THE WONDER-LAND OF THE ANTIPODES [Part 2]
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hood, that I was disappointed to find no fairies there to welcome me to their retreat. Both banks of the river are alive with geysers, and the terraces are second only to those of Rotomahana. I was favourably impressed with the moderate charges of my Maori landlord; he charged me only "five heringi" (shillings) for my tea, bed, and breakfast, everything, though simple, being very clean.
I had little difficulty in finding my way now without a guide; for although the telegraph posts would sometimes leave me for half-a-mile, and take a short cut over some ravine or hill-top, I was always pretty sure of the direction in which I was travelling, and I found that most of the Maori tracks showed better in the twilight than during the day time, from the white sand which had washed down into them and contrasted with the surrounding darkness. On a later occasion, when I lost my way in the "bush," and had to sit down hopelessly for four hours, until the moon shone out, and the Southern Cross gave me my bearings, I could see the narrow line of road stretching away for miles across the hills, like a sparkling band of silver.
But after a dreary ride, through hills clouded in mist, and reminding me forcibly of Connemara, from the almost universal absence of trees, and scanty cultivation, I suddenly came upon a well-constructed dray-road, some distance before reaching Oruanui Pah, which I followed nearly all the way to Napier. It is a continuation of the great coach-road from Napier to Lake Taupo, an undertaking, suggested I believe by Mr.Ormond (Minister of Public Works), likely to do more for maintaining peace between Maories and settlers than any number of red-coats or breech-loading rifles. Instead of spending money as heretofore on fighting the natives, the present policy is to expend the same amount in giving employment to them on road works through their own country, in establishing
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secular schools in the villages, and in restoring the trade and agriculture, which (seventeen years ago) made it possible for a white man to visit safely any part of the Island. As I ascended the steep hill, from the summit of which I was to see Taupo Moana (for the Maories call this lake Moana, or sea, from its extent, though equally fresh with the waters of the other island lakes, such as Roto-Rua, Roto-Mahana, &c.), the vegetation began to change; and instead of the manuka, with its white blossoms, a blackish-looking broom covered the entire country, except where tall white columns dotted here and there announced the presence of geysers, constantly blowing off steam like a dozen locomotives at high pressure. The deep cuttings and frequent land-slips showed me that nearly the whole of the higher grounds were marine deposits of fossil shells, upheaved by a convulsion of nature which has not yet entirely subsided. In fact, as several people have said, New Zealand ought not to have been inhabited for another cycle or two, for in the South Island you have glaciers and snow torrents grinding down the mountain range, and gradually raising the level of the plains on the sea-coast with the shingle and boulders they bring down; whilst up North, vast tracts of lands are in a constant state of chemical change; and though Wellington rather monopolizes the treat of five or six annual earthquakes, nearly all the country south of the Waikato districts to beyond Taupo Lake is still actively volcanic, and resembles one great laboratory on the grandest scale.
On riding down to the ferry, at a point where the whole volume of the Waikato flows straight out of Lake Taupo in full grandeur, like the goddess Minerva from the head of her father Jove, I found a solitary native putting out from the land to fish in a very crazy canoe, and made him understand I wished to "cross" myself and horse. When we
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reached the other side, and I asked how much he intended to charge me, instead of giving any rational answer, he began to dance and laugh, with a kind of suppressed mum um um, which made me think he was an idiot. I tried him with "hickapenny" (sixpence) for myself, and ditto for the horse, at which he again commenced his antics with an expression of intense delight. I afterwards found he was deaf and dumb, but, nevertheless, one of the sharpest lads in the tribe.
Judge of my surprise, on riding up to the inn, to find myself suddenly in the midst of civilisation. Two days before my arrival, Cap.Bowers, a survivor of the memorable charge of the Six Hundred at Balaclava, who has been for some time connected with the commissariat of the armed constabulary hereabouts, had opened this little hostelry in time to welcome the Governor and his suite on their overland tour. Food for man and beast in abundance was there, and creature comforts to which I had long been a stranger. Fresh butter from Canterbury, oats from Napier, beef and mutton, a German baker who gave us the best and cheapest bread I had eaten since I left England, Turkish bath-towels, arm-chairs, and looking-glasses, had magically made their appearance on a spot which six months ago was "the abomination of desolation," and afforded but a scanty support to the poorest tribe in all New Zealand. The only objectional feature about the place was the canteen, where a crowd of drunken natives were squatting before the door, ready to sponge on the newest arrival for another glass of their beloved waipero (stinking water), the curse of their race here as in America. There is a lurking devilry in these people, which occasionally peeps out, as with Mahomedans; and though the men seldom indulge in private quarrels, but reserve all their savagery for war, I saw a woman suddenly
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display her wild nature in a way that almost made me shudder. She was a decidedly pretty girl, with an exquisite figure, set off to advantage by a black riding-habit and natty little hat; and she had been displaying her horsemanship by racing with some friends at full gallop in front of the house; when the husband came up, and, feeling irritated at her conduct in fatiguing his horse on the eve of a journey, he attempted to pull her off the saddle. She stuck to her seat like a Centaur, or rather Amazon, but her dress was torn in the struggle; as soon as he desisted, she leapt off herself, with a shriek like a madwoman, and struck him several times with her whip. He simply took her up in his arms and threw her down; satisfied with recovering his horse, which he led away. Springing to her feet again, her heaving bosom half uncovered, her long black hair streaming in the wind, her eyes glaring, and her pearl-white teeth gnashing defiance, she seized a large piece of pumicestone in her hands, and, running up behind, dashed it with her full force against his temple. I thought the man would have fallen to the ground; but he merely staggered a moment, and then, without the least retaliation, smiled disdainfully at her, and walked off to the canteen. He even took no notice when she yelled after him "Tutua," or low-born one, the most deadly insult one can offer a Maori, whose distinctions of caste are even more exclusive than those of our own upper ten. Ask a man, who is attempting to impose on you, "Who was your grandfather?" and he will generally collapse, unless he happens to be a "rangatira" of real blue blood, when you may expect a string of epithets to be hurled at you in return, as he enumerates his ancestry from the remotest ages. The little children of six years old learn this lesson before any other from their mothers' lips, and can rattle off a pedigree as long as your arm almost as soon as they talk.
