CHAPTER I
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THE NARRATIVE
OF
EDWARD CREWE.
CHAPTER I.
"Travellers ne'er did lie,
Though fools at home condemn them."
The Tempest.
THAT most egotistical old Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, commences his admirable autobiography by observing that a man at forty or thereabouts, if he has seen anything remarkable in his voyage through life, would then be most fitted to relate his experiences, being, in fact, neither too old nor yet too young. Without for one moment comparing myself in any way with that illustrious artist, I think I may venture to take the above "leaf out of his book."
I wish, before I get fairly started, to impress upon my reader the perfect veracity of this my narration; for, to my mind, half the pleasure to be got out of a
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book--a novel, or even a fairy tale--is to believe every word of it if you can. Certainly, in these times it is difficult to know what truth is, more so, I fancy, than when Pilate asked what it was, for the thousand and one things that our ancestors thought to be incontrovertible are now in the nineteenth century considered to be mere moonshine.
I like to be exact as to matters of detail at the beginning of my story, and also have a kind of prejudice in favour of birthdays, easy to remember, as, for example, May 7th, which is a date easily borne in mind. Notice the designation of the month--M-a-y--only a monosyllable. You will perceive also that there is but one numeral to mark the day, namely, 7! a number quite famous. Why, it would not take so very clever a fellow to write a book upon the fortunate symbol, whereas some persons' birthdays are notoriously hard to remember. They may not, I will admit, forget their own natal day, but who of all their dear relations, barring their mother, would ever have a little present ready as the day came round.
On this subject John Chinaman is far in advance of Europeans. Taking care to avail themselves of lucky days on their way through life, and even after
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Blood will tell.
death, their friends will keep the body above ground until a propitious day turns up.
It was my fortune to be born with a pedigree, that is, the "Crewes" could trace their ancestry back through many generations of esquires who had rusted out their quiet lives on a certain estate not far from York, near enough indeed to that ancient city to hear the Minster clock strike the hour on a very still day. About two hundred years since, however, one of the family was knighted for great services to the state, and was member of Parliament for York. In his day the "Habeas Corpus" and many other acts of importance were passed, and it is recorded of him that, as an advanced and liberal thinker, he had much to say from his place in Parliament on the great subjects of those times. I am a believer in "birth" and have a proper pride in having sprung, myself, from a good old stock. In my opinion, to be well born in these our times is something so remarkable, when the greater portion of gentlemen have no knowledge of who was their great-grandfather, that it is right to regard "blood " for its rarity with all the respect which is due to something which cannot be bought.
My brothers and myself, as we became old enough,
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were sent first to a private school and afterwards to Rugby. At the latter seat of learning we acquired--first, truthfulness, ever scorning to tell a lie; secondly, the ways of gentlemen; and lastly, a skilful acquaintance with the noble games of cricket and football. Some boys learned their lessons, but I rarely did so, and suffered frequently in consequence. I have never thought my school days the happiest portion of my life, as many people assert theirs were. The constant dread of being "floored" and the after disagreeable results of "lines" to write or learn, kept me always in an unenviable state of mind; even when at cricket the phantom of the next day's lessons would be "an inseparable." I was like those unfortunates afflicted with a hopeless chronic malady, who never, even in their most hilarious moments, forget its fatal presence.
When at home for the holidays we, in winter, followed the hounds on our ponies when the "meet" was near, or were allowed a gun when we had attained fifteen years of age, or often when there was a frost had some splendid skating on the "Ings."
The summer holidays were not amiss, but did not come up to Christmas time. We were often carpentering and turning on a lathe there was at home,
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At a nonplus.
spoiling much timber and wasting many pounds' weight of nails. My second brother had fitted up a miniature lathe in his study at Rugby. This I inherited when he left the school. No other boy possessed, or perhaps cared to possess, such a treasure, out of the three or four hundred who were there in my time.
My father had often told me that I must "be something," that I should have to earn my own living, but I was never put into the way of doing so. There was now and then a little talk on this subject in the old Hall, when my mother would ask me what I would wish to be, and Law, Physic, and Divinity would be mentioned, as also the Army and Navy. They never seemed to think that there was any other occupation fit for a gentleman excepting the above.
