for a time would greatly benefit me, I feel it my duty to impart these facts. I consider it important; for you to know that the stream of population must set through Waihola rather than Oamaru.
"These communications are made in confidence that my secret is safe with Major Richardson, but, if a disclosure is of any benefit to the public interest, you are at liberty to treat this as a public communication to the Superintendent. Mr. Hardy will be in town in the course of a week, and I think you might do well, perhaps, to await his return, when he will impart the result of his trip. At all events, I leave myself as a client under your Honour's patronage, convinced that, by so doing, I take the most certain course to insure the benefit to which I may some day be considered entitled for this important discovery.
"Mr. Hardy will be able to show you what I think may be specimens of copper-ore; if it is so, there is a great quantity in the mountains, and rich seams of coal in its vicinity.
"I have the honour to be, "Your obedient servant, " Thos. Gabriel Read."
Read's statement was at first received with incredulity. The news seemed too good to be true. Prospectors had been seeking gold for ten years, and reputed discoveries had been numerous and frequent, but nothing had come of them. The Lindis had, indeed, raised expectations to a high pitch. For a time it promised well, but already it was apparently failing. And now this letter of Gabriel Read's opened up prospects that dazzled only to bewilder the people. He was represented, and truly so, to be possessed of Californian and Australian experience; but, after all, there might only be a small "patch" of payable ground. There was a brief period of suspense, during which none but
It was not long in coming. Mr. Hardy—referred to in Bead's letter—returned from his trip, and on the 28th June he announced the result of his investigations. From his place in the Provincial Council Chamber he told the members, who with eager attention and bated breath listened to his words, that, in company with Mr. Read, he had prospected country "about thirty-one miles long by five broad, and in every hole they had sunk they had found the precious metal."
On the same day the Superintendent—Major Richardson—transmitted to the Council a message which, following up Mr. Hardy's announcement, must have greatly exercised the public mind, In it he stated, "The accounts received late last evening from the Tuapeka and Waitahuna districts indicate the existence of gold in large quantities, and easily obtainable. These reports bear all the evidence of truth, and necessitate the adoption of immediate and active measures for the preservation of order, and the safe conveyance to Dunedin of the gold accumulated and accumulating."
The message then proceeds to ask that the Superintendent may be invested with general powers, in the following terms: "Under these circumstances, and with the prospect of more extensive discoveries, and the probably resulting influx of population from beyond seas, the Superintendent asks the Council to invest him with such powers as the urgency of the case may from time to time demand, in order to protect property and open out communication."
It was further suggested that it would be expedient to secure the services of an Inspector of Police and a contingent of experienced constables from Melbourne.
The glad and gratified Council was not slow to respond. Before rising, a resolution, moved by Mr. Cutten, was unanimously assented to, empowering his Honour to "take such action in the various matters as may to him seem fit, and cordially placing in his hands the necessary powers, confident that the necessary provision will be properly made, and no unnecessary expenditure of public money incurred."
The confidence of the Council was not misplaced, for the practically unlimited powers thus unreservedly intrusted to Major Richardson's disposal were wisely and judiciously exercised during the critical period that ensued.
In compliment to Mr. Read, the valley in which he made his famous discovery was named "Gabriel's Gully," and as such it is still known. Early in June, it was visited by many well-known settlers, amongst whom were Messrs. John L. Gillies, the present secretary of the Otago Harbour Board, J. Burnside, James McIndoe, Edward Martin, and Thomes B. Gillies, now Judge of the Supreme Court. The columns of the two weekly newspapers—the Witness and the Colonist—soon teemed with correspondence descriptive of the journey, which was then regarded, not without reason, as a feat worthy of record, and with exciting accounts of the richness of the gully. A very readable and interesting letter from the pen of Mr. T. B. Gillies, occupying two columns of the Colonist, gives an exhaustive report of the goldfield and its surroundings, in the course of which a curious illustration of the sober demeanour of the gold-seekers is thus rendered: "The deep gravity, almost solemnity, on every visage struck me as very peculiar. Men whom I had never met before save with a smile on their countenances, and a joke on their lips, I met there grave and solemn, as if the cares of a nation were centred on them —they could not even appreciate a joke."Evidently the getting of gold was a very serious business with them.
These letters, and the continuous favourable reports from Tuapeka, had an immense but not surprising effect. The "rush" began in earnest. Every one hastened to enrich himself with the golden spoils of the earth. Mr. William H. Cutten, the Commissioner of Lands, was then connected with the Witness, as editor or contributor; and in a leading article which appeared in that paper on 6th July we diseern "the touch of a vanished hand." Thus it runs: "Gold, gold, gold, is the universal subject of conversation. … The number of persons leaving town each morning is quite surprising. The fever is running at such a height that, if it continue, there will scarcely be a man left in town. An anecdote is told of Geelong, that, upon the breaking-out of the Australian diggings, there was but one man left, and he had a wooden leg, which the ladies
Many years ago, Hongi Hika, the great warrior chief of New Zealand, was dying. His relations, friends, and tribe were collected around him, and he then spoke to them in these words:—
"Children and friends, pay attention to my last words. After I am gone, be kind to the missionaries; be kind also to the other Europeans; welcome them to the shore, trade with them, protect them, and live with them as one people. But if ever there should land on this shore a people who wear red garments, who do no work, who neither buy nor sell, and who always have arms in their hands, then be aware that these are a people called soldiers, a dangerous people whose only occupation is war. When you see them, make war against them. Then, oh, my children, be brave! Then, O friends, be strong! Be brave, that you may not be enslaved, and that your country may not become the possession of strangers."
And having said these words, he died. After this, years passed away, and the pakeha increased in numbers and were spread over the whole country, and traded with the pakeha became theirs. And there was no fighting between them, but all lived together as friends.
More years passed away, and then came a chief of the pakeha who, we heard, was called a Governor. We were very glad of his arrival, because we heard he was a great chief; and we thought that he, being a great chief, would have more blankets, and tobacco, and muskets than any of the other pakeha people, and that he would often give us plenty of these things for nothing. The reason we thought so was because all the other pakeha often made us presents of things of great value, besides what we got from them by trading. Who would not have thought as we did?
The next thing we heard was that the Governor was travelling all over the country with a large piece of paper, asking all the chiefs to write their names or make marks on it. We heard, also, that the Ngapuhi chiefs who had made marks or written on that paper had been given tobacco, and flour, and sugar, and many other things for having done so.
We all tried to find out the reason why the Governor was so anxious to get us to make these marks. Some of us thought the Governor wanted to bewitch all the chiefs; but our pakeha friends laughed at this, and told us that the people of Europe did not know how to bewitch people. Some told us one thing, some another. Some said the Governor only wanted our consent to remain, to be a chief over the pakeha people; others said he wanted to be chief over both pakeha and Maori. We did not know what to think, but were all anxious that he might come to us soon for we were afraid that all his blankets, and tobacco, and other things would be gone before ho came to our part of the country, and that he would have nothing left to pay us for making our marks on his paper.
Well, it was not long before the Governor came; and with him came other pakeha chiefs, and also people who could speak Maori; so we all gathered together—chiefs and slaves, women and children—and went to meet him. And when we met the Governor, the speaker of Maori told us that if we put our names, or even made any sort of mark
The speaker of Maori then went on to tell us certain things, but the meaning of what he said was so closely concealed that we have never found it out. One thing we understood well, however, for he told us plainly that if we wrote on the Governor's paper one of the consequences would be that great numbers of pakeha would come to this country to trade with us; that we should have abundance of valuable goods, and that before long there would be great towns as large as Kororareka in every harbour in the whole island. We were very glad to hear this, for we never could up to this time get half enough muskets, or gunpowder, or blankets, or tobacco, or axes, or anything. We also believed what the speaker of Maori told us, because we saw that our old pakeha friends who came with us to see the Governor believed it.
After the speaker of Maori had ceased, then Te Taonui and some other chiefs came forward and wrote on the Governor's paper; and Te Taonui went up to the Governor and took the Governor's hand in his and licked it! We did not much like this: we all thought it so undignified. We were very much surprised that such a chief as Te Taonui should do so; but Te Taonui is a man who knows a great deal, about the customs of the pakeha: he has been to Port Jackson in a ship. Seeing our surprise, he told us that when the great pakeha chiefs go to see the King or Queen of England they do the same; so we saw then that it was a straight proceeding.
But after Te Taonui and other chiefs had made marks and written on the Governor's paper the Governor did not give them anything. We did not like this; so some other chiefs went forward, and said to the Governor, "Pay us first, and we will write afterwards." A chief from Omanaia said, "Put money in my left hand, and I will write my name with my right," and so he held out his hand to the
Now, when all the people saw this they were very much vexed, and began to say one to another, "It is wasting our labour coming here to see this Governor"; and the chiefs began to get up and make speeches.
One said, "Come here, Governor; go back to England!"
Another said, "I am Governor in my own country; there shall be no other."
Papahia said, "Remain here, and be Governor of this Island, and I will go to England and be King of England, and if the people of England accept me for their king it will be quite just: otherwise you do not remain here."
Then many other chiefs began to speak, and there was a great noise and confusion, and the people began to go away; and the paper was lying there, but there was no one to write on it. The Governor looked vexed, and his face was very red.
At this time some pakehas went amongst the crowd and said to them, "You are foolish; the Governor intends to pay you when all the writing is done, but it is not proper that he should promise to do so—it would be said you only wrote your name for pay; this, according to our ideas, would be a very wrong thing."
"When we heard this we all began to write as fast as we could, for we were all very hungry with listening and talking so long, and we wanted to go to get something to eat, and we were also in a hurry to see what the Governor was going to give us. And all the slaves wanted to write their names so that the Governor might think they were chiefs, and pay them; but the chiefs would not let them, for they wanted all the payment for themselves.
I and all my family made our marks, and we then went to get something to eat; but we found our food not half done, for the women and slaves who should have looked after the cooking were all mad about the Governor. When I saw that the food was not sufficiently done, I was aware that something bad would come of this business.
Next morning the things came with which the Governor intended to pay us for writing our names; but there was not
So we got into our canoe to go home; and on the way home we began to say, "Who shall have the blankets?" And so we began to quarrel about them. One of my brothers then said, "Let us cut them in pieces, and give every one a piece." I saw there was going to be a dispute about them, and said, "Let us send them back."
So we went ashore at the house of a pakeha, and got a pen and some paper. And my son, who could write, wrote a letter for us all to the Governor, telling him to take back the blankets, and to cut our names out of the paper. Then my two brothers and my sons went back and found the Governor in a boat about to go away. He Would not take back the blankets, but he took the letter. I do not know to this day whether he took our names out of the paper. It is, however, no matter; what is there in a few black marks? Who cares anything about them?
Well, after this the Governor died. He was bewitched, as I have heard, by a tohunga at the South, where he had gone to get names to his paper—for this was his chief delight, to get plenty of names and marks on his paper. He may not have been bewitched as I have heard, but he certainly died, and the paper with all the names was either buried with him, or else his relations may have kept it to lament over, and as a remembrance of him: I don't know. You, who are a pakeha, know best what became of it, but, if it has gone to England, it will not be right to let it be kept in any place where food is cooked, or where there are pots or kettles, because there are so many chiefs' names in it—it is a very sacred piece of paper. It is very good if it has been buried with the Governor.
Raletgh approached the new chum, and entered into conversation with that hapless young man. There was something comical about the lean, forlorn, and ragged appearance of the youth; but there was also a look of helplessness and suffering on his pale and meagre features that excited compassion.
"You are learning to rough it with a vengeance," remarked the philosopher in a friendly way.
"It is past endurance," replied the other with a tragic air. "Oh! the horrors of this existence are indescribable. I shudder to relate them. I have never tasted a good meal, or obtained a night's rest, or known an hour of peace, since I have been here. We camped here on a dark stormy night, and I have lain on the damp ground ever since, until the cold seems to have struck right through me. Then, think of four of us having to pig down in an eight-by-ten tent, nearly stifled "in a sickening atmosphere! I have, had to jump up in the night and rush outside in the rain and darkness gasping for breath. And I have stood out in the open, shivering and wet through, for hours sooner than seck for shelter in that suffocating hole. Then, the food we have had to swallow—their grub, as they call it—would turn a dog's stomach. And, to pile on the agony, they have forced me to cook it. I have been appointed 'doctor' to the party, and have not only to serve up this horrid mess, but to stand all the abuse and revilings of the exasperated crew. Oh, and the language of these men! Well, there! I thought I could stand a good deal in that line, and I used to rail at the enforced correctness of our talk at home, and kick at the everlasting 'good-behaviour' business; but I never could have conceived such revolting profanity and such concentrated beastliness."
"Never mind mental contamination—you can protect yourself against that by not listening; but with material comfort it is different. Where do you draw the water?"
"From that hole yonder," replied he, pointing to a slimy pool that was almost hidden in rushes and dead wood.
"That's more serious than profanity," observed the philosopher gravely. "You must be careful what you
"Not with this set," muttered the new chum, in a hopeless way.
"What brought you into such a set?"
"Well, I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Grey; and, not knowing what to do on my arrival in the colony, I came up country to present it. He received me with a certain gruff hospitality for such an old bear, and I stayed some weeks at the station. Then he asked me what I proposed doing, and I told him I was on for anything where money was to be made—that I was quite willing to work if I could only get a chance, and that I rather liked the idea of roughing it. So, when these fellows started shingle-splitting, he asked them as a favour to give me a show, and I was fool enough to come with them. I shall know better next time, if ever I live to see it."
"And, if I may ask, what brought you here at all, for you don't seem cut out for this sort of thing?"
The new chum dropped down on a log, and covering his face with his poor blistered hands, he commenced a rambling and doleful account of his emigration and colonial experience. He said that he was the eldest son of a general on the retired list—a stern and stiff old buffer, according to his son's idea, and a strict disciplinarian. The young man did not appear, even from his own account, to have suffered much from paternal tyranny; but he objected to some of the regulations of the household as an undue infringement of personal liberty. The "governor" was very firm on some points: he would not permit smoking in the bedrooms; dogs were not allowed in the drawing-room; and he insisted on his son's dressing for dinner.
Outside of these arbitrary rules the new chum had to admit that his father was kind, and even indulgent. But the young blood rebelled at any sort of restraint; he had imbibed democratic notions about liberty and equality, and a supreme contempt for the artificial restrictions and stupid prejudices of a bloated" society. His proud spirit resented dictation; and after many outbursts, culminating in an
Under cross-examination the new chum rather weakened his position and made some damaging admissions. So far as the smoking in bedrooms was concerned, the rule turned out to be a dead letter, for the young man did not smoke: it made him sick. The order against bringing a dog into the drawing-room could not have seriously affected him-either, inasmuch as he never kept a dog. But the great source of trouble—the one bar to the entente cordiale, the rock upon which they had split and parted perhaps for ever —was the intolerable infliction of having to dress for dinner. As an amateur Bohemian, of irregular proclivities, the young spark refused to how to a silly and uncongenial custom: as a retired general officer of Her Majesty's service, and an upholder of authority and deportment, the stern parent was inexorable. And so the trouble was brought about which ended so much to the disadvantage of the new chum. He had suffered greatly, and had been brought so low, as he ruefully remarked, that he could scarcely get lower, unless it was to go under the ground.
"It's a bad case," observed Raleigh, "but I don't know that we ought to commiserate you. According to the ancient philosopher whom no doubt yon have studied, pity should only be aroused by the sight of undeserved calamity: while it must be conceded that you have thoroughly deserved your fate. However, the main question for you is, to find some relief from present miseries. In your helpless condition I hardly know what to advise you to do, unless it is to roll up your blankets and make tracks for the port, and thence, by the first chance that offers, find your way home again, even if you have to work your passage before the mast."
"Never!" piped the other, in broken accents; "besides, I have no money, no clothes, no friends—nothing left."
"What has become of it all? You surely did not arrive here naked and penniless; and you have not been a year in the colony. As a last resource you have, I suppose, your famous dress suit—
To you the direful spring Of woes unnumbered?"
"No; I pitched that overboard in a fit of bravado on leaving the Old Country. I spent all my pocket-money on the voyage out at loo and in drinks. We were a jolly lot of fellows on board, and we had a fine time of it while it lasted. I left my silver-mounted dressing-case at my hotel in town, as security for my bill. I parted with my gun— a regular beauty, worth thirty guineas—to pay for a week's spree at the half-way house, where I met a couple of my shipmates who were also on the tramp. It was an awful sacrifice: but what could I do? I paid away a brace of revolvers at the next two public-houses on the road; and I sold ail my fine linen and other things at a mock auction held at Grey's station. My best white shirts only fetched a shilling apiece, which was, of course, much under their value—although I have no idea what they cost. But what's a fellow to do? I begin to think I must be a fool."
"If you have seriously arrived at that conclusion your colonial experience may not have been entirely thrown away. But, tell me, have you nothing left?"
"Nothing whatever but two letters of introduction;" and the disconsolate young man pulled out two crumpled, greasy, and blackened objects from his breast-pocket. "I had a packet of them when I first came out," he continued, "and I managed to live upon them, for six months or more. Now I have only these two left. One is to Mr. Smith, who, I hear, is since dead; so, of course, that is of no use-to me; and the other letter is to a Captain somebody—the name is illegible—who, I believe, is on active service in the North Island."
"Present that letter by all means," exclaimed Raleigh, brightening up. "The captain might possess enough interest to have you enlisted in the ranks. You are the son of a soldier: become a soldier yourself, and, if yon can do nothing else for this your adopted country, at least you can be shot."
Aleck, the German, who overheard the latter part of the conversation, rolled out with his fine tenor voice a verse of the inspiriting song,—
Let me like a soldier fall!
which was received with a round of acclamation, but the new chum slunk away disgusted.
He would willingly have borrowed a pound or two from the philosopher to meet his most pressing requirements, and have listened to his words of sympathy; but such advice was not to his liking. That a man of his breeding and high temper, who had thrown up family and fortune, and broken from his luxurious home, sooner than stoop to the restraint of having to pub on a dress-coat for dinner— that such a man should be advised to enlist in the ranks, to submit to be encased in a common uniform, to turn and wheel about like a puppet, to pipeclay his own gaiters and black his officer's boots, and have to stand up to he potted by some grinning savage, that was too much! Even in his forlorn and degraded state, tanned, starved, flea-bitten, and broken-hearted, he had still enough spirit left to resent such a suggestion as an insult.
After the first Governor came the second Governor; but the towns and the numerous pakeha traders we expected did not come. We heard of a town having been built at Waitemata, and others further south; but in our part of the country there were no new towns, and the pakeha did not increase in numbers, but, on the contrary, began to go away to the town at Waitemata, to be near their chief, the Governor, who lived there; and many of us had no one left to sell anything to as formerly. Tobacco began to be scarce and dear; the ships began to leave off coming to Tokerau, Hokianga, and Mangonui.
We inquired the reason of this, but the few pakeha traders left amongst us told us different stories. Some said that the reason tobacco was scarce and dear was because the Governor would not let it be brought on shore until he was paid a large price for it, besides what was paid to the people of the ship, who were the rightful owners of it. This at first we did not believe, because you all said you were not rahui, and that as long as it remained there things would be no better. Others, again, told us the flagstaff was put there to show the ships the way into the harbour; others that it was put up as a sign that the island had been taken by the Queen of England, and that the nobility and independence of the Maori were no more.
[Warning to trespassers.]
But this one thing at least was true: we had less tobacco and fewer blankets and other European goods than formerly, and we saw that the first Governor had not spoken the truth, for he told us we should have a great deal more. The hearts of the Maori were sad, and our old pakeha friends looked melancholy, because so few ships came to bring them goods to trade with.
At last we began to think the flagstaff must have something to do with it; and so Heke went and cut it down. When the flagstaff was cut down there was a great deal of talk about it, and we expected there would be fighting; but it all ended quietly. The Governor, however, left off taking money from the people, and tobacco became cheap, and ships began to come as before; and all our old pakeha friends were glad, because they had plenty of goods to sell us, and so we all thought Heke was a man of great understanding.
But the Governor put up the flagstaff again, and when Heke heard this he came and cut it down again; so this was twice that he cut it down.
Now, when the Governor heard that Heke had cut down the flagstaff a second time, he became very angry, because he thought he could never get any more money from the people, or the ships; so he sent to England, and to Port Jackson, and everywhere, for soldiers to come to guard the flagstaff, and to fight against Heke.
It was not long before the soldiers came, and the flagstaff was put up again. It was made larger and stronger than
There were other soldiers at Kororareka and at other places: I do not know how many, but a great many. This was the first time that Heke began to think of the last words of Hongi Hika, his relative, when he died at Mawhe. Heke began to think much on these words, for Heke was now a chief among the Nga-Puhi, and he thought to stand in the place of Hongi, as, indeed, he had a right to do.
Now, these soldiers had red garments; they did not work, or buy and sell, like the other pakeha people; they practised every day with their weapons; and some of them were constantly watching as if they expected to be attacked every moment. They were a very suspicious people; and they had stiff, hard things round their necks to keep their heads up, lest they should forget and look too much downwards, and not keep their eyes continually rolling about in search of an enemy.
Great, indeed, was the fear of the Maori when they heard of these soldiers; for all the paheha agreed in saying that they would attack any one their chief ordered them to attack, no matter whether there was any just cause or not; that they would fight furiously till the last man was killed, and that nothing could make them run away. Fear came like a cold fog on all the Nga-Puhi, and no chief but Heke had any courage left.
But Heke called together his people, and spoke to them, saying, "I will fight these soldiers; I will cut down the flagstaff; I will fulfil the last words of Hongi Hika. Be not afraid of those soldiers: all men are men. The soldiers are not gods: lead will kill them; and, if we are beaten at last, we shall be beaten by a brave and noble people, and need not be ashamed."
So Heke sent runners to all the divisions of the Nga-Puhi, saying, "Come, stand at my back: the red garment is on the shore. Let us fight for our country. Remember the last words of Hongi Hika—' [Where are you? Be brave.]Kei hea koutou? Kia toa.'"
But the chiefs of the Nga-Puhi hapu said amongst themselves, "How long will the fire of the Maori burn before it is extinguished?" So the Nga-Puhi chiefs would not join Heke, for fear of the soldiers; but said, "We will wait till a battle has been fought, and, if he is successful, then we will join him."
Heke, therefore, went with his own family and people, and those of his elder relation, Kawiti, and the Kapotai, and some others, altogether about four hundred men. He went to light with the soldiers at Kororareka, and to cut down his old enemy the flagstaff.
Heke and Kawiti, having arrived at Tokerau, and having fixed upon the day of attack, agreed that Kawiti should attack the town of Kororareka, to draw off the attention of the soldiers who guarded the flagstaff on the hill of Maiki, so that Heke should have an opportunity to cut it down; for Heke had said that he would cut down the flagstaff, and he was resolved to make his words true.
When they had formed this plan, and night was come, the priests of the war party threw darts to divine the event. They threw one for Heke, and one for the soldiers, and one for the flagstaff; and the dart for Heke went straight, and fair, and fortunate, but the dart for the soldiers turned to one side, and fell with the wrong side up; so did that for the flagstaff. "When this was told the people they were very glad, and had no longer any fear.
Then Kawiti, who is himself a tohunga, threw a rakau for his own path. He threw one for himself and people, and one for the soldiers, and one for the town. The dart for Kawiti went straight and fair, but it turned wrong side up, which is the omen of death; and so also did the dart for the soldiers go fair and straight, but also turned wrong side up. And when Kawiti saw this, he said, "It is good. Here have I two darts ominous of success, and bravery, and death. Our enemy will prove very strong and brave; they will suffer much from us, and so shall we from them. I am not displeased, for this is war and not play."
[Stick, weapon, tree. In this place a divining-dart.]
Then Heke and Kawiti stood up in the night, and spoke long and with great spirit to their men, to give them courage; and, when they had done speaking, Kawiti
Heke lay on the ground with his war party. Close at hand were the sleeping soldiers. Amongst those soldiers there was not one lohunga—not a man at all experienced in omens—or they must have had some warning that great danger and defeat were near; but there they lay sleeping between the open jaws of war, and knew of no danger! This is the only foolishness I see about the pakeha: they are quite ignorant and inexperienced in omens, and, indeed, care nothing at all about them.
In the morning, before it was light, Kawiti and his young men rushed upon Kororareka. Their only thought was who should kill the first man, and elevate his name. But the soldiers met them in the path, and the fight began. Pumuka then gained a name; he killed the first man of the battle, but had not long to rejoice, for he himself fell a mataika for the
[Mataika, the first enemy killed in a, fight.]
[Toa, brave.]
When Kawiti attacked Kororareka, the soldiers at the flagstaff on the top of Maiki heard the firing, and left the flagstaff and went straggling about the hillside, trying to see what was going on below. They did not think of Heke or his words when he said he would cut down the flagstaff; neither did they remember the orders of the Governor. They were very foolish, for while they were trying to see the fight between Kawiti and the soldiers and sailors, and thought, perhaps, that the Maori did not know how to
During this time the fighting was still going on at Koro-rareka, but at last the Maori drew back, and the pakeha remained in the town. The Maori were not beaten, neither were the soldiers. Pumaka had been killed, and many others of Kawiti's people were killed and wounded; several, also, of the pakeha had been killled; and their great toa, the chief of the sailors, was almost dead. So the words of Kawiti proved true; both he and his enemy had done bravely, and had equal success, and both had suffered much.
In the afternoon the Maori began to perceive that the pakeha were leaving the town, and going on board the ships, so they returned to the town and began to plunder, and the people of the town plundered also. So both parties quietly plundered the town of Kororareka, and did not quarrel with one another.
At last all the town people and soldiers went on board the ships, and then the ship of war fired at the Maori people who were plundering in the town. The noise of the firing of the ship guns was very great, and some of Kawiti's people were near being hit by the lumps of iron. This was not right, for the fight was over, and the people were only quietly plundering the town which had been left for them, and which they had given fair payment for. But I suppose the sailors thought their chief was dying, and fired a waipu for his sake. So the sailors may have an argument in their favour; but the Maori did not at the time think of this, so in revenge they burnt Kororareka, and there was nothing left but ashes; and this was the beginning of the war.