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I believe that any nobleman, of acknowledged long descent, would have a far better chance of buying a large block of land out here, than some rich parvenu who had made himself. The Governor and his party were away down the lake, and near the great mud-geyser of Tokano, where they were holding a "korero," or talk, with some of the chiefs; and as it is extremely hard to find one's way there by land, in consequence of the numerous swamps near the shore, and the official whale-boats which are used here were already in requisition, I resolved to spend my day profitably in visiting the great Huka (Sugar) Falls, which are said to equal, if not surpass, those of Schaffhausen on the Rhine. As I rode down the right bank of the river, I saw an extremely curious geyser called the "Crow's Nest," the incrustations of which exactly resemble sticks laid across each other in that shape. A short way further on, we came to a hot creek, in which I would have bathed with more pleasure had the temperature been less, for I came out of the water the colour of a boiled lobster. It is becoming a famous resort for invalids from Napier, who next year will be able to travel all the way by coach (two days' journey); and besides its efficacy in curing rheumatism, scrofulous affections, &c., they have the additional advantage of Captain Bower's comfortable house on the lake close by at Tapuehararu (Sounding Footsteps), thus named because, when riding,
"Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit angula campum,"
in the most audible manner, and one not reassuring to a nervous person, who cannot help but speculate on the thickness of the crust on the earth's surface in this spot, however disinclined to scientific research in general.
About two miles down the river, I recrossed the hot creek where it joins the Waikato, and tethered my horse in
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a little meadow of the coarse native grass and young flax-plant. On entering the settlement, I found two old women peeling potatoes, who reluctantly consented to take me over the river. The canoe in which we embarked was of the crankiest kind. I was afraid to sneeze or cough for fear of an upset, and kept my eyes steadily fixed on the centre of the boat, with a hand on each side to balance it. There was some difficulty in picking one's way for a mile, through the tall raupo (rush) and tohi-grass; but I soon heard the distant roar of the falls, and caught sight of the rapids at the head, where the stream suddenly narrows to about fifty yards. In the centre were some black rocks, with piebald shags perched on them, watching intently for the fish as they darted beneath them; whilst immediately below this the water leaped up in convulsed masses of green, pink, and white froth, like the great whirlpool below Niagara Suspension Bridge. I crept cautiously over the huge boulders along the bank, in which sundry suspicious cracks indicated an impending addition to the debris of rock, and came shortly upon a scene of the utmost grandeur. The whole force of the river breaks over the edge in a fan of feathery sugar-like spray into the basin beneath. This is fringed on all sides with a wonderful variety of evergreen over-hanging shrubs, any one of which would be prized in an English garden. Whilst peeping over the precipice, one can see where the green eddies of water have undermined the rock far beyond the ledge on which one stands. The hill sides are clothed with a dense scrub of the tutu, a treacherous bush with dark bright-green leaves, which have the effect of either killing outright the cattle which imprudently eat it, or intoxicating them to such an extent that the eyes become glazed, and the brain giddy, and for a day or more they are unable to walk.
My great regret in visiting all these new scenes was,
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that I did so generally alone, which destroys half one's pleasure. One ought to have a travelling companion, both for the sake of a little human sympathy and society, when crossing these lonely tracts, and also in case of any accident which, as we all know, will occur in the best regulated equipages. There is, too, a great delight in talking over past experiences in after life at a comfortable fireside, or with your feet under the mahogany; but the deaf adders, who have not seen the spots which you may be describing, and who have not shared the adventures of your route, refuse (reasonably enough) to open their ears, charm you never so wisely. In fact, they think you are talking "shop," as we used to say at College; i.e., monopolising the conversation on a subject which is familiar and intensely interesting to yourself alone of all the company present. I have been asked whether my lonely rides never suggested thoughts which would never have occurred to me "in the busy hum of cities and of men;" but, to me, nature never wears her brightest guise unless I have some one to share her delights with me. Men do, it is true, get to love a solitary life, and, like the prisoner who had been all his life confined in the Bastille, cannot bear to face the world again; but this is a morbid, unhealthy frame of mind, which should be sedulously discouraged, for
"He liveth best who loveth best;"
and what is the love of a recluse but selfishness.