After leaving Rugby I was sent to a private tutor, a married clergyman in a country village. Both Mr. and Mrs. Alban were estimable people, and with them I lived on the best of terms for a year and a half. Yet, although the poor gentleman tried his best, I do not remember that I learnt very much whilst under his roof, and he must have thought me rather a failure, as in truth I was. My teachers might have seen that my forte did not lie in
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acquiring Greek or Latin; it always appeared to me that they would not or could not impart any other knowledge to "us boys," although many of us wished to hear of other matters.
I understand that they are beginning, now-a-days at our public schools, to see the error of wasting so much time in driving the "humanities" into unwilling youth, and now teach sciences unknown or ignored by the doctors of my day.
Whilst residing with Mr. Alban I fell in love, and, as usual with the very young in such cases, the object of my affections was several years my senior. However, nothing came of this affaire du coeur, for before long the young lady was married to some one older, whom she preferred, I suppose, to her more youthful lover. You must not be curious, dear young ladies, to hear more of this juvenile episode; really, I cannot, must not add any particulars to the above bare statement.
After some considerable thought on the subject as to what profession I should choose, I came to the conclusion that "Physic," was the very thing. Yes, I would go to Edinburgh and study.
Certainly I had an inward monitor that told me I should never make a good surgeon, lacking that kind
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Gives up the idea of being a doctor.
of nerve that can look upon wounds and suffering without much disquietude.
One morning a cottager, not far from the Rectory, whilst cutting a cabbage with a penknife, not only accomplished his purpose but stuck the blade deep into the calf of his leg, severing the "posterior tibial" artery. Of course he rushed to his house, bleeding like a pig all the way, and would have infallibly met his death but for the presence of mind displayed by the village blacksmith, who quietly covered the hole in the poor fellow's leg with his thumb. A doctor was soon procured who treated his patient "secundum artem," pouring brandy down the man's throat and otherwise mending his leg.
Some two or three hours after the event, I accompanied the rector to the invalid's cottage. We saw it all--the cabbage-stalk, the track of blood along the path, on the steps up into the house, and spatterings and stains upon the floor. The sight made me so sick and queer I nearly fainted, and from that day I gave up all idea of becoming a doctor.
A friend of mine in this village, the carpenter, an exceedingly clever man at his trade, could make anything he pleased out of a piece of wood. Being a pretty constant visitor at his shop, I perfected my-
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self in the art of "how to set about the construction" of many kinds of work that he turned out.
In making anything in wood, iron, or what not, much depends upon knowing the most approved methods used in its construction, and even if the workmanship is inferior, the chances are that the article will be serviceable if "set out" and put together in the usual manner.
It was thought, at home, upon my leaving my tutor, that my education was complete, the only difficulty now lay in the choice of a profession; however, no new light coming in upon us on that subject, and nothing turning up, after two or three months, at the old Hall, I was sent into the East-Lothians, near Edinburgh, to a large and skilful farmer there, who took pupils in, to teach them agriculture. My mother, always more sanguine than my father, would say, "What a nice thing it would be for Edward if he could only get the appointment of agent to some nobleman," and then this knowledge of agriculture I was to acquire from the Scotch would come in so handy, and she would always wind up by saying, that "Stewards to the great nobility were certainly gentlemen."
Returning from the Lothians after more than a
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Thinks of going to the Colonies.
year's residence at the farm above mentioned, and still nothing turning up, I found myself again at the old Hall--doing nothing towards making a start in life--farming was evidently not my forte.
Amongst other friends and neighbours of my father and mother, there was a certain family, living some four miles from the Hall, a notable member of which was a half-pay military gentleman, and at his door the blame lies, if blame there be, of approving my half-formed desire to emigrate. It is needless to relate why I was a frequent caller at this house, often staying to their early dinner, and afterwards helping the major to discuss part of a bottle of port.