[Waipu, the sound of the firing of guns, a volley.]
Well, you pakeha are a noble-minded people. It was very generous of you to give up Kororareka to be plundered and burnt for utu for the Maori. If you had been beaten, you could not have helped it; but, as you were not beaten, I say it was very noble of you to give up the town. You are
I Completed the loading of my dray on a Thursday afternoon in the early part of October, 1860, and determined on making Main's accommodation house that night. Of the contents of the dray I need hardly speak, though perhaps a full enumeration of them might afford no bad index to the requirements of a station; they are more numerous than might at first be supposed—rigidly useful, and rarely if ever ornamental. Flour, tea, sugar, tools, household utensils few and rough, a plough and harrows, doors, windows, farm and garden seeds—these, with a few private effects, formed the main bulk of the contents, amounting to about a ton and a half in weight.
I had only six bullocks, but these were good ones, and worth many a team of eight; a team of eight will draw from two to three tons along a pretty good road. Bullocks are very scarce here; none are to be got under £20, while £30 is no unusual price for a good harness bullock. They can do much more in harness than in bows and yokes, but the expense of harness, and the constant disorder into which it gets, renders it cheaper to use more bullocks in the simpler tackle. Each bullock has its name, and knows it as well as a dog does his. There is generally a tinge of the comic in the names given to them. Many stations have a small mob of cattle from whence to draw their working bullocks, so that a few more or a few less makes little or no difference.
They are not fed with corn at accommodation houses, as horses are; when their work is done they are turned out; to feed till dark, or till eight or nine o'clock. A bullock fills himself, if on pretty good feed, in about three or three hours
The road from Christchurch to Main's is metalled for about four and a half miles. There are fences and fields on both sides, either laid down in English grass or sown with grain. The fences are chiefly low ditches and banks planted with gorse, rarely with quick, [Hawthorn.]
Beyond the completed portion of the road the track continues along the plains unassisted by the hand of man. Before, and behind, and on either hand waves the yellow tussock upon the stony plain, interminably monotonous. On the left, as you go southwards, lies Banks Peninsula, a system of submarine volcanoes culminating in a flattened dome a little more than 3,000ft. high. Cook called it Banks Island, either because it was an island in his day, or because no one, to look at it, would imagine that it was anything else. Most probably the latter is the true reason; though,
We crossed the old river-bed of the Waimakariri, and crawled slowly on to Main's through the descending twilight. One sees Main's about six miles off, and it appears to be about six hours before one reaches it. A little hump for the house, and a longer hump for the stables. The tutu not having yet begun to spring, I yarded my bullocks at Main's.
This demands some explanation. Tutu is a plant which dies away in the winter, and shoots tip anew from the old roots in spring, growing from 6in. to 2ft. or 3ft. in height, sometimes even to 5ft. or 6ft. [Double these heights in the north.]
The seed-stones, however, contained in the dark, pulpy berry are poisonous to man, and cause apoplectic
The next day we made thirteen miles over the plains to the Waikitty (written Waikirikiri) or Selwyn. Still the same monotonous plains, the same interminable tussock, dotted with the same cabbage-trees [Ti, in Maori, i.e., the cordyliné of the botanists; not the tea-troe, which is manuka, pronounced mah'noo-kah.]
On the morrow ten more monotonous miles to the banks of the Rakaia. This river is one of the largest in the province—second only to the Waitangi. It contains about as much water as the Rhone above Martigny, perhaps even more; but it rather resembles an Italian than a Swiss river. With due care it is fordable in many places, though very rarely so when occupying a single channel: It is, however, seldom found in one stream, but flows, like the rest of these rivers, with alternate periods of rapid and comparatively smooth water every few yards.
The place to look for a ford is just above a spit where the river forks into two or more branches. Here there is generally a bar of shingle with shallow water, while immediately below, in each stream, there is a dangerous rapid. A very little practice and knowledge of each river will enable a man to detect a ford at a glance. These fords shift every fresh. In the Waimakariri or Rangitata they occur every quarter of a mile or less, but in the Rakaia you may go three or four miles for a good one. During a fresh the Rakaia is not fordable—at any rate, no one ought to ford it; but the two first-named rivers may be crossed, with great care, in pretty heavy freshes without the water coming higher than the knees of the rider.
But it is always an unpleasant task to cross a river when full without a thorough previous acquaintance with it; then a glance at the colour and consistency of the water will give a good idea whether the fresh is increasing, or at its height, or falling. When the ordinary volume of the stream is known, the height of the water can be estimated
The Rakaia sometimes comes down with a run: a wall of water two feet high, rolling over and over, rushes down with irresistible force. I know a gentleman who had been looking at some sheep upon an island in the Rakaia, and who, after finishing his survey, was riding leisurely to the bank on which his house was situated. Suddenly he saw the river coming down upon him in the manner I have described, and not more than two or three hundred yards off. By a forcible application of the spur he was enabled to reach terra firma just in time to see the water sweeping with an awful roar over the spot that he had been traversing not a second previously. This is not frequent: a fresh generally takes four or five hours to reach its height, and from two days to a week, ten days, or a fortnight to subside again.
If I were to speak of the rise of the Rakaia, or rather of the numerous branches which form it—of their vast and wasteful beds and the glaciers that they spring from; of the wonderful gorge, with its terraces rising shelf upon shelf, like fortifications, many hundred feet above the river; of the crystals found there, and the wild pigs—I should weary the reader too much, and fill half a volume. The bullocks must again claim our attention, and I unwillingly revert to my subject.
On the night of our arrival at the Rakaia I did not yard the bullocks, as they seemed inclined to stay quietly with some others that were about the place. Next morning they were gone! Were they up the river or down the river, across the river, or gone back?
You are at Cambridge, and have lost your bullocks. They were bred in Yorkshire, but have been used a good deal in Dorchester, and consequently may have made in either direction; they may, however, have worked down the Cam, and be in full speed for Lynn; or, again, they may be snugly stowed away in a gully half-way between the Fitzwilliam Museum and Trumpington. You saw a mob of cattle feeding quietly about Madingley on the previous evening, and they may have joined in with these; or were they attracted by-the fine feed in the neighbourhood of Cherryhinton? Where shall you go to look for them?
Matters in reality, however, are not so bad as this. A bullock cannot walk without leaving a track, if the ground he travels on is capable of receiving one. Again, if he does not know the country in advance of him the chances are strong that he has gone back the way he came: he will travel in a track if he happens to light on one; he finds it easier going. Animals are cautious in proceeding onwards when they do not know the ground. They have ever a lion in their path until they know it, and have found it free from beasts of prey. If, however, they have been seen heading decidedly in any direction overnight, in that direction they will most likely be found sooner or later. Bullocks cannot go long without water. They will travel to a river, then they will eat, drink, and be merry; and during that period of fatal security they will be caught.
Ours had gone back ten miles to the Waikitty. We soon obtained clues as to their whereabouts, and had them back in time to proceed on our journey. The river being very low, we did not unload the dray and put the contents across in the boat, but drove the bullocks straight through. Eighteen weary, monotonous miles over the same plains, covered with the same tussock grass, and dotted with the same cabbage-trees. The mountains, however, grew gradually nearer, and Banks Peninsula dwindled perceptibly. That night we made Mr. M—'s station, and were thankful.
Again we did not yard the bullocks, and again we lost them. They were only five miles off; but we did not find them till afternoon, and lost a day. As they had travelled in all nearly forty miles, I had had mercy upon them, intending that they should fill themselves well during the night, and be ready for a long pull next day. Even the merciful man himself, however, would except a working bullock from the beasts who have any claim upon his good feeling. Let him go straining his eyes examining every dark spot in a circumference many miles in extent; let him gallop a couple of miles first in one direction and then in another, and discover that he has only been lessening the distance between himself and a group of cabbage-trees; let him feel the word "bullock" eating itself in indelible characters into his heart, and he will refrain from mercy to working bullocks as long as he lives.
But as there are few positive pleasures equal in intensity to the negative one of release from pain, so it is when at last a group of six oblong objects, five dark and one white, appear in remote distance distinct and unmistakable. Yes, they are our bullocks. A sigh of relief follows; and we drive them sharply home, gloating over their distended tongues and slobbering mouths. If there is one thing a bullock hates worse than another it is being driven too fast. His heavy lumbering carcase is mated with a no less lumbering soul. He is a good, steady, patient slave if you let him take his own time about it; but do not hurry him. He has played a very important part in the advancement of civilisation and the development of the resources of the world—a part which the more fiery horse could not have played. Let us then bear with his heavy trailing gait and uncouth movements; only next time we will keep him tight, even though he starve for it. If bullocks be invariably driven sharply back to the dray whenever they have strayed from it they will soon learn not to go far off, and will be cured even of the most inveterate vagrancy.
Now we follow up one branch of the Ashburton, and commence making straight for the mountains; still, however, we are on the same monotonous plains, and crawl our twenty miles with very few objects that can possibly serve as landmarks. It is wonderful how small an object gets a name in the great dearth of features. Cabbage-Tree Hill, half-way between Main's and the Waikitty, is an almost imperceptible rise, some ten yards across and two or three feet high: the cabbage-trees have disappeared. Between the Rakaia and Mr. M. —'s station is a place they call the Half-way Gully, but it is neither a gully nor half-way, being only a grip in the earth, causing no perceptible difference in the level of the track, and extending but a few yards on either side of it. So between Mr. M. —'s and the next halting-place I remember nothing but a rather curiously shaped kowhai tree and a dead bullock, that can form milestones, as it were, to mark progress. Each person, however, for himself makes innumerable ones, such as where one peak in the mountain range goes behind another, and so on.
In the small river Ashburton, or rather in one of its smallest branches, we had a little misunderstanding with
The next morning, however, we started anew, and, after abont three or four miles, entered the valley of the south and larger Ashburton, bidding adieu to the plains completely. And now that I approach the description of the gorge I feel utterly unequal to the task, not because the scene is awful or beautiful, for in this respect the gorge of the Ashburton is less remarkable than most, but because the subject of gorges is replete with difficulty; and I never heard a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena they exhibit. It is not, however, my province to attempt this. I must content myself with narrating what I see.
First there is the river, flowing very rapidly upon a bed of large shingle, with alternate rapids and smooth places, constantly forking and constantly reuniting itself like tangled skeins of silver ribbon surrounding lozenge-shaped islets of sand and gravel. On either side is a long flat composed of shingle similar to the bed of the river itself, but covered with vegetation — tussock, and scrub, with fine feed for sheep or cattle among the burnt "Irishman" [A thorny shrub, Discaria]
I have not seen a single river in Canterbury which is not more or less terraced even below the gorge. The angle of the terrace is always very steep: I seldom see one less than 45°. One always has to get off and lead one's horse down, except where an artificial cutting has been made, or advantage can he taken of some gully that descends into the flat below, Tributary streams are terraced in like manner on a small scale, while even the mountain creeks repeat the phenomena in miniature, the terraces being always highest where the river emerges from its gorge, and slowly dwindling down as it approaches the sea, till finally, instead of the river being many hundred feet below the level of the plains, as is the case at the foot of the mountains, the plains near the sea are considerably below the water in the river, as on the north side of the Rakaia, before described.
Our road lay up the Ashburton, which we had repeatedly to cross and re-cross. A dray going through a river is a pretty sight enough when you are utterly unconcerned in the contents thereof. The rushing water stemmed by the bullocks and the dray; the energetic appeals of the driver to Tommy or Nobbler to lift the dray over the large stones in the river; the creaking dray; the cracking whip—these form a tout ensemble rather agreeable than otherwise. But when the bullocks, having pulled the dray into the middle of the river, refuse entirely to pull it out again; when the leaders turn sharp round and look at you, or stick their heads under the bellies of the polers; when the gentle pats on the forehead with the stock of the whip prove unavailing, and you are obliged to have recourse to strong measures, it is less agreeable, especially if the animals turn just after having got your dray half-way up the bank, and, twisting it round upon a steeply inclined surface, throw the centre of gravity far beyond the base: over goes the dray into the water. Alas, my sugar! my tea! my flour! my crockery! It is all over —drop the curtain.
I beg leave to state that my dray did not upset this lime. …
We made about seventeen miles, and crossed the river ten times, so that the bullocks, which had never before been accustomed to river work, became quite used to it, and, manageable, and have continued so ever since.
We left the dray and went on some two or three miles on foot, for the purpose of camping where there was firewood. There was a hut, too, in the place for which we were making. It was not yet roofed, and had neither door nor window; but, as it was near firewood and water, we made for it, had supper, and turned in.
In the middle of the night some one, poking his nose out of his blanket, informed us that it was snowing; and in the morning we found it continuing to do so, with a good sprinkling on the ground. We thought nothing of it; and, returning to the dray, found the bullocks, put them to, and started on our way. But when we came above the gully, at the bottom of which, the hut lay, we were obliged to give in. There was a very bad creek, which we tried in vain for an hour or so to cross. The snow was falling very thickly, and driving right into the bullocks' faces. We were all very cold and weary, and determined to go down to the hut again, expecting fine weather in the morning.
We carried down a kettle, a camp oven, some flour, tea, sugar, and salt bcef; also a novel or two, and the future towels of the establishment, which wanted hemming; also the two cats. Thus equipped, we went down the gully, and got back to the hut about three o'clock in the afternoon. The gully sheltered us, and there the snow was kind and warm, though bitterly cold on the terrace. We threw a few burnt Irishman sticks across the top of the walls and put a couple of counterpanes over them, thus obtaining a little shelter near the fire. The snow inside the hut was about six inches deep, and soon became sloppy, so that at night we preferred to make a hole in the snow and sleep outside.
The fall continued all that night, and in the morning we found ourselves thickly covered. It was still snowing hard, so there was no stirring. We read the novels, hemmed the towels, smoked, and took it philosophically. There was plenty of firewood to keep us warm. By night the snow was fully two feet thick everywhere, and in the drifts five and six feet.
About fifteen miles from Cape Brett, and on the same side of the Bay, juts out a promontory of considerable size. Upon the inner side of this stands Kororareka, capital of the Bay, and its port of entry. Officialism has recently been trying very hard to alter the name of this place into Russell, which action is very much deprecated by settlers, who insist upon retaining the old Native name. The reason for the proposed change is not very clear; and why this particular town should have been so singled out is equally inexplicable to the unofficial mind.
It seems to be a great pity, in any case, to bestow such names as Smithville, and Russell, and New London upon growing settlements, the future cities of a future nation. It is a pity because they are not distinctive, nor expressive of the country upon which they are grafted. How much better to retain the old Native names, which carry with them sound and meaning both original and peculiar!
In New Zealand, Native names have been very largely retained, though less so in the South than in the North. But jacks-in-office are for ever trying to perpetuate their own names, or those of individuals to whom they toady, by making them do duty for towns or counties or rivers. It is a "vulgarian atrocity," similar to that which moves a cockney soul to scratch its ignoble appellative upon pyramid or monolith.
In this particular instance it is a positive shame to hurl such an insulting degradation into our classic ground. Kororareka, under that name, is the oldest settlement in the colony. It is intimately associated with early history. Kororareka—"the beach of shells" —was once a Native [Village—literally eating-place. kainga.Kaiha in the South Island.]
Kororareka is a quiet little village now, and is never likely to grow into much more, unless it should become a manufacturing centre. Other places must take the trade of the district eventually. Hence Kororareka will always rest its chief claim to note upon its past history; so to call it. Russell is to spoil its little romance.
As you come into sight of Kororareka from the bay you are favourably impressed by its appearance. The town stands upon a wide flat, bordered by a high beach of white shingle and shells, from the centre of which a large wharf runs out for shipping to come alongside. A street of houses, principally stores and hotels, faces the beach, and gives the place all the air of a miniature Brighton or Margate. Some other straggling streets run back from this. The background is a low, grassy range, evidently farm lands. This range shuts out all view of the bay on the other side of the promontory. To the right it merges into the mountain-track that sentinels the Waikare and Kawakawa estuaries. On the left rises an abrupt and wooded hill, fissured with many romantic little glens and hollows.
From this eminence, to which a road winds up from the town through the woods, a most magnificent view is obtainable. A great part of the panorama of this island-studded harbour lies stretched below one's feet; and on the highest crest is a certain famous flagstaff. Kororareka is not very large: the resident population is probably not more than two or three hundred. Farming industry round it is comparatively small. Its communication overland with other places is not good, and the hilly character of the contiguous land presents great difficulties in the way of the formation of roads. The place depends on its harbour, which is much used by whalers, who come here to tranship or sell oil, and to take in supplies. Quiet and dead-alive as it seems in general, there are times when a number of vessels are assembled here, and when business is consequently pretty brisk.
Before settled government and colonisation overtook New Zealand this spot had achieved an unsavoury reputation. Originally a Native town, it had become the resort of whaling-ships. Traders established themselves here, and a rowdy population of runaway sailors, ex-convicts, bad characters, and debauched Maoris filled the place. Drunkenness and riot were the general order of things; and it was
One of the most interesting stories relating to the Bay of Islands is that of the first Maori war, which was waged around it from 1845 to 1847. It has been related often enough, and I can only find room for some very brief details. Such as they are, they are mostly gathered from the oral narrations of eye-witnesses, both English and Maori, whose testimony I feel more inclined to believe than that of some printed accounts I have seen.
Hone Heke was the leader of one of the sections into which the great Nga-Puhi Tribe had split after the death of the celebrated Hongi Hika, who expired 5th March, 1828. Captain Hobson's friend Tamati Waka was chief of another section; while Kawiti, another chief, headed a third. These persons were then paramount over pretty nearly the whole region lying between Mangonui and the Kaipara. They had been among the confederate chiefs whom the British Government recognised as independent in 1835, and their signatures were subsequently attached to the Treaty of Waitangi.
Shortly after the proclamation of New Zealand as a British possession, Governor Hobson, seeing that Kororareka was unsuited for a metropolis, removed the seat of government to the Waitemata, and there commenced a settlement which is now the City of Auckland. Order had been restored in the former place, but its importance and its trade now fell away.
The Nga-Puhi had some grievances to put up with. The trade of the Bay was much lessened; import duties raised the price of commodities, while the growing importance of Auckland gave advantages to the neighbouring tribes—the
It needed but little to foment the discontent of a somewhat turbulent ruler such as Hone Heke. In the year 1844 this chief, visiting Kororareka, and probably venting his dissatisfaction at the new régime pretty loudly, was incited by certain of the bad characters, who had previously had all their own way in the place. They taunted him with having become the slave of a woman, showing him the flag, and explaining that it meant his slavery to Queen Victoria, In such a way they proceeded to work upon his feelings, probably without other intention than to "take a rise" out of the Maori's misconception of the matter.
Hone Heke took the thing seriously. He said that he did not consider himself subject to any one. He was an independent chief, merely in alliance with the British, and had signed the Treaty of Waitangi in expectation of receiving certain rewards thereby, which, it appeared, had been changed into penalties. As for the flag, if that was an emblem of slavery, a pakeha fetish, or an insult to Maoridom, it was clear that it ought to be removed, and he was the man to do it.
Accordingly, he and his followers then present marched at once up the hill above Kororareka, and cut down the flagstaff that had been set up there. Then they withdrew quietly enough. The settlers were much disconcerted, having no means of coercing Heke, and not knowing to what this might lead. However, they set the flagstaff up again.
Hone Heke appeared once more with his band, this time in fierce anger. They cut down the restored flagstaff, and either threw it into the sea, or burnt it, or carried it off. Heke also threatened to destroy Kovorareka if any attempt was made to fly the British flag again.
H.M.S. Hazard now came up from Auckland, where considerable excitement agitated the young settlement. The flagstaff was again restored, and this time a small blockhouse was built round it, which was garrisoned by half a dozen soldiers.
Now, Hongi Hika, before his death, had enjoined a certain policy upon his successors. He had told them pakeka as came to preach, to farm, or to trade. These were not to be plundered or maltreated in any way. They were friends whose presence could only tend to the advantage of the Maori. But the English Sovereign kept certain people whose only business was to fight. They might be known by the red coats they wore, and by having stiff necks with a collar round them. "Kill these wherever you sec them," said Hongi, "or they will kill you."
So Hone Heke sent an ultimatum into Kororareka to the effect that, on a certain specified day, he would burn the town, cut down the flagstaff, and kill the soldiers. The attack was fixed for night, and it came with exact punctuality. Most of the inhabitants Look refuge on board the Hazard with some other craft then lying in the harbour. While these prepared to guard the beach from a canoe attack, Captain Robertson, of the Hazard, with some forty marines and blue-jackets, aided also by a party of settlers, took up a position on the landward side of the town.
Hone Heke's own mind seems to have been occupied with the flagstaff. The main attack he left to Kawiti, who had joined him with five hundred men. Heke himself, with a chosen band, crept round unperceived through the bush, and lay in wait near the top of the flagstaff hill in a little dingle, which is yet pointed out to visitors. Here they lay for some hours awaiting the signal of Kawiti's attack upon the town below. While in this position, Heke kept his men quiet by reading the Bible to them, expounding as he read; for all these Nga-Puhi, whether friends or foes, were professed Christians at that period.
By-and-by the sound of firing and shouting in the town, together with the blazing of some of the houses, attracted the attention of the soldiers in the little block-house round the flagstaff. Unsuspecting any danger close at hand, they came out on to the hill, the better to descry what was doing below. Then Heke's ambush sprang suddenly up, and rushed between them and the open door of the block-house, thus capturing it, and either killing or putting to flight the startled soldiers.
Meanwhile a furious battle was taking place in Kororareka. Captain Robertson and his small force were outflanked and driven in upon the town, fighting bravely and
This was the first engagement during the war, and was a decided success for the rebels. The fall of Kororareka took place 11th March, 1845, Heke having first cut down the flagstaff in July of the previous year.
The news reached Auckland a day or two later, and something like a panic occurred there. The settlers were armed and enrolled at once, and the place prepared for defence, for it was said that Heke and Kawtti had determined to destroy that settlement as well. Had they been able to march upon it at once it is possible that their attack could not have been successfully withstood, so limited were the means of defence at that time.
But Tainati Waka, the stout-hearted friend of the British, led out his section of the Nga-Puhi at once, and took up arms against their kinsmen under Heke. He prevented the rebels from leaving their own districts, and thus saved Auckland, allowing time for reinforcements to reach New Zealand, and so for the war to be carried into Heke's own country. All through the campaign he did efficient service on our behalf, contributing much to the final establishment of peace.
Tamati Waka Nene, to give him his full name, had been a savage cannibal warrior in the days of Hongi. On one occasion he had led a tana, or war-party, of the Nga-Puhi far to the south of Hauraki Gulf, destroying and literally eating up a tribe in the Katikati district. Subsequently he embraced Christianity and civilisation; but it is evident that the old warrior spirit was strong in him to the last. He was an extremely sagacious and intelligent politician, fully comprehending the advantages that must accrue to his race from British rule. He enjoyed a Government pension for some years after the war, and when he died a handsome monument was erected over his remains in Kororareka Churchyard. It stands not far from where bullet and axe
When Heke found himself pledged to war, he sent intimations to all the settlers living about Waimate, Kerikeri, and the north of the Bay—mostly missionary families. He said he had no quarrel with them, and would protect their persons and property if they would trust him. Some remained, and some took refuge in Auckland. Those who stayed were never in any way molested; Heke kept his word to them to the letter. But of those who fled he allowed his men to pillage the farms and houses, by way of utu for not believing him.
[Payment, retaliation.]
As soon as the authorities were in a position to do so, they sent a strong force into the Bay district, to operate in conjunction with Tamati Waka's men in putting down the insurrection. Three engagements were fought, resulting in advantage to the British.
The rebels were then besieged in the fortified pa of Ohaeawai, some twenty-five miles inland. No artillery had been brought up, and the consequence was that our troops were repulsed from before this pa again and again, with severe loss. But the victory was too much for the rebels, who suffered considerably themselves, and ran short of ammunition. One night they silently evacuated the place, which was entered next day by the British, and afterwards destroyed.
Very similar experiences followed shortly after at the pa of Okaihau. Finally, in 184.7, the insurgents were beleaguered in the pa of Ruapekapeka, situated near the Waikare. This they considered impregnable, and it was indeed magnificently defended with earthworks and palisades, arranged in such a manner as to excite the wonder and admiration of engineers. A model of it was subsequently made and sent to England.
Some artillery had now been got up, with immense labour and difficulty, owing to the rugged character of the ground. These guns were brought to bear upon the pa. But the Maoris had hung quantities of loose flax over the palisades, which fell into place after the passage of a ball, and hid the breach it had made. Thus the besiegers could
The pa was taken in rather a curious way. It happened that no engagement had been fought on a Sunday, and the rebels, being earnest Christians, and having—as Maoris have to this day—a respect for the Sabbath, exceeding even that of the Scots, concluded that an armistice was a matter of course. When Sunday morning came they went out of the pa at the back to hold worship after their mariner. Tamati Waka's men, perceiving this, conquered their own sabbatical leanings, and, finding an opening, rushed into the pa, followed by the British troops. The disconcerted worshippers attempted to retake the pa, but were speedily routed and scattered.
This event terminated the war. The insurgents were broken and disheartened, their numbers reduced, their strongholds captured, and their ammunition exhausted. All the sections of the rebel tribe have been perfectly peaceable ever since, and take pride in the epithet earned by Tamati Waka's force, the "loyal Nga-Puhi."
When Heke's people heard that the soldiers were coming most of them left him, and there remained but two hundred men. Then Heke left Te Ahuahu and came and built a pa not far from Taumata Tutu, on the clear ground by the lake; for he said he would fight the soldiers on the spot where the last words of Hongi Hika had been spoken. The name of this pa of Heke's was Te Kahika.
Now, when this new fort of Heke's was finished the spirit of the Nakahi entered into To Atua Wera, who is the greatest
[Nakahi, for serpent, is not Maori. It is adapted from the Hebrew word in Gen. iii.]