On my return from the waterfall, I stopped at the mouth of the hot creek, and had a sensation bathe. The modus operandi was to climb up a little waterfall, shoot down the smooth rock channel about six feet into the pool beneath, then recline for an interval in the comfortable stone arm-chair formed there by nature, enjoying a douche or shower-bath; and, finally, to brace one's relaxed energies
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by a dive into the invigorating waters of the Waikato, which passed the mouth of the little brook, with only a bar of sand between the cold and warm currents.
When Sir George Bowen and his cavalcade arrived in the evening, I introduced myself to him as a fellow-Oxonian, and he immediately (much to my relief) asked me to make use of the house, the whole of which had been exclusively engaged for him during his stay. Of course, I gladly accepted the offer, in preference to continuing my journey, especially as the next day there was to be a "korero," or talk with the Ngatimaniapoto, which was quite a novelty to me.
Immediately after breakfast, Poihepe, one of the seven chiefs who signed the treaty of Waitangi ceding the sovereignty of the Islands to Queen Victoria, came to conduct the Governor to the verandah of a neighbouring house, where we found the whole village assembled in front of us. The meeting was addressed first by Poihepe; and, although I am told he is a great diplomat, and a really able man, his speech appeared to me to consist of--"Haere mai, come hither, 0 Governor"--then a grunt of self-approval, and a little walk up and down the arena; "haere mai, haere mai, for the Pakeha and Maori are at peace"--grunt, walk, nod of approval, etc., etc. None of the speakers ever seemed nervous; they uttered their sentences very deliberately, and the rule was, when at a loss, say "haere mai." It seemed to be the custom in their runanga, or meeting, for young men to be put on their legs for practice; whilst all, even women, are listened to with equal gravity and attention. Some of those present had been leading rebels during the war; e.g., Hoani Makau, from Orakei-Korako; but all alike expressed the same wish for schools, roads, and commerce, that Poihepe did. This chief, though in the heart of the disaffected country, was our steadfast ally
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throughout the recent war, and had led his small body of men against Te Kooti, the instigator of the Poverty Bay massacre, when the latter was still the popular favourite with a large number of followers. Arete (Alice), his wife, was the most matronly and handsome woman I met. She must have been also an unusually skilled housekeeper; for I heard rumours of fat pigeons and ducks, which she bones in the most skilful way, and puts up in casks for her lord's use. One fault she has--she's a little too fond of her grog; but then, Poihepe himself is a man who thinks nothing of his two bottles of brandy after dinner. The korero might have been indefinitely prolonged, for, like all colonials, they are much given to "yarning," and generally keep it up till some peculiarly happy metaphor, in which they largely deal, takes the fancy of the majority, and the debate terminates in applause and acclamation.
I was most interested in one of their "waiata," or songs of welcome, which they introduce as we might do quotations from Homer or Shakespeare, and which went down with the audience to any extent. Mary, the pretty girl whom I had seen in such a state of ungovernable fury the previous afternoon, was sitting in the midst of her friends; and as she smiled coquettishly while they performed a new edition of the haka, kneeling (for every village has its own peculiar style of dance), I could scarcely believe her to be the same woman. I was once surprised in the very same way by some Arabs at Tripoli. They had been educated at the French school in Algiers, and were the quietest, most European-like girls, to all appearance. But one evening, when, by special request, I had allowed their husbands to invite the hadra, or religious club, to the house, and the tomtoms had struck up their dizzy, monotonous thrill, I suddenly found that the women's faces had all disappeared from the gallery above; and on going
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upstairs, I discovered them with their hair tossed, and eyes rolling like demons, in the full frenzy of the dance. I stopped them, with some difficulty, for none of them were able to recognise me; their teeth were fast clenched, as if in a fit, and they moaned piteously; and the spectators urged me to let them dance the devil out. But how sickened and disgusted I felt at the sight! All the polish was on the surface:
"Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurrit,
Et mala (?) perrumpt fastidia."
You cannot tame a Maori or an Arab thoroughly, and it is a fact that many of the half-castes in New Zealand have a strong tendency to resume their savage nature and rejoin their tribes, after becoming apparently so civilised as to thoroughly adopt the habits of Europeans.
Luckily, before I left Taupo, I made the acquaintance of Major L., who gave me letters ensuring a warm reception at all the Constabulary posts on the road to Napier. I may here say that this body of cavalry is virtually the standing army of the colony. It numbers about eight hundred; both officers and privates are a splendid lot of fellows, very intelligent, and with a strong esprit de corps. They may well be proud of the force to which they belong, for most of them distinguished themselves by acts of gallantry during the war, which are but ill rewarded by the universal New Zealand medal, and a most scanty pay. Sir Charles Dilke's story of admitting none but elder sons of British peers, old army officers, and members of the two great English universities to the force, contains, like most jests, an undercurrent of truth, for you really do meet here and among the gum-diggers in the north, the strangest mixture of refinement and rough life.
