CHAPTER II.
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CHAPTER II.
OUR life on landing from our respective ships, and before we went over the hill to the Plains, was decidedly primitive, and I know what the emigrants of the present day would say if they had to "rough it" as we did. We lived in the Emigration Barracks provided by the Canterbury Association, and there was great difficulty in finding accommodation for all. Mr. Fitzgerald, our Emigration Agent, had to use all his powers of persuasion to satisfy the Pilgrim mothers and daughters, sisters and wives.
I remember an amusing story told of a lady, who found she had to leave the barracks and make room for others, the rule being that each family was to stay for a fortnight and then go. She did not approve of this. Mr. Fitzgerald came several times to try to induce her to leave; so the last time he called, she sent him a message, to say that she had let down her back hair and had gone to bed, and did not mean to get up again. Mr. Fitzgerald could do nothing, and left deploring, and yet admiring, the ingenuity of woman.
Another lady landed with her husband and family, as their ship was leaving for England; she asked Mr. Fitzgerald for a room. He said there was not one to be had. What was to be done? they could not return to their ship. At last Mrs. W. said, being a woman of resources, "I know what I'll do, we'll get a spade and dig a hole in the side of the hill, and camp out all night, and I will write a letter to the
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Canterbury Papers 1 and say we were obliged to sleep on the side of the hill." This threat was too much for poor Mr. Fitzgerald, and he managed to find them a room. The arrangements there were primitive. There was a galley or cook-house at the back, where, we could do our own cooking, or get it done by a man in charge. Our bread we got from an early Pilgrim, who started a small bakery and store. It was amusing to see us all anxiously waiting till the oven was drawn, and then hurrying off with the "staff of life."
I find the following extract, in a manuscript kindly lent me by The Rev. the Dean, which gives his idea of life at that time:--
"To look back to those days is like looking back into another life. It is not merely the lapse of time, it is not so much that--that period is separated from us by some twenty-eight years; it is not that those of us who were then young are now in middle life, and that the heads of those who were in their prime are now sprinkled over with the frosts of many winters. It is that our whole life then was so novel, so strange, so heart-stirring, memory certainly throws a halo over it--call it if you will--a halo of romance. It was the childhood of a people, a healthy, vigorous, and racy childhood. We had our troubles and our hardships, so has childhood, but they were more than compensated by childhood's freshness and elasticity. The weather was delicious, and our spirits were aa buoyant as the air, and our sleep was as deep and tranquil as that of the moonlit deep when every wind is hushed. I may refer to an amusing proof of this last-mentioned fact:-- Two friends of mine were sleeping under canvas in what was then called
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Charlotte Jane Square, being about the site of the present gaol in Lyttelton, where some of the Charlotte Janers first, and afterwards others, had pitched their tents. Well! as luck would have it, while they slept, the wind awoke; a Nor'wester sprang up in the night; a strong gust swept down the gully and carried off their tent, leaving those poor unprotected males all unconscious, and still they slept on in blissful ignorance on the bare hill-side, till the heat of the sun, or the laughter of their neighbours (I forget which) awoke them to a sense of their absurd position. My friends, I may say, were wide-awake enough in the day-time."
Soon after our arrival, Bishop Selwyn came into Port, in his schooner, the Undine. I remember seeing him standing at the helm, guiding his little vessel into port, with his tall athletic figure, and the long bishop's coat. He gave me the impression of being like St. Paul, his fine face, stern in repose, but his smile was like a gleam of sunshine. "He was more than all we expected, he gave us true help and encouragement, and his masterly mind and admirable talent for organisation were most earnestly and successfully exercised for our benefit. We had confidence in him, and he thoroughly justified our confidence." He had wonderful influence with the Natives, and spoke their language fluently. The following anecdote will give my readers some idea of what he was in those days:-- One fine summer's morning, the Bishop and two of his friends, Mr. Mantell and. Mr. Cass, started to walk to Riccarton, the Messrs. Deans' property; they went up the Bridle-path along the top of the hill, till they came to the spur leading down the hill, near where Mr. Murray Aynsley's house now stands; and as they felt tired, they sat down to rest, the Bishop sitting on a large stone.
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Mr. Mantell said to Mr. Cass, in an awe-struck whisper, "That ought to be called the Holy stone." After a short rest, they started down the hill, and soon came to the banks of the Heathcote. There was no bridge in those days, and the usual mode of crossing was to dispense with certain unmentionable garments and carry them over. Mr. Mantell and Mr. Cass dropped behind to allow the Bishop to go over first; after waiting a short time, and no doubt indulging in the luxury of a pipe, they went on and found Bishop Selwyn sitting on the bank, waiting for them. He said, "Well, we had better push on," and gathering up his long coat, walked into the river just as he was. His friends did not see why they should get wet, denuded themselves of a certain portion of their apparel, and followed the Bishop, who had reached the other side and was waiting for them. He remarked, "Well, my plan was the shortest!" "But a deuced uncomfortable one, I should think," muttered Mr. Mantell.