So Heke waited there at his fort at Mawhe, near Taumata Tutu, for the coming of the soldiers; and before long they arrived at Walker's [The writer uses the English name Walker for the Maori name Waka—i.e., Tamati Waka Nene.]
What could be the reason that the pakeha, who knew the country, did not tell the soldiers to come up the Kerikeri in boats, and then along the cart road to the turn-off to Okaihau? If they had done this they could have brought big guns in the boats, and provisions, and put them in carts at the Kerikeri, and come along the cart road till they were not far from Walker's camp. If they had done this the big guns would have knocked down the pa, for it was a very weak one, and it would have been taken, and the war would have ended; for it was because this very weak pa was not taken that the Maori kept on fighting, and that so many men were afterwards killed on both sides. Heke certainly had many friends amongst the Europeans, as why should he not?
But the soldiers had with them a light gun, called a rocket; and this gun had a great name. It was said that it would go into the pa, and twist and turn about in pursuit of the people until it had killed them every one. When we heard this we were sorry for Heke and his people, and were in great fear for ourselves lest it should turn round upon us also.
When the soldiers had rested one night at Okaihau, they prepared to attack Heke's pa; but early in the morning, when they were getting something to eat, we observed many of them eating standing up. This gave us a good deal of uneasiness, for it has an unlucky look to see warriors before going to battle eat their food standing; they should sit down and eat quietly, as if nothing was going to happen out of the common. But, as I have said before, the soldiers are very inexperienced in these matters.
When they had done eating, they formed to march to attack Heke. What a fine-looking people these soldiers are! Fine, tall, handsome people, they all look like chiefs; and their advance is like the advance of a flight of curlew in the air, so orderly and straight. And along with the soldiers came the sailors. They are of a different hapu, and not at all related to the soldiers; but they are a brave people, and they came to seek revenge for the relations they had lost in the fight at Kororareka. They had different clothes from the soldiers, and short guns, and long heavy swords. They were a people who talked and laughed more than the soldiers, and they flourished their guns about as they advanced; and they ate tobacco.
So the soldiers, sailors, and other Europeans advanced to the attack of Heke's pa, and with them came also Walker and his men. But before we had gone far we observed the soldiers carrying on their shoulders certain things made of cloth and wood. These things were rolled up, and we did not know the use of them; so we asked what they were, and were told they were kaukoa on which to carry the dead or wounded. This was the worst of all: there were those soldiers going to battle, and actually carrying on their shoulders things to put themselves on when they were dead.
[Kauhoa, a litter.]
So we began to say one to another, "Those soldiers walking there are all dead men: it only wants a few guns to be fired and they will be all killed." Then some of the chiefs told some of the chiefs of the soldiers what a dreadfully unlucky thing they were doing; but they all laughed, and said that they came there to fight, and that whenever people fought some one was sure to be killed or wounded, and that it was right to have something to carry them on. But our people said it was time enough to think of carrying a man when he could not stand, and that by what they were doing they were calling for death and destruction; and they tried hard to get the soldiers to throw away these things, but the soldiers would not listen to them.
Then we all said, "This is not a war party here marching on this plain, but a funeral procession." So all the Maori left the soldiers, and went and sat on the top of the hill called Taumata Kakaramu, except about forty men, Walker's relations, who would not leave him. We felt sorry for the soldiers; but we said, "Let them fight their own battle to-day, and if they are successful we will help them in every other fight." But no one could believe they would be successful.
At last the soldiers and sailors got before Heke's pa. The main body of the soldiers remained opposite to it, at the side next to Walker's camp; the rest, about one hundred men, sailors and soldiers, went round by the shore of the lake, which was on the right of the pa, and so got behind it. On that side there was but one slight fence, and no pekerangi.
[Outermost fence of a stockade.]
The soldiers had told us in the morning that they would rush on both sides of the pa at once, and that it would be taken in a moment, and that then they would come home to breakfast.
So now the soldiers were in front of the pa, and also behind it; and on the right was the lake, and on the left was Walker with about forty men, and behind Walker there was a wood: he was between the wood and the pa.
Then the soldiers who bad the rocket gun went a little to the left front of the pa and set the gun upon its legs, pa. Then all the people on the top of Taumata Kakaramu fixed their eyes on this gun. We watched it closely, and held our breath, and had great fear for the people in the pa. For, although against us, they were all Nga-Puhi of the same iwi as ourselves, and many of them our near relations; and we never expected to see them more, by reason of this gun: we had heard so much of it.
[Tribe.]
At last, a great smoke was seen to issue from one end of the gun, and the rocket came out of the other. At first it did not go very fast; but it had not gone very far before it began to flame and roar, and darted straight towards the pa. It had a supernatural appearance, and rushed upon the pa like a falling star; but just as it was about to enter the pa it swerved from its course, touched the ground outside, and then rose and flew away over the pa without doing any harm. No one could tell where that first rocket went to. It was the Nakahi, the familiar spirit of Te Atua Wera, who had blown upon it with his breath and turned it away, according to his word when he spoke by the mouth of the tohunga; for up to this time Heke and his people had kept strictly all the sacred customs, and infringed none of them. So the Nakahi remained, guarding them from all danger.
When we saw that the first rocket had gone by the pa and done no harm, we all gave a great sigh, and our minds were eased. A second rocket was fired, and a third, and so on till they were all gone; but not one did any harm, for the Nakahi had turned them all away: not one entered the pa.
Now, before the first rocket was fired, Heke came out of the front gate of the pa to watch the effect of the rocket; and he stood outside, praying a Maori prayer, and holding with one hand to a post of the fence. Then the first rocket was fired. It came very near him, and passed away without doing any harm. Then another was fired, and missed also; and when Heke saw this, he cried out in aloud voice, "What prize can be won by such a gun?" And this has become a saying amongst us from that day; for, whenever we hear a man boasting of what he can do, we think of
When the first rocket was fired it frightened all the dogs in the pa, and they ran barking away over the plain; and also one slave ran out of the pa. He was very much frightened, and he ran away by a path which went; between the hundred soldiers and sailors, who were behind the pa, and Walker's people, who were at the left side of it. This slave never stopped running till he came to a place called Kai Namu, where Kawiti, who had marched all night to relieve Heke, had just arrived. And the slave ran up to Kawiti and his people, and began to cry out, "Oh! the soldiers have a frightful gun; it comes roaring and flaming"— Here Kawiti stopped him, and said, "I know all about all sorts of guns. All guns will kill, and all guns will also miss: this is the nature of guns. But if you say one more word I will split your head with my tomahawk." So the slave became more afraid of Kawiti than he was of the rocket, and he ran away back to Heke, and told him that Kawiti with help was close at hand.
When all the rockets had been fired, then the hundred men, soldiers and sailors, who were at the back of the pa arose out of an old Maori parepare, where they had been sheltered, and, giving a great shout, turned to rush against the
[Breastwork.]
[Line or column of men.]
And as Heke was saying this the soldiers and sailors had begun to move towards the pa, when suddenly Kawiti with one hundred and forty men appeared close upon their right, and fired upon them. Then the soldiers turned quickly to the right, and attacked Kawiti: they were close to each other, and some fought hand to hand. Then the soldiers were pressed back, and forced to give way before the rush of Kawiti and his men; but soon they rallied to the call of their chiefs, and charged with the bayonet. A close fight ensued, in which twenty of Kawiti's men were slain, and many wounded. Several of them were chiefs, and among them was one oi Kawiti's sons, being the
Kawiti's men then retreated, and the soldiers chased them as far as the path in the hollow, which leads to Ahuahu. There the last Maori was killed by the foremost soldier. There is a stone placed where the Maori fell, and close to that stone, by the side of the path, the soldier is also buried, for there a shot from the pa struck him, and he fell. He was a great toa, that soldier. In this fight, whenever he pointed his gun, a man fell, and he ran so fast in pursuit that there was no escape from him; but he fell there: for such is war. The musket is a bad weapon—the worst of all weapons—for, let a man be as brave as he may, he cannot stand up before it long. Great chiefs are killed from a distance by no one knows who, and the strength of a warrior is useless against it.
As the soldiers chased Kawiti the pa fired on them from the left, so that they had Kawiti in front and the pa on the left, both firing, and therefore they lost many men. But, having beaten Kawiti off, they returned and took shelter in the Maori breastwork, and began again to fire at the pa. So they fired, and the pa returned the fire, and the main body of the soldiers who were at the front of the pa fired. Lead whistled through the air in all directions; the whole country seemed on fire, and brave men worked their work.
Then Tupori, a chief who was in the pa with Heke, saw that Kawiti had elevated his name, for he had fought the soldiers hand to hand twice—once at Kororareka, and once on this day. Seeing this, Tupori wished also to do something to make his name heard. He therefore cried out for only twenty men to follow him, and he would charge the soldiers.
Then twenty men rushed out of the pa with Tupori; they ran straight up the hill to the breastwork, the soldiers firing on them all the time, but without hitting one man. So Tupori and his twenty men came quite up to the breastwork, and stood upon the top of the bank, and fired their double-barrel guns in the soldiers' faces, and drove them out of the breastwork.
The soldiers retreated a short distance, and Tupori and his people began collecting the bundles of cartridges which the soldiers had left behind. And while they were doing pa, and as they ran the soldiers fired at their backs, and killed two men, and wounded Tupori in the leg. The rest got safe into the pa, and took Tupori and the two dead men along with them. Great is the courage of Tupori! He has made his name heard as that of a toa.
But it was not right for the soldiers to curse the Maori; for up to this time nothing wrong had been done on either side, and so the Maori were much surprised to hear the soldiers cursing and swearing at them.
After this the soldiers fired at the pa all day, but only killed three men, besides the two killed in the charge of Tupori: these five were all that were killed belonging to the pa, that day. When it was near night the soldiers went back to Walker's camp at Okaihau, taking with them their wounded, and also two or three dead; but about ten dead were left behind at Taumata Tutu, where they fell in the fight with Kawiti.
So Heke remained in possession of the battle-plain, and his pa was not taken; and he buried the dead of the soldiers. But one soldier, who had been wounded and left behind by the side of the lake, was found next morning by two slaves. They pretended to be friends, and got his gun from him, and then they took him to the lake and held his head under water till he was dead.
The morning after the battle the soldiers returned to the Kerikeri, and Walker went with his people to help them to carry the wounded. And Hauraki, the young chief of the Hikutu, went also with thirteen oi his people to assist in carrying the wounded soldiers. The rest of his tribe, being one hundred men, remained behind at Okaihau, for it was not expected there would be any more fighting for some days.
[This is in continuation of "Heke at Te Kahika."]Butpa at Taumata Tutu.
When the soldiers and Walker's people came to the Bay of Islands, they each separated a party to attack the Kapotai. They went up the Waikare River in the night in canoes and boats with great precaution, hoping to surprise the Kapotai, and so to revenge their dead who had fallen at Taumata Tutu. But before they got near to the pa, the wild ducks in the river started up and flew over the pa; which alarmed the Kapotai, and caused them to suspect that an enemy was coming up the river. So they took arms and watched for the approach of the war party.
Soon the soldiers were near, but it was not yet daylight. Then the men of the Kapotai called out, "If you are Maori warriors who come in the night, come on, we will give you battle; but if you are soldiers, here is our pa, we give it you." They soon discovered the soldiers, and then they went out at the back of the pa, and left it for the soldiers to plunder, as payment for Kororareka; which was very right. So the soldiers and Walker's Maori plundered the pa of the Kapotai, and killed all the pigs.
After the Kapotai pa had been plundered and burnt, Walker and his men went in pursuit of the Kapotai, who had retreated into the forest; but the soldiers remained behind on the clear ground near the pa. Walker, Mohi, and Repa went into the woods with three hundred men, followed the Kapotai, and overtook them. When the Kapotai perceived that they were followed, their anger was very great; so they turned, and fought with great courage against Walker. Walker was nob able to beat them, so they remained a long time fighting in the forest.
But Hauraki, the young Hikutu chief, with his thirteen men, had taken another path; and he met the young chief of the Kapotai, who had with him sixty men. They were both young men, and fighting for a name; so a desperate fight began. Hauraki and his thirteen men thought not of the light of the sun or the number of the enemy; their only thought was of war, and to elevate their names. It was a close fight, and whenever the rifle of Hauraki was heard a man fell; and soon he had killed or wounded several of the Kapotai, who began to fall back.
Then Hauraki cried out to the retreating Kapotai, "Fly away on the wings of the wood-pigeon, and feed on the berries of the wood, for I have taken your land." Then a certain slave of the Kapotai said, "That is Hauraki, a very noble-born man. He is a chief of Te Hikutu, and of Te Rarawa, and of Te Ngati-Kuri." Now, when Hari, the young Kapotai chief, heard this, he cried aloud to Hauraki, saying, "Swim you away on the backs of the fish of the sea, there is no land for you here."
Then these two young warriors drew nearer to each other. Hauraki had just loaded his rifle, but the caps which he had were too small, and he was a long time trying to put on the cap. While he was doing this, Hari fired at him, and the ball struck him on the breast, and passed out at his back; but so great was his strength and courage that he did not fall, but took another cap and fixed it, and then fired at the Kapotai chief; and the ball struck him on the side under the armpit, and went out at the other armpit. So Hari staggered and fell dead. When Hauraki saw this he said, "I die not unrevenged," and then sank gently to the ground.
Then two of his people led him away towards the rear. The Kapotai also carried away their chief; and then, enraged at his death, rushed upon the Hikutu, who were now only eight in number, the rest having been killed or wounded. These eight were tino tangata but were too few in number, and had lost their chief; so when the Kapotai rushed upon them they lost heart and fled, and the Kapotai chased them.
[Emphatically men; splendid men.]
Soon the foremost of the flying Hikutu overtook Hauraki and the two men who were leading him off. Then Hauraki said, "Do not remain with me to die, but hide me in the fern and escape yourselves; and go to my relation Walker, and tell him to muster all his people, and come and carry me off." Then they all pressed their noses to the nose of Hauraki, one after another. And tears fell fast; and the balls from the guns of the Kapotai whistled round their heads. So while some returned the fire of the enemy, others hid Hauraki in the long fern. When this was done they all fled, and escaped with great difficulty; for while they were hiding Hauraki the Kapotai had surrounded them, and they would never have escaped at all but for the great courage of Kaipo and Te Pake, Hauraki's cousins, who broke through the Kapotai, and opened a way for the rest.
Now, when Hauraki's eight men got on the clear ground they found that the soldiers were getting into the boats to go away; and Walker, Mohi, and Repa had just come out of the forest from fighting with the Kapotai. Hauraki's cousins ran to Walker, and said, "Our friend is left behind wounded in the forest, and likely to be taken by the Kapotai." Walker was very much dismayed when he heard this; and he and Mohi ran to the chiefs of the soldiers and desired them to remain for a short time till he should rescue Hauraki. But the soldiers could not understand what Walker meant, for the interpreter had already gone away in one of the boats.
There was great confusion, every one trying to get away;. and Walker's men were also getting into their canoes and going away; and boats and canoes were running foul of each other, and the creek was choked with them. Then came the Kapotai in great force with their allies out of the forest, and commenced firing on the departing tana from a distance of about two hundred fathoms.
The soldiers and Walker got away and returned to Kororareka, and left Hauraki lying alone in the forest, for they were sick of fighting, So he lay there till midnight; and the night was wet and cold; and he kept continually thinking what a disgrace it would be to his family if he should be taken alive. And as he lay thus he saw the spirit of the greatest warrior of all his
So Hauraki arose, and travelled a long way in the night till he found a small canoe by the river side. Then he pulled down the river towards the Bay of Islands till the canoe was upset, and he swam on shore.
When he got to the shore he was almost dead; but near to where he landed was the house of a pakeha, and the mother of this pakeha was Hauraki's cousin. So that pakeha took him, and concealed hint in the house, and took care of him; and before the middle of the day a party of Walker's men arrived there in seach of him. So they took him to the Bay of Islands, and the doctors of the soldiers did what they could to cure him, but without success. So his tribe, who had arrived at Okaihau, carried him home to his own place at Hokianga, where he died.
When Hauraki died, and his body lay at Whirinaki to be seen for the last time by his relations, there was a great gathering of the Rarawa and Nga-Puhi, to fulfil the last rites due to a chief. And when the pihe had been sung, then the chiefs arose one after another to speak in praise of the dead. This was the speech of Te Anu, he who is known as having been in his youth the best spearsman of all the Nga-Puhi tribes. Bounding to and fro before the corpse, with his famous spear in his hand, he spoke as follows: "Farewell, Hauraki! Go, taking with you your kindness and hospitality, your generosity and valour, and leave none behind who can fill your place. Your death was noble; you revenged yourself with your own hand; you saved yourself without the help of any man. Your life was short; but so it is with heroes. Farewell, O Hauraki, farewell!"
[Funeral chant.]
At this time it was night, and the sister of Hauraki, and also his young wife, went in the dark and sat beside the river. They sat weeping silently, and spinning a cord wherewith to strangle themselves. The flax was wet with their tears. And as they did this the moon arose. So when the sister of Hauraki saw the rising moon she broke
At this time men came who were in search of these women, and prevented the sister of Hauraki from killing herself at that time. They watched her for several days, but she died of grief. But the wife of Hauraki consented to live, that she might rear her son, so that he might fight with the Kapotai on a future day. So she called his name Maiki, which is the name of the hill on which stood the flagstaff the cutting down of which was the cause of the war. He was therefore called by this name, that he might always be reminded of his father's death.
The lament of the sister of Hauraki was sung by all the divisions of all the Nga-Puhi, from the west coast to Tokerau. And when Walker heard it he was displeased, and said, "It is wrong to sing about eating the Governor, for soon people who do not know the song well may make mistakes, and sing, 'Oh, that I might eat Heke!' which would be the worst of all. As for the priests or soothsayers, it is no matter: they are a set of fools." So now, when people sing that lament they only say, "Oh, that I might eat the numerous tohunga!"
So Hauraki was taken to Te Ramaroa, a cave in the mountains, behind Whirinaki, where his ancestors are buried. Then three hundred men of Te Hikutu, Ngati-Kuri, Te Rarawa, and Walker's people armed themselves and entered the country of the Kapotai to fire powder in remembrance of Hauraki. They destroyed the cultivations, and got much plunder; but the Kapotai retired to the forest, and would not light, for they knew this was a war party of the tribe of Hauraki, who came bearing the weapons of grief, and therefore they would not light. So the taua came to the spot where Hauraki had fallen, and there fired many volleys rangatira thought. When Heke heard of the death of Hauraki he said, "Now, if I am slain in this war it matters not; for there is no greater Nga-Puhi chief than Hauraki." What Heke said was true; but he said it to please Te Hikutu, for Heke is a man of many thoughts.
[One morning in August, 1862, Dunedin woke up to experience a fresh excitement. The Otago Daily Times announced in sensational type the arrival of Hartley and Reilly from the Dunstan Range, with 87lb. weight of gold. This news confirmed the flying rumours of the previous evening; there was no room for doubt or conjecture—the gold was deposited, and the provincial authorities had received the prospectors' claim for the reward, £2,000. The importance of the discovery lay in the fact that the locality was so far distant from the older diggings. Nothing but "Dunstan" was spoken of. Here was a discovery before which Gabriel Read's faded into insignificance—it proved such a vast area of the province to be auriferous, and the days in which the old identities had prophesied "the gold would be all scratched out" seemed to be very remote. Where was Dunstan? Very few had even heard of it—it was the Ultima Thule. The three or four squatters who had migrated there with their flocks and herds rarely visited Dunedin in those days, and they alone knew. It was described by Hartley as on the banks of the Clutha, above the Manuherekia Junction; the distance was estimated at one hundred and fifty miles from the city, and though this matter was exaggerated, it was difficult to overstate the I.e., the Clutha.]
There were two routes by which the Dunstan could be reached from Dunedin: one by the West Taieri, the Lammer-muir Range, and the Rock and Pillar; the other by
Another and greater difficulty lay ahead, which could not be foreseen. As may be imagined, when the necessary-outfit of the miner is considered—tools, blankets, clothing, billy, and frying-pan, these absolute necessities—there was little margin left for more than a week's supply of the simplest provisions when all had to be carried over a rough road. In the whole Dunstan District there were not twenty bags of flour, and no replenishment of this stock was necessary for the requirements of the few settlers' establishments until the wool-drays had taken the coming season's clip to Dun-edin, and returned with stores. The journey to Dunstan occupied pedestrians about a week, and by the time they reached Mr. Shennan's station at the Manuherekia, if indeed they held out so long, their commissariat was exhausted. Of course, many were fortunate enough to have a pack horse, and were able to lay in a larger supply; but the staff of life was very soon in demand even amongst them, and none was to be obtained. Few drays with stores accompanied the advance party of miners, nor for some time, indeed, were supplies that came up later in any proportion to the consumers; but to this I will refer again presently.
Mr. Keddell, the officer commanding the escort, was nominated Commissioner in charge, and he proceeded to the West Taieri en route for Dunstan on the Saturday
On returning to the mouth of the gorge, where the township of Clyde now stands, there was a further demonstration of the same kind, but no unpleasant result occurred. Work was commenced at once, but for some days by no other means than the tin dish. Timber was not to be had, and to illustrate its scarcity I may mention one anecdote well known to many who were amongst the early arrivals there. At Sherman's Station the head shepherd was a married man, and had then one little child, a girl of a few weeks old, and her cradle was improvised out of a JDKZ gin-case. This piece of furniture took the eye of one of the miners, who was in the house making some purchase of food or what not, and he immediately bid the meum and luum were not in accordance with generally received opinions on the subject, abstracted the door from one of the outbuildings of the Mount Ida station and carried it over the Raggedy Range on his back to Duns tan, followed by the irate manager, revolver in hand; but the chase had been determined on too late, and the thief and the stolen property were lost in the crowd by the time that the proprietor arrived in the young township.
The weather was for some time very favourable to the miners. Time was everything; the first warm winds and rains of spring, it was generally believed, and rightly, would raise the level of the river. The most favourable spots for mining, as I have stated, were the shallow bars, or beaches. On these beaches the margin of the river would shift a fool or more for every inch of change in the level of the water. At Hartley's Beach there were very soon some dozen parties in active operation. At this spot, now obliterated with shingle and boulders, was the most extensive bar or beach. The miners, knowing the importance of "making hay while the sun shines," strained every effort to obtain the auriferous "dirt" and stack it on their claims, leaving the washing-up and "cradling" to be done when to get more dirt was impossible. The "regulations" under which these claims were worked were those in force at Tuapeka, i.e., the claims were marked out as ordinary alluvial claims. These regulations were very unsuitable to the new condition of affairs, and were speedily amended. On this flat beach, every night the river would recede some feet, owing to the cold air of the night checking the supply of the lakes, while the heat of the day caused the river to rise slightly,
The soldiers marched on silently and in good order in full view of the pa till they came opposite to the part they were about to attack. Then they halted in a little hollow to prepare for the great rush. But all this was done quietly, and in an orderly manner. The chiefs did not make speeches, nor jump, nor stamp about, as we Maori do, to encourage the men, but all was quiet, and silent, and orderly, as if nothing uncommon was about to take place. I took great notice of this, and did not know what to think, for when we Maori have determined to do a desperate thing like this we are all like madmen, and make a great clamour, rushing towards the world of darkness with groat noise and fury.
While the soldiers were advancing, Walker [I.e., Waka Nene.]pa, so that, in case the soldiers got in, the retreat of the enemy should be cut off if they attempted to escape in that direction.
Now the defenders of the pa perceived that the time of battle was come, and all went to their stations, and the chiefs stood up and made speeches, each to his own family. This was the speech of Haupokia: "Have great patience
Other chiefs spoke to the people; and some of the young men left the trenches, and called to the old men to lead them out to fight the soldiers in the open plain before the pa; but Haupokia, in great anger, said, "No, this shall not be done. Return to your stations, and you shall see the enemy walk alive into the oven. They are coming only to their own destruction." At this moment the bugle sounded, and the soldiers came charging on, shouting after the manner of European warriors, and those who were on Walker's hill shouted also, and we Maori behind the pa shouted also, and the whole valley resounded with the anger oi the pakeha.
Soon the soldiers were within twenty fathoms of the fort, and then the fire darted from under the pekerangi. The noise of guns was heard, and the foremost soldiers fell headlong to the ground. But the soldiers are very brave; they charged right on, and came up to the
[Outermost fence.]
Then Philpotts, the chief of the sailors, being a toa, shouted to his men to be resolute, and destroy the fence; and then, with one pull, the sailors brought down about five fathoms of the pekerangi. Then they were before the true fence, which, being made of whole trees placed upright and fixed deeply in the ground, could not be pulled down at all.
All this time the fire from inside through the loopholes continued unceasingly at the distance of one arm's length from where the soldiers were standing, and also a heavy fire came from a flanking angle at a distance of ten fathoms. In this angle there was a big gun. It was heavily loaded with powder, and for shot there was put into it a long bullock-chain, and this was fired into the midst of the soldiers, doing great damage; so the soldiers fell there, one on the other, in great numbers, but not one thought of running away.
And Philpotts did all a man could do to break down the inside fence, but it could not be done at all. So he ran along this fence till he saw a small opening, which had been made to fire a big gun through. He tried to get through this opening, at the same time calling on his men to follow.
When the people in the pa saw him, about ten men fired at him, but all missed, and he got almost into the midst of the place, still calling on his men to follow, when a young lad fired at him and killed him dead at once. So he lay there dead with his sword in his hand, like a toa as he was; but the noise and smoke, shouting and confusion, were so great as to prevent his men from perceiving that he was killed and bearing off his body. Such is the manner of war.
Also, a chief of the soldiers was killed, and another died of his wounds; and there was a long line of dead and wounded men lying along the outside of the fence, and soon all would have been killed; but the chief of the soldiers, seeing this, sounded a call on the bugle to retreat; and then, but not before, the soldiers began to run back, taking with them most of the wounded; but about forty dead were left behind, under the wall of the pa.
