Colonial Memories [New Zealand chapters]

Mary Anne Barker

First published by Smith Elder in 1904

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2017 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-98-851360-7

[TITLE PAGES]

COLONIAL MEMORIES

COLONIAL MEMORIES

BY
LADY BROOME

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO
15 WATERLOO PLACE
1904
[All rights reserved]

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press

NOTE

My cordial thanks are due – and given – to the Editor of the Cornhill Magazine, within whose pages some of these "Memories" have from time to time appeared, for permission to republish them in this form. Also to the Editor of the Boudoir, where my "Girls – Old and New" made their debut last season.

M. A. B.
October 1904.

[Page vi is blank]

[CONTENTS]

CONTENTS

A PERSONAL STORY. . . ix

I. OLD NEW ZEALAND. . . 1

II. OLD NEW ZEALAND – Continued . . 21

III. OLD NEW ZEALAND – Continued . . 33

IV. A MODERN NEW ZEALAND . . 40

V. NATAL MEMORIES. . . 55

VI. "STELLA CLAVISQUE MARIS INDICI". 80

VII. GENERAL CHARLES GORDON. . 103

VIII. WESTERN AUSTRALIA. . . 110

IX. WESTERN AUSTRALIA – Continued. . 127

X. THE ENROLLED GUARD . . . 144

XI. TRINIDAD..... 149

XII. TRINIDAD – Continued . . . 169

XIII. RODRIGUES.. . . . 184

XIV. COLONIAL SERVANTS.... 203

XV. INTERVIEWS. . . .224

XVI. A COOKING MEMORY.... 240

XVII. BIRD NOTES...... 255

XVIII. HUMOURS OF BIRD LIFE.... . 275

XIX. Girls – Old and New.. . . 293

[PREFACE]

A PERSONAL STORY

ALMOST the first thing I can remember is listening with fascinated interest to an old gipsy woman, who insisted on telling my fortune one summer afternoon on Cannock Chase long, long ago. I was very reluctant to undergo what seemed to me a terrible ordeal, but I was encouraged to do so by my nurse, to whom she had just promised "a knight riding over a plain." However, my Sibyl only touched on two points. First, she looked at my little hand and said: "I see a stream of gold flowing through your palm. Sometimes it runs full and free, sometimes scant and slow, but it is never quite dry." Then she doubled up my childish fingers and went on, "But this hand cannot close on money: you'll never be rich" – an utterance which has come exactly and literally true, and the remembrance of which has often been a comfort to me in hard times. Then she insisted on looking at the sole of my foot, and pronounced that it would "wander up and down the earth; north and south, east and west, to countries not yet discovered." She concluded by crying dramatically: "Earth holds no home for you, earth holds

no grave; you'll be drowned." Now, as I must have made something like forty ocean voyages in the course of my life, I may be said to have spent it in tempting my Fate. However that may be, the old woman's prophecy was written down at the time, and, so far as the wandering part of it goes, no one who reads these pages can question its truth.

Born in Jamaica, where my father was the last "Island Secretary," – a Patent Office, held in conjunction with the late Mr. Charles Greville of Memoir fame, and long since divided into four parts – I began to wander to and from England before I was two years old, and had crossed the Atlantic five times by 1852 when I married Captain (afterwards Sir George) Barker, K. C. B. I lived in England for the next eight years, whilst he served all through the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. I joined him at the first possible moment after the Mutiny, and arrived in India at the close of 1860. He was then commanding the Royal Artillery in Bengal, with the rank of Brigadier-General, a position held at this moment by our eldest son.

The tragic events of that terrible time were fresh in our minds, the struggle having just closed; and as I was brought in contact immediately with many of the principal actors, I naturally wished to hear details of the thrilling scenes through which

they had just passed, but I found that no one wanted to talk about them. We started directly after I arrived in Calcutta on a sort of Military Promenade with the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Rose (afterwards Lord Strathnairn), and joined his camp at Lucknow. We stayed with friends there whilst our tents, &c., were being procured, and I remember that the walls of my vast bedroom were riddled with shot! There I also met ladies who had behaved in the most heroic and splendid way all through the siege; but I found to my amazement that they wanted to hear any little English chit-chat I might have to tell, instead of saying one word about those historic days or their share in them. If this reticence had arisen from any dread of re-awakening sleeping memories, I could have understood and respected it, but it really seemed to me at the time as if they had positively forgotten all they had just passed through, or did not deem it of sufficient interest to talk about, wanting only to hear what was going on "at home." It must be remembered how far away England was in those days – forty odd years ago. Few newspapers, no telegraph, hardly an illustrated paper even – so it was perhaps no wonder that they were all suffering from what Aytoun calls –

"The deep, unutterable woe
Which none save exiles feel,"

and always wanted to talk of the dear distant land of their birth.

My own stay in India hardly lasted eight months, but I saw a great deal of the country in our four months marching through it. The camp broke up in March at the foot of the Himalayas just as the hot winds were beginning to make tent-life disagreeable. We then went up to Simla, and "Peterhof" – afterwards greatly enlarged and made into the Vice-regal residence – was taken as the headquarters of the R. A. staff.

In that beautiful spot the first great sorrow of my life came to me. I lost my kind, good husband there; and returned to England after less than a year's absence.

For the next four years I lived quietly with my two little sons among my own people, but in 1865 I met Mr. Napier Broome, a young and very good-looking New Zealand sheep farmer, who persuaded me to change the whole course of my life and go back to New Zealand with him! Certainly the influence of that old gipsy woman must have been very strong just then; and I often wonder how I could have had the courage to take such a step, for it entailed leaving my boys behind as well as all my friends and most of the comforts and conveniences of life. But at the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, and we sailed merrily away

directly after our marriage in the summer of that year.

I tell elsewhere, 1 as well as in the following pages, the story of the three supremely happy years which followed this wild and really almost wicked step on our parts. The life was full of charm and novelty, though so venturesome; but at first it seemed as if love was not to be allowed to "be lord of all," for a crisis in the affairs of the Colony came just after the great snowstorm, and from one cause and another the value of real estate as well as of wool sank terribly. It was, therefore, with sadly diminished means we returned to England early in 1869, to be met by a chorus of "we told you so" from all our friends! However, we felt full of hope and courage, and set about at once seeking for some other means of livelihood.

My husband had always been very fond of literature, and had tried his hand more or less successfully at poetry. Still it was with great diffidence that he walked into Messrs. Macmillan's office one fine June morning in 1869 and asked to see the editor of Macmillan's Magazine. Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Grove received him at once and was both kind and encouraging, promising to look at a little poem called "Sunset off the Azores." This interview, which resulted in the immediate acceptance of the verses, three of which

are given below, * led to a life-long friendship, not only with dear Mr. Grove, whom to know was to love, but also with Mr. Alexander Macmillan, who was always kindness itself to both of us, and was responsible for putting the idea of writing into my head. At his suggestion I inflicted "Station Life in New Zealand," as well as several storybooks for children, on a patient and long-suffering public.

Almost at the same time an introduction to Mr. Delane of the Times led to Mr. Napier Broome's

*

"Now under heaven all winds abated,
The sea a settling and foamless floor,
A sunset city is open-gated,
Unfastened flashes a golden door.
Cloud-walls asunder burst and brighten
Like melted metal in furnace blaze;
The lava rivers run through and lighten,
The glory gathers before my gaze.

Eastward an isle, half sunken, sleeping,
Crowns the sea with a bluer crest;
Vine-clad Terceira! – but I am keeping
A tryst to-night with the wondrous west.
What there is wanting of purple islands,
Lo! golden archipelagoes,
Coasts silver shining, and inner highlands,
Long ranges rosy with sunny snows.

All glowing golds, all scarlets burning,
All palest, tenderest, vanishing hues,
All clouded colour and tinges turning,
Enrich, divide, the double blues;
O'erleaning cliffs and crags gigantic
And in the heart of light one shore
Such as, alas! no sea Atlantic
To bless the voyager ever bore."

being taken on the staff of that paper as special correspondent and reviewer, in fact, a sort of general utility man. How well I remember the anxiety and care with which my husband wrote his first review, and the pride and joy with which he showed me a charming little note from Mr. Delane, in which, referring to a hope on Mr. Broome's part of getting a clerkship in the House of Commons, he said: "Do not take any definite post at present, for you have an estate in your inkstand." And indeed so it proved, for work flowed in only too fast. As Times Special Correspondent he had many interesting experiences, amongst them being a visit to Petersburg to describe the late Duke of Edinburgh's marriage.

Perhaps the episode which stands out most clearly before me is a certain tour-de-force, as Mr. Delane himself called it, springing out of the Commune riots at the close of the siege of Paris. We had been paying a visit in Staffordshire in the early autumn of that tragic year, and reached home one Saturday evening just in time for dinner, and to find the well-known Times messenger seated in the hall with three or four large blue bags around him. He handed my husband a note from Mr. Delane, explaining that these bags contained a heap of miscellaneous printed matter taken from the "Cabinet Noir" at the sack of the Tuilleries, and requiring a series of articles to be made out of them.