They had a long walk, and reached Riccarton in time for dinner. I must pay a tribute of respect to those pioneers of civilization, Messrs. William and John Deans, and their generous and unbounded hospitality to the Pilgrims. I feel sure that most of the early settlers will agree with me, that the genial brothers of Riccarton did all they could to help us, both with advice and substantial kindness of every sort. It was always open house at Riccarton, and in those days letters of introduction were not required; you just walked in and were treated with warm hospitality, the master of the house sometimes not even knowing your name.
The Bishop and his friends were quite ready for the excellent dinner which awaited them, and did full justice to it. After dinner the Bishop went out to
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the kitchen (which was detached) to talk to the men; when he returned to the house, he was sitting in the parlour, eating apples and drinking new milk, when Mrs. Todd, the kindly Scotchwoman, (wife to Mr. Deans' foreman), whom no doubt many Pilgrims remember, said, looking at the Bishop, "Eh! Sir, you're unco wet, wull ye no gae and pit on some o' the Maister's claithes?"
He thanked her for her kind thought, and said "No, he was all right;" and then turning to his travelling companions, said, "Well, gentlemen, are you ready to walk back? I must be on board to-night." They declined with thanks. He then wished them all good-bye, and walked into Port that evening.
The following extracts I quote from "The Life of Bishop Selwyn," by the Rev. H. W. Tucker:--
"By the provident foresight of Bishop Selwyn, this commanding position has been secured for the site of the Metropolitan Cathedral of New Zealand, and at some future period in the far distant future, when the projected Cathedral shall have become a venerable pile, it will be a matter of no little interest to its then Ministers (should the tradition be so long preserved), to read how, in the dark or early ages of New Zealand, A. D. 1843, its founder, the first Bishop, returning from a walking visitation of more than a thousand miles, attended by a faithful companion of a then, it may be, extinct race, his shoes worn out, and tied to his instep by a leaf of native flax, travel-worn but not weary, once more found himself on this favoured spot, arrested for a moment by the noble prospect presented to his bodily eye, and cheered by the prophetic vision of a long line of successors--Bishops of New Zealand traversing the same spot, better clad and less ragged than himself.
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Such a scene, illustrative of the 'Hour and the Man,' in the hands of a true artist, would afford a fitting subject for a painting.
"The Rev. S. Blackburne, who was selected as the head of St. John's College, Auckland, has contributed his own impression of the Bishop, and of his work, in New Zealand: 'Bishop Selwyn I always regard, as the greatest man this age has produced--a king every inch of him; he would rule by a look, but stoop to perform the most menial office without the slightest loss of dignity. What I most admired was his keen sense of duty, and his grand simplicity of character.' When Bishop Abraham, having been commissioned to appoint his successor to St. John's College, kindly offered the post to me, I told him, that I looked forward with intense pleasure to working in the diocese of so great a man as Bishop Selwyn. He replied 'He is a great man, and would appear so to his valet, if he had one.' Bishop Selwyn had a love of work, and great power of endurance. I have heard of his taking eight services in one day; when 10,000 soldiers were landed in New Zealand, with only one Chaplain, (and he a Roman Catholic) the Bishop felt it was his duty to provide for them; so he constituted himself Chaplain, started a number of services, and held Bible Classes for the men. The soldiers were enthusiastic about him, he knew exactly how to adapt his language to them; it was amusing to hear the Officers speak of him, they not only admired him as a Bishop, but they discovered in him great powers for taking in the details of military life. They used to say it was a shame he was not a General; naval men were equally enthusiastic about his seamanlike qualities, and all agreed that he would make a first rate Admiral.
"During the first ten years of his episcopate, he was most unpopular in Wellington, though later on there
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was no place where he was more highly esteemed. Landing late in the evening in a little dingy, he heard two men on the beach talking about his schooner, and one of them said, 'What's that schooner that has come in this evening?' to which the other replied, 'Oh, that old fool the Bishop's;' just then the dingy grounded on the shore, and rubbing his hands and chuckling, he jumped out of the boat, saying, 'Yes, and here's the old fool himself.'"
A beautiful Poem was written after his death, but I do not know the author. I give it here.
IN MEMORIAM.
G. A. S. -1878.
"The feet shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor and the steps of the needy."