This battle did not take up near so long a time as I am telling of it, and in it about one hundred and ten Europeans were killed or wounded. Great is the courage of the soldiers: they will walk quietly at the command of their chiefs to certain death. There is no people to be compared to them. But they were obliged to retreat. The number of men in the fort was about one hundred and seventy, and the part attacked was defended by the hapu of Pene Taui, in number just forty men. So the war runners ran through all the North, saying, "One wing of England is broken, and hangs dangling on the ground."
[Sub-tribo.]
Before saying any more of this fight I must tell you of two slaves, one called Peter, who belonged to Kaitoke, and the other called Tarata, who belongs to Te Kahuka.
Many years ago Tarata went to England in a large ship, and, having gone ashore to see what he could see, he lost his way in the great town called London. So in the night the police found him wandering about and took whare-herehere for they thought he had stolen a bundle of clothes which he was carrying.
[House of bondage.]
In the morning they brought him before the chief and accused him; but Tarata had not been able to learn to speak English, so he could not defend himself or say from whence he came; so he thought he was going to be killed, and began to cry.
Just then a ship captain came into the house, and, seeing Tarata, he knew he was a Maori, and spoke to him in Maori and told him not to be afraid; and then he turned to the chief of the police and made a speech to him and to all the people who were assembled there to see Tarata killed, as he believed.
But when the ship captain had done speaking, the chief of the police was no longer angry. He said, "Poor fellow, poor fellow!" and then all the people present gave each a small piece of money to Tarata. Some gave sixpence, some a shilling, and some a few coppers; the chief of the police gave Tarata five shillings. When all the money was together there was more than Tarata had ever seen before, so he was very glad indeed; and a policeman went with him and showed him the way to the ship, and took care of him lest he should be robbed of his money.
After this Tarata returned to New Zealand, and many years after he came with his chief to the war to help Walker. So at Ohaeawai, when he saw the soldiers going to the attack, he thought of the goodness of the people of England, and so he said, "I will go and die along with these soldiers."
When Peter, the slave of Kaitoke, heard this, he said, "I also am a pakeha. I have been reared since a child by the Europeans; they have made me a man, and all the flesh on my bones belongs to them."
So these two slaves ran quickly and took their place with the [Forlorn hope.]whakakapa, and stood there firing into it till the soldiers fell back; and afterwards, when the soldiers retreated, they carried off one wounded soldier who had been left behind.
After the fight, the chief of the soldiers sent some people with a white flag to the pa, to ask permission to take away the dead soldiers who lay beside the fence. They were told that they might come and take them next day. Soon after the flag had returned, it was night; and then many near friends of Heke came from Kaikohe and entered the pa; for they had heard that the soldiers had been beaten off, and this gave them courage to come, which they had not had before. Late in the night they joined with the men of the pa in dancing the war dance which is appropriate to victory. And as they danced, they sang the song of triumph; and the song sounded among the hills in the night like thunder. This was the song:—
And often in the night the watch-cry of the pa was heard; and this was the cry of the pa: "Come on! come on, soldiers, for revenge! come on! Stiff lie your dead by the fence of my pa. Come on! come on!"
When the morning came, a party went to bring away the bodies of the dead. The people of the pa had drawn them to a distance from the fence, and left them to be taken away. So they were taken and buried near the camp; and when this was done the soldiers began to fire on the pa, and the war began again.
When the people in the pa saw that although the soldiers had lost so many men they were not dismayed, and seeing also that the inner fence was beginning to give way before the fire of the big gun, they made up their minds to leave the pa in the night, so that the soldiers should not have an opportunity to revenge themselves.
So in the night they all left and went to Kaikohe, without its having been perceived that they were gone. However, before they had been gone very long, Walker's people began pa were howling, and the watch-cry was no longer heard.
So a man called Tamahue entered it cautiously, and found it deserted. He crept in softly, and on entering a house he put his hand on a woman who had been left behind asleep. He kept quiet to see if the sleeping person would awake, and he began to believe that the people had not left the pa, and was about to kill the sleeping person for utu for himself, for he did not expect to escape alive. He thought, however, that it would be best to examine the other houses first. This he did, and perceived that the place was deserted, for all the other houses were empty.
The only weapon Tamahue had was a tomahawk; for he had lost his left arm at a great battle at Hokianga some years before, and was therefore unable to use a gun. So ho returned to the sleeping person, and jumped upon her, and raised his hand to strike, for he did not know it was a woman who was sleeping there, but thought it was a warrior.
But though he had but one arm he did not call to his brother, who was close outside the pa, for he intended to strike the first blow in the inside of this fortress himself. You must know that we Maori think this a great thing, even though the blow be struck only against a post or a stone.
But Tamahue, being naked, as all good warriors should be when on a dangerous adventure, his bare knees pressed against the breast of the sleeping person, and then he perceived it was a woman; so he struck his tomahawk into the ground only, and, having taken her prisoner, he called his brother, and they returned to the camp and gave information that the pa was deserted.
Then all at once there arose a great confusion. All the Maori and most of the soldiers ran off to the pa in the dark, and they tumbled by tens into the pits and trenches which were in the inside of the place. The soldiers ran about searching for plunder and quarrelling with the Maori for ducks and geese. There was a great noise, every one shouting at once, and as much uproar as if the place had been taken by storm. So this was how Ohaeawai was taken.
The chief Te Hira has been overruled by his counsellors, and has reluctantly consented to the sale of a portion of his territory. Already he is disgusted with the advent of the pakeha, and talks of retiring with his principal adherents to some wilder solitude. But his sister, Mere Kuru, who holds equal dignity with himself, seems disposed to change her ancient habits. She is said to be even welcoming the new order of things, and is qualifying herself to become a leader of modern Maori fashionable society. She rules a large kainga, situated on the Ohinemuri Greek, about midway between Cashell's and Paeroa, the two new landing-places for the goldfield.
At the latter place we disembark, and proceed at once to the Warden's camp, which is not far off. It is a scene of glorious confusion. Round about the tent of the official, with its flag, are grouped sundry other tents, huts, whares, breakwinds of every conceivable kind and of every possible material. It is dark now, as evening has descended, and the numerous camp-fires make a lurid light to heighten the wildness of the scene. Crowds of men are grouped about them, eating, drinking, singing, shouting, or talking noisily of the everlasting subject—gold.
Through the camp we pick our way, stumbling over stumps and roots and boulders, splashing into deep mud aud mire, visiting every fire, and asking for the whereabouts of our chums. We begin to think we shall never find them amid the confusion of the wild disorderly camp, and have some thoughts of applying for hospitality at the next fire.
At length one man, whom we have asked, replies to our questions. "Do you mean a pretty sort of chap, looking like a dancing-man or a barber, and a big, red-headed Irisher with him for a mate? They're over yonder camped in Fern-tree Gully. Got some horses with 'em; yes."
We thought this must refer to Dandy Jack and O'Gaygun, so we stumbled down the little dell and found that our surmise was right. We were quickly welcomed, and supplied with supper.
Our friends had erected a rude breakwind of poles and fern-fronds sufficient to shelter our party from the rain
At length morning comes, bringing with it the eventful day, the 3rd of March, 1875, which is to see the opening of the new field. From earliest dawn the camp is astir, and as the sun climbs the sky so does the intense hubbub increase. Oh for an artist's brush to delineate that scene! Pen and ink are far too feeble.
Men move about like-swarming bees, eagerly talking and shouting with all and sundry. Groups are gathered here and there, with eyes one minute glancing anxiously towards the Warden's tent, the next moment looking out across the wooded plain as it swims in the morning sunshine, towards the towering hills in the distance. A break in the outline of the range shows the situation of the gorge—the spot where the prospectors' claim is known to be—the goal of every hope to-day.
No one dares to leave bis horse now for an instant. Those that have any for the most part remain mounted, like ourselves, restlessly circling about the camp. Every man that could beg, borrow, or steal it, appears to have got a riding beast of some sort. A few are even bestriding bullocks, judging, probably, that in the general scrimmage and stampede even those ungainly steeds will distance men on foot.
We aye all equipped with everything immediately necessary, and are ready for the start. A tumultous assemblage it is that is now moving in a perfect frenzy of excitement about the Warden's tent. A concourse of men—rough men and gentlemen, blackguards and honest, young and old,
Amid the throng there move a few Maoris from the neighbouring kainga—queer old tattooed worthies, half dressed in European rags, half draped in frowzy blankets. These are stolid, disdainful; they have come to see the pakeha in his mad state. And there are others, younger men, smiling and chattering, evidently anxious to get excited too, could they only understand what all the fuss is about. Yet there is a contemptuous air about them, a kind of pity for the curious insanity that is rife among the pakeha around them.
And now the wished-for hour approaches. A rude table is rigged up in front of the Warden's tent, at which clerks take their places. Two or three of the Armed Constabulary are visible, ostensibly to keep order, which it would take more than all the Force to do. A riotous throng of horse-men and foot-men wrestle and struggle for front places near the table. Apparently, two or three thousand men are waiting eagerly for the word to start.
Then the Warden steps forth, looking grave and dignified in his official coat and cap. He is the only calm person present, and is received with vociferous acclamation by the crowd. He holds in his hand a roll of papers, which he proceeds at once to open, mounting a convenient stump by way of rostrum. Then he begins to read—the Riot Act, one would say, looking at the seething, roaring mob around. In fact, it is the Proclamation of the Ohinemuri Goldfield under the Mining Act of the colonial Legislature. But no one can hear a word.
Presently the reading is done, the Warden lifts his cap with a smile, announcing that the field is open. A tumult of cheering breaks forth, and then every one rushes at the clerk's table, and, fighting and struggling for precedence, dumps down his one-pound note for the "miner's right," which is his license and authority to dig for gold within the limits of the field.
I cannot describe that fierce conflict round the table and tent—it is all confusion in my mind. It is a wild jumble of warring words and furiously struggling shoulders and elbows, arms and legs. Somehow we get our licenses early, mainly owing, I think, to the stalwart proportions and
What a race that is! No run with a pack of English foxhounds could compare with it. Never a fox-hunter had dared to ride as we rode that day, across a country so rough and shaggy. But our incitement is greater than ever fox-hunter had; for it is a frantic chase for wealth with all the madness of gambling thrown into it. It is a race whose prize is gold!
There is no road, of course. Our way lies across the country, jungled with fern, and scrub, and bush. The ground is broken with abrupt descents and short bub rugged rises. There are streams and marshes to he plunged through or jumped over; there are devious twists and turns to be made to avoid insurmountable obstacles. Scarce is there a track to show the way—merely the faintest indication of one, cut through the wood by the surveyor's gang. And we have six miles and more to make, riding with frantic eagerness and reckless speed, conscious that two thousand men have entered for the race, and that only a few can win.
Thoroughly well mounted, and accustomed from our cattle-driving experiences to such rough riding as this, we four chums do justice to the start we managed to get. Not more than a score or so are ahead of us, and some of them we are overhauling. There are dozens of casualties, of course. As we gallop along I see a man and horse go down on the steep side of a gully. They roll over together, and together flounder to the bottom. The unlucky rider screams with pain, for his legs and ribs are broken. He calls to us to help him. We hesitate a moment; but the gold fever is on us, and we hurry on. At such a time humanity is dead, even in the most honourable breast. It is like a battle.
Again Dandy Jack and O'Gaygun are in front of me. Before them rides a regular Thames miner, bestriding a lean and weedy horse of very poor quality. It is easy to see, too, that he is not accustomed to the saddle, though he is urging his beast to its utmost, and doing all he knows to get on. We are coursing along the side of a slope, with dense
I hear Dandy Jack and O'Gaygun shout in warning, but the miner has no time to get out of their way. Riding abreast they charge down upon him, utterly regardless of the consequences. Over go horse and man beneath the shock of their rushing steeds; and, a moment later, my nag leaps over the fallen and follows at their heels.
Oh, the rush and fury of that ride! My head still swims as I think of it. All sense of care is gone, all thought of risk or accident banished. A wild mad excitement surges through every vein, and boils up within my brain. I only know that hundreds are hurrying alter me, while before me there is a dazzle and glitter of gold. Who heeds the fallen, the vanquished, the beaten in the race? Who cares for peril to life or limb? There is but one idea the mind can hold—"Press on!"
By-and-by, when our panting, foaming horses seem to be utterly giving out, responding to neither voice nor spur, bit nor whip, we find ourselves within the gorge. A splendid mountain scene is that, had we but time to look at it; but we have not. Our worn-out steeds carry us wearily up and along the steep hill-side, beneath and among the trees that cast their shadows all over the golden ground. Climbing, struggling, pressing ever onward, we pass the grim defile; and, in the wild and beautiful solitude of primeval nature, we find our goal.
Through the trees we spy a clearing, lying open and sunlit on the steep mountain-side. A clearing it can hardly be called, for it is merely a space of some few acres where fallen, half-burnt trees lie prostrate, jumbled in inextricable confusion with boulders, rocks, jutting crags, and broken mounds of fresh-turned soil and stone. A handkerchief upon a post; some newly-split and whitened stakes set here and there around the debris; the babble and vociferation of men—those who have got before us—around and about; all sufficiently proclaim that our race is at an end, and that this before us is the prospectors' claim.
There is no time to be lost, for many behind us are coming on, and will be upon the ground a few minutes
As we proceed to make the dispositions which secure to us what wo have already named "O'Gaygun's Claim," the row and racket around rings fiercer over the mountain-side. Every moment parties of men are arriving on the ground, and proceeding at once to map out rock and bush into squares and parallelograms, and to peg out their several claims. With the prospectors' claim for centre and nucleus, the area of the occupied ground every moment increases. Above, around, below, we are hemmed in by earth-hungry gold-seekers, each and all greedy as starved tigers for their prey.
Not without many disputes is the work accomplished. Oath and remonstrance, angry quarrelling and bandying of words, soon transform that peaceful fastness of nature into a pandemonium of humanity; and words give place to blows as boundaries are fixed and claims measured off. Fierce fights are waged over many an inch and yard of ground. The heated blood of the gold-seeker brooks little opposition, and I fear that even revolvers and knives are shown, if not used, between rival claimants.
Yet the hot fury of the rush subsides after a time, and each party proceeds to ascertain its lawful boundaries, and to reconcile divisions with its neighbours. Fires are built and camps are formed, for no one dare leave his claim unoccupied; and preparations are made for a night more confused and uncomfortable than those previously spent at the Warden's camp.
Next day the work begins. The Warden and his aids register the claims and their respective owners. Parties are told off to cut and construct a road. Miners begin to build up huts and habitations, and to bring up from the
Three months later, what have been the results and what are the prospects? I stand at the door of the rude hut we live in, and look abroad over the goldfield, pondering. It is evening—a memorable evening for us, as will presently appear. But we are depressed and down-spirited, for luck has not been with us. O'Gaygun's Claim is apparently one of the blankest of blanks in the lottery of the gold-field.
What a difference is apparent in the scene around from what it presented three months ago, when we rode here in wild excitement and hot haste! The grand and lonely gorge is now populous with life. Trees have been felled, and even their stumps have altogether disappeared over a great extent of ground. The wide hill-side has been riven, and torn, and excavated by pick and spade, and gaping tunnels yawn here and there. Houses and huts and tents have risen all around, and a rough young town now hangs upon the mountain's shoulder. Newness and rawness and crudity are prevailing features of the place; yet it does begin to look like the abode and workshop of civilised men. Stores and hotels, primitive but encouraging, hang out their signs to view; and a road, rough but practicable, winds down across the lower ground to Paeroa, the river landing-place, where another township is being nursed into existence. Down below, a couple of crushing-mills are already set up, and are hard at work, belching forth volumes of smoke, that almost hides from my view the turbid, muddy waters of the creek in the gully. The thunder and thud of the batteries, the jarring and whirring of machinery, the bustle and stir of active and unceasing toil, reverberate with noisy clamour
We four chums have not done well; indeed, we have done very badly. We have prospected our claim in all directions, but without success, and are now sinking a tunnel deep into the hill-side, in hopes of striking the reef that ought, we think, to run in a certain direction from where its upper levels are being successfully quarried in the prospectors' claim above us. We have stuck to the claim so far, urged by some fanciful belief not to give it up, and it bids fair to ruin us. Our funds are quite exhausted, and in another week we shall be compelled to give up the claim, to take work on wages here or at Grahamstown, and so raise means to get ourselves back to the Kaipara.
For the expenses have been great. What with buying provisions at frightful prices, buying implements and some bits of machinery, paying for the crushing of quartz that never yielded more than delusive traces of gold, and so on and so forth, our slender capital has melted away into nothingness. True, we have formed ourselves into a company, and have tried to sell some scrip. But the market is flooded with mining shares just now. Moreover, O'Gaygun's Claim is fast becoming the laughing-stock of the field. There are no believers in it except ourselves. Every other claim that proved as valueless as ours has been long ago abandoned; only we stick to our tunnel, driving at it with frantic energy.
Our life is harder here than in our shanty. We are ill-provided, and have all the wet and mud and mire of the rainy season now to help to make things uncomfortable for us. Our food is coarse and not too plentiful—damper, tea, salt pork, potatoes, and not always all of those. Is it any wonder we are despondent?
As I stand here this evening, cogitating over the gloomy outlook, two of the others come out of the tunnel, bearing a sackful of stone between them, I see a new expression on their faces, and eagerly turn to them.
"Something fresh?"
"Hush! Not a word. Come into the house—quick!"
So says Dandy Jack to me, hoarsely and hurriedly. Alas, poor man! he is hardly a dandy at present, and evert his complacent calrn seems to have forsaken him at last.
In the hut we anxiously crowd together, examining the specimens just brought out of the mine. They are lumps of grey and dirty-white quartz, flecked with little spots and metallic yellow. Is it gold?
"Ah! it's just the same old story," growls O'Gaygun; "mica or pyrites, that's about all we've the luck to find— bad cess to them. All's not gold that glitters, boys; and there's precious little av the thrue stuff coming our way."
"Shut up!" says Dandy Jack without moving, as he lies on his face near the fire, intently examining a piece of quartz—licking it with his tongue, scratching it with his nails, and hefting it in bis palms. "There's many a rough, dirty stone that hides good gold within it. And," he adds, rising up, "we have got it this time. Boys, we've struck the reef!"
A few minutes later we were scouring down to the Lattery, bearing samples of the precious stone; and before the camp had gone to rest that night a hubbub and excitement had spread through it, for it was the common topic of talk that rich stone had been discovered upon O'Gaygun's Claim.
Next day and next week we were besieged. Crowds wanted to see the claim; numbers wanted to buy shares in it, and would give hundreds and even thousands of pounds for them. We were elated, excited, conceited, madder than ever with our luck, that at last had come.
Well, eventually it proved that the find was but a "blind reef," a "pocket," a mere isolated dribble from the main continuous vein we had at first supposed we had struck. But it filled our pockets, giving us more wealth than we had ever before possessed. Had we been wiser, we might have made more money by selling the claim directly after the find; but we held on too long. However, we made a very pretty little pile—not a fortune exactly, but the nucleus of one; and finally we sold the claim for a good round sum to a joint-stock company.
During the session of Parliament held at Wellington in 1867 I had heard much of the grazing capabilities of the interior of the North Island, in the neighbourhood of Lake Taupo and round about Tongariro and Ruapehu. The result was that, with certain others who had persuaded themselves of its first-class quality, I made up my mind to visit it, and accordingly obtained letters of introduction to the chief owners of land in and about Taupo.
It was arranged that we should travel into the interior by the Hawke's Bay route. The party consisted of Colonel (now Sir George) Whitmore, myself, and an experienced surveyor (who was also an interpreter), with an assistant surveyor, and a Maori chief, whose knowledge of the country and general intelligence qualified him to be of considerable assistance to us.
I am in no mood at this time to record our every day's progress along the track leading from Napier to Taupo. From Colonel Whitmore's station we made the River Mohaka, which we crossed that evening, staying the first night at a sheep station not long formed. Beyond this we soon plunged into a somewhat broken countrt—so broken, indeed, that the Maori chief, in describing it, held up his hands, with the fingers spread out, and said, "Like that— all up and down." This description of the nature of the country proved to be perfectly true.
We soon entered the primeval forest, studded with timber trees of gigantic girth, and festooned with creepers of tropical growth. Here and there amongst these almost inaccessible hills were pointed out to us the remains of Maori strongholds; which, had the owners been as wise as they were warlike, would have remained in their possession to this day. But, loving war, and believing in the possibility of sweeping all the European settlers on the East Coast into the sea, they left these fastnesses, and went out to meet their doom. They risked all, and they lose everything. Many of the prisoners who have been transported to the Chatham Islands belonged to this part of the country.
Before reaching Lake Taupo we met with a few Maoris, still clinging to their ancient haunts—old men whose fighting days were over; wives and children of the banished
Leaving these thickly-timbered ranges, we found ourselves suddenly in the open country. Travelling now became easier, and we lost no time in pushing on towards the lake. We had by this time made the discovery that our companion, the Maori chief, was a pleasant fellow and a good guide. We were now entering country in which he had a large proprietary interest; and at every stage in our progress we were meeting with men who seemed ready enough to recognise his authority as a chief. Paul Hapi, our reliable guide, compared favourably with men of his own race, and by no means unfavourably in some respects with many of our noble selves. He may have been a savage at heart, and when provoked to anger as difficult to control as the majority of his countrymen; but he had the manners of a gentleman, was hospitable and courteous, and never forgot to impress upon his people the becomingness of treating us with consideration. He not only gave orders that we were not to be disturbed by untimely visits of the idle and curious, but he kept himself to himself, ate, drank, and slept in a tent or whare apart from us, and never dreamed of forcing his society upon us uninvited.
The instinctive politeness natural to so large a number of the Native race was very noticeable when we approached the precincts of a pa. The occupants rose to receive us. Mats were then spread on the ground for us to rest on, and preparations quickly made to supply us with something to eat. They never failed to put before us the best that they had to give. All this time none of them showed any impertinent curiosity to try and make out the object of our visit. When we had finished eating, and showed the slightest desire to enter into conversation, they were pleased to fall in with our humour, and showed themselves able to hold their own in a discussion of things past, present, or to come.
On riding through the country on that first trip, I was naturally anxious—over anxious, my Maori friend and guide thought—to know all that could be told as to the
We quite understood, before leaving Napier, that up to the point that we had now reached no opposition to our progress would he offered; but we were at the same time warned that it was by no means certain that, having reached this point, we should not be politely but firmly told to right-about face, and return to the place from whence we had strayed.
We were invited to pitch our tents within a Maori enclosure on the banks of the beautiful lake, whose waters glistened like a sea of glass. Here we soon shook down into place, and, after due time had been given us in which to bathe, eat, and rest, a conversation was started, and ended in the making of set speeches. Our interpreter introduced us as rangatiras in search of grazing country; and we were trotted out in turn, and expected to say something in explanation and justification of our appearance in that remote part of Maoridom. We were asked to state definitely what we really wanted; and we were expected to prove to the satisfaction of the Maori mind that not only were our intentions good, but that if we were allowed to carry out our plans, the Maoris as well as ourselves would be benefited by the experiment.
This was a large subject for discussion, and afforded a good opportunity for talking, or, rather, for speech-making. I think this was the first occasion on which I had heard one of the rising generation of Maoris make a set speech. The man I refer to was quite a young man, not more than twenty years of age; and for half an hour he spoke with a self-possession and a fluency that were simply astonishing; yet, if our interpreter was to be relied on, without committing himself or his people to anything very definite.
In the year 1863 or 1864 I had heard the old warrior Hapuku, of East-Coast celebrity, speak at Napier. This celebrated chief had filled more than one page in the history
In old days, on an occasion when the Imperial forces were actively engaged in fighting with the Maoris north of Auckland, a chief, who was one of our allies, and was not highly impressed with the generalship displayed by the commander of the combined forces, was excitedly criticizing the plan of attack. The colonel commanding asked the interpreter more than once what all the talk was about. The interpreter, knowing full well that what was said was not complimentary, and not intended to be so, shirked giving the informaiion, saying, "Oh, sir, it's nothing of consequence; it's just Maori bounce." "But," said the officer in command, "I insist, Mr. Interpreter, upon being told what he says, and all that he says. It is important, in the position I occupy, that I should be made aware of all that is passing through his mind. Remember he is our ally, and a very intelligent man, I must admit." "Well, sir, he says you are a hold hass!"
On the following morning, travelling south, we came to a pa of some importance, where we had reason to expect an unwillingness on the part of the Maoris to allow us to proceed further, and, with this doubt lurking in our minds, we sent on our Maori chief and guide to announce our approach. The occupants of the pa mustered in some strength to receive us. They invited us within the enclosure, and finally led us up to a corner of the pa, where we squatted on mats spread out for our accommodation. True to their instinct of exhibiting no undue haste to ask questions as to whence we had come, whither we were going, or upon what business we were travelling, they allowed us to take our own time in opening up a conversation. Fronting us on the whare, and formed themselves into a group, Colonel Whitmore, with the instinct of a soldier, touched me on the arm, and said, "There's not a man squatted there who is not possessed of a rifle and ammunition, both within easy reach. Was I not right, when leaving Napier, to propose that we should arm with revolvers before putting ourselves in the power of such men?" It seemed to me, however, that he was far from right; that, for people moving through the country as we were, and desiring to negotiate with the Maoris for the leasing of their lands, it would have been pure folly to carry revolvers.
At length our interpreter got on his legs to speak, telling them the old story, that we were travelling onwards to inspect the grazing country in and about Tongariro and Ruapehu, with a view, if it pleased the eye, of taking up a block of it upon which to depasture sheep; that, although we were moved to do this in our own interests, operations such as we contemplated could not bo carried out without materially benefiting the Maori inhabitants of those districts; that when the country was stocked with sheep, and establishments formed such as were contemplated, employment would be within easy reach of a considerable number of the Maoris, and that men willing to work would find work, and that some of the luxuries as well as the necessaries of life would be introduced amongst them. All this and more was stated by our representative.