Well, it was already late, and the papers had to be sorted, translated, and the first article written by Monday morning. So we set to work directly after dinner. It took all that night merely to sort the papers and reduce them to an orderly sequence. Much of the material before us had to be rejected as being either uninteresting or of a private and personal nature below the dignity of the Times to notice. The whole of the next day – with only pauses for our meals and hasty toilets – was devoted to arranging the papers into separate parts for three consecutive articles of three columns each which Mr. Delane had asked for. Then came the work of translation, which I undertook, supplying my husband with hastily scribbled sheets from which he wrote his article. The printer's boy appeared about midnight and dozed in the hall, occasionally tapping at the door for the large envelope full of MSS. which he sent off by cab. All Monday and Monday night as well as all Tuesday did the work go on. It was too interesting and exciting to think of sleep, and it was something like two o'clock on Tuesday night, or rather Wednesday morning, when, the third and last article being finished, my husband took it himself down to Printing House Square for the sake of the drive, and I crawled up to bed! It was literally crawling, for I remember I sat down on the stairs and had

a good cry, which I found most refreshing and comforting.

I too was asked to write many of the Times reviews of novels, and as I was invited the next year to be the first Lady Superintendent of the National School of Cookery, and I became also the Editor of a Magazine, we both had plenty of agreeable and congenial work, as well as the satisfaction of earning between us a comfortable income.

This busy but very pleasant London life went smoothly on until 1875, when the gipsy took us once more in hand I suppose, for, quite unexpectedly, my husband received an offer from the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, the late Lord Carnarvon, to go out with Sir Garnet Wolseley 2 to Natal as his Colonial Secretary. It required a good deal of courage to again suddenly and violently alter our mode of life, especially as only a few hours could be allowed for decision, but both Mr. Delane and the late Duke of Somerset 3 strongly advised my husband to accept the offer. The Duke had been the Chairman of the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships, of which my husband was the Secretary, and ever since they had been thus brought into contact the Duke had honoured the clever young Times writer with a

steady and delightful friendship, and had always shown the keenest interest in his career.

So once more our pretty and pleasant home in Thurloe Square was broken up, and my husband started before the week was out for Natal, with Sir Garnet Wolseley and his brilliant staff. I could not break off the threads of my own work so rapidly as all that, and I did not go out to Natal until six months later. My stay there only lasted a little over a year, and I brought my two small boys back again early in 1877, settled them in England, and then joined my husband in Mauritius, where he was Lieutenant-Governor, in 1880. My own happiness as well as usefulness there was sadly marred by ill-health, which finally drove me home in 1881, and I had to remain in England until Mr. Napier Broome was appointed Governor of Western Australia in 1882. By that time I had recovered sufficiently to go round by Mauritius in one of the fine boats of the Messageries Maritimes, which then ran between Marseilles and Australia, and pick him up and go on to South Australia, from whence we had to retrace our steps across the Great Australian Bight to King George Sound. That was in the first days of June 1883. The next year he was made a K. C. M. G., and came to England in 1885, when he gave a lecture at the Royal Colonial Institute on "Western Australia," at which H. R. H. the Prince of Wales

graciously took, for the first time in the history of the Institute, the chair. It is impossible to estimate the good effect that lecture had in attracting attention to the Cinderella of the Australian colonies, or the deep gratification of the colonists themselves at His Royal Highness' kindly interest. It was quite the first step on Western Australia's road to progress and prosperity, and I do not believe that at least this generation will ever cease to be grateful to their Sovereign for helping them by his presence and patronage when they were indeed "poor and of no account."

In 1890 we left Western Australia amid heartbreaking farewells, in order to enable the Governor to see the Bill for giving Responsible Government to the Colony (which had been thrown out the Session before) through the House of Commons. That proved a most interesting and exciting summer, necessitating Sir Frederick's constant attendance before the Select Committee. But his efforts, aided by those of two other delegates, 4 were successful, and the Bill was triumphantly carried through to the great advantage of the Colony.

I have often thought since, that those seven years were perhaps the happiest part of my very happy life. The climate, except when a hot wind was blowing in summer, was delightful, the Govern-

ment House, an excellent and comfortable one, stood in beautiful gardens, and the life was simple and primitive, for no one was rich in those days, and the society was small and friendly. Sir Frederick worked hard for the development of the vast Colony, which held a million square but sandy miles within its borders, finding his task congenial as well as deeply interesting. I worked too in various little ways, and amongst other plans I collected all the girls in Perth on Monday afternoons and read aloud to them for a couple of hours whilst they worked. We began with Green's "Short History of the English People," and went on to Justin M'Carthy's "History of our own Times," and then Motley's "Dutch Republic," and "Thirty Years' War." It was only an experiment at first, but it succeeded splendidly, thanks to the thirst for knowledge which all these pretty and charming girls displayed. No weather ever prevented their coming, and it would have been hard to decide who enjoyed those afternoons most, the reader or her very attentive and intelligent audience.

I can answer for myself that it was a terrible wrench to leave that dear home to which we had both become so truly attached; however, the gipsy's weird utterances had to be carried out, and a fresh home was soon started in Trinidad, to which part of the "Bow of Ulysses" my hus-

band was appointed Governor in 1891. There the life was, of course, very different, and so was the climate and the surroundings. Still the interesting work went on, but there had to be a brief visit to England – often only lasting three weeks – every year. Unlike most other Governments there was no rest or change of air possible in the Colony itself, so the English visit became a necessity for health besides affording an opportunity for settling many questions of local importance.

Our time there was drawing to a close in 1896, and already a movement was on foot (as had been the case in Western Australia) to petition the Secretary of State for an extension of Sir Frederick's term of office, when, like a bolt out of the blue, came an illness full of suffering which speedily put an end to a career of great promise, and to his life three months later.

Since 1896 I have therefore ceased wandering up and down the face of the globe, and, except for short trips abroad and a long and delightful visit to America last summer, I may be said to have settled down to a less roving life; but I feel the gipsy prophecy still holds good, and that no doubt my present little home will one day change its ground.

As it is, I often wonder which is the dream – the shifting scenes of former days, so full of interest as well as of everything which could make life

dear and precious, or these monotonous years when I feel like a shipwrecked swimmer, cast up by a wave, out of reach of immediate peril it is true, but far removed from all except the commonplace of existence. Still it is much to have known the best and highest of earthly happiness; to have "loved and been beloved," and to have found faithful friends who stood fast even in the darkest days. Among these friends I would fain believe there are some unknown ones, who have perhaps read my little books in their childhood, and to whom I venture to address these lines explaining as it were my personal story, with an entreaty for forgiveness if I have made it too personal.

1 "Station Life in New Zealand," Macmillan.

2 Now F. M. Viscount Wolseley.

3 12th Duke of Somerset.

4 The late Sir Thomas Cockburn Campbell, Bart., and the Hon. H. Parker, K. C.

I. OLD NEW ZEALAND

I

OLD NEW ZEALAND

IT has so chanced that quite lately I have heard a good deal of this beautiful and flourishing portion of our "Britain-over-sea," and these reports have stirred the old memories of days gone by when it was almost a terra incognita – as indeed were many of our splendid Colonial possessions – to the home-dweller. But the home-dweller proper hardly exists in this twentieth century, and the globetrotter has taken his place. Even the latter sobriquet was unknown in my day, and I was regarded as quite going into exile when, some eight-and-thirty years ago, I sailed with my husband for his sheep-station on the Canterbury Plains. As far as I was concerned, the life there afforded the sharpest of all sharp contrasts, but it was none the less happy and delightful for that.

The direct line of passenger-ships only took us as far as Melbourne, and then came a dismal ten or

twelve days in a wretched little steamer, struggling along a stormy coast before the flourishing Port Lyttelton of the present day (a shabby village in 1865) was reached. Yet the great tunnel through the Port Hills was well on its way even then, and the railway to connect the port and the young town of Christchurch was confidently talked of. Even in those early days, the new-comer was struck by the familiar air of everything; and, so far as my own experience goes, New Zealand is certainly the most English colony I have seen. It never seems to have attracted the heterogeneous races of which the population of other colonies is so largely composed. For example, in Mauritius the Chinese and Arab element is almost as numerous as the French and English. In Trinidad there are large colonies of Spanish and German settlers, without counting in both these islands the enormous Indian population which we have brought there to cultivate the sugar-cane; and in all the principal towns of Australia the "foreigner" thrives and flourishes. But New Zealand has always been beautifully and distinctly English, and the grand Imperial idea has there fallen on congenial soil and taken deep root.