I fancy I can see the little dining-room--the table in the centre, and almost filling the apartment, only allowing space at one end for the waiting-maid to pass. But the ladies have retired, and my military friend is talking about the choice of a profession; he speaks much in favour of the colonies, mentioning friends of his who had gone out to Canada, and other notabilities of his acquaintance residing in London, from whom he could easily procure letters of introduction for me to governors, bishops, commanders of forces, and other great guns, so that upon my arriving at the seat of government, in New
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Zealand (I had pitched upon that colony in preference to Canada, the Cape, or Australia), I should on presenting my letters to the governor immediately "have the run" of the Government House. Truly, I never believed in any such a halcyon consummation, but was only too glad to have an opinion from a person older than myself, and falling in with my own wishes, and tending to urge my parents to let me go a voyage to the Antipodes.
Fully six months elapsed after this, to me, eventful conversation with the major, before I could persuade my father and mother to allow me to try my fortune so very far from Old England.
During this interval I devoted myself to studying geography, and to reading all the books I could borrow from our neighbours, or select from the circulating library, especially those relating to travels.
My father prophesied all sorts of mischances as likely to happen, and I cannot remember that any one gave me the least encouragement or information except an uncle, who had been to India in his youth, whose only advice was to swing a cot in my cabin, which I did not follow, the said cabin being too small for such a luxury, and my friend the major, who procured me some half-dozen letters to the great
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Sets out on his voyage to New Zealand.
people at Auckland, which letters by the way were worse than useless, as I soon found out; one or two I still possess, never having presented them, being so hurt with the result produced by the other four.
I was just twenty years three months and two days old when I sailed away from Gravesend, in the barque Sir Edward Paget, for Auckland, on the morning of the 9th of August, 1850. An old diary which I have preserved, tells me how that, day by day, we sailed over so many knots, and names the latitude and longitude as, week after week, we slowly altered our position on the chart. Truly, the old "Tea Waggon," for such she had been in her youth, was a dull sailer; we were 128 days from land to land, and met with fair, though light winds, and propitious weather the greater part of the way. In those times clipper ships were only just coming into fashion, partly, I fancy, to meet the demand for a quick passage round Cape Horn to California.
A clipper is more pleasant to look at than to go a voyage in; spars, ropes, and canvas, had need to be the very best and strongest. The deck in heavy weather, and indeed in that which is not so very heavy either, is domed over at times by a world of spray, shot from the top of a sea that has just curled
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at the wrong moment; under foot the water swills from side to side with every roll--no! defend me from a long voyage in a clipper, at all events, one that is matched against time, whose course is just one continual "carry on." Why! I knew an instance in which the captain of such a ship racing from China, was so worn out after keeping the deck many consecutive days and nights, without proper rest; that mind and body being overstrung, strong man as he was, he just died nearly at the end of his voyage, in the channel off Beachy Head.
It was a long time to be at sea, and certainly a trifle dull to some of the passengers, who had nothing to do but eat and sleep, and sleep and eat again. When nature would allow of it, some of us, however, managed better, and found the time to pass almost quickly, with the aid of books and lessons in navigation. Moreover two or three of us learnt from an expert taxidermist how to skin a bird and set him up scientifically, an accomplishment that afterwards enabled me to cure, and send home quite a museum of feathered creatures.
On board ship there is always something going on that tends to break the monotony more than a stranger to sea-voyaging would suppose. Ten days'
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Plato.
sail from the Land's End and not very far from the island of Madeira, we fell in with north-east trade-winds, and for fifteen days after that they slowly and gently carried us on to latitude 8 deg. 42', longitude 20 deg. 26' 30" west, when we lost them.
What a shame it is that land is wanting in so beautiful and genial a climate, just the very place to live in!
Where, oh, Plato! was the island of Atlantis anchored in your time? Was it anywhere here-aways, or over near the American coast, where the famous gulf weed (Sargassa) performs its ceaseless and extended gyrations? Some one has suggested that this weed with its little crustacean inhabitants and its nest-building fish are the sole survivors of a submerged continent or large island. I think he must have been an Irishman.
We met with many ships, and was it not "jolly" when near enough to "speak" one. Then our captain bellows out, "What ship is that?" and their captain, who has not so strong a voice as ours, yells out something that we make out to mean, "The Jenny Lind" Then we, that is our captain, tells them we are so many days out; and afterwards at dinner we compliment our captain on his good lungs,
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which commendation he receives half modestly, half jokingly, remarking, with a passing wink at the first mate, that he at most times can "make himself heard."