At my first halting place, Opepe, a little block-fort on
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the edge of a lovely bush, I met an old French priest, Father Reny, who told me that he had been out here as a missionary for thirty years. He impressed upon me the fact that the cloudless days of mid-winter lend additional enchantment to the shores of Taupo, for then a perfect view is obtained of the grand volcano of Tongariro, and the still more lofty peak of Ruapeho in the distance, clad in a spotless robe of eternal snow. The legend of the mountains is, that Ruapeho and Mount Egmont were both giants who fell desperately in love with the snowy bosom and sparkling eyes of the lady-mountain, Tongariro; but Ruapeho being the stronger kicked his adversary right across to the East Coast at Taranaki, where he still sulks in solitary grandeur; not that he should do so, for what Mount Domett is to Dunedin, or Mount Wellington to Hobarton, that Mount Egmont now is to Taranaki, the pride and pet of all the patriotic beauties of New Plymouth, a fact which ought fully to compensate him for his rejection by Tongariro.
At Runanga, a very exposed block-house on a bare hill-top, I spent my next evening, gaining shelter in time to escape a drenching storm which beat down from one of the three great mountain ranges between Taupo and Napier.
After showing me "the Institute," where, to my surprise, I found all the English illustrated papers, and most of the home magazines and reviews, which are thus passed on from post to post for the men's recreation, and telling me how an old friend in the "force" had edited a comic manuscript fortnightly with great success whilst stationed here, my host, Captain G--, entertained me, as we sat before a comfortable wood fire, with an inexhaustible repertoire of Maorilore and legend.
"Their very name," said he, "of 'Maori,' or 'pure,' is
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a misnomer. It may be, and probably is true that the Hawaians or Samoans immigrated here in olden times; but in all probability they murdered the weaker race of Morioris, whom they found indigenous to the islands, and then, as took place in the Chatham group quite recently, the women became the wives of their conquerors, and, as is invariably the case, introduced many words into the language, by the education of their children, which are entirely distinct from either the Malay or Hawaian dialects. This theory would explain the variety of tints observable in different families, even those belonging to one tribe.
"The Maori is a strangely excitable creature, so much so that from purely working on his imagination he will turn sick suddenly and lay down to die, with no apparent ailment beyond the fright caused by the witchcraft of his enemy. There are two tribes in particular, one of which is the Uriwera, who are able to makutu, or bewitch people in this way, and I heard some stories illustrative of the terror with which the power is regarded among them.
"In the first case, an old chief was reputed to have made several of his grandchildren waste away by his enchantments. His son and daughter-in-law were, of course, inconsolable for their loss, and carefully kept their surviving child, a little boy, out of reach. One fine day, however, they discovered that the lad was sitting by the side of the old man, who was hoeing potatoes in the field. The father took down his tomahawk, and creeping up cautiously, lest he himself should be makutu-ed by a look, brained his parent on the spot to save the child's life. He was considered by his neighbours to have performed a most heroic and noble act, as at the sacrifice of his own filial affection he had rid them of a wizard universally dreaded and hated."
Captain G--'s other anecdote was even more startling
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than the above. Tamaika, an Uriwera chief, had been down to Opotiki, on the east coast, and, when passing through a village on his return to the interior, asked a favour of some native girl which she refused him. Pointing to her with his finger, he said, "I makutu you." This took place on a Saturday afternoon, and early on Monday morning, the girl, who had at once taken to her bed, died without any apparent symptoms of disease or poison. My informant on this occasion told me that he had been to visit the patient, and attempted to argue her out of the superstition which was killing her. "Yes," she said, "it may seem foolish, but then you can't feel as I do. White men can't be bewitched as we are, and my death is certain."
This strong belief in supernatural power sometimes leads to good effects. I saw a half-caste lad at Tauranga who some time ago had been warned by the doctor that he could not survive three months; and he was, in fact, in the last stage of consumption. His native relations, however, came and begged leave to exercise their power of makutu on him. He was so weak at that time that they actually had to carry him to their canoe, in which they conveyed him to an island not far from Tauranga, where he remained under their treatment for a few weeks, and when I saw him, he was strong enough to undergo a long day's journey on horseback. I asked what they had given him in the way of medicine, and he said, "Nothing at all; they fed me on fish and potatoes, and no one was allowed to touch my head for a week or two, and here I am again, half restored to health!"
Travellers often hear stories about the unchastity of the Maori women. Although this may be the case among the unmarried girls, who base their claim to be considered "belle of the village" on the number of intrigues they can
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boast of, one rarely finds instances of infidelity after marriage; the penalty is too serious--for the woman, probably death,--for the man, "utu" or confiscation of his available property.
Next morning, to my dismay, no horse could be found; my mare had broken down a rail of the "government paddock," and wandered off into the woods in company with a "wild horse," which had been hanging about the enclosure of late. The men went out to look for her, and succeeded in capturing her companion too. He was a queer object; he had evidently been living in the forest for years; and from want of rapid exercise in open ground, (for the supple-jacks, a kind of climbing black cane, impede a beast's progress very much in the bush, and frequently strangle it in its terrified efforts to escape), his hoofs had grown to an enormous length, so that he almost resembled some new species of quadruped.