Even in the days I speak of, Christchurch, though an infant town, looked pretty on account of its picturesque situation on the banks of the Avon. The surrounding country was a sort of rolling

prairie, ideally suitable for sheep, with the magnificent Southern Alps for a background. And what a climate, and what a sky, and what an air! The only fault I had to find with the atmospheric conditions was the hot wind. But hot winds were new to me in those days, and I rebelled against them accordingly. Now I begin to think hot winds blow everywhere out of England. In South Africa, in Mauritius, in all parts of Australia, one suffers from them, to say nothing of India, where they are on the largest possible scale.

The first six months of my New Zealand life was spent in Christchurch, waiting for the little wooden house to be cut out and sent up country to our sheep-station in the Malvern Hills. How absurdly primitive it all was, and yet how one delighted in it! I well remember the "happy thought" – when the question arose of the size of drawing and dining-rooms – of spreading our carpets out on the grass and planning the house round them. And the joy of settling in, when the various portions of the little dwelling had been conveyed some seventy-five miles inland to our happy valley and fitted together. The doors and window-frames had all come from America ready-made, but the rest of the house was cut out of the kauri pine from the forests in the North Island.

The first thing I had to learn was that New Zealand meant really three islands – two big ones

and a little one. Everybody knows about the North and the Middle Islands, which are the big ones, but the little Stewart Island often confused me by sometimes being called the South Island, which it really is. A number of groups of small islets have been added to the colony since then, such as the Cook and Kermadec Islands, but I do not fancy they are inhabited. The colony was really not a quarter of a century old when I knew it, as it had been a dependency of New South Wales up to 1842, and it owes its separation and rapid development to the New Zealand Company, which started with a Royal charter. The Canterbury Association sent out four ships which took four months to reach Port Cooper in the Middle Island (now the flourishing seaport of Lyttelton), only sixteen years before I landed there.

The cathedral had not risen above its foundations in 1865, but I was struck with the well-paved streets, good "side-walks," gas-lamps, drinking-fountains, and even red pillar-boxes exactly like the one round the corner to-day. And it seemed all the more marvellous to me, who had just gone through the lengthy and costly experience of dragging my own little possessions across those stormy seas round the Cape of Good Hope, to think of all these aids to civilisation having come by the same route. Now I am assured you can get anything and everything you might possibly

want, on the spot, but in those days one eagerly watched a demenagement as a good opportunity for furnishing.

We had brought all our goods and chattels out with us, and the wooden house was soon turned into a very pretty comfortable little homestead. The great trouble was getting the garden started. The soil was magnificent, and everything in that Malvern Valley grew splendidly if the north-west winds would only allow it. Hedges of cytisus were always planted a month or so before sowing the dwarf green peas, in order that they might have some shelter, and this plan answered very well. I could not, however, start a hedge of cytisus all round my little lawn, and the consequence was that the blades of grass on that spot could easily be counted, and that I discovered a luxuriant patch of "English grass" about a mile down the flat, where a little dip in the ground had made a shelter for the flying seed. And the melancholy part of the story was that English grass-seed cost a guinea a pound! I was quite able to appreciate, three years later, the ecstasy of delight of a little New Zealand girl, who, beholding the Isle of Wight for the first time, exclaimed to me: "How rich they must be! Why, it's all laid down in English grass!"

Other flower-seeds, of course, shared the same fate, and it was indeed gardening under difficulties. But in the vegetable-garden consolation could be

found in the potatoes, strawberries, and green peas, which were huge in size and abundant in quantity.

Indoors all soon looked bright and cheery; and besides the books we brought out, I started a magazine and book club in connection with a London library, which answered very well, and gave great delight to our neighbours, chiefly shepherds. These men were often of Scotch or north of England birth, and of a very good type. Their lives, however, were necessarily monotonous and lonely, and they were very glad of books. We had a short Church service every Sunday afternoon, to which they gladly came, and then they took new books back with them.

The only grudge I ever had against these men was that they all tried to provide themselves with wives among my maids, and by so doing greatly added to my difficulties with these damsels. Far from accepting Strephon's honourable proposals, Chloe would make these offers – which apparently bored her – an excuse for giving up her place and returning to the gay metropolis.

I honestly think those maids (I had but two of them at a time) were the chief, if not the only, real worry of my happy New Zealand life. Nothing would ever induce them to remain more than four months at the station. In spite of the suitors, they found it "lonely," and away they went. Changing

was such a troublesome business and always meant a week without any servants at all, for the dray – their sole means of conveyance – took two days on the road each way, and then there were always stores to buy and bring back, and the driver declared his horses needed a couple of days' rest in town. Some of the various reasons the maids gave for leaving were truly absurd. Once I came into the kitchen on a bright winter's morning to find them seated on a sort of sofa (made of chintz-covered boxes), clasped in each other's arms, and weeping bitterly. With difficulty I got out of them that their sole grievance was the sound of the bleating of the sheep, a "mob" of which were feeding on the nearest hillside. It was "lonesome like," and they must return to town immediately.

These girls, as well as their predecessors and successors, were a continual mystery to me, and I never could understand why they became servants at all. Not one of them ever had the faintest idea of what duties she had to perform or how to perform them. A cook had never, apparently, been in a kitchen before, nor had the housemaid ever seen, or at least handled, a broom or a duster. I was only an ignorant beginner in those days, and yet found myself obliged to teach the most elementary duties. They were nearly all factory-girls; and when I asked "Who did these things for you at home?" always answered "Mother." They had

never held a needle until I taught them how to do so; and as for mending or darning, that was regarded as sheer waste of time. The first thing they had to learn was to bake bread, and as, unfortunately, the best teacher was our head shepherd – a good-looking, well-to-do young man – the "courting" began very soon, though it never seemed successful, and poor Ridge's heart must have been torn to pieces during those three years of obdurate pupils.

I must, however, say here that, ignorant to an incredible degree as my various "helps" were, I found them perfectly honest and perfectly respectable. I never had the slightest fault to find on either of these counts. Sobriety went without saying, for it was compulsory, as the nearest public-house was a dozen miles away across trackless hills.

It was a real tragic time, for me at least, that constantly recurring week between the departure and arrival of my maids; but I am inclined to think, on mature reflection, that my worst troubles arose from the volunteers who insisted on helping me. These kindly A.D.C.'s, – owners or pupils on neighbouring stations, – all professed to be quite familiar with domestic matters. But I found a sad falling-off when it came to putting their theories into practice in my kitchen. It generally turned out that they had made a hasty study of various para-

graphs in that useful work "Inquire Within, &c.," and then started forth to carry out the directions they had mastered. For instance, one stalwart neighbour presented a smiling face at our hall-door one morning and said: –

"I've come to wash up."

"That is very kind of you," I replied; "but are you sure you know how?"

"Oh yes – just try me, and you'll see. Very hot water, you know: boiling, in fact."

Well, there was no difficulty about the hot water, which was poured into a tub in which a good many of my pretty china plates and dishes were standing. The next moment I heard a yell and a crash – and I am very much afraid "a big, big D – -" – and my "help" was jumping about the kitchen wringing his hands and shouting for cotton-wool and salad-oil and what not. It seemed a mere detail after this calamity to discover that half-a-dozen plates were broken and as many more cracked. "The beastly thing was so hot" being the excuse.

The first time the maids left I thought I would, so to speak, victual the garrison beforehand, and I had quantities of bread baked and butter churned and meat-pies made and joints roasted; but at the end of a couple of days the larder was nearly empty, partly on account of the gigantic appetites we all had, and partly because of the addition

to our home party of all these volunteers who always seized the excuse of helping. As a matter of fact, my "helps" generally betook themselves to a rifle-range F. had set up down the valley, or else they organised athletic sports. I should not have minded their doing so, if it had not, apparently, increased their appetites.

Never can I forget an awful experience I went through with one of my earliest attempts at breadmaking. I felt it was a serious matter, and not to be lightly taken in hand, so I turned my helps, one and all, out of the kitchen, and proceeded to carry out the directions as written down. First the dough was to be "set." That was an anxious business. The prescribed quantity of flour had to be put in a milk-pan, the orthodox hole in the centre of the white heap was duly made, and then came the critical moment of adding the yeast. There was only one bottle of this precious ingredient left, and it was evidently very much "up," as yeast ought to be. Under these circumstances, to take out the cork of that bottle was exactly like firing a pistol, and I do not like firing pistols. So I was obliged to call for an assistant. All rushed in gleefully, declaring that opening yeast-bottles was their show accomplishment, but F. was the first to seize it. He gave it a great shake. Out flew the cork right up to the rafters, and after it flew all my beautiful yeast,

leaving only dregs of hops and potatoes, which F., turning the bottle upside down, emptied into the flour. Of course it was all spoiled, though I tried hard to produce something of the nature of bread out of it. But certainly it was horribly heavy and damp.