This explanation of our presence in their territory at an end, we had not long to wait before a Maori rose to speak in reply. He spoke with great deliberation and at some length, but after the manner of a man very careful not to commit himself or his friends to anything definite touching our proposed plans. What he did say, however, was exceedingly interesting. He said the Maoris had got to regard us as a race or nation whose restlessness knew no bounds, whose enterprise was certainly the wonder of the world, but whose work done in New Zealand did not often result in permanent advantage of any sort to the Maori; that
He was followed by one who seemed more inclined to tolerate our presence in the country. But it was merely toleration at the best. He said we might move on, or we might go back: our movements in any direction were really nothing to him or his people. We were at liberty to do again what we had already done: we had come amongst them uninvited; we might pass on unhindered; but we were to understand that they had no active sympathy with us, and no expectation of any good likely to result from our explorations and promised operations.
Number Three then rose, and thanked us for our courtesy in explaining our views and intentions. He acknowledged our enterprise in planning to establish ourselves so far inland, and expressed his confidence that our presence amongst them must result in gain to the Maori; that elsewhere he had seen the great and abiding results of the enterprise of the pakeha, and that he, at any rate, was in a mood to trust to our right-mindedness so to carry out our scheme of occupation and settlement as not to involve the extinction—the utter annihilation— of the Maori race. And before seating himself, he spoke out in plain language, welcoming us to the district—to come into it whenever it suited us, and to go out of it when it pleased us.
He then came forward two or three paces, holding out one hand, as though he wished and expected us to meet him half-way, as it were. Our interpreter, however, held back, and we, having constituted him our arbiter elegantiarum in matters of Maori etiquette, submitted to be restrained by him. Seeing us unmoved, calm, and dignified, as became representatives of our race—for we made no forward movemenr—they at length rushed up to us in a body, seized hold of us by both hands, and heartily welcomed us after Maori fashion.
Great preparations were then made for a feast, to which we were invited, and did full justice. Amongst things good for food, and in the proper season freely indulged in and put before visitors, is whitebait. Another delicacy, cooked as only Maoris know how to cook them, are eels. Eels, even as Europeans cook them, are palatable, but they are not to be compared to eels dressed in simple Maori fashion. And this is how to do it: First catch your eel; wind him round and round a stick; cover him with fragrant leaves secured to the stick, so that the atmosphere be wholly excluded; place the stick in the ground before a blazing fire; turn it about as often as necessary, and, when he is cooked, eat him; and don't be ashamed to confess before all men that professed cooks have something yet to learn about cooking eels. The particular leaf used at Taupo to wind round the eel I have forgotten, if I ever knew the name of it; but the recollection of the thing cooked, its tender delicacy and aromatic fragrance, is still one of the pleasures of memory.
After a free indulgence in these good things, one of our party, a little forgetful of the good advice given us in matters of Maori etiquette, was in a desperate hurry to do a little business with them, wanting to know whether a good-looking horse grazing within sight was for sale. A Maori sitting by his side patted him on the shoulder, and said, quietly, "Young man, my advice to you is to take things a little more easily than you seem to be in the habit of doing. You will certainly be an old man before your time if you give yourself no rest—rushing thus into business with such unbecoming haste."
Journeying onward, we camped for the night at Lake Roto-aira, at the foot of the sometimes lively Tongariro, visiting on the way and bathing in the hot springs at the head of Lake Taupo. The settlement in the neighbourhood of these hot springs is where Te Heuheu was smothered in a landslip in the year 1846. His son and successor was amongst the important chiefs whom we saw, and who entertained us, in our progress through the Taupo country. I have but one story to tell of the hospitality of all the Natives whom we encountered in our travels. They gave us willingly at all times a share of all that they had in store, and not infrequently sent us on our journey laden with game.
They remarked upon the strange ways of the pakeha, and humorously dwelt upon the different interests that seemed to occupy them. "One party pakehas visiting the country," said they, "seemed to spend all their time in picking up stones; another in looking for gold; another in picking oft the leaves of big trees and looking hard at them; another in digging up shrubs and flowers; and now you pakehas seem only to be interested in grass, and wondering whether sheep would thrive upon it. Truly the ways of the pakeha are strange ways. The Maori is often puzzled to make them out, and can never expect to do all and be all that your wise men recommend."
We saw, feeding on the lower spurs of Tongariro, some of the fattest native-grass-fed merino sheep that could he seen anywhere; and before we left the neighbourhood we had an opportunity of tasting the mutton.
The little that I have to say of the climate of Taupo is all in its favour. I know of no other, north or south, to be preferred to it. It is as far removed from the semitropical sultriness of Auckland and its immediate neighbourhood as it is from the intense cold of the South Island. It is cold enough at certain seasons of the year to necessitate a coat, and warm enough during the rest of the year to make life enjoyable. At Wellington, during the session of Parliament, when men from ail parts of New Zealand were to be met with, the subject of climate often came to be discussed. I never yet knew a man who was not at heart a provincialist on this question. Every man not belonging to Wellington maintained stoutly that the climate of the province which had the honour to be represented by him was far and away the best in New Zealand; all agreeing, however, that in this respect Wellington was behind the rest of the world, It used to be said—out of Wellington, of course—that a Wellington man was recognisable all over New Zealand by his unconscious habit of clapping his hand to his hat to steady it at a street crossing, even on the calmest of days.
On our return along the banks of the lake we stopped at Opepe, where it had been arranged that I was to meet the principal owners of the land. The view from Opepe across the country, in the direction of Tongariro and Ruapehu, is very striking. At a distance of thirty or forty miles these giants of mountains stand out conspicuously—the one
Seen from a distance the country upon which we were now camped looks—what it by no means is—the perfection of sheep country. Look down at your feet and you see a pumice soil only slightly coated over with vegetable mould, and so loose and friable that tussock grass fares badly in it. In one of my subsequent trips to Taupo I met a man who had been in the South Island, and who knew what a strong hold of the ground this grass takes there. I asked him whether the grass about Taupo did not remind him of the Canterbury Plains. He replied, "There is this resemblance: it is certainly tussock grass north, and tussock grass south; but there is this important difference: in the north, a horse nibbling at it pulls it up by the roots; while in the south it is the fashion to tether a horse to a bunch of it."
We started from a lonely valley, down which runs a stream called Forest Greek. It is an ugly, barren-looking place enough—a deep valley between two high ranges, which are not entirely clear of snow for more than three or four months in the year. As its name imports, it has some
We started, as I said, from the bottom of this valley on a clear frosty morning—so frosty that the tea-leaves in our pannikins were frozen, and our outer blanket crisped with rime. We went up a little gorge, as narrow as a street in Genoa, with huge black and dripping precipices overhanging it, so as almost to shut out the light of heaven. I never saw so curious a place in my life.
It soon opened out, and we followed up the little stream which flowed through it. This was no easy work. The scrub was very dense, and the rocks huge. The Spaniard [Speat-grass, or bayonet-grass.]
After five hours of most toilsome climbing we found the vegetation becoming scanty; and soon we got on to the loose shingle which was nearer the top of the range. In seven hours from the time we started we were on the top. Hence we had hoped to discover some entirely new country, but were disappointed, for we only saw the Mackenzie Plains lying stretched out for miles away to the southward.
The Mackenzie Plains are so called after a notorious shepherd, who discovered them some few years ago. Keeping his knowledge to himself, he used to steal his master's sheep and drive them quietly into his unsuspected hiding-place. This he did so cleverly that he was not detected until he had stolen many hundred. Much obscurity hangs over his proceedings. It is believed that he made one successful trip down to Otago through this country, and sold a good many of the sheep he had stolen. He is a man of great physical strength, and can be no common character; many stories are told about him, and his fame will be lasting. He was taken and escaped more than once, and finally was pardoned by the Governor on condition of his leaving New Zealand. It was rather a strange proceeding, and I doubt how fair to the country which he may have
To return. There we lay on the shingle-bed, at the top of the range, in the broiling noonday; for even at that altitude it was very hot, and there was no cloud in the sky, and very little breeze. I saw that if we wanted a complete view we must climb to the top of a peak which, though only a few hundred feet higher than where we were lying, nevertheless hid a great deal from us. I accordingly began the ascent, having arranged with my companion that if there was country to be seen he should be called; if not, he should be allowed to take it easy.
Well, I saw snowy peak after snowy peak come into view as the summit in front of me narrowed, but no mountains were visible higher or grander than what I had already seen. Suddenly, as my eyes got on a level with the top, so that I could see over, I was struck almost breathless by the wonderful mountain that burst on my sight.
It rose towering in a massy parallelogram, disclosed from top to bottom in the cloudless sky, far above all the others. It was exactly opposite to me, and about the nearest in the whole range. So you may imagine that it was indeed a splendid spectacle. It has been calculated by the Admiralty people at 13,200ft., [The height is 12,349ft.]
It is not visible from many places on the eastern side of the island: the front ranges are so lofty that they hide it. It can be seen from the top of Banks Peninsula, and for a few hundred yards somewhere near Timaru, and over a good deal of the Mackenzie country, but nowhere else on the eastern side of this settlement, unless from a great thinks he has seen Mount Cook you may be sure he has not seen it. The moment it comes into sight the exclamation is, "That is Mount Cook"; not, "That must be Mount Cook." There is no possibility of mistake.
There is a glorious field here for the members of the Alpine Club. Mount Cook awaits them, and he who first scales it will be crowned with undying laurels. For my part, though it is hazardous to say this of any mountain, I do not think that any human being will ever reach the top.
But I am forgetting myself in admiring a mountain which is of no use for sheep. This is wrong. A beautiful mountain here is only beautiful if it has good grass on it. Scenery is not scenery—it is country. If it is good for sheep it is beautiful, magnificent, and all the rest of it; if not, it is not worth looking at. I am cultivating this tone of mind with considerable success, but you must pardon me for an occasional outbreak of the old Adam.
Of course I called my companion up, and he agreed with me that he had never seen anything so wonderful. We got down a little after dark, having had a very fatiguing day, but one that has amply repaid us for our exertions.
Placed in the very track of storms, and open to the sweep of rolling seas from every quarter, exposed to waves that run from pole to pole, or from South Africa to Cape Horn, the shores of New Zealand are famed for swell and surf, and her western rivers for the danger of their bars. Insurances at Melbourne are five times as high for the voyage to Hokitika as for the longer cruise to Brisbane.
In our little steamer of a hundred tons, built to cross the bars, we had reached the mouth of the Hokitika River soon after dark, but lay all night some ten miles to the south-west of the port. As we steamed in the early morning
A hundred miles of the Southern Alps stood out upon a pale-blue sky, in curves of a gloomy white that were just beginning to blush with pink, but ended to the southward in a cone of fire that blazed up from the ocean. It was the snow-dome of Mount Cook, struck by the rising sun. The evergreen bush, flaming with the crimson of the rata blooms, hung upon the mountain-side, and covered the plain with a dense jungle. It was one of those sights that haunt men for years, like the eyes of Mary in Bellini's Milan picture.
On the bar, three ranks of waves appeared to stand fixed in walls of surf. These huge rollers are sad destroyers of the New Zealand coasting-ships. A steamer was lost here a week before my visit, and the harbourmaster's whale-boat dashed in pieces, and two men drowned.
Lashing everything that was on deck, and battening down the hatches, in case we should ground in crossing, we prepared to run the gauntlet. The steamers often ground for an instant while in the trough between the waves, and the second sea, pooping them, sweeps them from end to end, but carries them into still water. Watching our time, we were borne on a great rolling white-capped wave into the quiet lakelet that forms the harbour, just as the sun, coming slowly up behind the range, was firing the Alps from north to south; but it was not till we had lain some minutes at the wharf that the sun rose to us poor mortals of the sea and plain. Hokitika Bay is strangely like the lower portion of the Lago Maggiore, but the Mount Rosa is inferior to Mount Cook.
When I reached that particular gin-palace which was known as the hotel I found that all the rooms were occupied, but that I could, if I pleased, lie down on a deal sidetable in the billiard-room. In our voyage down the coast from Nelson we had brought for the Buller and for Hokitika a cabin-full of cut flowers for bouquets, of which the diggers are extremely fond. The fact was pretty enough; the store put upon a single rose—"an English rosebud"— culled from a plant that had been brought from the Old Country in a clipper ship was still more touching; but the flowers made sleep below impossible, and it had been
At Pakihi and the Buller I had already seen the places to which the latest gold-digging "rush" had taken place, with the result of planting there some thousands of men with nothing to eat but gold—for diggers, however shrewd, fall an easy prey to those who tell them of spots where gold may be had for the digging, No attempt is at present made to grow even vegetables for the diggers' food: every one is engrossed in the search for gold. It is true that the dense jungle is being driven back from the diggers' camps by fire and sword, but the clearing is made only to give room for tents and houses. At the Buller I had found the forest—which comes down at present to the water's edge, and crowds upon the twenty shanties and hundred tents which form the town—smoking with fires on every side, and the parrots chattering with fright. The fires obstinately refused to spread, but the tall feathery trees were falling fast under the axes of some hundred diggers, who seemed not to have much romantic sympathy for the sufferings of the tree-ferns they had uprooted, or of the passion-flowers they were tearing from the evergreens they had embraced.
The profits realised upon ventures from Nelson to the gold coast are enormous—nothing less than fifty per cent, will compensate the owners for losses on the bars. The first cattle imported from Nelson to the Buller fetched at the latter place double the price they had cost only two days earlier.
The Hokitikians flatter themselves that their city is the "most rising place" on earth; and it must be confessed that, if population alone is to be regarded, the rapidity of its growth has been amazing. At the time of my visit, one year and a half had passed since the settlement was formed
Inferior in its banks and theatres to Virginia City, or even Austin, there is one point in which Hokitika surpasses every American mining town that I have seen—namely, the goodness of its roads. Working upon them in the bright morning sun which this day graced "rainy Hokitika" with its presence were a gang of diggers and sailors, dressed in the clothes which every one must wear in a digging town unless he wishes to be stared at by the passers-by. Even sailors on shore "for a run" here wear cord breeches and high tight-fitting boots, often armed with spurs; though, as there are no horses except those of the gold-coast, police, they cannot enjoy much riding. The gang working on the roads were like the people I met about the town—rough, but not ill-looking fellows. To my astonishment I saw, conspicuous among their red shirts and junipers, the blue-and-white uniform of the mounted police; and from the way in which the constables handled their loaded rifles I came to the conclusion that the road-menders must be a gang of prisoners. On inquiry I found that all the New Zealand "convicts," including under this sweeping title men convicted for mere petty offences, and sentenced to hard labour for a month, are made to do good practical work on the roads. I was reminded of the Mis sourian practice of setting prisoners to dig out the stumps that cumber the streets of the younger towns: the sentence on a man for being drunk is said to be that he pull up a black walnut stump; drunk and disorderly, a large buck-eye; assaulting the sheriff, a tough old hickory root; and so on.
When the great rush to Melbourne occurred, in 1848, ships by the hundred were left in the Yarra without a single hand to navigate them. Nuggets in the hand would not tempt sailors away from the hunt after nuggets in the bush. Ships left Hobson's Bay for Chili with half a dozen hands;
As the morning were on I came near seeing something of more serious crime than that for which these "runners" were convicted. "Sticking-up," as highway robbery is called in the colonies, has always been common in Australia and New Zealand; but of late the bushrangers, deserting their old tactics, have commenced to murder as well as rob. In three months of 1866, no less than fiffiy or sixty murders took place in the South Island of New Zealand, all of them committed, it was believed, by a gang known as "The Thugs." Mr. George Dobson, the Government surveyor, was murdered near Hokitika in May; but it was not till November that the gang was broken up by the police and volunteers. Levy, Kelly, and Burgess, three of the most notorious of the villains, were on their trial at Hokitika while I was there; and Sullivan, also a member of the band, who had been taken at Nelson, had volunteered to give evidence against them. Sullivan was to come by steamer from the north, without touching at the Buller or the Grey. And when the ship was signalled the excitement of the population became considerable, the diggers asserting that Sullivan was not only the basest, but the most guilty of all the gang. As the vessel ran across the bar and into the bay, the police were marched down to the landing-place, and a yelling crowd surrounded them, threatening to lynch the informer. When the steamer came alongside the wharf, Sullivan was not to be seen, and it was soon discovered that he had been landed in a whale-boat upon the outer beach. Off rushed the crowd to intercept the party in the town, but they found the gaol gates already shut and barred. It was hard to say whether it was for Thuggism or for turning Queen's evidence that Sullivan was to be lynched.
The gold-coast police force, which has been formed to put a stop to Thuggism and bushranging, is a splendid body of cavalry, about which many good stories are told. One digger said to me, "Seen our policemen? We don't have no younger sons of British peers among 'em." Another account says that none but members of the older English universities are admitted to the force.
There are here, upon the diggings, many military men and university graduates, who generally retain their polish of manner, though outwardly they are often the roughest of the rough. Some of them tell strange stories. One Cambridge man, who was acting as a post-office clerk (not at Hokitika), told me that in 1862, shortly after taking his degree, he went out to British Columbia to settle upon land. He soon spent his capital at billiards in Victoria City, and went as a digger to the Fraser River. There he made a "pile," which he gambled away on his road back; and he struggled through the winter of 1863-64 by shooting and selling game, In 1864 he was attached as a hunter to the Vancouver's exploring expedition, and in 1965 started with a small sum of money for Australia. He was wrecked, lost all he had, and was forced to work his passage down to Melbourne. Thence he went into South Australia as the driver of a reaping-machine, and was finally, through the efforts of his friends m England, appointed to a post-office clerkship in New Zealand, which colony he intended to quit for California or Chili. This was not the only man of education whom I myself found upon the diggings, as I met with a Christ Church man, who, however, had left Oxford without a degree, actually working as a digger in a surface-mine.
In the outskirts of Hokitika I came upon a palpable Lifeguardsman cooking for a roadside station, with his smock worn like a soldier's tunic, and his cap stuck on one ear in Windsor fashion. A squatter from near Christchurch, who was at the Buller selling sheep, told me that he had an ex-captain in the Guards at work for weekly wages on his sheep-run, and that a neighbour had a lieutenant of Lancers rail-splitting at his station.
When I left Hokitika it was by the new road, 170 miles in length, which crosses the Alps and the Island, and connects Christchurch, the capital of Canterbury, with the western parts of the province. The bush between the sea and the mountains is extremely lovely. The highway is "corduroyed" with trunks of the tree-fern, and in the swamps the sleepers have begun to grow at each end, so that a close-set double row ol young tree-ferns is rising along portions of the road. The bush is densely matted with an undergrowth of supplejack and all kinds of creepers,
The peculiarity which makes the New Zealand West Coast scenery the most beautiful in the world to those who like more green than California has to show, is that here alone can you find semi-tropical vegetation growing close up to the eternal snows. The latitude and the great moisture of the climate bring the long glaciers very low into the valleys; and the absence of all true winter, coupled with the rainfall, causes the growth of palm-like ferns upon the ice-river's very edge. The glaciers of Mount Cook are the longest in the world, except those at the sources of the Indus, but close about them have been found tree-ferns of thirty and forty feet in height. It is not till you enter the mountains that you escape the moisture of the coast, and quit for the scenery of the Alps the scenery of fairy-land.
Bumping and tumbling in the mail-cart through the rushing blue-grey waters of the Teremakau I found myself within the mountains of the Snowy Range. From Arthur's Pasd—named from Arthur Dobson, brother to the surveyor murdered by the Thugs—six small glaciers were in sight at once. The Rocky Mountains opposite to Denver are loftier and not less snowy than the New Zealand Alps, but in the Rockies there are no glaciers south of about 50° north; while in New Zealand—a winterless country—they are common at 8° nearer to the line.
As we journeyed through the pass, there was one grand view, and only one: the glimpse of the ravine to the east-ward of Mount Rolleston, caught from the desert shore of Lake Misery—a tarn near the "divide" of waters. About its hanks there grows the Rockwood lily, [A giant buttercup (Ranunculus lyallii), known as the Mount Cook lily.]
In the evening we had a view that for gloomy grandeur cannot well be matched—that from near Bealey [Since abandoned.]
I Want to describe my first impressions of New Zealand— nothing more—and to say how the country and its people struck me after a long visit to the Australian Colonies.
It is a curious fact that nowhere in Australia did I meet any one who spoke to me of Dunedin Harbour; also that all through my pilgrimage in the Land of the Giant Myrtles (better known, perhaps, as gum-trees) no one gave me a hint of the sumptuous fertility of these beautiful islands. As far as I could gather, New Zealand was the knuckle-end of Australia. There were Maoris and moa-bones, and curious natural phenomena of a volcanic and unreliable sort, but
On we go, past Port Chalmers, with room enough and to spare for the commerce of many a European capital of trade, but not roomy enough for ambitious little Dunedin; and round Blueskin, with a foot of roadway to the good between safety and the sea-beach hundreds of feet sheer below, where we can look from the railway-carriage plump down on the backs of the gulls as they reconnoitre the patches of brown sea-weed that lift and fall on the swell of the waves. The train sweeps round a noble curve of sea-line, with the Pacific showing in front between the Heads—finely contoured bluffs chequered with the light green of turf and the dark of the bush. Past Waitati, whence comes that estimable person the flounder; through a pleasant reach of wild country, the undergrowth more varied in a mile than in all Victoria from frontier to frontier; a wilderness of pretty ferns, the familiar broom all ablaze with flowers, grass land spangled with marguerites just as in English meadows, and whole choirs of the Old-country song-birds—laverock, mavis, and merle, thrush, blackbird, and skylark—all singing their matins together: and so to Seacliff. The great grey stone Asylum stands up from the hill-side, chill-looking even in the middle of so sunny a landscape. In front are the sea-ripples glittering in the bright morning light, and stretching a warm deep-blue from the heads opposite away down the long reach of harbour. The meadows lie basking in the early sun as we pass. To the right continues the same matchless
And so past Palmerston—the same undulating land, ruled out by well-grown hedges into parallelograms, the formulas of cultivation; and beyond, the same snowy ranges, holding up on their white peaks the perpetual promise of abundant water, and the sea still on the right—levels of green shallows stained with broad patches of brown kelp. Yonder is the Shag Rock, and close down by the water's edge is a coal-mine, and of good coal too. Here right under the train on the sea-beach is a man sifting the sand—for gold. Then the land breaks out into hummocks—treeless, except where bush remains in the kloofs or gullies, or where a patch of fir and gum marks the homestead. The gorse here makes splendid hedges, and in the bare landscape the wonderful excellence of the country roads can easily be seen. Public money, I am told, has been "wasted" on these rural high-ways. But I do not think it has; and of this I am quite sure—that the sons and grandsons of the present generation will not think so either. It is an old story, that of the man who objected to do anything for posterity, because, he said, "posterity had done nothing for him." But, after all, is not the whole system of civilisation concentrated on the effort to do the best "for posterity"? In what country not inhabited by savages is the present as important as the future? New Zealand may have borrowed and spent money extravagantly, but prosperity is written, in round hand, in capitals, in italics, all over the country, and those who now grumble may live to confess yet that, after all, the money was not wasted. The harbours may to-day have no commerce, the railways no intelligible destination, the high roads no traffic; but a score of years hence these very harbours will have attracted commerce, and the railways have made the markets that will keep the roads busy with traffic, The
So, past Hillgrove, with sunny, green grass-land sloping down to a sunny blue sea, as beautiful as Italy, as English as Ilfracombe; past Hampden, a charming hamlet scattered about in a confusion of little hills and sunny dales, the homes perched on the eminences or nestling below in firs and willows—a delightful sub-alpine glimpse—out into a reach of fertile bottom lands; on the one side cattle and horses as they feed overlooking the Pacific; on the other, sheep dotted over the whole country almost back to the snow. Then the hills close in, and we come to a patch of uncultivated land—tussock-grass with clumps of cabbage-trees—a fine trout stream through it running down over its pebbly bed to the sea; and then fertility again, and the splendid levels of Maheno and Totara. What land! What stock! The fat, huge-framed, straight-backed cattle literally wade in sweet grass, and the horses are "pictures" both in breed and condition. Wheat and potatoes in larger fields than we see them at Home fill up the intervals between the pastures where the polled Angus and the Devon live in plenteous ease. Here, too, we come upon the white Oamaru stone, which they say cuts in the quarry like cheese and yet hardens by exposure into finest building-stone. It lies close upon the line, and crops up here and there in terrace-like formation, as if Nature were in kindly conspiracy with man to save him trouble. The stone bridges have a comfortable, substantial look, and the sheds and houses, all of white stone, are pleasant and satisfying to look at. But just one moment here to look at the view. On the left there is line after line of hills—the first, vivid green with young crops; the next, russet-brown in naked barrenness; beyond these, others—blue with distance; and again beyond and above, the snows glittering in the sunlight. Turn in your seat and look to the right—broad meadows of grass and clover; and lo! the blue sea with its white-sailed ships. Where under the British flag will you beat it? Little houses are dotted about in the verdant landscape, the many hedges and clumps of foliage giving a cosy English look to the country. There is a strange relief after Ausiralia. How clean and good the farming is here: no waste
And so to Oamaru, past rich growths of English trees— a park, I take it, well planted with willows and oaks and pines—into the white-stone town. How well ib looks, this Oamaru that jealous neighbours pretend to make fun of! Oamaru knows what it is about, and knows, too, that its very appearance is a credit to the colony, with its broad streets handsomely flanked by solid orderly stone buildings, its substantial stone warehouses and stores. There is nothing flimsy or superficial. The town is all sterling; and behind and around it is such country as guarantees prosperity—let the rates be what they may. Timaru men, I find, do not pay these compliments to Oamaru; but so much the better. If it were not for rivalry there would be no progress. Look back at the town as the train passes out through levels of exquisite pasturage, knee-deep and clovered—Aldcrney kine and Shetland ponies are here in addition to the other stock—and grand paddocks sheltered with double and triple rows of gum-trees, and see Oamaru lying upon the hill-slopes and spreading out over the level between the hills and the sea. Is it not a perfect site for the central town of an agricultural and pastoral district, with its far-spreading verdure of grass and corn, broken only by phalanx and column of pine and fir and gum?
