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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 1 (May 1, 1933)

Vagabonds

Vagabonds

“I know not where the white road runs
Nor what the blue hills are,
But a man can have the sun for friend
And for his guide, a star.”

They say that man is constantly and repeatedly shewing traces of his early life on this globe. No matter how deep the crust of civilisation or how strong the armour of habit and culture, he cannot quite escape from his long dead past. It persists throughout the centuries of toil and progress, through ages of struggle and development, through devastation and despair to glory and conquest, until man has achieved the almost incredible enigma which is twentieth century civilisation.

How he crosses vast continents in mere days, wings his daring way over great oceans, builds his towering cities and lives his complicated life, part of a vortex of movement, and society demands of him that he shall adopt her rules. Generally speaking success is achieved only by struggle and by stoic perseverance. We must stick at the job if we want to “get” anywhere. The man or woman who stays on the spot and masters his little area of knowledge is the economic success of to-day— a day of highly specialised labour. It is commonly believed that “a rolling stone gathers no moss.” Yet there are stones so small and slippery that no moss will deign to grow thereon, though they have moved not one inch in a thousand years!

Some people look with disdain and lofty pity upon the vagabonds of this world. From their secure little niche in society, from the safety of an office stool with the comfort of a “pay sheet” and the knowledge of ultimate promotion, they hear or read about the wanderers, about the men who “can't settle down,” who complain of feeling stifled by the routine of existence and deafened by the roar of modern machinery—men who can't stay long in one place, who seek the great spaces, and who dwell first in one city, then in another— citizens of none. Such they regard as socially useless—yet deep down in their hearts they envy the vagabond—envy him his freedom, his everchanging horizon, the breadth of his soul though his pocket be empty and his “home fire” has never burnt.

The vagabond has brought with him a memory of the days when his forefathers roamed in nomadic tribes over the face of the earth—he has inherited a restlessness and a wanderlust which he cannot satisfy. Perhaps there flows in his veins the blood of a daring Marco Polo, the spirit of adventure, which drove the Vikings across the bitter North Sea; the quest for strange things, which sent Elizabeth's sailors round the world. Who knows?

In every language there are stories of vagabonds, gypsies, minstrels, wanderers. Literature abounds with them and history is thronged with the figures of explorers and adventurers who heard the call of the unknown and who could not be tied by the powerful chains of home, security and comfort.

Since the War the vagabond has come into his own, and has wandered to the uttermost parts of the earth and become a “citizen of the world.” The tendency towards internationalism and racial brotherhood has helped him.

But from our point of view, actually in New Zealand, living in cities and acquiring a national spirit of our own, we need not stifle aud suppress our innate desire to move—rather encourage it. So many people know not their own land, and are so busy with the business of living that they haven't time to know where they do live! Later they don't even want to move, so comfortable is their little rut.

page 54

When holidays come—be a vagabond. You must stay in one place to “gather your moss,” but once a year you can be a nomad—you can know the glorious exaltation of the gypsy.

Travel through your own country, wander, explore, and discover for yourself its beauties.

“Beyond the East the sunrise,
Beyond the West the sea—
And East and West the wander-thirst
That will not let me be.”