CHAPTER XVIII.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
The Adjacent Islands.
THE individual who first gave the names of North, Middle, and South islands to the two composing New Zealand and the small one lying immediately to the south of the other two, must have possessed a mind somewhat resembling that of the worthy minister of the Cumbrays (two small islands in the Firth of Clyde), who used to pray for a blessing "on the great Cumbray and the little Cumbray, and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland." Although the names indicated are still kept up on the maps, in ordinary conversation the expression South Island is understood to apply to the Middle Island of the maps, and
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STEWART'S ISLAND.
the South Island proper is usually designated Stewart's Island.
Stewart's Island, which is somewhat triangular in shape, is about fifty miles long, and its greatest breadth is about thirty miles. It is separated from the mainland by Foveaux Strait, some twelve to sixteen miles wide. Who the Stewart was whose name has thus survived him is wrapped in oblivion, but one tradition says that he was a whaler who brought Bloody Jack Te Rauparaha and his followers from the north, when they came down and slaughtered wholesale the Maori tribes of the south. Mount Anglem, or Hananiu, the highest land in the island, is 3,200 feet high, and though the whole is hilly the slopes are gentle. The greater part is thickly wooded, and a more magnificent spectacle cannot be imagined than these forests present in the summer when the iron-wood trees are in flower. The masses of brilliant scarlet contrasting with the various shades of green, produce an effect which, if once seen, will never be forgotten. There are several fine
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harbours in the island, Paterson Inlet, the largest of them, being a noble sheet of water, fifteen miles long, studded with several islands.
On one of the largest of these, Coopers' Island, an enterprising individual has settled, and actually, as our American cousins would say, "runs a store." Who his customers can be it is difficult to imagine, for besides a few hands employed by himself in cutting timber, and some four or five German families who have settled on the mainland, there are no inhabitants. The island has a few Maori residents, or perhaps only visitants, for the purposes of sealing and fishing. There is also one inhabitant who must not be forgotten, as he earns his livelihood by supplying the Dunedin market with the splendid oysters which abound there.
Stewart's Island is destined not to remain much longer uninhabited, as its many capabilities have caused it to be chosen by the government as a site for a special settlement. A large building has been erected for the temporary accommodation of the immigrants, and
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JOHN TOPE, ESQUIRE.
it is purposed establishing there a colony of fishermen. A small party of Shetlanders have quite recently been sent down as pioneers.
In Foveaux Strait there are several islets, the largest of which is Ruapuke and Dog Island. The latter is only noticeable from the fact of its having a lighthouse 118 feet high, while the former is peopled by Maories. Ruapuke contains some eight square miles, and is the residence of John Tope or Toby, as he is popularly called, one of the chiefs of the southern natives. He has a large flock of sheep on the island, and is well to do. I remember once travelling in the same steamer with him. We had among the saloon passengers a young fellow just from India, who had been talking very boastfully of his black servants and his treatment of them, and when John Tope, Esq. joined the steamer at the Bluff, the purser had him put in the same cabin with the would-be Nabob. The most of the passengers were on the alert, expecting a row. Not long after we had set sail again, the young Nabob, as we shall call him,
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went to his cabin and found this old Maori there; he quickly backed out again, and, calling the steward, asked what that black fellow was doing in his cabin. He was informed that the gentleman was a passenger. Master Nabob was furious, and protested against the indignity, but all to no purpose, for he had to put up with his coloured cabin mate, the other passengers enjoying a laugh at his discomfiture, and, it is needless to add, he didn't trouble us with any more of his Indian experiences. A Norwegian gentleman travelling in New Zealand, once said to me that he had been greatly struck with the difference in the treatment by the English of the native races in this country and India--the blacks in India, especially the lower classes, being treated with undisguised contempt, while in New Zealand the Maori is not only tolerated but well treated.
It may perhaps occasion surprise to some readers that no mention is made in these pages of the Maories beyond a mere passing allusion. But I must inform my English readers--for it
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THE CHATHAM ISLANDS.
could, only be some of them who would, be likely to wonder at this--that the aboriginal natives in this great province of Otago are to be numbered in hundreds, there being only about five or six small villages or "kaiks" studded along the coasts. A tatooed Maori in Dunedin streets would attract nearly as much attention as he would do if he were set down in an European town. And this applies equally to all the southern provinces. Before it was taken possession of by the British colonists, the middle island of New Zealand was, comparatively speaking, uninhabited.
The Chatham islands perhaps hardly come within the category of islands adjacent to Otago, being nearer to the neighbouring province of Canterbury, with the capital of which the trade of the islands is chiefly carried on; but as vessels from the group do sometimes visit our port, and as I have recently had a description of them from a friend who has just returned thence, I shall say a word or two about them. The group, which lies some 370 miles to the
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north-east, comprises one large island and several smaller ones, many of the latter being merely rocks. The large island contains about 300,000 acres of dry land, and comprises within its area several lakes, the largest of which, lake Wahanga, is twenty-five miles in length, thus raising the total superficial area considerably. The higher grounds in the interior are in places morasses, not unlike Highland peat bogs, but nearer the coast the land is of excellent quality, and has formerly been mostly covered with light bush.