A very pleasant formation of country here. Spurs, as it were, of softly-rounded hills run down parallel to each other towards the sea, enclosing delightful little valleys— the miniature "Sewaliks" of miniature Himalayas, but cultivated as far as the eye can reach; and the flash of young green crops catches the sight on the hill-tops twenty miles away. And then out and away over flat low-lying meadows warm in the sunlight to the lake-fed Waitaki, the boundary of the provinces, a mile-long bridge spanning the broad reach of shingle, over which in a dozen streams the summer waters of the snow-river find their way to the sea. Full of trout, too, though the water is icy cold. Some day the story of trout in New Zealand will have to be told; and it will be one of the most curious and interesting chapters of natural history ever written. Who could recognise in the silvery-grey roach-shaped monsters of New Zealand streams
And all this time we are travelling through the same grand country, flat and rich with homes—no sign of "depression" about them—everywhere, and fat cattle in fat pastures; and so to Makikihi. Australians should come here, if only for a single look at the place, with its wondrous slopes, and cultivation climbing up the hills—wedges of green driven far up into the heart of the brown and barren land. And so past Studholme, and on through the same monotony of fertility; over other half-dry river-beds; countless sheep on one side scampering away from before the train, suggesting in some places the shore-wave which a steamer in the canal carries along with it; on the other, cattle and horses, indifferent to the disturbance, comfortably browsing. Once more the land breaks up into spur-like rounded hills that run down parallel to each other; and away beyond them, on the slopes, the stations of the magnates of wool and wheat lying back among the groves of trees. And so close up to the sea again—running for a while almost on the beach itself, across a narrow full-fed stream flowing through matchless land, past a thickly-planted park, some day to be a rare pleasaunce of undulating garden scenery, of turf and grove and water—into Timaru. There is nothing to be seen of the town from the train, for Timaru turns its back upon the line. And so on without ceasing, through endless fields, thick-hedged, thick-cropped, thick-grassed—everything here grows close and full—and groves of trees and homesteads everywhere. More long bridges, all of stone, span great widths of shingle, with ribbons of water flowing here and there—water enough, however, for countless trout; and then Temuka, with a touch of the Old Country in its thatched cottages; then comfortable cosy Winchester, looking with the sunlight on it as happy and prosperous as place could look; and away again through "distressful" levels of corn and herds of fat kine to Orari, with Geraldine showing far away on the left under the bush beneath the hills. It is worth noting, as you pass, the stamp of horse that every one, shepherd and farmer's boy and
The Canterbury Plains! How often I had heard of them, and how repeatedly I had been told that I would find that part of the railway journey "good for sleeping through." So I expected something like the "plains" in India, or the dreary emptiness of the "plains" of the Platte Valley in the United States. But what a surprise was the reality! Flat, of course they are flat—for who ever heard of plains that were not? But "dreary," certainly not—or else half England is dreary. The varieties of crop, the unceasing cultivation, the frequent houses, sometimes clustering together into hamlets, the cattle everywhere, and then all the way the alpine scenery, with the snow-peaks taking all the colours painted in the sky by the setting sun —it was my first journey across the Canterbury Plains, I confess, hut I did not find a mile of it "dreary." Frequent trips, no doubt, make the journey dull, but is it not the same everywhere? The Swiss and Italian peasants go to sleep when crossing the Alps.
And now the hills have got round on the other side, closing in on us in the blues and greys of twilight. English trees of all kinds begin to pass in groves and clumps, and a convergence of roads tells of a city at hand. But look round for a moment at the wealth of the country,
[At Cape Te Reinga.]The Maori formerly believed that the souls of the dead entered the other world through a cave which is situated by the seaside at the northern extremity
The seer stands on the sacred hill above the ocean strand, His eyes fixed on the spirit path that leads to the spirit land;
Tangaroa is the Maori impersonation of the ocean—the Maori Neptune.
Tu, who is so frequently mentioned in these verses, is the Maori war-god. He was supposed to assimilate more nearly in his nature to man than any of the other Maori gods. All the epithets applied to this deity, who appears greatly to resemble the Odin of our northern forefathers, are in strict accordance with Native tradition and custom. Indeed, the whole imagery employed is due to the peculiar poetry of the Maori mind.
[The signal to be on the alert.]
"Scarlet-belted Tu." The mero or belt of the Maori warriors before they came to this country was covered with very beautiful scarlet feathers; and from all time the war-god Tu has been supposed to wear the scarlet belt and girdle.
[I.e., Dr, Featherston.]
A Band of Maori women, slowly chanting in a high, strained key, stood at the gate of the pa, and met with this song a few Englishmen who were driving rapidly on to their land.
Our track lay through a swamp of the New Zealand flax. Huge sword-like leaves and giant flower-stalks all but hid from view the Maori stockades. To the left was a village of low whares fenced round with a double row of lofty posts, carved with rude images of gods and men, and having posterns here and there. On the right were groves of karakas—children of Tanemahuta—the New Zealand sacred trees; under their shade, on a hill, a camp and another and larger pa. In startling contrast to the dense masses of the oily leaves, there stretched a great extent of light-green sward, where there were other camps and a tall flagstaff, from which floated the white flag and the Union Jack, emblems of British sovereignty and peace.
A thousand kilted Maoris dotted the green landscape with patches of brilliant tartans and scarlet cloth. Women lounged about, whiling away the time with dance and song; and from all the corners of the glade the soft cadence of the Maori cry of welcome came floating to us on the breeze, sweet as the sound of distant bells.
As we drove quickly on we found ourselves in the midst of a thronging crowd of square-built men, brown in colour, and for the most part not much darker than Spaniards, but with here and there a woolly negro in their ranks. Glancing at them as we were hurried past, we saw that the men were robust, well limbed, and tall. They greeted us pleasantly, with many a cheerful, open smile; but the faces of the older people were horribly tattooed in spiral curves. The chiefs carried battle-clubs of jade and bone; the women wore strange ornaments. At the flagstaff we pulled up, and, while the preliminaries of the council were arranged, had time to discuss with Maori and with pakeha (white man) the questions that had brought us thither.
The purchase of an enormous block of land—that of the Manawatu—had long been an object wished for and worked for by the Provincial Government of Wellington. The completion of the sale it was that had brought the Superintendent, Dr. Featherston, and humbler pakehas to Parewanui Pa. It was not only that the land was wanted by way of room for the flood of settlers, but purchase by Government was, moreover, the only means whereby war between the various Native claimants of the land could be prevented. The pakeha and Maori had agreed upon a price; the question that remained for settlement was how the money should be shared. One tribe had owned the land from the earliest times; another had conquered some miles of it; a third had had one of its chiefs cooked and eaten up on the ground. In the eye of the Maori law, the last of these titles was the best; the blood of a chief overrides all mere historic claims. The two strongest human motives concurred to make war probable, for avarice and jealousy alike prevented agreement as to the division of the spoil. Each of the three tribes claiming had half a dozen allied and related nations upon the ground; every man was there who had a claim direct or indirect, or thought he had, to any portion of the block. Individual ownership and tribal
On a signal from the Superintendent the heralds went round the camps and pas to call the tribes to council. The summons was a long-drawn, minor descending scale—a plaintive cadence, which at a distance blends into a bell-like chord. The words mean, "Come hither! come hither! Come, come! Maoris, come! "and men, women, and children soon came thronging in from every side, the chiefs bearing sceptres and spears of ceremony, and their women wearing round their necks the symbol of nobility, the Heitiki, or greenstone god. These images, we were told, have pedigrees and names like those of men.
We, with the Resident Magistrate of Whanganui, seated ourselves beneath the flagstaff. A chief, meeting the people as they came up, stayed them with the gesture that Homer ascribes to Hector, and bade them sit in a huge circle round the spar.
No sooner were we seated on our mat than there ran slowly into the centre of the ring a plumed and kilted chief, with sparkling eyes—the perfection of a savage. Hatting suddenly, he raised himself upon his toes, frowned, and stood brandishing his short feathered spear. It was Hunia te Hakeke, the young chief of the Ngatiapa. Throwing off his plaid, he commenced to speak, springing hither and thither with leopard-like freedom of gait, and sometimes leaping high in the air to emphasize a word. Fierce as were the gestures, his speech was conciliatory, and the Maori flowed from his lips—a soft Tuscan tongue. As, with a movement full of vigorous grace, he sprang back to the ranks to take his seat, there ran round the ring a hum and buzz of popular applause.
"Governor" Hunia was followed by a young Whanganui chief, who wore hunting-breeches and high boots, and a long black mantle over his European clothes. There was something odd in the shape of his cloak, and, when we came to look closely at it, we found that it was the skirt of the riding-habit of his half-caste wife. The great chiefs paid so little heed to this flippant fellow as to stand up and
A funny old grey-beard—waitere Marumaru—next rose, and, smothering down the jocularity of his face, turned towards us for a moment the typical head of Peter, as you see it on the windows of every modern church—for a moment only; for, as he raised his hand to wave his tribal sceptre, his apostolic drapery began to slip from off his shoulders, and he had to clutch at it with the energy of a topman taking in a reef in a whole gale. His speech was full of Nestorian proverbs and wise saws; but he wandered off into a history of the Wanganui lands, by which he soon became as wearied as we ourselves were, for he stopped short, and, with a twinkle of the eye, said, "Ah, Waitere is no longer young: he is climbing the snow-clad mountain Ruahine; he is becoming an old man"; and down he sat.
Karanama, a small Ngatiraukawa chief, with a white moustache, who looked like an old French concierge, followed Marumaru, and, with much use of his sceptre, related a dream foretelling the happy issue of the negotiations; for the little man was one of those "dreamers of dreams" against whom Moses warned the Israelites.
Karanarna's was not the only trance and vision of which we heard in the course of those debates. The Maoris believe that in their dreams the seers hear great bands of spirits singing chants. These, when they wake, the prophets reveal to all the people; but it is remarked that the vision is generally to the advantage of the seer's tribe.
Karanama's speech was answered by the head chief of the Raugitane Maoris, Te Peeti te Aweawe who, throwing off his upper clothing as he warmed to his subject, and strutting pompously round and round the ring, challenged Karanama to immediate battle, or his tribe to general encounter; but he cooled down as he went on, and in his last sentence showed us that Maori oratory, however ornate usually, can be made extremely terse. "It is hot," he said, "it is hot, and the very birds are loth to sing. We have talked for a week, and are therefore dry. Let us take our share—£10,000, or whatever we can get—and then we shall be dry no more."
The Maori custom of walking about, dancing, leaping, undressing, running, and brandishing spears during the
The day was wearing on before Te Peeti's speech was done, and, as the Maoris say, our waistbands began to slip down low; so all now went to lunch, both Maori and pakeha, they sitting in circles, each with his bowl or flax-blade dish and wooden spoon, we having a table and a chair or two in the mission-house; but we were so tempted by Hori Kingi's whitebait that we begged some of him as we passed. The Maoris boil the little fish in milk, and flavour them with leeks. Great fish, meat, vegetables— almost all they eat, in short, save whitebait—is steamed in the underground Native oven. A hole is dug and filled with wood, and stones are piled upon the wood, a small opening being left for draught. While the wood is burning the stones become red-hot, and fall through into the hole. They are then covered with damp fern, or else with wet mats of flax, plaited at the moment; the meat is put in and covered with more mats; the whole is sprinkled with water, and then earth is heaped on till the vapour ceases to escape. The joint takes about an hour, and is delicious. Fish is wrapped in a kind of dock-leaf, and so steamed.
While the men's eating was thus going on many of the women stood idly round, and we were enabled to judge of
When at four o'clock we returned to the flagstaff, we found that the temperature, which during the morning had been too hot, had become that of a fine English June—the air light, the trees and grass lit by a gleaming yellow sunshine that reminded ino of the Californian haze.
During luncheon we had heard that Dr. Featherston's proposals as to the division of the purchase-money had been accepted by the Ngatiapa, but not by Hunia himself, whose vanity would brook no scheme not of his own conception. We were no sooner returned to the ring than he burst in upon us with a defiant speech. "Unjust," he declared, "as was the proposition of great Petatone (Featherston), he would have accepted it for the sake of peace had he been allowed to divide the tribal share; but as the Whanganuis insisted on having a third of his £15,000, and as Petatone seemed to support them in their claim, he should have nothing more to do with the sale. The Whanganuis claim as our relatives," he said; "verily the pumpkin-shoots spread far."
Karanama, the seer, stood up to answer Hunia, and began his speech in a tone of ridicule. "Hunia is like the tea-tree: if you cut him down he sprouts again." Hunia sat quietly through a good deal of this kind of wit, till at last some epithet provoked him to interrupt the speaker. "What a fine fellow you are, Karanama; you'll tell us soon that you have two pairs of legs." "Sit down!" shrieked Karanama, and a word war ensued, but the abuse was too full of Native raciness and vigour to be fit for English cars. The chiefs kept dancing round the ring, threatening each other with their spears "Why do not you hurl at me, Karanama?" said Hunia, "it is easier to Liar!" Karanama again spoke the obnoxious word. Springing from the ground, Hunia snatched his spear from where it stood, and ran at his enemy as though to strike him. Karanama stood stock-still. Coming up to him at a charge Hunia suddenly stopped, raised himself on tiptoe, shaking his spear, and flung out some contemptuous epithet; then turned, and stalked slowly, with a springing gait, back to his own corner of the ring. There he stood haranguing his people in a bitter undertone. Karanama did the like with his. The interpreters could not keep pace with what was said. We understood that the chiefs were calling each upon his tribe to support him, if need were, in war. After a few minutes of this pause, they wheeled round, as though by a common impulse, and again began to pour out torrents of abuse. The applause became frequent, hums quickened into shouts, cheer followed cheer, till at last the ring was alive with men and women springing from the ground, and crying out on the opposing leader for a dastard.
We had previously been told to have no fear that resort would be had to blows. The Maoris never fight upon a sudden quarrel: war is with them a solemn act, entered upon only after much deliberation. Those of us who were strangers to New Zealand were nevertheless not without our doubts, while for half an hour we lay upon the grass watching the armed champions running round the ring, challenging each other to mortal combat on the spot.
The chieftains at last became exhausted, and, the mission-bell beginning to toll for evening chapel, Hunia broke off in the middle of his abuse: "Ah! I hear the bell"; and turning, stalked out of the ring towards his pa, leaving it to be inferred, by those who did not know him, that he was going to attend the service. The meeting broke up in confusion, and the Upper Whanganui tribes at once began their march towards the mountains, leaving behind them only a delegation of their chiefs.
As we drove down the coast, we talked over the close resemblance of the Maori runanga to the Homeric council: it had struck us all. Here, as in the Greek camp, we had the ring of the people, into which advanced the lance-bearing or sceptre-wearing chiefs, they alone speaking, and the people backing them only by a him: "The block of wood dictates not to the carver, neither the people to their chiefs," is a Maori proverb. The boasting of ancestry, and bragging of deeds and military exploits, to which modern wind-bags would only casually allude, was also thoroughly Homeric. In Hunia we had our Achilles; the retreat of Hunia to his whare was that of Achilles to his tent; the cause of quarrel alone was different, though in both cases it arose out of the division of the spoil—in the one case the result of lucky wars, in the other of the pakeha's weakness. The Argive and Maori leaders are one in fire, figure, port, and mien; alike, too, even in their sulkiness. In Waitere and Aperahama Tipai we had two Nestors; our Thersites was Porea, the jester, a, half-mad buffoon, continually mimicking the chiefs or interrupting them, and being by them or their messengers as often kicked and cuffed. In the frequency of repetition, the use of proverbs and simile, the Maoris resemble not Homer's Greeks so much as Homer's self; but the calling together of the people by the heralds, the secret conclave of the chiefs, the feast, the conduct of the assembly—all were the exact repetition of the events recorded in the first and second books of the Iliad as having happened on the Trojan Plains. The single point of difference was not in favour of the Greeks: the Maori women took their place in council with the men.
An Englishman, named John Rutherford, has recently returned from New Zealand, after a residence of several years in a part of the northern island considerably beyond the furthest limit known to have been reached by any European
Rutherford, according to his own account, was born at Manchester about the year 1796. He went to sea, he states, when he was hardly more than ten years of age, having up to that time been employed as a piecer in a cotton factory in his native town; and after this ho appears to have been but little in England, or even on shore, for many years. He served for a considerable time on board a man-of-war off the coast of Brazil; and was afterwards at the storming of San Sebastian, [A fortified town in Spain, guarding the French frontier between the Bay of Biscay and the Pyronees.] [About 100 miles south-east of Formosa.]
His second trading voyage in those seas was made in the Magnet, a three-masted schooner, commanded by Captain Vine; but this vessel having put in at Owhyhee. [Hawaii.]
Having recovered, however, in about a fortnight, he was taken on hoard the Agnes, an American brig of six guns and fourteen men, commanded by a Captain Coffin, which was
The land directly opposite to them was indented by a large bay. This the captain was very unwilling to enter, believing that no ship had ever anchored in it before. "It was," says Rutherford, "in the form of a half-moon, with a sandy beach round it, and at its head a fresh-water river, having a bar across its mouth, which makes it only navigable for boats." Reluctant as the captain was to enter this bay, from his ignorance of the coast, and the doubts he consequently felt as to the disposition of the inhabitants, they at last determined to stand in for it, as they had great need of water, and did not know when the wind might permit them to get to the Bay of Islands. They came to anchor, accordingly, off the termination of a reef of rocks, immediately under some elevated land, which formed one of the sides of the bay.
As soon as they had dropped anchor, a great many canoes came off to the ship from every part of the bay, each containing about thirty women, by whom it was paddled. Very few men made their appearance that day; but many of the women remained on board all night, employing themselves chiefly in stealing whatever they could lay their hands on: their conduct greatly alarmed
The next morning one of the chiefs came on board, whose name they were told was Aimy, [Not recognisable as a Maori name.]
Up to this time, therefore, no hostile disposition had been manifested by the savages; and their intercourse with the ship had been carried on with every appearance of friendship and cordiality, if we except the propensity they had shown to pilfer a few of the tempting rarities exhibited to them by their civilised visitors. Their conduct as to this matter ought, perhaps, to be taken rather as an evidence that they had not as yet formed any design of attacking the vessel, as they would, in that case, scarcely have taken the trouble of stealing a small part of what they meant immediately to seize upon altogether, On the other hand, such an infraction of the rules of hospitality would not have accorded with that system of insidious kindness by which it is their practice to full the suspicions of those whom they are on the watch to destroy.
During the night, however, the thieving was renewed, and carried to a more alarming extent, inasmuch as it was found in the morning that some of the Natives had not only stolen the lead off the ship's stern, but had also cut away
"The captain," he continues, "now paid the chief for fetching the water, giving him two muskets and a quantity of powder and shot: arms and ammunition being the only articles these people will trade for. There were at this time about three hundred of the Natives on the deck, with Aimy, the chief, in the midst of them; every man armed with a greenstone, slung with a string around his wrist. This weapon they call a mery; [Mere.]
"As soon as we had dined we went aloft, and I proceeded to loosen the jib. At this time, none of the crew were on deck except the captain and the cook, the chief mate being employed in loading some pistols at the cabin table. The Natives seized this opportunity of commencing an attack upon the ship. First, the chief threw off the mat which he wore as a cloak, and, brandishing a tomahawk in his hand, began a war song, when all the rest immediately threw off their mats likewise, and, being entirely naked, began to dance with such violence that I thought they would have stove in the ship's deck. The captain, in the meantime, was leaning against the companion, when one of the Natives went unperceived behind him, and struck him three or four
"Meantime, a number of women who had been left in the ship had jumped overboard, and were swimming to the shore, after having cut her cable, so that she drifted and ran aground on the bar near the mouth of the river. The Natives had not the sense to shake out the reefs, but had chopped the sails off along the yards with their tomahawks, leaving the reefed part behind. The pigs which we had bought from them were many of them killed on board, and carried ashore dead in the canoes. Others were thrown overboard alive, and attempted to swim to the land; but many of them were killed in the water by the Natives, who got astride on their backs, and then struck them on the head with their merys. Many of the canoes came to the land loaded with plunder from the ship, and numbers of the Natives quarrelled about the division of the spoil, and fought and slew each other. I observed, too, that they broke up our water-casks for the sake of the iron hoops.
"While all this was going on we were detained in the canoe; but at last, when the sun was set they conveyed us on shore to one of the villages, where they tied us by the hands to several small trees. The mate had expired before we got on shore, so that there now remained only twelve of us alive. A number of large fires were kindled on the beach, for the purpose of giving light to the canoes, which were employed all night in going backward and forward between the shore and the ship, although it rained the greater part of the time."
"Gentle reader," continues Rutherford, "consider now the sad situation we were in: our ship lost, three of our companions already killed, and the rest of us tied each to a tree, starving with hunger, wet and cold, and knowing that we were in the hands of cannibals.
"The next morning I observed that the surf had driven the ship over the bar, and she was now in the mouth of the river, and aground near the end of the village. Everything being now out of her, about ten o'clock in the morning they set fire to her; after which they all mustered together on an unoccupied piece of ground near the village, where they remained standing for some time; but at last they all sat down except five, who were chiefs, for whom a large ring was left vacant in the middle. The five chiefs, of whom Aimy was one, then approached the place where we were, and, after they had stood consulting together for some time, Aimy released me and another, and, taking us into the middle of the ring, made signs for us to sit down, which we did. In a few minutes the other four chiefs came also into the ring, bringing along with them four more of our men, who were made to sit down beside us. The chiefs now walked backward and forward in the ring with their merys in their hands, and continued talking together for some time, but we understood nothing of what they said. The rest of the Natives were all the while very silent, and seemed to listen to them with great attention. At length one of the chiefs spoke to one of the Natives who was seated on the ground, and the latter immediately rose, and, taking his tomahawk in his hand, went and killed the other six men, who were tied to the trees. We could not refrain from weeping for the sad fate of our comrades, not knowing, at the same time, whose turn it might be next. Many of the merys at us.
"Some of them now proceeded to dig eight large round holes, each about a foot deep, into which they afterwards put a great quantity of dry wood, and covered it over with a number of stones. They then set fire to the wood, which continued burning till the stones became red-hot. In the meantime, some of them were employed in stripping the bodies of my deceased shipmates, which they afterwards cut up, for the purpose of cooking them, having first washed them in the river; they then brought them and laid them down on several green boughs which had been broken off the trees and spread on the ground near the fires for that purpose. The stones being now red-hot, the largest pieces of burning wood were pulled from under them and thrown away, and some green bushes, having been first dipped in water, were laid round the stones, which were at the same time covered over with a few green leaves. The mangled bodies were then laid upon the top of the leaves, with a quantity of leaves also strewed over them; and after this a straw mat was spread over the top of each hole. Lastly, about three pints of water were poured upon each mat, which, running through to the stones, caused a great steam, and then the whole was instantly covered over with earth.
"They afterwards gave us some roasted fish to eat, and three women were employed in roasting fern-root for us. When they had roasted it, they laid it on a stone, and beat it with a piece of wood, until it become soft like dough. When cold again, however, it becomes hard, and snaps like gingerbread. We ate but sparingly of what they gave us. After this they took us to a house, and gave each of us a mat and some dried grass to sleep upon. Here we spent the night, two of the chiefs sleeping along with us.
"We got up next morning as soon as it was daylight, as did also the two chiefs, and went and sat down outside the house. Here we found a number of women busy in making baskets of green flax, into some of which, when they were finished, the bodies of our messmates, that had been cooking all night, were put, while others were filled with potatoes that had been preparing by a similar process. A short time after this the chiefs assembled, and, having
Rutherford and his comrades spent another night in the same manner in which they had spent the last; and on the following morning set out, in company with the five chiefs, on a journey into the interior. When they left the coast, the ship still continued burning. They were attended by about fifty Natives, who were loaded with the plunder of the unfortunate vessel. That day he calculates that they travelled only about ten miles, the journey being very fatiguing from the want of any regular roads and the necessity of making their way through a succession of woods and swamps. The village at which their walk terminated was the residence of one of the chiefs, whose name was Rangadi, [Perhaps Rangiriri.]
The house of the chief to which Rutherford and his comrades were taken was the largest in the village, being both long and wide, although very low, and having no other entrance than an aperture which was shut by means of a sliding door, and was so much lower even than the roof that it was necessary to crawl upon the hands and knees to get through it. Two large pigs and a quantity of potatoes were now cooked in the manner already described; and when they were ready, a portion having been allotted to the slaves, who are never permitted to eat along with the chiefs, the latter sat down to their repast, the white men taking their places beside them.
"Dinner being finished," Rutherford continues, "and
"In the morning, when we arose, the chief gave us back our knives and tobacco boxes, which they had taken from us while in the canoe on our first being made prisoners, and we then breakfasted on some potatoes and cockles, which had been cooked while we were at the sea coast, and brought thence in baskets. Aimy's wife and two daughters now arrived, which occasioned another grand crying ceremony; and when it was over the three ladies came to look at me and my companions. In a short time they took a fancy to some small gilt buttons which I had on my waistcoat, and Aimy making a sign for me to cut them off I immediately did so, and presented them for their acceptance. They received them very gladly, and, shaking hands with me, exclaimed, 'The white man is very good.'
"The whole of the Natives having then seated themselves on the ground in a ring, we were brought into the middle, and, being stripped of our clothes and laid on our backs, we were each of us held down by five or six men, while two others commenced the operation of tattooing us. Having taken a piece of charcoal, and rubbed it upon a stone with a little water until they had produced a thickish liquid, they then dipped into it an instrument made of bone, having a sharp edge like a chisel and shaped in the fashion of a garden hoe, and immediately applied it to the skin, striking it twice or thrice with a small piece of wood. This made it cut into the flesh as a knife would have done, and caused a great deal of blood to flow, which they kept wiping off with the side of the hand in order to see if the impression was sufficiently clear. When it was not they applied the bone a second time to the same place. They employed, however, various instruments in the course of the operation, one, which they sometimes used, being made of a shark's tooth, and another having teeth like a saw. They had them also of different sizes to suit the different parts of the work.