One thing my New Zealand experiences taught me, and that was the skill and patience and variety of knowledge required to produce the simple things of our daily life – things which we accept as much as a matter of course as the air we breathe. But if you have to attempt them yourself, you end by having a great respect for those who do them apparently without effort.

I have often been asked how we amused ourselves in that lonely valley. There was not very much time for amusement, for we were all very busy. There was mustering and drafting to be done, besides the, annual business of shearing, which was a tremendous affair. It is true I developed quite a talent for grafting pleasure upon business; and when a long boundary ride had to be taken, or a new length of fencing inspected (in those days wire fences could not be put up even at that comparatively short distance from a town under £100 a mile), I contrived to make it a sort of picnic, and enjoyed it thoroughly. The one drawback to my happiness was the dreadful track – it were gross flattery to call it a road – over

which our way generally led us. No English horse would have attempted the break-neck places our nags took us safely over. Up and down slippery steep stairs, where all four feet had to be collected carefully on each step, before an attempt to reach the next could be made; across swamps where there was no foothold except on an occasional tussock; over creeks with crumbling banks. At first I really could not believe that I was expected to follow over such places, but I was only adjured to "sit tight and leave it all to my horse," and certainly I survived to tell the tale! The only fall I had during all those three years of real rough-riding was cantering over a perfectly smooth plain, when a little bag strapped to my saddle slipped down and struck my very spirited mare beneath her body. She bucked frantically, and I flew into space, alighting on the point of my shoulder, which I broke. On that occasion I was the victim of a good deal of amateur surgery, but it all came right eventually, though I could not use my arm for a long time.

But to return to our amusements. Boar-hunting was perhaps the most exciting; though I was not allowed to call that an amusement, for it was absolutely necessary to keep down the wild pigs, which we owe to Captain Cook. A sow will follow very young lambs until they drop, separating them from their mothers and giving them no rest. When

the poor little things fall exhausted the sow then devours them, but it is almost impossible to track and shoot these same sows, for they hide themselves and their litters in the most marvellous way. The shepherds occasionally come across them, and then have a great orgy of sucking-pig. But the big boar whose shoulder-scales are like plated armour and quite bullet-proof, and whose tusks are as sharp as razors, gives really very good sport, and must be warily stalked. These expeditions had always to be undertaken on foot, and I insisted on going because I had heard gruesome stories of accidents to sportsmen, who had perished of cold and hunger on desolate hillsides when out after boars. So I always begged to be taken out stalking, and as I carried a basket with sandwiches and cake and a bottle of cold tea, my company was graciously accepted.

These expeditions always took place in the winter, for the affairs of the sheep seemed to occupy most of the summer, and besides it would have been too hot for climbing steep hillsides and exploring long winding gullies in anything but cold May and June weather. The boars gave excellent sport, and I well remember, after a long day's stalk up the gorge of the Selwyn River, our pride and triumph when F., who had taken a careful aim at what looked exactly like one of the grey boulders strewn about on the opposite hillside,

fired his rifle, and a huge boar leapt into the air, only to fall dead and come crashing down the steep slope.

Then there were some glorious days after wild cattle, but that was a long way off in the great Kowai Bush, and we had to camp out for nearly a week. It was difficult work getting through the forest, as, although there was a sort of track, it was often impassable by reason of fallen trees. Of course we were on foot; but it greatly adds to one's work to have constantly to climb or scramble over a barrier of branches. All the gentlemen carried compasses as the only means of steering through the curious green gloom. Though it was the height of summer, we never saw a ray of sunshine, and it was always delightfully cool. Every now and then we came to a clearing, and so could see where we were. One of these openings showed us the great Waimakariri River swirling beneath its high wooded banks, and it was, just there, literally covered with wild duck – grey, blue, and "Paradise" – all excellent eating, but I am thankful to say that the sportsmen forbore to shoot, as it would have been impossible to retrieve the birds. Some fine young bullocks fell every day to their rifles; but although I heard the shots and the ensuing shouts of joy, the thickness of the "bush" always prevented (happily!) my seeing the victims.

The undergrowth of that "bush" – Anglice, forest – was the most beautiful thing imaginable, and the familiar stag's-head and hart's-tongue grew side by side with exquisite forms quite unknown to me. Besides the profusion of ferns, there was a wealth of delicate fairy-like foliage, but never a flower to be seen on account of the want of sun.

In summer we sometimes went down to the nearest creek, about a mile away, for eel-fishing, but I did not care much for that form of sport. It meant sitting in star-light and solitude for many hours, and one got drenched with dew into the bargain. The preparations were the most amusing part, especially the making of balls of worsted-ends with lumps of mutton tied craftily in the middle; the idea being that when the eel snapped at the meat his teeth ought to stick in the worsted, and so he would become an easy prey to the angler. This came off according to the programme, and even I caught some; but they were far too heavy to lift out of the water, as there was no "playing" an eel, and the dead weight had to be raised by the flax-stick which was my only fishing-rod. However, quite enough of the horrid slimy things were secured to make succulent pies for those who liked them.

We once invented an amusement for ourselves by going up a mountain on our station three thousand feet high, and sleeping there in order

to see the sunrise next morning. I ought, perhaps, to explain that these Malvern Hills among which our sheep-station lay are really the lowest spurs of the great Southern Alps, so that even on our run the hills attained quite a respectable height. I had heard from those who had gone up this hill – quite near our little house – how wide and beautiful was the outlook from its summit, so I never rested until the expedition was arranged. Of course, it was only possible in the height of summer, and we chose an ideally beautiful afternoon for our start directly after an early dinner. It was possible to ride a good way up the hill, and then we dismounted (there were five of us), and took the saddles and bridles off the horses, tied them to flax-bushes within easy reach of good feed, and commenced the climb of the last and steepest bit of the ascent.

It was rather amusing to find, as soon as it came to carrying them up ourselves, how many things were suddenly pronounced to be quite unnecessary. Food and drink had to be carried (the drink consisting of water for tea) and a pair of red blankets for shelter, and just one little extra blanket for me. My share of the porterage was only a bottle of milk strapped to my back – for it took both hands to scramble up, holding on to the long tussocks of grass – but I felt that I was laden to the extent of my carrying capacity! The four

gentlemen had really heavy loads ("swags," as they called all parcels or bundles), under which, however, they gallantly struggled up. There was no time to admire any view when at last we stood, breathless and panting, on the little plateau at the very top, for the twilight was fast fading, and there was the tent to be put up and wood to collect for the fire.

Fortunately, all those hillsides were more or less strewn with charred logs of a splendid hard red wood, called "totara," the last traces of the forest or bush with which they were once covered. The shepherds always pick up and bring down any of these logs which they come across when mustering or boundary-keeping, for they find them a great prize for their fires, burning slowly, and giving out a fine heat.

When we came to pitch the tent, there seemed such a draught through it that I gave up my own particular blanket to block up one end, and contented myself with a little jacket. But oh, how cold it was! We did not find it out just at first, for we were all too busy settling ourselves, lighting the fire, unpacking, and so forth. But after we had eaten the pies and provisions, and drunk a quantity of tea, there did not seem much to do except to turn in so as to be ready for the sunrise. Some tussocks of coarse grass had been cut to make a sort of bed for me, after the fashion of

the wild-pigs, who, the shepherds declare, "have clean sheets every night," for they never use their lair more than once, and always sleep on fresh bitten-off grass. In spite of this luxury, however, I must say I found the ground very hard, and the wind, against which the blankets seemed absolutely no protection, very cold. Also the length of that night was something marvellous; and when we looked down into the valley and saw the lights twinkling in our own little homestead, and reflected that it could not be yet ten o'clock, a sense of foolishness took possession of us. Every one looked, as seen by the firelight, cold and miserable, but happily no one was cross or reproachful. Three of the gentlemen sat round the fire smoking all night, with occasional very weak "grogs" to cheer them. F. shared the tent with me and Nettle, my little fox-terrier; but Nettle showed himself a selfish doggie that night. I wanted him to sleep curled up at my back for warmth, but he would insist on so arranging himself that I was at his back, which was not the same thing for me at all.