The next twelve miles of the road to Tarawera are as yet quite incomplete, and it is marvellous to see how the poor pack-horses have worn regular steps or ladders up the sides of nearly perpendicular hills, by which they climb to the top with the agility of cats. Every now and then I met long trains carrying up oats and stores of all kinds to the interior, led by a sober old beast with a bell round his neck, the sound of which they follow like sheep.
To compensate, however, for the hardships of the road, it lies through the most glorious bush I have seen in the island, with cascades and rivers as beautiful as those in the western highlands of Scotland. Besides gigantic tree-ferns, rata with its scarlet blossoms, and kahikatea pine in clean spars of two hundred feet in height, one is fascinated by the variety of creepers and ferns near the running water, more especially the dense undergrowth of the Prince of Wales' Feather (Leptopteris Superba), whose
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dark green mossy fronds lose their velvet-like softness very rapidly on exposure to the sun. I tried very hard to send home specimens of this rare fern, which is even more luxuriant here than near Hokitika in the South, and also some plants of variegated flax (Phormium Colensoii variegata); but they began to turn a suspicious brown on landing in San Francisco, and I bequeathed them to Woodward's Gardens on the chance of obtaining duplicates if I ever visit the States again. At Tarawera, there is a snug little inn for visitors, and a hot spring, to which one ought to be acclimatised, for I came out of the rough wooden tub on the hill-side as red as a lobster, and with a disagreeable tightness about the forehead. In fact it is very imprudent to indulge oneself in these baths at random, or too often, without medical advice. They bring on a kind of "crisis" after a week or two, when the body is subject to painful boils, which however are said to disappear with all other ailments by persevering in the waters. It may have been poor diet in the Maori country that brought me down in physique, but I was completely laid up for a time at Napier in this way.
The country hereabouts is very curiously constituted; the ground seems firm enough to cut, but as soon as the top binding of fern is removed, there are perpetual landslips of the soft pumice and gravel underneath, which involve constant care; also, as far as I could see, all the pasture is on the very tops of the high mountain plateaus, and in the valleys there is nothing but raupo or flax.
On Titiowharu, where I slept the next night, I found the overseer (to whom Mr.C--, at Hamilton, had franked me,) "mustering" sheep, which is the next important process to "shearing" in the squatter's annual programme. The rams and ewes are divided and subdivided; whilst the poor little lambs, before they go out of the fold again, "leave their tails behind them," as little Bopeep
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would say, and also have their ears punched and backs marked with raddle or tar. It is customary to invite all the neighbours to your "muster," as they can then pick out their missing sheep which have strayed from the adjoining runs. As they complete each flock, it is turned over to a shepherd, who would drive it off with the aid of his dogs to a beat, possibly ten or twenty miles distant, for these squatters own enormous tracts of land about here.
To show you some of the peculiarities of New Zealand travel, I may mention that between this and Napier, I crossed one little river forty-two times in about ten miles, though it is only fair to say that none of the fords were at all deep or dangerous. There were numbers of natives on the road from town, well mounted, and dressed up to the eyes in the latest fashions; for in Hawke's Bay some of them are extremely wealthy, and you may see Maories in black frock-coats and tall hats, sitting in their carriage and pair there; men, too, who consider themselves judges of brandy, and talk of their "Hennessy" as we might do of Sandeman's port, or Roederer's carte-blanche champagne. One old gentleman was most indignant lately at being offered "Beehive" brand instead of his favourite mark, and threatened to withdraw his custom from the unfortunate spirit merchant who had dared to suggest such a change.
Napier is a small but rather pretty town, built on a high spit of land facing the sea; the harbour runs in behind the town to the north, and is not accessible to large steamers.
Here, as elsewhere in New Zealand, one meets now and then with social anomalies which one can look at sometimes from a ludicrous, as well as a distressing point of view. For instance, when I was looking about, on my arrival at the hotel, for some stables in which to put up
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my horse, I suddenly felt a tap on the shoulder, and heard a "How d' ye do?" from a nice looking young fellow whose face I had some difficulty at first in recalling. It was N--, a pupil of the same tutor as myself at Eton; and here he had taken to keeping a livery stable in Napier and driving a hansom in the streets for hire. Most of the residents knew his history, and looked upon the whole affair rather as a joke than otherwise; so much so that they did not hesitate to offer him their hospitality, and ladies would always bow on meeting him, unless he was actually on the box driving. They told me an amusing story of his experience. Col.Russell, the Minister of Instruction, hired the hansom for a ball in the neighbourhood; and on reaching the door of the house, gave N-- directions to return for him at one a.m.; N-- touched his hat and drove off, but had not gone far down the carriage-road before he stopped, took the horse out and tethered him to a tree, and slipping off his mackintosh, came back to the house in full evening dress, having received an invitation also himself. The evening wore out, and morning arrived. About three o'clock, someone walked up to Col.Russell, whom he saw leaning against the wall, and looking rather annoyed, and remarked to him, "Why, Russell, I thought you were an early bird; what are you doing at the ball still?" "Well," said the Colonel, "I had intended to go home about two hours ago, but there's that confounded cabby of mine engaged for three more dances, and I can't get away till he's done."