Large clearings have been made by the Maories, and English grasses having been introduced, they have spread through all the bush, making every clearing and natural opening a beautiful grass paddock. Droves of wild horses roam over the island. Many of these are caught by being driven into the denser thickets, and secured to be shipped to New Zealand. The Maories, to whom the lands belong, lease large tracts of country as sheep runs to white settlers. Sheep thrive very well, and, besides the pasture already spoken of, the leaves of nearly every
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THE MORIORIES.
tree in the bush furnish superior fodder, upon which all the domestic animals fatten. The climate is a healthy one, and as there is no frost, the grass is green throughout the year.
The present white settlers, who all appear to be making a comfortable living, number about a hundred. The Maori population was at one time considerable, but it has been much reduced of late years by emigration to New Zealand, as many as four hundred having left at once for Taranaki some years since. From an ethnological point of view, however, the most interesting inhabitants are the Moriories, they being a distinct race from the Maori, and, as some say, were the original inhabitants of New Zealand before the Maori made his way thither from the islands of the Indian Archipelago. The remnant of this nation still lingers in the Chathams, now a miserable race numbering between eighty and ninety, many of them stunted and deformed. There are among their number a few very old men, who must, in their younger days, have been fine-looking; but the Maories, when they
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made a descent upon the islands, killed off all the best of them, and kept the remainder as slaves.
The Moriori population, which, at the time of the discovery of the islands, in 1791, was estimated at over 2,000, must at one time have been very large, if one may judge from the quantities of bones which are to be found in different parts, some of these places being described as perfect Golgothas, and nearly every one of the skulls being cracked. In these places are to be found the stone implements of this people; but, as the Maories used them to kill the Moriories rather than, as they said, degrade their own meres, the latter now superstitiously break any of their own stone weapons which turn up. It cannot be many years before the race is altogether extinct, there being only one pure Moriori child, besides one or two halfcaste Maori-Moriories.
The population, when numerous, must have subsisted almost entirely on the fish which abound in vast quantities round the islands,
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ABUNDANCE OF FISH.
so much so that captains of whaling vessels, which often put into the Chathams for wood and water, say they never saw anything to equal the fish in any part of the world. The Moriories are still very expert fishermen, and will tell you what sort of fish you may expect to catch merely from the appearance of the day and the aspect of the sea. In the preparation and manipulation of their baits, and in knowing exactly where to go to find the fish they want, their unfailing certainty would almost suggest the idea that they had daily bulletins from the depths. The Maories, who are good fishermen also, admit that they are not to be compared to the Moriories.
As a consequence of this abundance of fish, and possibly also carried thither by a strong ocean current flowing from the north, sharks abound. The formidable white shark, too, which is usually a denizen of warmer latitudes, has not unfrequently been seen. The northern current is amply evidenced by the fact that a vessel coming from Auckland always overruns her
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reckoning, and also by cocoa nuts, as well as seeds of various New Zealand trees, being washed on the beach. It is probable that it is this current from a warmer latitude which makes the sea so prolific in life of all kinds.
The beautiful sandy beaches are strewn with quantities of small but brilliantly coloured shells, while sponges, zoophytes, and sea-weeds, are very plentiful. The scenery of the Chathams is in some parts pretty, and in others, on the bolder coasts especially, it is grand. Basalt cliffs, the regularity of whose columns rivals the far-famed Giant's Causeway, sturdily resist the eroding ocean waves. One little island of about three miles circumference, the little Mangari, rises like a wall sheer up for about 900 feet. It is separated by a deep water channel from the larger island of the same name. No one has yet been able to find an access to this rugged isle, which is a greater cause for aggravation than might be supposed; for vast numbers of sea-fowl find habitations in the cliffs, and these are eagerly sought after
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THE ALBATROSS.
by the Maories, who dry the young birds and send them, as well as the feathers and oil, to the north island of New Zealand.
My friend went out with the Maories, bird-catching on some of the other rocks, and in one day they procured six hundred and fifty young albatrosses (diomedia exulans). As each of these birds is much larger than a good-sized goose, that number represents a considerable weight of provisions. He also informed me, that from what he saw and could learn, the albatross lays only one egg, and the young bird remains in the nest about eighteen months. I am not aware whether that fact in natural history is generally known, but it confirms what I was once told by an old whaler, except that he said the young bird stayed in the nest for two years. Nor does it seem long to rest and wait "till its wings are stronger," when one considers the immense power of wing possessed by these birds, familiar to every voyager in the southern ocean, who has, in a kind of wondering awe, watched them sail
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with motionless wings lazily past the vessel, though the latter was sailing at the rate of twelve or more knots. The awe may in some measure be begotten in most Englishmen from their first acquaintance with the albatross having been acquired from a perusal of Coleridge's weird poem, while the wonder is the result of greater familiarity.
Besides the islands mentioned, the Auckland Islands, lying 180 miles to the south of Otago, have of late years acquired an unenviable notoriety from the wrecks which have occurred there. The stories of the "Grafton," the "Invercauld," and the "General Grant," are still fresh in the memory, and Captain Musgrave's trials and hardships have already been given to the world. It has been proposed to establish a depot on these islands, so that survivors from any wreck might be saved, in the event of the recurrence of similar disasters. A lease of the islands has recently been granted by the Government to some one who purposes to live there and keep sheep on the islands, chacun a son gout!
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"SEALING."
An offer has also been made to the Government for a lease of some barren rocks south of Stewart's Island, known as the "Snares," the lessee to have the exclusive right of sealing there. This industry, after having been neglected for many years, is again exciting attention. Two expeditions put out from Riverton in the south of Otago last season, and, as the fur-seal (arctocephalus cinereus) is killed on these coasts, sealing in a good season is a very lucrative employment.