We certainly verified the proverb of its being darkest before dawn, for The stars seemed to fade quite out, and an inky blackness stole over earth and sky an hour or so before a pale streak grew luminous in the east. I fear I must confess to having by that time quite forgotten my ardent

desire to see the sunrise. All I thought of was the joy of getting home, and being warm once more; and, as soon as it was light enough to see anything, we began to strike the little tent and pack up the empty dishes and pannikins. But long before we could have thought it possible, and long before it could be seen from the deep valley below us, the sun uprose, and one felt as if one was looking at the majestic sight for the first time since the Creation. Nothing could have been more magnificent than the sudden flood of light bursting over the wide expanse. Fifty miles away, the glistening waves of the Pacific showed quite clearly; below us spread the vast Canterbury Plains, with the great Waimakariri River flowing through them like a tangle of silver ribbons. To the west rose steep, forest-covered hills, still dark and gloomy, with the eerie-looking outline of the snow-ranges rising behind. A light mist marked where the great Ellesmere Lake lay, the strange thing about which is that, although only a slight bar of sand separates it from the sea, its waters are quite fresh. All we could see of the River Rakaia were its steep banks, but beyond them again shone the gleam of the Rangitata's waters, whilst close under our feet the Selwyn ran darkly through its narrow gorge. The little green patches of cultivation – so few and far between in those days – each with its tiny cottage,

gave a little homelike touch which was delightful, as did also the strings of sheep going noisily down from their high camping-grounds to feed in the sheltered valleys or on the sunny slopes. It was certainly a most beautiful panorama, and we all agreed that it was well worth our long, cold night of waiting. Still, we got home as quickly as we could, and I remember the day proved a very quiet one. I suspect there were many surreptitious naps indulged in by us poor "Watchers of the Night."

II. OLD NEW ZEALAND – Continued

II

OLD NEW ZEALAND – Continued

NO wandering reminiscence of these distant days would be complete without a brief mention of the famous snowstorm of 1867, at which I assisted.

I must say a prefatory word or two about the climate – so far as my three years' experience went – in order to explain the full force of the disaster that fall of snow wrought. The winters were short and delicious, except for an occasional week of wet weather, which, however, was always regarded by the sheep-farmer as excellent for filling up the creeks, making the grass grow, and being everything that was natural and desirable. When it did not rain, the winter weather was simply enchanting, although one had to be prepared for its sudden caprices, for weather is weather even at the antipodes, and consequently unreliable. Sometimes we started on an ideally exquisite morning for a long ride on some station business. The air would be still and delicious, fresh and exhilarating to a degree hardly to be understood; the sun brilliant and just sufficiently warming.

All would go well for four or five hours, until, perhaps, we had crossed a low saddle in the mountains and were coming home by the gorge of a river. In ten minutes everything might have changed. A sou'-wester would have sprung up as though let out of a bag, heavy drops of rain would be succeeded by a snow-flurry, in which it was not always easy to find one's way home across swamps and over creeks, and the riders who set forth so gaily at ten of the clock that same morning would return in the fast-gathering darkness wet to the skin, or rather frozen to the bone. I have often found it difficult to get out of my habit, so stiff with frozen snow was its bodice.

No one ever dreamed of catching cold, however, from the meteorological changes and chances, an immunity which no doubt we owed to the fact that we led, whether we liked it or not, an open-air life. The little weather-boarded house, with its canvas-papered lining, did not offer much protection from a hard frost, and I have often found a heap of feathery snow on a chair near my closed bedroom window; the snow having drifted in through the ill-fitting frame.

Still these snow-showers, and even hard frosts (which usually melted by midday), did no harm to man or beast, and found us totally unprepared for the fall in August 1867. Of course there were no meteorological records kept in those days, for

they had not long been started even in England, and we had nothing to go by except the Maori traditions, which held no record of anything the least like that snowstorm. Indeed, I had seldom seen snow lie on the ground for more than an hour after the sun rose, and it never was thought of as a danger in our comparatively low hills.

I well remember that Monday morning and the strange restlessness which seemed to extend to the sheep, for they must have felt the coming trouble long before we thought of calamity. The weather during the last week of July had been quite beautiful, our regular winter weather, and we had taken advantage of it to send the dray down to Christchurch for supplies. My store-room was all but empty, and the tea-chest, flour and sugar bags, held hardly half-a-week's consumption, so the drayman was charged not to linger, but to turn round and come back directly he got his load. When speaking of supplies it must be borne in mind that tinned provisions were almost unknown in those days, and certainly never found their way to a New Zealand sheep station. F. had also taken advantage of the beautiful open weather to ride down to Christchurch about wool matters, so I expected to be quite alone with a youth who was learning sheep-farming under F.'s auspices, and my two servants.

But F. had hardly started before a cousin rode up the track and, hearing I was feeling somewhat depressed and lonely, very kindly volunteered to stay, and before the afternoon was over a neighbouring young squatter also appeared, and asked (as was quite a common thing in that hotel-less district) for shelter for the night. Nothing could have been more unexpected – except that one's station guests always were unexpected – than these two visitors, but it proved a fortunate chance for me that they appeared just then.

The weather was certainly curious, and we all noticed that the sound of the sheep's bleat never ceased. Now the odd thing at a sheep station used to be that you hardly ever saw a sheep, and still more seldom heard one, except perhaps in the early morning, when they were coming down from their high camping-grounds. And sheep always "travel" head to wind, but the sheep that afternoon kept moving in exactly the contrary direction. Still I was not in the least uneasy about the weather, except as it might affect the comfort of F.'s seventy-five mile ride to town, and I knew he would be under comfortable shelter at a friend's half-way house that night. So we gaily and lavishly partook of our supper-dinner, had an absurd game of whist, and went to bed as usual.

It was no surprise to see snow falling steadily

next morning, but it was disagreeable to find there was very little mutton in the house, and that it was quite likely the shepherd would wait for the weather to clear before starting across the hills and swamps between us and the little homestead where the woolshed stood, and from whence the business of the station was carried on.

The three gentlemen lounged about all day and smoked a good deal. They told me afterwards how bitterly they regretted not having made some preparation in the way of at least bringing in fuel, or putting extra food for the fowls, &c. But each said to the other every five minutes, "Oh, you know snow in New Zealand never lasts," though their experience was only a very few years old. It was short commons that second day, and I thought sadly that the dray would have only reached Christchurch that evening! We all felt depressed, and, as no one had any use for depression up that valley, the sensation was quite new to us.

It was not until we met on the third morning, however, that we at all acknowledged our fears. By this time the snow was at least four feet deep in the shallowest places, and still continued to fall steadily. It was impossible to see even where the fowl-house and pig-sties stood, on the weather side of the house. All the great logs of wood lying about waiting to be cut up were hidden, so

was the little shed full of coal. A smooth high slope, like a hillock, stretched from the outer kitchen door, which could not be opened that morning, out into the floating whiteness. All our windows were nearly blocked up and became quite so by the evening, and no door except one, which opened inwards, could be used. And we had literally no food in the house. The tea at breakfast was merely coloured hot water, and we each had a couple of picnic biscuits. For dinner there was a little rice and salt. Imagine six people to be fed every day, and an empty larder and storeroom!

The day after that my maids declined to get up, declaring they preferred to "die warm"; so I took them in a sardine each, a few ratafia biscuits, and a spoonful of apricot jam. Those were our own rations for that day. We had by that time broken up every box for fuel, and only lighted a fire in the kitchen, where also a solitary candle burned.

"Be very careful of the dips," said one of my guests, "for I've read of people eating them."

"I hear the cat mewing under the house," said another; "we'll try to get hold of her."

"I wonder if those are the cows?" asked a third, pointing to three formless heaps high above the stockyard rails, but within them.

By Friday morning the maids, still in bed, were

asking tearfully, "And oh! when do you think we'll be found, mum?" Whereas my anxiety was to find something to feed them with! We shook out a heap of discarded flour-bags and got, to our joy, quite a plateful of flour, and a careful smoothing out of the lead lining of old tea-chests yielded a few leaves, so we had girdle-cakes and tea that day. I was very unhappy about the dogs: the horses were out on the run as usual, so it was no use thinking of them.

On Saturday there was literally nothing at all in the house (which was quite dark, remember), and my three starving men roped themselves together and struggled out, tunnelling through the snow, in the direction where they thought the fowl-house must lie. After a couple of hours' hard work they hit upon its roof, tore off some of the wooden shingles, and captured a few bundles of feathers, which were what my poor dear hens were reduced to. However, there was a joyful struggle back, and after some hasty preparation the fowls were put into a saucepan with a lump of snow, for there was no water to be got anywhere, and a sort of stew resulted, of which we thankfully partook. This heartened up the gentlemen to make another sally to the stockyard in search of the cows. The clever creatures had kept moving round and round as the snow fell, so as to make a sort of wider tomb for themselves, and they were alive,

though mere bundles of skin and bone. They were dragged by ropes to the stable and there fed with oaten hay. It was no question of milking the poor things, for they were quite dry.

Next day the dogs were dug out, but only one young and strong one survived. Two more were alive, but died soon after.

On Sunday it had ceased snowing and the wind showed signs of changing. I struggled a yard or two out of the house, as it was such a blessing to get into daylight again. My view was of course much circumscribed, as I could only see up and down the "flat," as the valley was called. But it all looked quite different; not a fence or familiar landmark to be seen on any side. If I could have been wafted to the top of the mountain from which we saw the sun rise the summer before, what a white world should I have beheld! And if I could have soared still higher and looked over the whole of the vast Canterbury Plains, I should have been gazing at the smooth winding-sheet of half a million of sheep, for that was found, later, to be the loss in that Province alone.