After a short visit to Rissington, the proprietor of which, Colonel W., told me he could ride forty miles in a straight line on his own "sheep run," I took passage in the "Rangatira," a very diminutive steamer chiefly employed in the cattle-trade, for Tauranga, a fine harbour on the east coast, south of Cape Colville. We stopped
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twice on the voyage to take in wool, once at Poverty Bay, the scene of Te Kooti's great massacre, and afterwards at Tolago Bay, where we saw the little cove in which Captain Cook hauled up his vessel for repairs. Here a solitary white man came off, steering a large whale-boat manned by natives in very primitive and scanty costume. I could not help congratulating myself that I was not stranded like him in this lonely spot, without newspapers or letters for months together. I heard a good deal of Te Kooti's exploits as I rode across the island, which I must record here. Since the war there have been three malcontents among the rebels, who steadily refused to accept terms, and were a constant source of terror to the settlers, viz., Kereopa, Tito Kiwaru, and Te Kooti. Kereopa was the man who murdered Volkner, the missionary, and ate his eyes; he was hung in Napier, shortly before I arrived there. Tito Kiwaru received a free pardon on condition of abandoning his evil ways, and settled down quietly near Taranaki; but Te Kooti, the great Hau-hau leader, has for the last three years baffled all the energy and perseverance of his pursuers, though his band of three hundred followers has gradually dwindled down to something less than half-a-dozen, including women. After his escape from the Chatham Islands, he wandered about in the bush, occasionally pouncing down upon some unprotected farmhouse, and burning it, but beyond this leaving no visible sign of his whereabouts. Almost constantly there were three or four bodies of constabulary on his track; but partly owing to the secret support he received from those natives who dared not openly sympathise with him, and partly from the fact that even the hardiest white men cannot subsist on berries and fern-roots for any length of time, (and it was impossible to carry many stores through such a maze of hills and forests, ) Te Kooti, though living a
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miserable hand-to-mouth existence, and hunted down from camp to camp frequently only a few hours in advance of his enemies, was still enabled to elude them. When asked the nature of the country hereabouts, a native will hold up his hand and show you the spaces between his fingers; it is an endless succession of ridges and valleys, so that it is impossible to get an extended view. "It is like looking for a needle in a haystack," said one of the officers, "and we shall never catch him unless they employ bloodhounds or Australian blacks to track him." Once a party actually caught sight of him scaling a cliff in front of them, and attempted to discharge their guns, but the caps and powder had become so damp by constant exposure to the damp weather, that they would not ignite. At last, after he was finally supposed to be hemmed in somewhere on the east coast, and a sensational paragraph had appeared at least once a week in the Auckland papers, announcing "the imminent capture of Te Kooti," we suddenly heard of his appearance in the Waikato, right on the other side of the island, whence he made his escape into the "king's country" and claimed protection from Tawhiao, who seems inclined to let him live there, on the condition that he causes no further disturbances. Leaving aside the consideration of his guilt, it seems almost better to withdraw the price set on his head, and not to risk the chance of another fight by insisting on his extradition. He has lost his influence, and we should only make a martyr of him by any further action on our part, so that "quieta non movere" seems to be the best policy.
I had made up my mind to leave the steamer at Tauranga, and try to ride overland to Ohinemuri, where I could get a boat down to the Thames gold-fields; but, as the Rangatira steamed off from the wharf and left me standing there in a drenching rain, my heart rather sank
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as I remembered the warnings my friends had given me about travelling after the summer had broken and the wet season set in. However, the best face had to be put on the matter now, so I went off to the inn, and there stopped for two whole days, reading Gulliver's Travels and looking from the window at the steady down-pour from a dull leaden sky which never seemed likely to clear. On the third morning however, seeing enough blue heavens to make a Dutchman's breeches, I imprudently chartered a boat to begin my journey, against the advice of my landlord who told me the creeks would be "up" still, and I should be unable to cross them. Off we started on our weary useless journey down the harbour, and crossed the little forest of mangroves which divide the Tauranga and Kati-kati tides, just as the bush tops began to peep out of the rapidly receding waters. At the little hostelry, kept by a half-caste, Alf.Faulkner, I found him and his two brothers ruefully regarding the sunset, which certainly had a suspiciously liquid appearance; they were intending to start next day for the races at Ohinemuri, and told me that I might try the experiment with them. As they were about the best guides in the district, and thoroughly up in bush travel, I thought myself almost at my journey's end; but, like the young bear, all my troubles were before me. That night and all next day we had a terrific thunderstorm, and the ceaseless patter of the heavy drops on the corrugated iron roof, told us that the difficulties of the road were hourly increasing, and that I should have much delay and vexation of spirit before I got to Auckland again. However, I could not complain of my quarters, the beds were clean, and Polly, our pretty Maori hostess (the neatest and most good-natured of girls possible, and far superior to any native woman I have met before or since) gave us the best plum-pudding I have tasted since leaving
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England, and introduced me also to a delicious preserve made of "pie melon" cut into little squares, and very much like Everton toffee in flavour.