"While I was undergoing this operation, although the pain was most acute, I never either moved or uttered a
Rutherford remained at this village for about six months, together with the others who had been taken prisoners with him and not put to death, all except one, John Watson, who, soon after their arrival here, was carried away by a chief named Nainy. [Nene.]
At last they set out in company with Aimy and another chief to pursue their journey further into the interior; one of them, however, whose name is not given, remaining with Rangadi. Having come to another village, the chief of which was called Plama, [Probably Aperama, for Abram.]
"We were treated very kindly," says Rutherford, "at this village by the Natives. The chief, whose name was Ewanna, [Whana.]
"We proceeded on our journey in company with Aimy and his family and another chief; and, having walked about two miles without one word being spoken by any of the party we arrived at the side of a river. Here we stopped, and lighted a fire; and the Natives who had charge of the luggage having come up in about an hour, bringing with them some potatoes and dried fish, we cooked a dinner for ourselves in the usual manner. We then crossed the river, which was only about knee-deep, and immediately entered a wood, through which we continued to make our way till sunset On getting out of it we found ourselves in the midst of some cultivated ground, on which we saw growing potatoes, turnips, cabbage, taro (which is a root resembling a yam), water-melons, and coomeras, [Kumara.]'Arami! arami!' which means, 'Welcome home.' We were then taken to Aimy's house, which was the largest in the village, and built in the usual manner, having the walls formed of large twigs covered with rushes, with which it was also thatched. A pig was now killed for us, and cooked with some coomeras, from which we supped; and afterwards, seating ourselves round the fire, we amused ourselves by listening to several of the women singing. In the meantime a slave girl was killed, and put into a hole in the earth to roast in the manner already described, in order to furnish a feast the following day, in honour of the chief's return home. "We slept that night in the chief's house; but the next morning a number of the Natives were set to work to build us one for ourselves, of the same form with that in which the chief lived, and nearly of the same size. In the course of this day many other chiefs arrived at the village, accompanied by their families and slaves, to welcome Aimy home, which they did in the usual manner. Some of them brought with them a quantity of water-melons, which they gave to me and my comrade. At last they all seated themselves upon the ground to have their feast; several large pigs, together with some scores of baskets of potatoes, taro, and water-melons, having first been brought forward by Aimy's people. The pigs, after being drowned in the river and dressed, had been laid to roast beside the potatoes. When these were eaten, the fire that had been made the night before was opened, and the body of the slave girl taken out of it, which they next proceeded to feast upon in the eagerest manner. We were not asked to partake of it, for Aimy knew that we had refused to eat human flesh before. After the feast was over the fragments were collected, and carried home by the slaves of the different chiefs, according to the custom which is always observed on such occasions in New Zealand."
[Haere mai.]
The house that had been ordered for Rutherford and his companion was ready in about a weeK; and, having
"At last it happened that Aimy and his family went to a feast at another village a few miles distant from ours, and my comrade and I were left at home, with nobody but a few slaves and the chief's mother, an old woman, who was sick, and attended by a physician. A physician in this country remains with his patients constantly both day and night, never leaving them till they either recover or die; if they die he is brought before a court of inquiry, composed of all the chiefs for many miles round. During the absence of the family at the feast, my comrade chanced to lend his knife to a slave to cut some rushes with, in order to repair a bouse; and when that was done he received it back again. Boon after, he and I killed a pig, from which we cut a portion into small pieces, and put them into our iron pot, along with some potatoes which we had also peeled with our knives. When the potatoes were cooked, the old woman who was sick desired us to give her some, which we did in the presence of the doctor, and she ate them. Next morning she died, when the chief and the rest of his family immediately returned home.
"The corpse was first removed to an unoccupied piece of ground in the centre of the village, and there placed, with a mat under it, in a sitting position against a post, being covered with another mat up to the chin. The head and face were anointed with shark oil, and a piece of green flax was also tied round the head, in which were stuck several whtie feathers—the sort of feathers which are here preferred to any other. They then constructed around the corpse an enclosure of twigs, something like a bird's cage, for the purpose of keeping the dogs, pigs, and children from
"Meanwhile, the chiefs and their families for miles round were making their appearance in our village, bringing with them their slaves loaded with provisions. On the third day after the death they all, to the number of some hundreds, knelt down around the corpse, and, having thrown off their mats, proceeded to cry and cut themselves in the same manner as we had seen done on occasion of the different chiefs of the villages through which we passed being welcomed home. After some time spent in this ceremony they all sat down together to a great feast, made of their own provisions which they had brought with them.
"The following morning the men alone formed a circle round the dead body, armed with spears, muskets, tomahawks, and merys; and the doctor appeared, walking backwards and forwards in the ring. By this time my companion and I had learned a good deal of their language, and, as we stood listening to what was said, we heard the doctor relate the particulars of the old woman's illness and death; after which the chief began to inquire very closely into what she had eaten for the three days before she expired. At last, the doctor having retired from the ring, an old chief stepped forward, with three or four white feathers stuck in his hair, and, having walked several times up and down in the ring, addressed the meeting, and said that, in his opinion, the old woman's death had been occasioned by her having eaten potatoes that had been peeled with a white man's knife after it had been used for cutting rushes to repair a house, on which account he thought that the white man to whom the knife belonged should be killed, which would be a great honour conferred upon the memory of the dead woman.
"To this proposal many of the other chiefs expressed their assent, and it seemed about to be adopted by the Court. Meanwhile my companion stood trembling and unable to speak from fear. I then went forward myself into the ring and told them that if the white man had done wrong in lending his knife to the slave he had done so ignorantly, from not knowing the customs of the country. I ventured at the same time to address myself to Aimy, beseeching him mere and killed him. Aimy, however, would not allow him to be eaten, though for what reason I never could learn. The slaves, therefore, having dug a grave for him, he was interred after my directions.
"As for the corpse of the old woman, it was now wrapped up in several mats, and carried away by Aimy and the doctor, no person being allowed to follow them. I learned, however, that they took her into a neighbouring wood, and there buried her. After this the strangers all left our village and returned bo their respective homes. In about three months the body of the woman was again taken up and carried to the river-side, where the bones were scraped and washed, and then enclosed in a box which had been prepared for that purpose. The box was afterwards fastened on the top of a post, in the place where the body first lay in state, and a space of about thirty feet in circumference being railed in around it, a wooden image was erected, to signify that the ground was tabooed, or sacred, and as a warning that no one should enter the enclosure. This is the regular manner of interment in New Zealand for any one belonging to a chief's family. When a slave dies a hole is dug and the body is thrown into it without any ceremony; nor is it ever disinterred again, or any further notice taken of it. They never eat any person who dies of disease or in the course of nature.
"At last it happened one day, while we were all assembled at a feast in our village, that Aimy called me to him, in the presence of several more chiefs, and, having told them of my activity in shooting and fishing, concluded by saying that he wished to make me a chief, if I would give my consent. This I readily did, upon which my hair was immediately cut with an oyster shell in the front, in the same manner as the chiefs have theirs cut, and several of the chiefs made me a present of some mats, and promised bo send me some pigs the next day. I now put on a mat covered over with red ochre and oil, such as was worn by the other chiefs, and my head and face were also anointed with the same mery, which I afterwards always carried with me.
Perhaps I ought to begin by mentioning that this is not a "city article." Nor am I either a broker or a jobber, although I do propound the question, Does any reader andently burn to possess himself of some Doughtown scrip? If so, I am prepared to supply a considerable parcel of the same.
It behoves me to explain, first, what Doughtown scrip is; and, secondly, how I came to be a holder of it. It is necessary to begin by being geographical.
Nearly the whole of the west coast of the Middle Island of New Zealand is auriferous. Fifteen years ago the diggings there were, perhaps, the richest in the world. It seemed as if you could hardly go wrong. A ship's boat disembarked you on the black sand of the sea-shore. You need have gone no further, but simply have shovelled the black sand into your dish, washed it in the sea-water, and lo! there was a rich gold residuum. Ten thousand diggers— you could not call them miners—were delving in the black sand of a long strip of beach sixty miles south of Hokitika. It was not as a gold-miner that I visited Westland in a recent March—that is the autumn season in New Zealand —but as a lecturer. With all its roughness, there is hardly any chance aggregation of humanity in the world more intelligent than a gold-mining community. It is sure to contain an exceptional number of educated men who retain their taste for reading. Out of the world by force of their conditions, gold-miners retain a keen interest in the world, especially the world of action. They follow the story of a campaign with engrossed interest. They take sides while Britain is not in the arena; in that case they are all on one side with a grand fervour. They stand with Chard and Bromhead inside the frail stronghold of Rorke's Drift, and,
It was, as I suppose, because the plain blunt stories I tried to tell on the lecturing platform were tales of campaign and battle-field that they sent to tell me they wanted me to go among them. The message came to me at Christchurch, just as I was making ready to take a reluctant departure from beautiful, hospitable New Zealand. I took it as among the best compliments that ever had been paid me, and, postponing my departure, proceeded to obey the summons.
The day after a lecture night in Hokitika, some friends were kind enough to drive me out to look at the Humphrey's Gully gold-mining claim. It was a pleasant drive, through picturesque country, in which nestled quaint mining hamlets that already had taken on a strangely old-world aspect. Everywhere were ferns such as would have given ecstasies to a British fancier; and over the fern verdure waved the tall sombre pines. A broad placid river flowed gently down to the sea, margined by paddocks whose grass had the greenness of the Old Country. And above the flowing water, clinging on the slopes between the river meadows and the ferns, there were pretty picturesque cottages over whose porches and gables trailed roses and honeysuckles.
About ten miles from Hokitika we pulled up at a lone publichouse, where we were to leave the vehicle; for the rest of the way to where Humphrey's nozzle played on the face of his Gully was to be done only on foot, and not very easily thus, as I had occasion to discover.
As we halted, there emerged from the bar of the public-house a man who wore the long boots and the woollen jumper of a miner; but he had accentuated his mission by accoutring himself with a tall hat considerably the worse for wear. This article of attire he took off, and deliberately set down on the stool under the publichouse verandah. From its depths he produced a voluminous blue pocket handkerchief, which he used with effusion, and replaced. Then he accosted the inmates of the vehicle.
He set forth, using grotesquely the longest words he could unearth, that he was a delegate from Doughtown, which he explained was across the swamp and beyond the ridge. Doughtown had heard that I was being brought out
If I consented, he would immediately return to Dough-town with the news; whereupon a deputation should betake itself to where we now were, to await our return from Humphrey's Gully, and escort me across to Doughtown in worthy and seemly fashion.
There was only one reply possible to so flattering a request. The delegate reinstated his hat. We walked on into the Gully; he started across the swamp for Doughtown.
Of the Gully I will only say that it was very rugged, very slippery, and not a little damp. We had afternoon tea with a miner's wife in a shanty whose canvas walls were lined with pictures from the Illustrated News and Graphic. The good lady had some children, and professed concern about her eldest son, a lively youth of twelve. She could not get him to mind his books, for there was no minute of any day that he did not spend in assiduous prospecting. The young gentleman took me aside later on, and tried to open a negotiation in relation to a claim which he averred would beat the Humphrey's Gully into fits.
As we approached "Webster's Corner" on the return journey, the Doughtown deputation was visible, lounging under the verandah. We were greeted with a cheer as we drove up, and every member of it was duly introduced by the town clerk, and solemnly shook hands. They were a fine manly-looking set of fellows, those Doughtown men—strapping, upright, bearded, with heads well up, and frank, honest eyes. Their speech betrayed that most of them were Scots.
Then we set out for the two-mile trudge to Doughtown. There was no cart road to that place, and no wheeled vehicle had ever been nearer to it than "Webster's." The town clerk hilariously led the way; we followed in a posse, and a lone man trudged in the rear with a big stone jar slung by a strap over his shoulder.
When we got into the swamp the miners insisted on carrying me on a king's cushion. With joined hands two abreast made a sort of seat on which I sat with an arm round the neck of each of my bearers. I was not in robust health, and they had somehow come to know this: they all but resorted to physical force to ensconce me in the living chair.
Then we climbed a low green ridge, and there Doughtown lay at our feet. As regards looks, Doughtown had no great pretensions. There was a higgledy-piggledy cluster of tents and shanties among the stumps, and all around was the oozy, stunted, sour-looking forest. Some holes there were, and hillocks of sweaty soil, and here and there a whim, and yonder a windlass with a bucket close up to the cross-bar.
The population, numbering about two hundred able-bodied men, a good many women, and a large assortment of children, had clustered in the foreground, and welcomed our appearance in the distance with vehement cheering and a desultory gun-fire. A few flags waved in the damp languid wind.
As we drew near, Doughtown came out to meet us. A grey-bearded man was in advance, whom the town clerk introduced under the high-sounding title of the "Reeve of Doughtown." Then with indiscriminate hand-shaking we passed on, until the reeve halted in front of a central shanty which I assumed to be the Guildhall and Mansion House of Doughtown all in one.
We—my Hokitika friends had accompanied me—were invited inside, and the conscript fathers enthusiastically drank the health of the person whom the worthy reeve called "our distinguished visitor."
After these preliminaries, the formal business commenced on the stoop outside. Modesty bids me bury in oblivion the flattering expressions which his worship permitted himself in introducing me to the Doughtown audience.
It was necessary for me to explain that, having been taken by surprise, I could only speak from memory. But the excellent folks of Doughtown were not exacting. Any pause that occurred from a lapse in ready words they filled up with applause. One longer interval than usual they utilised by singing "For he's a jolly good fellow," right through to the bitter end.
When I had made an end of speaking, "God save the Queen" was sung, partly as a finale, partly as an introduction to the speeches in which a vote of thanks was proposed.
Then it became time for us to go. But I must not go empty-handed, as it seemed. I had noticed the town clerk with his hat in his hand, dodging about among the audience which was standing there out in the open. Presently he came up on to the stoop and whispered to the reeve. That civic chief spread his red cotton handkerchief on the table which had been brought outside, and the town clerk emptied into the handkerchief the contents of his hat.
It was a curious collection. There was a sovereign, several half-sovereigns, at least one threepenny-piece, and quite a number of little nuggets. And this miscellaneous assortment of metal the reeve announced was Doughtown's contribution in requital of my lecture. He wished, said he—he was sure all wished—that the collection had been four times as liberal, but "things," he explained, "are just now rather quiet with us."
Of course, I could not take the offering—that was out of the question. I declined, with some expression of full satisfaction in the compliment that had been paid to me, the pleasant memory of which any recompense would utterly mar. I picked out a small nugget which I would have set in a shirt-pin as a souvenir, and concluded by wishing success to Doughtown.
But the authorities were obviously not quite satisfied with this arrangement. There was a consultation between the reeve and the town clerk. The latter went inside, and came back with a small packet, which he handed to his worship. Then his worship commanded silence, and spoke thus:—
"Sir, to-day will be memorable in Doughtown annals. It marks the first step in Doughtown's intellectual career. You, sir, have come among us. We are a remote community; but we have energy, perseverance, and industry. You can tell the Old Country when you go back to it that in becoming New Zealand colonists we have not ceased to be Britons. You have heard us, sir, sing, 'God save the Queen'; and that with us, sir, was no unmeaning chant— it came from out our very hearts.
"We are a peaceful folk. You have described battles to us, and I am sure you had no listener who was not glad that his lot has not been cast in such scenes. But there is no man of us who would not brave all the dangers and horrors you told us of, on behalf of Queen and country. You will do a good turn if you will let that be known at Home.
"And, sir, you decline to take any recompense for the trouble you have given yourself this day on our account. But we may beg of you to take away with you such a souvenir as may give you an interest in the fortunes of Doughtown. Some of our citizens have just united their mining interests into a company,—the prospects of which, it is true, are still in embryo, but in which we allow ourselves firmly to believe. I hold in my hand, sir, the scrip of two hundred shares in the Doughtown United Gold-mining Company (Limited); and of that scrip, sir, in the name of the community of Doughtown, I respectfully request your acceptance. For the present you will find it unsaleable at any price; but the time may come, sir, when, in the words of Dr. Johnson, it may 'enrich you beyond the dreams of avarice.' Your acceptance, sir, will give Doughtown a fresh incentive to make the enterprise a success."
I took the scrip. One share I have pasted in my album as a souvenir: the rest I do not care particularly about holding. The rumour of an imminent call has reached me. Perhaps I should mention that there is a liability of 15s. on each share. The worthy reeve did not mention this potty circumstance, and of course I could not look the gift horse in the mouth. Are there any applicants, then, for 199 shares of the "Doughtown United"?
[For some time after his return from Cook Strait, Rutherford's life appears to have been unvaried by any incident of moment. "At length," says he, "one day a messenger arrived from a neighbouring village with the news that all the chiefs for miles round were about to set out, in I.e., Kaipara, but the geography of the writer is not intelligible.]
"When the day was come for our departure I started along with the rest, being armed with my [Probably Peka.] [Probably Hau.] [Taranaki.]mery, a brace of pistols, and a double-barrelled fowlling-piece, and having also with me some powder and ball, and a great quantity of duck shot, which I took for the purpose of killing game on our journey. I was accompanied by my wife Epecka
"Our journey, being made during the rainy season, was more than usually fatiguing. We were five weeks in reaching Kipara, where we found about eleven hundred more Natives encamped by the side of a river. On our arrival,
"On the opposite side of the river, which was about half a mile wide, and not more than four feet deep in any part, about four hundred of the enemy were encamped, waiting for reinforcements. Meanwhile messengers were continually passing from one party to the other with messages concerning the war. One of them informed us that there was a white man in his party who had heard of and wished to see me, and that the chiefs, who also wished to see me, would give me permission to cross the river to meet him, and I should return unmolested whenever I thought proper. With Airny's consent, therefore, I went across the river, but I was not permitted to go armed, nor yet to take my wife with me. When I arrived on the opposite side several of the chiefs saluted me in the usual manner, by touching my nose with theirs; and I afterwards was seated in the midst of them by the side of the white man, who told me his name was John Mawman, [Marmon.] [Raumati.] [Hokianga.] [Whangaroa.]
"While I remained among these people, a slave was brought up before one of the chiefs, who immediately arose from the ground, and struck him with his [The celebrated Hongi.]mery, and killed him. This mery was different from any of the rest, being
"I now returned to my own party. Early the next morning the enemy retreated to a distance of about two miles from the river; upon observing which our party immediately threw off their mats and got under arms. The two parties had altogether about two thousand muskets among them, chiefly purchased from the English and American South Sea ships which touch at the Island. We now crossed the river, and, having arrived on the opposite side, I took my station on a rising ground, about a quarter of a mile distant from where our party halted, so that I had a full view of the engagement. I was not myself required to fight, but I loaded my double-barrelled gun, and, thus armed, remained at my post, my wife and the two slave girls having seated themselves at my feet.
"The commander-in-chief of each party now stepped forward a few yards, and, placing himself in front of his troops, commenced the war song. When this was ended both parties danced the war dance, singing at the same time as loud as they could, and brandishing their weapons in the air. Having finished their dance, each party formed into a line two deep, the women and boys stationing themselves about ten yards to the rear. The two bodies then [Horizontally, at the level of the hip.]merys and tomahawks out of their belts, when, the war song being screamed by the whole of them together in a manner most dismal to be heard, the two parties rushed into close combat. They now took hold of the hair of each other's heads with their left hands, using the right to cut off the head. Meantime, the women and boys followed close behind them, uttering the most shocking cries I ever heard. These last received the heads of the slain from those engaged in the battle as soon as they were cut off, after which the men went in among the enemy for the dead bodies, but many of them received bodies that did not belong to the heads they had cut off.
"The engagement had not lasted many minutes when the enemy began to retreat, and were pursued by our party through the woods. Some of them, in their flight, crossed the hill on which I stood; and one threw a jagged spear at me as he passed, which stuck in the inside of my left thigh. It was afterwards cut out by two women with an oyster shell. The operation left a wound as large as a common-sized teacup, and after it had been performed I was carried across the river on a woman's back to my hut, where my wife applied some green herbs to the wound, which immediately stopped the bleeding, and also made the pain much less severe.
"In a short time our party returned victorious, bringing along with them many prisoners. Persons taken in battle, whether chiefs or not, become slaves to those who take them. One of our chief's had been shot by Shungie, and the body was brought back and laid upon some mats before the huts. Twenty heads also were placed upon long spears which were stuck up around our huts; and nearly twice as many bodies were put to the fires to be cooked in the accustomed way. Our party continued dancing and singing all night; and the next morning they had a grand feast on the dead bodies and fern-root in honour of the victory they had. [Whare.] [Tame Tui.] [Whareumu.] [Probably an abbreviation for some name beginning with Rau.] [This description relates probably to the battle of Te-Ika-Ranga-nui, but it is not quite accurate.]
"We now left Kipara in a number of canoes, and proceeded down the river to a place called Shaurakke, [Hauraki.] [ [Probably Muriwai.] [Haere mai.]Ara mi, ara mi
"A few days after our return home from Showrackee [Hauraki] [Kaipuke] [Tokomaru]'Kipoke,'
"I now perceived the ship under sail, at almost twenty miles distance from the land, off which the wind was blowing strong, which prevented her nearing. Meanwhile, as it was drawing towards night, we encamped, and sat down to supper. I observed that several of the Natives wore round their necks and wrists many of the trinkets which they had taken out of our ship. As Aimy and I sat together at supper, a slave arrived with a new basket, which he placed before me, saying that it was a present from his master. I asked him what was in the basket, and he informed me that it was part of a slave girl's thigh, that had been killed three days before. It was cooked, be added, and was very nice. I then commanded him to open it, which he did, when it presented the appearance of a piece of pork which had been baked in the oven. I made a present of it to Aimy, who divided it among the chiefs.
"The chiefs now consulted together, and resolved that, if the ship came in, they would take her, and murder the crew. Next morning she was observed to be much nearer than she had been the night before, but the chiefs were still afraid she would not come in, and therefore agreed that I should be sent on board, on purpose to decoy her to the land, which I promised to do. I was then dressed in a
"By this time the chief's son had begun stealing in the ship, on which the crew tied him up and flogged him with the clue of one of their hammocks, and then sent him down into his canoe. They would have flogged the rest also had I not interceded for them, considering that there might be still some of my unfortunate shipmates living on shore on whom they might avenge themselves. The captain now consented to take me along with him; and, the canoe having been set adrift, we stood off from the island.
"For the first sixteen months of my residence in New Zealand I had counted the days by means of notches on a stick, but after that I had kept no reckoning. I now learned, however, that the day on which I was taken off the Island was the 9th of January, 1826. I had, therefore, been a prisoner among these savages ten years all but two months."
"Every schoolboy knows" that in England "the merry month of May" is the beginning of summer, and skating and snowballing are amusements for the Christmas holidays, while in New Zealand the month of May ushers in the winter, and at Christmas we may have a foretaste of harvest heat. We have our shortest days and longest nights when in Europe it is the time of longest days and shortest nights. It is well to know this, but better to know the reason of it.
This would be easy to explain if one page of a book would hold a diagram large enough to show the sun and the earth in their relative proportions, and at a distance proportionate to their bulk. But the fact is that, on a plan drawn to scale, if our globe were represented by a disc with a diameter of an inch the sun would be represented by a disc of about nine feet in diameter, and a circle drawn to represent the course of the earth in its annual orbit would have a diameter of about two thousand feet. It is necessary to have recourse to diagrams that ignore relative size or scale, and in which relative positions alone are accurately indicated.
Here is the elevation of a model which illustrates the relative positions of the sun and the earth at four different seasons of the year.
The circumscribing parallelogram is a section of a room, from the floor of which rises a stand supporting a lamp (S), partly hidden in the elevation by a shaded disc. This lamp represents the sun. A rod (RR') is so placed that its lower end (R) is exactly over the centre of the lamp, and this rod is held in position by a tube (T) in such a way that every part of the rod is equally distant from the wall behind. The tube is kept in position by an arm projecting from the back wall. In the elevation this arm, of course, is not seen. The rod has a wheel (W) fixed to it, which by means of a cord (C) led over a pulley on the side wall can be made to rotate, causing the rod also to rotate on its own axis. To
The position D represents the place of the earth about the 22nd of December. The light and shade represent day and night respectively. If the ball is made to spin by a slight twisting of the string, so that a spot at W comes round in front (from west to east) until it occupies the position E, and then goes round at the back till it reaches its original position, the model is thus made to illustrate the daily rotation of the earth. If the horizontal line We crosses the centre of the disc it represents the Equator, and a quarter of a turn (representing six hours) will bring the spot from W, its original position, to the line that divides the light from the shade. Another quarter of a turn will bring it to the position E; and, as it goes behind, a quarter of a turn will carry it out of the shade into the light, and the fourth quarter will restore it to its old position. During one-half of the rotation the moving spot will be in the light, and during the other half it will be in the shade. It is plain, then, that about the 22nd of December day and night at the Equator are equal. This, indeed, is the case all the year round.
But consider what occurs at the same time at the North Pole—represented by the point of attachment to the string. This point remains in the shade during the whole of the turn that carries a spot from W round in front to E, and then round behind to its first position. The point opposite to the North Pole is, on the contrary, in the light during the whole rotation.
But when the system is turned round so far as to bring the ball into the position J, which represents the position of tha earth about the 21st of June, the model shows that the daily rotation cannot carry the North Pole into the darkness, and cannot bring the South Pole into the light.
The shaded disc, partly biding the lamp, represents the earth in the position it occupies about the 23rd of September. The shadow covers the whole disc, from the North Pole to the South Pole, and the light bathes the unseen half from north to south. The position for the 20th of March must be imagined as lying behind the lamp, and a moment's consideration is enough to satisfy us that, in that position also, one side of the ball from north to south must be illuminated, and the other side shrouded in darkness from north to south.