Yet, as we afterwards came to know, it was not really the fall of snow, tremendous as it had been, which cost the Province nearly all its stock. As I have said, the wind changed to the north-west – the warm quarter – on Sunday night, and it rained heavily as well as blowing half a gale. On

Monday morning the snow was off the roof and it was possible to clear some of the windows. An early excursion was also made to the styes and a very thin pig was killed, and, as a bag of Indian meal for fattening poultry had also been found in the stable loft, a sort of cake could be made. So we were no longer starving, and the maids got up!

Twenty-four hours of this warm rain and wind was what did all the mischief to the poor sheep. By Monday night every creek within sight had overflowed its banks, and was running – a dirty yellow stream – over the fast-melting snowfields. The rapid thaw and the flooded creeks made locomotion more difficult than ever, but the three gentlemen set to work at once to try to release the imprisoned sheep. There was but one dog to work with, and he was so weak he could hardly move, but the poor sheep were still weaker. Contrary to their custom they had mostly sought refuge beneath the projecting banks of the creeks, and would have been safe enough there had not the sudden thaw let the water in on them before they could struggle up, so they were nearly all drowned. It was most pathetic to discover how in some places the mothers had tried to save the lambs by standing over them in a leaning attitude so as to make a shelter. The lambing season had just begun, and on our own run, which was but

a small one, we lost three thousand lambs. Several were brought in to me to try to save, but I had no cow's milk to give them, and warm meal and water did not prove enough to keep the poor little starving creatures alive. It was heart-breaking work, and when F. returned it was to find the fences tapestried with the skins of a thousand sheep.

As soon as we could move about on horseback we rode all over the run and found that the sheep had evidently fared better when they had kept on higher ground. It was curious to see the tops of the little Ti-ti palms, some ten or twelve feet high, entirely nibbled off where the sheep had clustered round them, and, as the snow fell, mounted higher and higher until they could reach the green leaves. In those days all the flocks were pure or half-bred merino; active, hardy little black-faced sheep, tasting like Welsh mutton, and delicious eating. On these excursions we often came upon dead wild-pigs, boars cased in hides an inch thick, which had perished through sheer stress of weather. It was wonderful to think that thin-skinned animals, with only a few months' growth of fine merino wool on their backs, could have survived.

During the long bright summer which followed, we used often to ask each other if it could be true that hills had apparently been levelled and valleys

filled up by the heaviest snowstorm ever known. But when we looked at the Ti-ti palms with their topmost leaves gnawed to the stump, we realised that the sheep must have been standing on eight or nine feet of snow to reach them. When the survivors came to be shorn, it was plainly to be seen by the sort of "nick" in the fleece, where their three weeks' imprisonment had evidently checked the growth of the wool. Many of the hardiest wethers must have been without food for that time, as the pasturage was either under snow or flooded.

In looking back on that tragic time, its only bright memory is connected with tobogganing on a rough but giant scale, and I greatly wonder any of us survived that form of amusement. By the time every possible thing had been done for the surviving sheep, the snow had disappeared from all but the steep weather-side of the encircling hills, so our slides had to be arranged on very dangerous slopes.

The sledges on which these perilous journeys were made consisted of a couple of short planks nailed together, with a batten across for one's feet to rest on, and half a shears for a brake. If the gentlemen would only have made these rapid descents alone! But they insisted on my being a constant passenger. No one who has not gone through it can imagine the sensation of being

launched on a bit of board down a mountain side! And yet there must have been a fearful joy in it, because after turning round and round many times as one flew over the hard snow surface, and arriving in a heap, head foremost, in a snowdrift, one was quite ready to try again. Luckily another northwest gale set in, and when it had blown itself out there were too many sharp-pointed rocks sticking up out of the remaining snow to make our mad descents practicable.

III. OLD NEW ZEALAND – Continued

III

OLD NEW ZEALAND – Continued

I WONDER if "swaggers" have been improved off the face of the country districts of New Zealand? Tramps one would perhaps have called them in England, and yet they were hardly tramps so much as men of a roving disposition, who wandered about asking for work, and they really could and did work if wanted. They nearly always appeared, with their "swag" (a roll of red blankets) on their backs, about sunset, and it was etiquette for them to offer to chop wood before shelter was suggested. A good meal of tea, mutton, and bread followed as a matter of course, and a shakedown in some shed. In the early morning, if there was no employment forthcoming, the "swagger" would fetch water, chop more wood, or do anything he was asked, before he got some more food and left. They always seemed very quiet, decent men, and perfectly honest. Indeed, a missing pair of boots (afterwards found to have only been mislaid) raised a great commotion in the whole country-side until they were found, and I suspect the owner had to apologise abjectly to all the "swaggers"!

The invariable custom of the "swagger" only appearing at sunset made it all the more wonderful when I found one crouched in a comer of the verandah at dawn one bitter winter's morning. Now I was not at all in the habit of getting up at daylight in winter, but it was a glorious morning after nearly a week of wretched wet and cold weather. Some demon of restlessness must have induced me to jump up, huddle on a warm dressing-gown and start on a window-opening expedition, which led me shortly to the little hall-door. This I also opened to let in the fast-coming sunshine, and I nearly tumbled over the most forlorn object it is possible to imagine. At first I thought that a heap of wet and dirty clothes lay at my feet, but a shaggy head uprose and a feeble voice muttered, "I'm fair clemmed." Such wistful eyes, like a lost, starving dog, glanced at me, and then the head dropped back. I thought the man was dead or dying, and I flew to wake up F. and to fetch my medicine bottle of brandy. But I could not get any down his throat until F. arrived on the scene and turned the poor creature over on his back. By this time I had roused up the "cadet," and also got my maids hurriedly out of bed. My tale was so pitiful that the warm-hearted Irish cook – in the scantiest toilet – was lighting the kitchen fire by the time F. and Mr. U. brought the poor man in. Water was literally streaming

from him, and the first thing to be done was to get him out of his sodden clothes. Contributions from the two gentlemen were soon forthcoming, and after a brief retirement into my store-room, the wretched "swagger" emerged, dry indeed, but the image of exhaustion and starvation. Warm bread and milk every two hours was all we dared give him that day, and he slept and slept as if he never meant to wake again.

I forget how many days passed before he had at all recovered, and by that time my maids had cleaned and mended his clothes in a surprising manner, and he had, himself, cobbled up his boots. A hat had to be provided and a pipe, but we could not spare any blankets for the "swag." However, though he hardly spoke to any one, he told Mr. U. he felt quite able to start next day, and F. elicited from him with some difficulty – for it was against "swagger" etiquette ever to complain of the treatment of one station-holder to another – that at the very beginning of that bad weather he had found himself at sundown at a station about a dozen miles further back in the hills, and had been refused shelter. The man pointed out that he did not know the track over a difficult saddle, that very bad weather was evidently coming on, and that he had no food, but he was ruthlessly turned off and seemed soon to have lost his way. He wandered some days – he did not know how many – without food or shelter,

pelted by the merciless and continuous storm; his pipe and blankets soon got lost in one of the numerous bog-holes, and he really did not know how he found his way to our verandah, or how long before dawn he had been lying there. I must say it was the only instance I heard of brutality to a "swagger" whilst I was in New Zealand.

Well, by the next morning I had ceased to think about the "swagger," and when I looked out of my window to enjoy the delicious crisp air and the sunshine, I saw my friend coming round the comer of the house, evidently prepared to start. He looked round, but I had slipped behind the window curtain, so he saw no one. To my deep surprise, the man dropped on his knees upon the little gravel path, took off his hat, and poured forth the most impassioned prayer for all the dwellers beneath the roof which had given him shelter. Not a soul was stirring, so he could not have been doing it for effect, and he certainly had not seen me. I felt as if I had no right to listen, for it was as though he were laying bare his soul. First, there was his deep thankfulness for his own preservation most touchingly expressed, and then he prayed for every blessing on each and all of us, and, finally, as he rose from his knees, he signed the Cross over the little roof-tree which had sheltered him in his hour of need. And we had all thought him a silent and somewhat ungracious man!

I really cannot believe that I often rode fifty miles to a ball, or rather two balls, danced all night for two successive nights, and rode back again the next day! The railway was even then creeping up the plains and saved us the last twenty-five miles of the road. These same balls were almost the only form of society in those days, for dinner-parties were impossible for want of anything but the most elementary service. Certainly there were bazaars sometimes, but I do not remember riding fifty miles for any of them! Such amusing things used to happen at these balls, which, no doubt, were very primitive, but we all enjoyed them too much to be critical.

On one occasion the Governor had come to Christchurch for some political reason, and of course there were balls to welcome him. He had brought down some Maori chieftains with him; rumour said he was afraid to leave them behind in the North Island, where the seat of Government used to be and still is. Now I was very curious to see these chieftains, and it was somewhat of a shock to behold tall, well-built, dark-hued men faultlessly clad in correct evening-dress, but with tattooed faces. Presently one of the stewards of the ball came to me and said: –

"Te Henare wants very much to dance these Lancers; I should be so grateful if you would dance with him."