At last (our patience being exhausted) my cicerone, Alf.Faulkner, thought we would try to force our way across the country; "we could but turn back again, and it would be such a pity to miss the first race-meeting of the Thames natives." His wife prudently slipped a bottle of gin and some slices of cold plum-pudding into her husband's wallet before starting, which, as experience proved, was a a very needful precaution.
The Maories generally commence a journey as fast as their horses will carry them; and I am afraid in this case we were no exception to the rule. We galloped the first five miles along a hard sandy beach, with the waves occasionally dashing up to our horses' fetlocks, and then began a slow and tedious ascent by the Kati-kati pass to a plain of about twenty miles in width, which, people say, is to be before very long the great alluvial gold-field of this island. It has not been "prospected" yet, from the reluctance of the natives to mining encroachments; but some residents in Tauranga, who possess influence with them, and who think their own little town is destined to become the "hub of the Antipodes," eclipsing even Grahamstown or Hokitika in the rapidity of its growth, are already taking steps to secure concessions from some of the leading chiefs, under which they will develop the resources of the "field" for the benefit of the native landlords. And here our misfortunes began; the first creek we came to should have convinced us that we need go no further, for what was usually a little brooklet had swollen into a large torrent, which rose nearly to the saddle-girths of our horses, as they cautiously picked their steps across the treacherous-looking ford. Each creek in succession grew worse and
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worse; at some there were falls and rapids not a hundred yards below where we crossed, which threatened an untimely end in the event of one false step on the slippery black rocks, over which the water was now rushing with unusual force; at others the steep banks had become so greasy, that when our horses had slid rather than walked down the zigzag path to the water, they became hopelessly bogged in the stream, till we hauled the poor brutes by main force up the opposite bank. At last we came to a ford, over which our leader decided we should have to swim them, at the cost of getting thoroughly wet through. Accordingly, in we plunged, and down they went, with their heads just rising above the surface of the water. It is a most unpleasant feeling to have the ripple gradually creeping higher and higher, until it reaches the waist. Unfortunately, like most young travellers, I had neglected to guard against such a contingency. I suddenly remembered that my watch, matches and tobacco were getting soaked, instead of being safely stowed in my hat, as they should have been; but "sweet are the uses of adversity," and I shall know better next time. When we had ridden some twenty-five miles, and were entering a thick bush, I began to look for signs of Ohinemuri village, and almost to think my journey at an end; but to my intense disgust Alf.Faulkner informed me that we were just coming to "the river" (the others having been mere creeks or brooklets). After a weary walk of two miles, through mud knee deep, pausing frequently to free our horses from the overhanging supple-jacks, a species of black cane, which often entangles and throttles cattle in their terrified efforts to extricate themselves, we came to our bete noir, the Ohinemuri river, and as we looked down at it, "spes omnis tenues evasit in auras." It would be hopeless to attempt the ford that night; the first step would have taken us
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into a deep boiling eddy, a few yards below which we could hear the heavy plunge of the water as it rushed past the little island in the centre of the rapids, bending down the bushes with its impetuous force, and fell over the rocks from a considerable height into a large basin at the foot. No one in his senses would have ventured across the head of that miniature Niagara; therefore,
"Rusticus expectans inhiat dum defluat amnis."
we resolved to wait for the chances of the morrow, and before the night fell, collected the driest firewood we could find and hunted about in the bush for some branches of the karaka, the dark-green leaves of which resemble in appearance those of the camelia and would serve as provender for our famished steeds; for there was not a blade of grass in the place. From a wet canvas knapsack our own rations were served out; to every man a slice of bread and butter, a lump of plum-pudding in a semi-diluted state, and a modicum of gin which warmed our shivering frames. I was very thankful to get even this much, for we had eaten nothing since breakfast and felt a pretty good "twist" for food. This was the first occasion on which I had bivouacked in the open air; it was unusually trying, for I was the only one of the party without a dry change of clothes, and it certainly was a miserable night's experience. I spread my mackintosh on the muddy ground close to the fire, with a log of wood for my pillow, and literally steamed till morning, like a bundle of clothes from the wash. You may imagine that I hardly got a wink of sleep, for the fuel was damp, and required to be constantly replenished with small sticks and fanned to make it burn at all. Now in England the effect of all this would probably have been rheumatic fever, or inflammation of the lungs, but I can conscientiously assert that no harm at all came of it in my case. The sky, fortu-
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nately was clear; the Southern Cross shone out brightly overhead, and although there was just the slightest suspicion of frost in the air, you felt that it was an exhilarating cold full of life, and not the dismal rawness of our climate at home.
As morning approached, the clouds began to gather overhead, and drops of rain pattered down, which soon roused us from our uncomfortable couches. I went down to the river bank, but, me miserum! instead of falling, the water had actually risen three inches since the previous evening, for I had placed a little flood-mark at the edge of the stream by which to ascertain this.
We saddled our horses, and with a settled gloom upon our faces turned back to Kati-kati. Fancy our being within three miles of our destination, within half an hour's ride of Ohinemuri and the races, and we actually had to return over the old ground (28 miles) to the place we had started from.