In Lichfield's holiest burial-place
Just where the earliest sunbeams fall,
A new-made grave is decked with flowers,
Beneath the old Cathedral wall.
Why is the turf around the grave
Trampled with marks of many feet?
And where the grass was greenest, now
All black and miry as the street?
It is the Whitsun holiday,
The town is filled with working-men,
And all the livelong yesterday,
They came and gazed, and came again.
Poor of the flock he loved so well,
Well may ye crowd--ye sons of toil!
There lies no truer working-man
In any grave in English soil.
The hand that held the pastoral staff,
That traced the Cross on infant's brow,
Had hewn the oak, had furled the sail,
Had reaped the corn, and held the plough.
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The voice that soothed with tender words
The mourner and the little child,
In stern brief accents of command
Was heard above the tempest wild.
His life was work; and when the springs
Of mortal strength began to fail,
And Reason's clear defining light
Was shrinking in behind the veil--
A friend who watched beside the bed,
And strained his ears, to hear if aught
Yet faltered on his dying lips,
One mournful utterance faintly caught,
In low words, murmured heavily--
"Who's seeing to that work?" he said.
Is there no answer to that cry,
O Saviour of the faithful dead?
Thy workers die--but for the work,
Can that die too? O faithless word!
The Resurrection and the Life
Of all true work art Thou, O Lord.
"Commanding intellect and humble faith, unswerving obedience, and inexhaustible charity, tender heart, and dauntless courage--these surely were combined in George Augustus Selwyn, and make his memory and example a precious inheritance for all time."
One Sunday an accident happened, that might have had serious results. As the boats were returning from church, a sudden squall arose such as is common in the harbour, and the Sir George Seymour's boat upset, and in a moment the people were struggling in the water; we could see them plainly from our ship, the Randolph; all the boats pulled to the rescue and picked up the unfortunates. Amongst them were Mr. and Mrs. Watts-Russell, she was holding him up by his collar as he could not swim, once she felt him going, but pluckily held on till help arrived. One rather
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amusing thing connected with it was, that an individual was seen swimming vigorously in the direction of the ship, with his "belltopper" fixed firmly on his head, he looked most comical with his hat bobbing about with the motion of the waves; he evidently thought that "self preservation was the first law of nature." Shortly after this, our dear old ship sailed for England. How sorry we were to say goodbye to our kind captain and officers, and the ship that had been our home for nearly six months! When we saw her sailing away, her white sails gleaming in the sun, we felt we were indeed in a strange land, and the last bit of home had left us, we almost dreaded the future, it all seemed so uncertain and dark.
I must now try and describe our exodus to the Plains. I hardly remember it, but it has so often been described to me by my mother, that I seem to know all about it. We (that is my father and mother and three children, the eldest not ten years old) started one bright sunny morning, in good spirits, having with us a roan mare, which we had borrowed. Poor old Kathleen! she was a faithful friend, but has long since gone to the "happy hunting grounds," she was very quiet, as may be supposed, for we had loaded her with pannikins, kettles, billies and bundles. We took some food so as to refresh the inner man, and started up the Bridle-path, and along the top of the hill, and down the spur, to the river Heathcote. By this time we sat down to rest our weary limbs. Bill Holland, our guide and handy man, was invaluable, he lighted a fire and made tea, and we had a jolly lunch; we then crossed the river by a small boat; we had a long and tiring walk through tussocky grass, wild irishman (a prickly shrub that grew in great abundance). At last my mother said to Bill, "When shall we get to Christ-
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church?" he answered with a smile, "Why, ma-am, you are in the middle of Christchurch now. " She looked round in dismay, there was nothing to be seen but the Land Office, a large tent (Dr Barker's), a large expanse of plain, dotted here and there with Ti palms, quantities of tutu and fern, gullies, creeks and swamps all around, and nothing but a narrow track to guide us; such was Christchurch in 1851. We have improved somewhat since then; we can now boast of our handsome town, with some fine stone buildings, wide streets, numerous bridges over the Avon, our footpaths asphalted, our roads macadamized, and last, not least, our tunnel, which we owe to the energy of William Sefton Moorhouse, our second Superintendent, and our railways all over the country. An American, looking at Christchurch from the hill not long ago, said to his friend, "Wal, I guess you might have cleared your bush before building your town," and when told that the bush, as he called it, had all been planted by the early settlers, would scarcely believe it. In Hagley Park, there were a good many tents, and "V" huts scattered about. In case my readers may not know what a "V" hut is like, I will describe one:-- It is exactly as if you took the roof off a house, and stood it on the ground, you can only stand upright in the middle.