On the morning of the 13th of December New Zealand arose out of the sea, and on the 18th we landed in Auckland. The town, as I first saw it in 1850, was not much of a place, but we thought it looked well from the ship, with the morning sun shining on the painted wooden houses, and the gardens, with bright green trees interspersed. The harbour was alive with a mosquito fleet of small coasting vessels, and "cargo" boats. There were no wharves then, and these cutter-rigged craft of fifteen tons, or thereabouts, discharged all the English or intercolonial ocean-going ships.
Of the town itself I will not say much, of the mud in the unpaved streets after a few days' rain, or of the country round about Auckland, which is ugly, and for the most part a barren yellow clay, growing stunted fern and tea-tree, except a strip of volcanic country south of the town where the lucky owners have the monopoly of the only adjacent land worth anything for farming purposes.
There were four of us who first landed at Soldiers'
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Hotel charges.
Point, for the tide was out, and the mud-flats stretched far beyond the other jetties--mud soft and nasty, in which you might sink from, say, six to eighteen inches.
Making our way along the slippery rocks towards the town, we met a young man, a Jew, who said, "Gentlemen, I hope you have had a pleasant voyage, are you many on board?"
"Why," replied young Rees, "there are just eighty-three of us, all told, and we are 138 days from the Downs. But can you direct us to some hotel? for we wish again to behold cabbage and potatoes, and fresh tack of all sorts."
Our Jew friend, with whom I afterwards became well acquainted, and who proved a very good fellow, and not in the least particular as to pork, when there was nothing else in the meat way handy, as was often the case in those days, pointed out the Victoria Hotel, where he said the charges were reasonable--twenty-five shillings a-week--without any drinkables, of course.
"I am staying there myself, at present," said the Jew, "and have always found things tolerably good."
"We will go there," said I, "and have some tea presently, supplemented with beefsteaks, new bread, and milk in our tea."
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"I am for some watercress," said Rees, the youngest of our party, "if they have such a plant at the Antipodes?"
"Watercress! I should think they have. Have you never read in any of the books on the colony, how it grows and grows so big and so long that people are afraid it will stop the navigation in some of the streams; I tell you Jack and his Bean-stalk are nothing to the 'ways and manners' of this wonderful plant."
By this time we had arrived at the hotel, and walking into the bar were met by a smiling landlord and landlady, who shook hands with us, asking at the same time about our voyage, and to whom most of the cargo was consigned. We saw at a glance that our host was a Jew, and his wife of the same people.
Presently we turned out to see the town, as well as to be seen, for every one we met looked hard at us, which delicate attention we did not understand, being in no way remarkable or different in dress from the people in the streets. Any way we were "new chums," and they knew it; you could look down Queen Street in those days and readily count the few people about, and everybody then had some
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New chums.
knowledge of everybody else. To be a new chum is not agreeable--it is something like being a new boy at school--you are bored with questions for some time after your arrival as to how you like the place, and what you are going to do; and people speak to you in a pitying and patronizing manner, smiling at your real or inferred simplicity in colonial life, and altogether "sitting upon you" with much frequency and persistence.
The first natives I saw were a man and woman walking hand-in-hand down the middle of the street; they were laughing and talking to each other quite at the top of their voices, utterly regardless of any passers by. Walking just behind them, I had not yet seen their faces, and was thinking what a fine strong back the woman had. It was bare and coppery coloured, and her "roundabout" hung from her well-developed shoulders nearly as low down behind as a young lady's ball-dress does in Europe.