Such are the inglorious uncertainties of New Zealand travel! I shall know better than travel overland in the wet season when I go there next.
What aggravated my sense of failure was, that I had particularly wished to visit the grave of Taraia, a celebrated old cannibal chief, and a pensioner of our Government, who had just shuffled off this mortal coil, and been buried at Ohinemuri. There was to be a "tangi," or wake, in his honour, at which all the leading men of the North would be present, and I should have seen a really memorable feast; for on such occasions, the friends and relatives of the deceased send enormous quantities of dried eels, potatoes, rum, tea, sugar, biscuits, and, lastly, the great national delicacy of decomposed sharks' fins, on which the guests are entertained as long as the provisions last, when the ceremony of mourning also ceases. The "tangi"
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itself is a "keen" or low monotonous wail, which is kept up night and day over the body by the women, till the food and their endurance simultaneously give out. This process is not limited to funerals; for a Maori woman welcomes her friends by a "tangi" or whimper, and by screwing out some crocodilish tears to express, I suppose, her intense grief at their previous separation. The process is as follows: --Look as unhappy as possible, squash your nose against that of the new arrival, and make a low melancholy whine, with your lips compressed; continue the above as long as suits your taste. I have seen very affectionate old ladies sit with their noses together, and their eyes dribbling for half-an-hour together, while they crooned like two love-stricken cats. But curiously enough, they "speed the parting guest" in a far more cheerful way; then every face is wreathed in smiles; you mount your horse, and ride off amid a chorus of Haere, haere, haere (Go, go!), as long as you are within hearing-distance. This I could understand as a kind of a "God speed;" but I am afraid I once scandalised a very punctilious old dowager, who had begun to "tangi," as I came up to a pah at the Hot Lakes, by bursting into a hearty laugh at her dolorous expression of countenance. I have often since wondered whether she thought me wanting in respect; but I fancy she would possibly excuse the faux pas on the score of ignorance.
But to return to my story: "Misfortunes never came single;" for after we had embarked at Kati-kati on the little cutter belonging to my guide, the wind and rain suddenly stopped, and we drifted slowly the whole day on the tide towards Tauranga in a dead calm and blue sky. As I laboured away with one of the long "sweeps," punting the boat over the mangrove shallows, I almost wavered in my purpose, and thought of turning back
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again; but the heavy white clouds which still hung over the Coromandel ranges in the distance warned me not to trust the spiteful caprices of the weather again, and rather to make certain of getting home by sea, even if I had to wait a fortnight for it. We made a frugal meal about noon of bread and "pipis," a small shell-fish not unlike our mussels. Kati-kati harbour is the great fishing-ground of the Northern natives; and even when the canoes are not out, the flocks of gulls and cormorants, and other sea-fowl, make it very lively for the innumerable shoals of mullet and snapper. A child may walk into the banks at low water, and, in five or ten minutes, gather a basket of pipi, which will provide a day's food for the family. The peculiarity of these shells is their sharp knife-like edge, which makes them useful for two purposes, viz., the carving of pipes and other ornamental wood-work, at a time when Sheffield cutlery had not reached these remote regions; and secondly the important process of tattooing, an art however which is rapidly dying out before the progress of civilization. Now-a-days the women confine themselves to two blue lines along the lips, just about kissing-point, which, in my opinion, does not improve their personal appearance; whilst the men, whose heads used to form an important article of export in olden days and served as curiosities in the museums of Europe, have now become so effeminate as scarcely to undergo the tortures of tattoo in the interests of fashion. Everyone knows how the British tar loves to adorn himself with anchors and mermaids on the arm, by the simple process of pricking the flesh with a needle and rubbing in gunpowder; but the tattoo is a far more serious undertaking. The patient is placed in a reclining position, whilst the artiste deliberately nips out little particles of flesh, with his pincers of pipi-shell. The blood streams from the face, and the
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pain, accompanied with swelling of the parts operated upon, must be very excruciating for a time; but as the design is often really very ornamental, and serves either to inspire terror into the foe or else to distinguish families of aristocratic rank by a kind of armorial bearings, you may still occasionally see young men of Conservative proclivities keeping up the old custom with stoical endurance and hardly wincing at each fresh touch of the operator.
"Well! to conclude; I had to wait at Tauranga for nearly a week before any means of escape turned up; and bereft as I was of books or friends, it was the veriest prison-house you can imagine. At last the schooner "Dauntless" arrived, and I took my passage by her to Auckland, where I arrived exactly a fortnight later than I need have done if I had kept to the slow but sure means of sea-voyage, instead of attempting overland travel ad nauseam. Even when we had started, the same fatality seemed to dog my footsteps, and for a whole afternoon we beat about Kati-kati with a head wind: but when I awoke early next morning, we had made half the distance, and anchored off Mercury Island to pick up a "squatter" who lived there. He came off shortly with a regular boatload of wild-turkeys, which thrive amazingly here, and which he was taking to market in Auckland. Before noon we had rounded Cape Colville, and, much to my relief, we anchored that same evening at the Queen Street Wharf, exactly six weeks after I had started on my eventful and solitary trip across the North Island.