"Certainly," I answered; "but can he dance?"

"Oh, he will soon pick it up, and you'd have an interpreter."

Te Henare, who had been watching the result of the mission, now approached, made me a beautiful bow, offered his arm most correctly, and we took our places at the side, closely followed by the interpreter. I discovered through this gentleman that my dusky partner had never seen a ball or social gathering of any sort before, and that he had learned his bow and how to claim his partner since he entered the room. Of course, we danced in silence, and indeed I was fully occupied in admiring the extraordinary rapidity with which Te Henare mastered the intricacies of the dance. He never made a single mistake in any part which he had seen the top couples do first, and when I had to guide him he understood directly. It was a wonderful set of Lancers, and when it was over I told the interpreter that I was quite astonished to see how well Te Henare danced. This little compliment was duly repeated, and I could not imagine why the interpreter laughed at the answer. Te Henare seemed very anxious that it should be passed on to me and was most serious about it, so I insisted on being told. It seems the poor chieftain had said with a deep sigh, "Ah, if I might only dance without my clothes! No one could really dance in these horrid things!"

Te Henare apologised through the interpreter for his tattooed face. His cheeks were decorated

with spiral dark-blue curves, and his forehead bore an excellent copy of a sea-shell. The poor man was deeply ashamed of his tattoo, and said he would give anything to get rid of the disfiguring marks, and so would the other chieftains, adding pathetically, "Until we came here we were proud of them."

I must confess I got rather tired of poor Te Henare, and indeed of all the chieftains, for they insisted on coming to call on me next day for the purpose of letting me hear some Maori music. I cannot truthfully say I enjoyed it. Every song seemed to have at least fifty verses as well as a refrain. Fortunately, they did not sing loudly, but there was no tune beyond a bar or two, and the monotony was maddening. The interpreter and I tried in vain to stop them, and at last I went away, leaving them still singing, quite happily, what I was informed was "a love-song." It seemed more in the nature of a lullaby.

I fear it is an unusual confession for a staid elderly woman to make, but I certainly enjoyed those unconventional – what might almost be called rough – days more than the long years of official routine and luxury which followed them. But then one looks back on those days through the softening haze of time and distance, of youth and health; and one realises that after all "the greatest of these is Love."

IV. A MODERN NEW ZEALAND

IV

A MODERN NEW ZEALAND

THE passage of over a quarter of a century has of course made a great change all over the world in the matter of education, but probably nowhere would that change be more apparent than in New Zealand. Even in less than ten years after I had left the Colony, two thousand schools had been started under a new law, with a roll of two hundred thousand scholars. What must they number now? There are Schools for natives and Schools for the deaf and dumb and for the blind, Schools of Mines and Schools of Science, Technical Schools, and a fine Agricultural College in Canterbury.

But in my day very few of the working men I came across, as our shepherds, shearers, and so forth, could read at all. One can hardly realise it, but so it was, and one of the first things I did was to start a sort of night school for these stalwart Empire-builders, in which, alas! I was the only teacher. The population was so thin and so scattered in those distant days that these men's lives were necessarily very lonely, and those who

could read at all eagerly joined a little lending library, or rather a Book and Magazine Club, which I set going. At first I had only thought of providing literature for our neighbours – any one within fifty miles was a neighbour – but the shepherds begged to join, and of course I was delighted to enrol them.

Looking back on those days, I fear the comic side of that educational attempt chiefly asserts itself. My pupils – only four or five at a time – were so big and so desperately shy. One gigantic Yorkshireman would only read, or rather attempt to read, with his broad back turned to me. Others almost wept over their difficulties. It really involved far more trouble on their part than on mine, for they had often some distance to ride, and over such trackless hills and swamps. It was found almost impracticable to have any set evening for the lessons, as sometimes weather, and sometimes their duties interfered; so at last it was settled that they should come any evening they could spare, and I would be ready for them by eight o'clock (so primitive was our dinner-hour!) in the little dining-room. Certainly the seeds of knowledge are very difficult to plant in later life, for intelligent as these men evidently were, and most eager to learn to read and write, they made but little progress under my tuition. Perhaps I was a bad teacher, for I had only the experience

of my own little boys' very first lessons to guide me.

Some of the incidental difficulties were very absurd. Two men lived in a hut up a lonely and distant river-gorge, who were among my earliest pupils, and they also came regularly on Sunday to the little afternoon service. But they never came together, and their brand-new suit of shepherd's plaid had always a strange effect. First they tried my gravity by invariably stepping up to me with their prayer-books to find their places for them, and saying loudly each time, "Thank you kindly, Mum." I dared not say a word for fear of frightening them away. But one day I ventured to ask why they could not come together, either to the lessons or the service, and was informed that the clothes were the difficulty.

"You see, it's this way, Mum. We've only got one suit, and we got it a between-size on purpose. Joe, he's too tall, and I'm too short, so I turns it up, and Joe he wears leggin's and such like, and so we makes it do till after shearin'."

But I do not want to laugh when I think of the last time I met my bearded pupils. My own face was set towards England then, and I had to say good-bye to the happy valley and to my scholars. They were made shyer than ever by my shaking hands with them, and only one said a farewell word. "To England, home and beauty, of course,

Mum, you'd be glad to go, but it's rough on us." This cryptic utterance seemed quite to express his and his "mate's" meaning, though it still remains dark to me.

The Canterbury Plains are now covered with fields of wheat and all kinds of agricultural produce. The rare "English grass" of my day is almost universal. Except in the very back-country stations, the little hardy merino sheep has given way to the more substantial Southdown, whose frozen carcase comes back to us in the shape of excellent mutton. Comfortable homesteads are within hailing distance of each other. Railways, telegraphs, telephones, and all the latest scientific annihilators of time and space are thickly planted everywhere. I used to look down the valley on to certain white cliffs which seemed to bound my view in that direction, and, speaking of it the other day, some one said, "Oh, the terminus of the nearest railway to your old 'run' stands there now." I cannot realise that the whistle of an engine has taken the place of the shrill scream of a huge hawk – more like an eagle than a hawk – which haunted that lonely spot.

But perhaps the greatest difference of all would be found in the sport.

In my day there was absolutely nothing except the wild boars, and the difficulties of introducing game seemed at first insurmountable. Mr. Frank

Buckland sent out quantities of salmon ova packed in ice, of which hardly a single specimen survived the long voyage. Then people told me that the New Zealand rivers were impossible to stock, owing to a bad habit they had of constantly changing their beds without warning. It is true that I saw that happen at those very white cliffs I have just spoken of, where, after an unusually violent hot north-west gale which melted the snows in the mountains, the river running beneath those cliffs changed its course entirely during one night, cutting another wide and deep channel for itself over very good grazing ground, and leaving the owner of that particular spot with a vast extent of shingle-covered river-bed in exchange, on which, as he pathetically said, "a grasshopper could not find enough green meat."

One can easily understand that respectable stay-at-home English fish would not be able to shift their quarters at such short notice, but yet I am now assured that a good basket of trout can be landed from almost any New Zealand stream. They must have become very "mobile"! I wonder if any of these same fish are the descendants of what I always regarded as my trout!

This was the way of it. Not long before we left New Zealand, one of our squatter neighbours, who was anxious to stock a fine stream running through his property, offered to give a home and

a chance to some of the newly-imported trout ova. I happened to meet him on one of my rare visits to Christchurch, and inquired as to the progress of his trout plans. I suppose that put the idea into his head, for he first asked when we were returning to our station, and then earnestly entreated to be allowed to drive me back in a sort of buggy or gig he possessed. I greatly preferred riding, and told him so, but he seemed most anxious for my company, and finally said he would speak to F. about it. I felt quite willing to abide by his decision, which I flattered myself would be that I must certainly ride back with him. But to my dismay F. said, "I think you had better drive with – – -." So there was no help for it, and at the appointed early hour Mr. – – - drove up. I was packed into the buggy, and then the whole villainous scheme revealed itself! I was wanted to carry a small pail full of trout ova, carefully, so that it should not be jolted or spill. My whole attention and my every thought were to be devoted to that sole object. I must not move or talk; I must think of nothing but that pail. Mr. – – - assured me later that his mind would be entirely fixed on avoiding every stone or even inequality on the road, so that the precious freight might not be jeopardised. And I had seventy-five miles before me! If we came to a really rough bit of road, I had to hold that pail out, on the

principle of a swinging cot at sea. Fortunately, there was a halt in the middle of the day, but only for the benefit of the ova; however, my aching arms got just a little rest. To make my sense of hardship more acute, F. rode near us most of the way, and constantly added his entreaties to me to "be very careful." Later, I arrived at feeling a certain sense of pride in having conveyed those ova so carefully that they all survived the journey, but at the time I well remember my suppressed indignation and burning sense of injury at having been entrapped as a trout-carrier. But that only lasted so long as did the fatigue of my cramped position.