When the Maori man turned his head, I thought at once that the merry pair must be laughing at his face, in fact, it appeared to my "new chum's" eyes just like the countenance a clown might have on any stage. I could not look at him without a grin; but their joke, whatever it may have been, was at any-
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thing rather than his skilfully tattooed figure-head, in which work of art he would have a great and proper pride, and with reason too. Doubt it not, young ladies, I will tell you why: Virtus, pluck or courage has in all ages, and by all races, been highly esteemed by you, and take my word for it who have seen the operation, that having your nose, lips, and forehead cut into a nice and pretty pattern by a demon of an artist, who holds your head between his knees whilst he gets at you conveniently, caring very little about the pain he gives, but working away, giving smart and quick taps with a kind of hammer, to the odd and very cruel-looking tools of his trade, just stopping now and again to wipe out of the way the blood, and also to rub in the colouring, which he will have handy by his side in a large mussel-shell. I say that a man to pass through such an ordeal must be a sort of "Coeur de Lion" in copper colour; and mind you, he can only have a small portion done at a time--and that well healed--start again on a new patch. I repeat that a man to endure all this to make himself "beautiful for ever," must have great pluck. Now pluck is courage, nay, more than courage, and courage is valour, and valour is virtue, and virtue is everything that is commendable in man or woman.
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Tattooing.
There are other considerations, of course, that conduce to perpetuate this practice in the ornamentation of the face and body of Maori men and women, some, perhaps, more potent than the foregoing. The New Zealand "Wahini" has a pattern of her own, for her chin, the design of which the men never plagiarize; she also often has her lips done, after which they are quite blue, but I do not consider that an improvement on their natural ruby colour.
The next day a fellow-passenger and I hired a horse apiece from the Exchange Hotel, and rode out to see the country. We went south of the town, through, for the most part, a volcanic region, thickly strewn with loose "scoriae; though in places the solid rock shows, giving a barren, desolate, and melancholy aspect to the landscape.
There were a few so-called farms, but no cultivation, "barring" a grass paddock or two attached to each, a garden, and perhaps a few acres of maize. All this has very much altered within the last twenty years, and now you see a beautiful country, fairly cultivated; but at that time I was slightly disappointed, and did not hanker after a farming life near Auckland.
The day after our ride I thought I would deliver
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a certain small parcel that had been intrusted to me on leaving England. It was for the only person in the whole colony of whom I had any previous knowledge. He was staying, a visitor, as I understood, at a house a mile from the town.
About 3.30 P.M. I found the house, and duly presented what I had brought all the way from his friends in the old country. I expected at least to be asked in, but no such thing happened. Quite the other way, for as we stood talking awkwardly at the door, my friend's host, making his appearance, reminded him, as I slowly turned to walk townwards, that dinner would soon be ready and that he must not go far, and to whom it never seemed to occur that it would have been only common courtesy to have invited me inside the house, far less had he any wish for my company at their feed. I hope it was badly cooked, that the pork was raw, and that the potatoes had a bone in them.
Presently on my road to the town I fell in with two Maories.
I was sitting on a hill side in the Domain when up came my two Antipodean aboriginals who, after the fashion of the country, immediately shook hands, and then sat down for a talk, rather a difficult
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"Always a gentleman."
matter considering I certainly did not know one solitary word they could possibly say. However, to show how easy it is to make known some wants, my two copper-coloured friends produced empty pipes, and intimated how nice and good I should be if I filled them with tobacco. I was generous and they glad, but, mark the distinction, not grateful, or even thankful, two feelings for which even to invent a name takes centuries of civilization. After this, conversation flagged, and we smoked, smiling courteously at each other, for your pure New Zealand savage is always a very gentlemanly fellow. On the bank where we sat, our ship and a portion of the harbour were full in view. The natives seemed intuitively to know that I was a new "pakeha" by that ship from "the other side," for, pointing from me to her inquiringly, I nodded. It is curious that I, who have lived with and seen natives so much, should remember "the talk" with this pair of possible cannibals so very clearly; certainly it was my first effort to make myself understood to any one not English.
One of the natives, now looking and pointing to my watch-chain, said something, as I understood, that referred to time, in point of fact asking the "time o' day." It was six, and I said so, in words
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and by sign, for which one of them gave me the Maori, "e ono." He then gave me a lesson in counting: "kotahi," one finger up; "e rua," two fingers; "e toru," three; "e wha," four; "e rima," five; "e ono," six. I said all this after him many times mispronouncing the words horribly, but they never laughed at me, or were in the remotest sense rude. It was very difficult to remember this lesson in Maori "numeration," and by the time I had reached the town I had utterly forgotten all save "kotahi," one.