It will be observed that in the model the weight of the ball keeps the string always vertical. Any position occupied by the string as the model revolves is therefore parallel to every other position occupied by it; in other words, the axis of the ball maintains a constant direction. This is what really happens in the earth's annual revolution—one end of the axis always pointing to the north, and the other to the south. In most maps a north and south line is vertical, with the north end up. The model is adapted to this rule.
In the model, then, the axis of rotation has a constant direction, being always vertical. The axis of revolution, also has a constant direction, but its direction is not vertical, it is parallel to the direction of the rod RR' held in the tube. The line R'R is the axis of revolution of the point L, and a line parallel to R'R and passing through the centre of the lamp is the axis of revolution of the ball. Its direction is about 23½° from the vertical. These conditions of the model truly represent the conditions of the earth's daily rotation and annual revolution: (I) The axis of rotation has a constant direction; (2) the axis of revolution has a constant direction; (3) these two constant directions are not the same, but are mutually inclined at an angle of 23½°. This is, perhaps, when properly understood, as concise an explanation as can be given of the phenomena of the seasons.
The succeeding diagrams are on a larger scale. The diagrams for June and December are amplified Do not say a "Antartic": there is ac before the second t.
The diagram for December shows that about the 22nd of that month no place north of the Acetic Circle can on that day have any daylight, and no place south of the Antarctic Circle can lose the daylight. It is plain, too, that the perpendicular rays fall on the point C' so that every place on the circle C'P'—the Tropic of Capricorn—comes once in the day directly under the sun. Since the perpendicular rays fall 23½° south of the Equator, and the grazing rays touch the point A, leaving the North Pole in darkness, and touch the point B, so that the South Pole is always in the light, this must be the time of northern winter and southern summer.
The regions north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic are the Frigid Zones; those that lie between the northern tropic (of Cancer—CN') and the southern tropic (of Capricorn—C'P') constitute the Torrid Zone; the Zones. England lies-in the North Temperate Zone; New Zealand in the South Temperate Zone.
The diagrams for March and September correspond to the appearance the ball would present to an observer standing near the pulley in the main diagram when the ball is between the lamp and the back wall (for March), and when it is in front of the lamp (for September). In these two positions the rod (RL) lies horizontal. The sun's rays, indicated by the arrows, graze the North and South Poles alike, and the direct (perpendicular) rays fall on the Equator at E. The north-and-south line is at these times the day-and-night line also, and the daily rotation brings all places from the midnight position, represented by the convex edge of the shaded half of the disc, to the day-and-night line in the interval between their midnight and six o'clock of their morning; and again in six hours it brings them to their noon position, represented by the convex edge of the bright limb. Day and night are of equal duration every where at the times to which these two diagrams relate, and therefore these times are called the equinoxes (nox is Latin for night). The times to which the June and December diagrams relate are called the solstices, because then the sun (sol) comes to a stand (sto, I stand). His direct rays fall on the Equator in March, but as the year wears on towards June the North Pole is tilted gradually towards the sun, and the places of the incidence of the direct rays are therefore north of the Equator, and day by day the direct rays fall further north, until at last, in June, they fall on the Tropic of Cancer. Then the process is arrested, and the reverse process begins. Day by day the direct rays fall further south, so that in September they strike the Equator again; and still further south they fall until December, when the southern progress comes to an end. The times at which these processes—of northward and southward progress—are arrested or stayed are the solstices, the slayings or standings of the sun.
The reasons for summer heat and winter cold are two, though they both depend on the motions that have been described. First, the sun's rays are more direct in summer
Note—In Professor Bickerton's admirable model the plane of the Equator is represented as oblique, and the plane of the ecliptic as horizontal. That arrangement, as compared with that of the model here described, has the advantage of better representing the comparative stability of the plane of the ecliptic. There is a slow alteration in the direction of the earth's axis, in consequence of which the meaning of the word north as applied to the heavens is slowly changing in a cycle extending over about 26,000 years.
In most languages the vowel signs are fewer than the vowel sounds, and therefore some of the signs are of uncertain value. In our own language the pronunciation has undergone many changes since the period in which the spelling acquired a comparative fixity, and thus the uncertainty of the signs has become more perplexing. The same word is pronounced differently in different counties; families have traditions of their own; individual persons have their peculiarities with respect to fineness of ear, to precision in utterance, and to the influence of written forms upon their habits of speech. One consequence of all this is that, if a writer tries to indicate the quality of a sound by saying that it is the sound of a certain letter or syllable in an English word, he knows that different readers will receive different impressions from what he has written. It is not enough to say that the scholars by whom Maori speech was first reduced systematically to writing adopted the Italian vowel system. It is nob certain that they did their work quite consistently; and it is nearly certain that some readers will not know what the Italian system is. Besides, Italian has not as many vowel signs as there are vowel sounds to he severally indicated by the signs. For these reasons, it appears to he necessary to make an attempt to bring the signs into direct relation with the organs of speech.
Roughly speaking, the long vowels a, n, i, o, u, in Maori, may be represented in this order by the English signs ah, eh? ee, oh! oo. The first sound (which is that of a in father and in part) requires the widest opening of the mouth, the lower jaw dropped, the tongue lying low in the mouth, and perhaps somewhat retracted, with its tip sensibly depressed by a muscular effort, and the lips wide apart. If now the lips are brought very near together, and somewhat protruded, with as little change as possible in the posture of the jaw and the tongue, the last sound in the series—oo, as in who, food, boot—is produced. The middle term of the series—ee in feet—requires a posture of the mouth quite different from the two that have been described, but quite as easy to describe. The tongue being raised till it nearly closes with the palate, the passage ee (It may be remarked that, if while the passage is thus flattened the lips are brought very near together and protruded—"pursed up"— as for oo, the sound that is heard is the French u.) The eh sound, like the ee, is produced by an upward "squeezing" of the tongue, but the "squeeze" for eh lies further back in the mouth than the ee "squeeze," and does not extend to the tip of the tongue, which falls from the ee position in the change from ee to eh. (Perhaps a similar upward pressure further back still is the condition of the production of our short a in eat and in man, a sound that is related as nearly to eh in one direction as to ah in another. It is doubtful whether this sound is ever heard in Maori.) The o (oh!) requires a mutual approach of the lips, not so close as that which is necessary for oo.
The short Maori vowels corresponding to e, i, and u long —that is, to eh, ee, and oo—are identical with our short e, i, and u in the English words pet, pit, and put. The Maori short o is not our o in not (which has au or ou in naught and nought for its relative long vowel). Maori short o is produced with the same position of the organs as long o, and differs from long o in duration only and not in nature. The sound of Maori short o is heard in a short and sharp English negative—no!—or a short and sharp O! as an interjection. The so-called short a in Maori somewhat resembles our e in her, i in sir, and u fur. It is the sound which by some students of speech is indicated by the sign ŭh. The organs when in the form proper to ah are subject to the constraint involved in the depression of the tip of the tongue. The mere release from this constraint produces the attitude required for this short a, which approximates to our short u in nut, but is not identical with it. It is one of the most indolent sounds ever used. It is rather like the u in fur and lurk than like the u in furrow and luck. The vowel sound in our the and a (the articles), when entirely free from emphasis, resembles it. We say ŭh man and thŭh man, rather than eh man and thee man. The French le is very much like lŭh. Perhaps most English people say umbrellŭh, rather than umbrellah. The Maori place-name Ma'ke-tu' is not pronounced exactly Muckayŭh sound can scarcely be called "short," for it is capable of indefinite prolongation and continuance.
The Maori vowels are very pure. In English we have many syllables ending with consonants, and the movement of the tongue from a vowel position to a consonant position changes the quality of the end of the vowel; but in Maori every syllable ends with a vowel. We are so accustomed to consonantal endings that in a syllable where there is no such ending we are apt to introduce a false ending in the form of a very short unaccented vowel. In the name of our letter A, for example, and in words in which the letter has the same sound as its name, the main part of the vowel is like Maori e (ah) or French é, but we finish the sound with a short i. In words like may and braid we seem to acknowledge this habit, by writing the letter i or y after the a. In Maori such an English a needs two letters to express it—ei (i.e., eh'-ee, with the ee (i) sound very short). The Maori e is purer than the peculiar English a in made. In English, again, we can utter a sharp emphatic no! with a pure o (oh) sound, but if we dwell on the sound we are apt to glide into oo and say no-oo. The Maori o (oh) is pure, and there is a very broad difference between po (night) and po'-u (a pole). No single letter in Maori can denote the complex sound of our pronoun I; the nearest Maori equivalent is ai (ah'-ee), with the i (ee) short. In some English words the letter u has the same sound as the pronoun you, where the y represents a semi-cousonantal use of the vowel ee (i). In Maori, u is never anything but the long oo in boot and food, or the short oo in good, took, and foot. An attempt is sometimes made to accommodate the name of New Zealand to Maori spelling by writing Niu Tireni, with iu to represent the English sound of the name of the letter u—ewe, you. A Maori, however, would not naturally pronounce Niu as N'you; he would probably say Nee'-oo.
It is sometimes said that there are no diphthongs in Maori. It is quite true that there are no digraphs, that is to say, there are no instances of the use of two vowel signs in one syllable with the value of only one of the signs. In English the verb led and the name of the metal lead are not distinguishable in sound; the ca in lead has now the same value as the e in led. There is nothing like this in e in made, which e indicates the character of the preceding a, and has no sound of its own. Further, in most cases where two Maori vowels come together they may be regarded as belonging to separate syllables. The following words, for example, are words of two syllables, with the accent on the first syllable: Kea, tia, toa, kua; koe; toi, tui; reo, whio; heu, whiu. In kiekie—a reduplicated form—each element is a dissyllable, ki'-e. In ueue we have a similar reduplication, and each element is a dissyllable, u'e. So, in tuoro, the u and the o belong to distinct syllables. It is of the utmost importance to remember that where two vowels stand together in a Maori word of two syllables the accent is on the first vowel.
There are, however, some combinations in which an accented vowel and a following unaccented vowel seem to unite so easily as to leave on the ear the impression of a single syllable. So far as they do this they may be regarded as forming a diphthong. The combinations that have the best claims to be considered diphthongs in this sense are ai (ah'-ee) and ei (eh'-ee), very much like our pronoun I, and our A in ABC; and next to them stands au (ah'-oo), very much like our ou in noun and our ow in now.
In Maori eu (eh'-oo) probably the e and the u do not blend in a diphthong, that is to say the u constitutes a separate syllable. Maori ae (ah'-eh) inclines to be dissyllabic, the change from ah to eh in ae being much more marked than the change from ah to ee in ai. So also, Maori ou (oh'-oo) seems to fall apart into two syllables; although au may he probably accepted as belonging to one syllable. Maori oi (oh'-ee) is dissyllabic, rhyming not with joy, bub with Jo-ey; oe (oh'-eh), too, is dissyllabic. Maori ao (ah'-oh) ought not to be regarded as belonging to one syllable; but cave must be taken not to lot any accent fall on the o. The word Maori is not Ma-Ory, but Ma'-o-ri. Any attempt to pack a'o into one syllable appears to result in an English ow, which resembles Maori au.
According to the universal rule here laid down, Maori i never holds an unaccented place before another vowel in a simple Maori word, and therefore never assumes the function of our initial y: there are no syllables like yah, yah, yea, yoh, you. The Maori oo sound can occupy an unaccented a (ah), e (eh), or i (ee), but in that case its semiconsonantal power is recognised (as in English) by substituting the letter w for the letter u: thus we have the syllables wa, we, wi; and this w sound of u, blended with an aspirate, enters into syllables wha, whe, and whi. When ua, ue, ui are written the accent falls on the u. The place name Uawa is pronounced as if it were two words, U A'wa
It is very remarkable that in the Maori syllable wa,. when it is followed by a consonantal syllable, as in waka, the a is not the Italian a (ah). It almost seems as if the missionary scholars were misled by English spelling, and did not observe that, in English after a w we very commonly find the short o (in not), or its relative long sound of au (in naught), represented by a. In watch and what we have the sound of short o; in water, the sound of au or aw. Waka is certainly not pronounced wahka, nor is whaka pronounced whahka; what one hears is rather w?kka and wh?kka, avoiding, however, a real doubling of the k. This English o sound is nearly related both to ah and to oo. It has not been recognised hitherto as having any place in Maori speech.
Maori o (oh) before an accented vowel is sometimes erroneously pronounced w, so that, Q-a'-ma-ru becomes Wommeroo; and, conversely, Wanaka has been written Oanaka.
By reduplication and by word-building some combinations of vowels occur that require notice. In O'nga-onga and in O'ta-o'ta there appears at first hearing to be a combination of a and o, like the ao in the word Maori, with accent on the a (O'-ta'o-ta). But this ao differs from the ao in the word Maori: the accent is on the o and not on the a, and the word is pronounced as if it were two words-O'ta O'ta. So, also, the name sometimes written Tokaanu, but more frequently Tokanu, is pronounced as if it were two words—To'ka A'nu. In Oro'ngooro'ngo, the fourth o is almost lost, but still it is heard in Native pronunciation.
Maori w is unaccented short u (oo) followed by a, e, i (ah, eh, ee). Maori wh is aspirated w, and presents no difficulty to speakers accustomed to distinguish between Wales and whales. W and Wh are labial semi-vowels. Wh in Polynesian dialects other than Maori is represented by f, f. Maori h is like our own, but in some districts it approaches our sh. The Maori labial consonants are p and m; the palatal are t, n, and r; the guttural are k and ng. The t sounds as if the tongue were too large for the mouth, and this effect appears to be produced by the contact of the tongue with the teeth. The r inclines to l, and even to d. The inclination to l is partly a matter of dialect. The Ngaitahu, of the South Island, are prone to it, so that we have Waihola for Waihora, and Little Akaloa, not far from Akaroa. The inclination to d is especially noticeable in the second of two syllables both of which begin with r. Rangiriri appears as "Rangiridi" in every line of a copybook written at the Bay of Islands in 1826. Old Wellington residents said Why-drup (or something very like it) for Wairarapa, and D'Urville wrote Wai-Terapa.
Ng is a consonant related to n and m, exactly as k is to t and p. In ng, n, and m the passage by the mouth is closed, and the breath issues by the nose. These three sounds are all continuous. A constant humming can be kept up on m when the lips are closed as for p; a constant droning on n with the passage blocked by the tip of the tongue as for t; and a constant sounding of ng with the passage closed as for k by the back part of the tongue. The sound ng is common enough in English, but always at the end of the syllable, while in Maori it is (theoretically) at the beginning. Whoever can say, "Sing, ah! sing," can say Si'-nga, detaching the ng from the si. The difficulty is imaginary. The common mistakes are to pronounce the ng as in finger (which we pronounce as if the first syllable were fing—with ng—and the second syllable began with another g—hard g), and to treat the n and the g as if they stood for two separate sounds, n and g (N-n-gah).
It is not true that Maori has no accent. In words of two syllables the accent is usually on the first. In words of three syllables the accent is generally on the first, unless the first is a prefix, or the word is a compound word. In a compound word the accents are practically where they would be if the elements stood apart. This last rule covers much ground, and takes in the very numerous cases of reduplication. (But see the preceding remarks on Otaota and Tokanu).
A very good idea of the pronunciation of Maori may be gleaned from a careful study of the forms the Natives give to words adopted by them from the English. Some of these adopted words, taken at random, here follow:—
Tima (steamer), meera (mail), waea (wire, i.e., telegram), Kooti (Court), Kerei (Grey), Ta Ata Katene (Sir Arthur Gordon), Roretana (Rolleston), Karauma karaati (Crown grant), eka (acre), kura (school), hekeretari (secretary), Akarana (Auckland), paraoa (flour), parakuihi (breakfast), tina (dinner), mahita (master), tureiti (too late, used as a verb, to denote irregular attendance), hahi (church), pihopa (bishop), hipi (sheep), kau (cow), roia (lawyer), minita (minister), takuta (doctor), puruma (broom), piihi (piece), Pepuere (February), Tihema (December), Hune (June), Hurae (July), pepa (paper), pukapuka (booh), Mei (May), maero (mile), kata (cart), hawhe (half), waina (wine), Kuini (Queen), Kawana (Governor).
The following list contains the Maori names mentioned in the "Description of Land Districts" in the "Official Yearbook" for 1893 (pp. 369-418). The names are divided into elements, as a guide to the pronunciation. In each element the accent is on the first syllable. A capital letter at the beginning of any element (except the first element of a word) indicates that the element thus distinguished can be used as a Maori word. It must not be taken for granted that an element thus marked as a word is, in the particular combination in which it is found, really a Maori word. It may be that where it stands as part of a geographical name it is an abbreviation of some longer word, or has arisen from some misunderstanding or corruption. The object here in view is not to show the etymology of a name, but to indicate, the correct accent. Further, it is the accent of the element only that is indicated—the accent being, as has been said, on the first syllable of the element. In the pronunciation of the whole word emphasis plays an important part, and perhaps the emphasis falls more often on the adjectival part of a compound than on the substantival. In this respect there is always some uncertainty. In an English name, such as Longbeach, there is first a stage at which the significance of each element is distinctly recognised, and the name is written Long Beach, and uttered with a fairly equal emphasis on both words; but when the
A Haura; Ahi Manawa; Ahu Riri; Aka Eoa (in Ngaitahn dialect, for Whauga Roa); A Muri; Ao Rangi; Ao Rere; Apa Rima (Aparaima is wrong); Ara Hura, Ara Whata (not Arawata); Awa Kino (awa means the depression in which a river flows); Awa Mutu; Awa Nui; Awa Rua; Awa Tere.
Eke Tahuna.
Ha Tataka Mea (not Tera); Hanga Roa (corrupt form of Whanga Roa); Hapuku; Hau Raki; Hau Rangi; Hau Roto; Hau Turn; Hawea; Hawera; Here Taunga; Hiku Rangi; Hoki Anga; Huru Nui.
Ika Matua; Inanga Hua.
Kaia Poi (an abbreviated word); Kai Hu; Kai Kohe; Kai Kora (properly Kai Koura); Kai Koura; Kai Manawa; Kainga Roa; Kaipara; Kai Tangata; Kai Tuna (kai moans food); Kanieri; Kara Mea; Ka Ranga Rua; Kati Kati; Kawa Kawa; Kaweka; Kawhia; Kene Puru; Ketu; Kumara.
Ma Kaki Pawa; Ma Hara Hara; Mahia; MahinaPua; Mahi Tahi; Maka Waiho (Makawiho is wrong); Make Tu; Ma naia; Mana Pouri (perhaps this should be Manawa Pore); Mana Roa; Manawa Tu; Manu Here kia (Herikia is wrong, kia is substituted in dialect for ngia, the sign of the passive); Manukau Taki; Mania Toto (not Maniototo); Manu Tahi; Manga Han; Manga Kahia; Manga Roa; Manga Tai Noka (not Noko; manga means branch or fork); Mango Nui; Mango Nui O Wae; Mapou Riki (not Rika);onga); Maunga Raki (maunga means hill); Maunga Tu Roto; Miko Nui; Mimi; Moe Hau; Moe Raki; Mokau; Mokihi Nui; Moko Reta; Motu; Motu eka (probably Motu Weka); Motu Kawa; Mou Tere.
Nuhaka; Ngaere; Nga Kawau; Nga Para; Nga Rua Wahia; Ngaru Boro. (Ngatimoti appears to be for Na Timoti.)
In most cases O standing as the first element of a word seems to be a sign of a place-name, or else an obsolete form of the definite article. In intermediate places an O standing alone is a preposition, and has no accent.
O A Kura; O Amaru; O Hau; O Hura; O Hine Miri; O Hine Mutu; O Karito; O Kato; O Kura; O Mapere; O Mata; O Moe Roa; (Onamalutu is nob Maori); One Hunga; O Ngarue; O Pawa (better Paoa); O Pihi; O Potiki; O Pua; Opu nake; O Reti; O roua; Ota Keho; O Tama Tea; O Tau; Ofe Kaike (probably Ote Kaika); Ote Popo; O Tira; O Toro Hanga.
Pae Roa; Pae Rua; Pahi Atua; Pa Kawau; Pakiri; Papa Hana; Papa Nui; Papa Roa; Papa Roha; Para Para; Paringa; Paui Rau; Pi Ako; Piki Ki Runga; Pi rongia; Poe Rua; Po hangina (should probably be Pou); Pohatu Roa (not Roha); Po Hue (not Hui); Puhi Puhi; Pukaki; Puke Aruhe; Puke Toi; Pu Nehu; Pure Ora.
Raho Tu; Rai; Ra Kaia; Rangi Ora; Bangi Taiki; Rangi Tata; Rangi Tikei; Rangi Toto; Rau Kumara: Rawene; Remu era (Remu Wera is probably the correct form); Rimu; Bimu Taka; Biwaka (probably Rui Waka); Roto Iti; Roto Kare; Boto Kino; Roto Roa; Roto Rua (Roto means lake); Rua Hine; Rua Peliu; Rua Toki.
Tai eri; Taipo (perhaps Taepo); Taia Roa; Tai Tapu; Taka; Takaka; Taka Pau; Tanga Rakau; Taona; Tapa Nui; Tara naki; Tara Rua; Tarata; Tau Hoa; Taumata Mahoe; Tau Maru Nui; Taupo; Tauranga; Tau Tuku; Tawai Roa; Te Anau; Te Aroha; Te Kapo; Te Kuiti; Te Muka (perhaps Teumu-kaha); Tara Makau (not Teremakau); Ti Maru; Tini Roto; Tirau Mea (not Tirumea); Toka Toka; Toka mairiro; Toko Raki; Te Moana; Tonga Porutu; Torea; Toro Tora; Totara; Tu Pa Roa; Turi Whati (not Turiwhate).
Ure; Ure Nui; Ure Wera.
Waha Po; Wai Apu (wai means water); Wai Aria; Wai-a Toto; Waiau; Waiau Ua; Wai Hao; Wai Hemo; Wai Ho; Wai Hora (Waihola is due to southern dialect); Wai Hou; (Wai Kaia?); Wai KaKa; Wai Kare; Wai Kare Moana; Wai Kari (probably Waikare); Wai Kato; Wai Kawa; Waikou aiti; Wai Ma; Wai Maka Riri; Wai Manga Roa; Wai Mapu; Wai Mate; Wai Mea; Wai Nui; Wai Nui O Mata; Wai Ngongoro; Wai O Mata Tini; Wai Pa; Wai Pahi (perhaps Waipa Hihi); Wai Piro; Wai Pukn; Wai Puku Rau; Waira Rapa (etymologically, Wai-rarapa); Wai Rau; Wai Roa; Wai Rua; Wai Taki; Wai Tangi; Wai Taha; Wai Tara; Wai-te Mata; Wai Totara; Wa Kaia; Waka Marina (Marino is probably the true spelling); Waka Tipu; Wanaka; Wera Iti; (Wingatui is not Maori); Whaka Mara; Whaka Tane; Whanga Elm; Whanga Nui (better Maori than Wanganui); Whanga Pe; Whanga Pcka (better than Wangapeka); Whanga Rei; Whanga Roa; Whata Roa (better than Wataroa); Whiti Anga.
Some words that simulate Maori are Scripture names— as Huria (Judaa); Petane (Bethany),. Many names now current are corrupt—as Kaiwarra (for Kai Whara); Petone (for Pito One); Tenui (for Ti Nui). Titri is a corrupt iorm of the English words Tea Tree (for Ma'nuka).
[The entries for December 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, and January 1, 2, 8, were left out of the reading lesson to lighten it. They are given here to complete that part of the Log which relates to New Zealand.]
25 December. In the morning we set our topmasts, and hoisted our yards again. The look-out towards the sea was still dark, so that we dared not yet take up either anchor. Towards the evening it had grown so much calmer that we hauled in half of our cable.
26 December. In the morning, two hours before daylight, we got the wind E.N.E.: a light breeze. We raised our anchors up and got under sail, and laid our course due north, in order to get to the northward of this land. At
27 December. In the morning as soon as it was day we made sail again, steering our course due north, with the wind blowing a steady breeze from the S.W. At noon we found [This seems to bo the first day of "finding" latitude by the sun since the 21st of December.] [So that Tasman passed Cape Egmont without seeing the mountain. The oldest available copy of his chart shows a cape namod Picter Boreels, about latitude 39° 40′, but this conjectural capo has not the form of Egmont.] [Almost certainly this should be 174, and not 173.]
30 December. The weather in the morning having moderated somewhat we set our topsails and laced our bonnets on. We had the Zeehaan to leeward of us, so we altered our course and closed on her. We had the wind W.N.W.: a topsail breeze. At noon we found latitude 37°, and longitude 175° 9′. Course held, N.E.; and distance made, 28 miles. Towards the evening we sighted the land again, and had it N.E. and N.N.E. from us. We accordingly continued our course to the N. and N.E. Variation, 8° 40′ north-easterly.
31 December. At noon wo turned her head to the north. The wind, W.N.W.: a sleepy breeze. We found our latitude at noon to be 36° 45′, and our longitude 175°, our course, N.W., and our distance, 28 [Apparently a mistake for 16 miles: 7 Dutch miles (28 geographical miles) having been written or read instead of 4 Dutch miles.) [10 p.m]
1 January, 1643. In the morning we drifted in calm along the coast, which at this part still extends N.W. and S.E., and is a level coast without reefs or shoals. At noon we had the latitude of 36° 12′, and the longitude of 174° 21′. Course held, N.W.; and sailed 40 miles. About midday we got the wind S.S.E. and S.E., and steered to the W.N.W. to get a little further off the shore, as there was a heavy sea setting in towards it. Variation, 8° 30′ north-easterly.
2 January Calm. In the middle of the afternoon we got a breeze from the east, and steered our course N.N.W. At the end of the first wateh [Midnight.]
3 January, In the morning we saw the land E.b.N. of us, about 24 miles away. We were surprised to find ourselves so far away from the shore. At noon our latitude by observation was 35° 20′, and oar longitude 173° 31′. Course held, N.W. by N.; distance sailed, 44 miles. At noon we got the wind S.S.W., and altered our course to E.N.E., so as to run back towards the shore. In the evening we had land to the north of us and to the E.S.E.