There has always been very good sea-fishing almost everywhere on the coast, but we lived too far off to enjoy it. When, however, we went to Christchurch it was always a great treat to have at every meal the whitebait the Maoris sold in pretty little baskets of woven flax-leaves.

I see in the latest accounts that our own familiar "Selwyn" is quite a favourite trout stream, but in the more distant big lakes, where the fish attain quite a large size, the water is so clear that a rod is useless, and netting is the only chance.

Some means must have been found of keeping down the "weeka," tamest and most impudent of apteryx. Very like a stout hen pheasant itself, only without the tail feathers, it used to be the

sworn foe of pheasants in my day. It ate their eggs or killed the young birds. Many and doleful were the tales told of the wholesale massacre of the pioneer pheasant broods by the weekas, who seemed numerous as the sands of the sea-shore. Dogs hunted them, men shot them, but in both cases they were as elusive as the Boers, gliding from tussock to tussock, and when forced into the open, running almost faster than the eye could follow. To all my "bush" picnics the weekas invited themselves and cleared up every crumb. It would have needed a pack of terriers to keep them off, and although "Nettle" did his best he made no impression on the marauders. They were not good to eat, but the shepherds extracted an oil from the fat, which they declared made boots and leggings waterproof. Still, weekas had it very much their own way at that date. I see that hares and also Californian quail and plover flourish nowadays, and I know the wild-duck were always plentiful and delicious eating.

There was a talk of importing deer even thirty-five years ago, but the idea did not find favour in the eyes of the run-holders. The fences were only three or four wires high, and would of course be no protection to the sheep, whose feed would be at the mercy of the new-comer. It was known that two hinds and a stag had been turned out in some well-grassed and forested low ranges in the

North Island as early as 1862, but one did not hear anything of them as either a danger or a pleasure. They were the only survivors of a batch sent from Windsor Forest by the late Prince Consort. The conditions must have been ideally favourable, for they have now spread all over the place, and afford excellent sport. Red deer seem to do well in our island (the Middle), though I do not fancy they have come at all near the part I knew. A few moose have been turned out on the West Coast of the same Island, and there is even a talk of importing wapiti and cariboo. But any one who wishes to know all about New Zealand – fur, fin, and feathers – cannot do better than study, as I have done with the greatest pleasure and profit, a delightful booklet by Mr. R. A. Loughman, of the Lands and Survey Department in Wellington, which no doubt can be procured at the Agent General for New Zealand's Office. It makes one wish to set off directly for that favoured though distant shore, and Mr. Loughman asserts that numbers of sportsmen arrive there every year.

I heard a great deal of modern New Zealand when the Imperial Representative Corps came back from their wonderful tour round Australia and New Zealand three years ago. It was most interesting and delightful to listen to the accounts of the progress everywhere; but as I had been so very much longer away from New Zealand, the mar-

vellous changes there took more hold of my imagination, and I was delighted to be told by all that it was still the most English place they visited.

There was much to occupy the public mind at home just then, and I have often felt that we rather missed the value and significance of that tour, especially as it was somewhat overshadowed and crowded out by the rapture and magnificence of the welcome extended to their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York almost directly afterwards.

We were still in the midst of the war in South Africa, and then, just after the Imperial Contingent left Sydney, to which it first went to take part in the ceremonies marking the Inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth, the Empire had to mourn the loss of its beloved Queen, and nowhere was the grief more personal and profound than on those distant shores. As the Commandant 5 told me, although the sad news spoiled in a way the gaiety and eclat of the greeting provided for the troops, still it was far more impressive to see the genuine grief and regret which the width of the world could not weaken. Memorial services everywhere took the place of balls, and the "Soldiers of the Queen" shared, with the splendid Colonial forces who were just then springing to arms at the Empire's call, in honouring her dear memory.

But by the time Invercargill, the most southern point of New Zealand, had been reached, the first dark days of sorrow had passed, and the people could better give free scope to their hospitable instincts, and they greeted the Contingent with the heartiest welcome. The last time British troops had touched New Zealand shores it was to fight the Maoris, who now stood first and foremost in the cheering crowd, and delivered addresses of welcome with the best.

The straight run down from the extreme south of Middle Island brought them in due time, through those great Canterbury Plains where harvesting was in full swing, down to Christchurch, and so on to Lyttelton. But there was always time, apparently, for delightful little picturesque episodes, such as stopping the train to let the detachment of Seaforth Highlanders march, with pipes playing, to visit one of the most prominent Scotch settlers, a man who had given his life's work to the beautiful new land. Fancy what a dramatic moment! To hear the war-pipes skirl, and the old tunes played, all in one's own honour and in recognition of splendid service!

Then the thousand troops were taken on by sea to Wellington and shown everything in the length and breadth of all the fair land; up to the wonderful hot springs at Rotarua, down to the deer-stocked islands off Auckland. Everywhere, not

only did they receive a rapturous welcome from the cheering crowds, but there were many historic and picturesque moments in which the Maoris formed the central figures. I should like to have seen the old Maori chieftain, after the "haka" or native dance, fling his tasselled spear at the Commandant's feet, saying, "For four hundred years this taiaha has been handed down from father to son, from son to grandson. But you and I alike are sons of our King, who rules in the place of the Queen we have lost. Take it, and let it descend to your children's children."

Thrilling also must have been the sight of the veterans of former wars, now peaceful citizens, ending their days in comfort in these distant lands, yet, like the war-horse of Bible story, pricking up their ears and joining their new comrades. At all the reviews there the veteran sailors and soldiers were, marshalled in the old form and given prominent places; they themselves, with their medal-covered breasts, being objects of honour to the gorgeous visitors. And quite as thrilling must have been the ranks of cadets who lined the streets here and there. My own heart has often gone out to these chubby boy-soldiers when I have seen them – first at Adelaide in 1883, later in Western Australia, where the youthful corps bore my name, and was known as my "Own" – so it was with a peculiar interest that I read part of a speech of the

Commandant's when he was leaving Brisbane, but it applies equally well to the cadet corps of all the large New Zealand towns.

"What pleased me most in the march through your streets to-day, more than even the enthusiastic greetings of the Queenslanders, was nearly a mile of boys lining the road by the railway station. Hundreds of sturdy youngsters, every one of them devouring our men with his eyes and doing his best to look like a soldier himself. I thought as I looked at their bright, keen young faces, 'there are our future Australian contingents.'"

At Auckland there was one newly-raised detachment which had not yet got its uniform, but turned out in white shirts with black arm-bands and Panama hats. These sinewy, workmanlike "bush-men" had ridden in from the country district on their own horses – as workmanlike as themselves – not to take part in the big parade which every one was talking about, and which would be remembered for years, but in order to lend the Contingent their horses. Such stories – stories which I know to be true – show me that after all the lapse of years New Zealand still remains in heart the Old New Zealand of my day.

But, speaking of medals, I was much amused at hearing that the youthful volunteers turned out sometimes quite covered with medals, extending as far back as the first Cape war and going on to the

Crimea and the Mutiny. On its being remarked that they looked very young to have taken part in such distant campaigns, they admitted that the medals had belonged to their grandfathers and fathers, but that they conceived themselves entitled did many others who were not even volunteers – to wear them, and could see nothing at all laughable in doing so. It seemed to me a very wise concession on the part of the Colonial authorities to permit this, as a recognition of the natural pride of the sons of such men in their ancestors having fought for the Empire in bygone days, for they evidently regarded the medals as a link binding them to the dear old Mother-land. However, the present generation will proudly wear medals of their own winning, even if they do so side by side with those gained by their forefathers. Yes, those thousand picked men of that fine Imperial Contingent will have been so many Peace missionaries bringing back news of the loyalty as well as of the wealth and beauty of that fair England beyond the sea.

Not less emphatically will these tidings be endorsed by the welcome extended to their King's son and his gracious young wife when they too landed on those smiling shores a few months later. The message their Royal Highnesses brought was to the same effect, and received in the same spirit of love and gratitude. At all events it will not be

our fault if our kinsmen beyond the sea, especially in the Islands of New Zealand, do not understand how we valued the splendid help they gave the Empire in its hour of need, and how grateful we are for it. I was reading a little while ago some of the evidence taken before the War Commission last year, and saw that one of the Generals was asked if he had, at any time, any of the many New Zealand Contingents under his command. "I am sorry to say I had not," was the reply, and I felt just as personally proud of the answer as though I were a New Zealander myself, and all for the sake of those dear distant days and the good friends who helped to make them so happy.

5 Lieut.-Colonel Crole-Wyndham, C. B., 21st Lancers.

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