1938 - Stack, J. W. and E. Further Maoriland Adventures of J. W. and E. Stack - Book I. James West Stack's Story - CHAPTER III, p 16-22

       
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  1938 - Stack, J. W. and E. Further Maoriland Adventures of J. W. and E. Stack - Book I. James West Stack's Story - CHAPTER III, p 16-22
 
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CHAPTER III. JAMES WEST STACK'S STORY.

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CHAPTER III

Late for my wedding, I am safely married by Bishop Selwyn. Accompanied by the Gorsts, my wife and I revisit the Maori School at Kohanga.

The arrival of the Robert Lowe, a troop ship on her way to Auckland, furnished me with the opportunity of getting to my destination, and on Friday, 25th January, 1861, I reached Auckland and put up at Mr. Steele's boarding house in Parnell. Mrs. Steele gave me a warm reception, knowing what had brought me to Auckland, and remembering, no doubt, that I was one of the little boys she used to tub regularly every Saturday night at St. John's College in 1845, though she had tact enough to avoid alluding to it.

Mr. Borrows brought me a message that I should find Miss Jones at the Selwyns'. There I duly met her, and as we had much to talk about we quickly adjourned to the privacy of the Government Domain, where, under a fine puriri tree, we sat in a retired spot and talked over our future plans. As I had been expected for many days, the arrangements regarding the date of our marriage were already fixed for 28th January, which only allowed me time to qualify for the issue of the Registrar's certificate authorising our marriage. The law requiring a residence of three nights, I could not procure

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a certificate until the morning of the very day on which I was to be married at noon.

Looking back upon what happened to me that morning I wonder how I ever got to the church in anything like time. On Saturday morning I took the precaution to interview the Registrar-General, Mr. Bennett, and explained to him the difficulty I was in. He promised faithfully that he would make a point of being at his office by half-past nine on Monday, and that the signing of the papers would only occupy a few minutes. I then went to see Archdeacon Lloyd, who was the surrogate who issued marriage licences. When I told him what I had come for, and why I had chosen to be married in the Bishop's private chapel, he exclaimed:

"You want to be married privately with such a bride as Miss Jones! Why, man, if I were in your place, I would hire a brass band, and go all round the town to let everybody know what a lucky fellow I was. You are a fortunate young man, and I heartily congratulate you."

From Archdeacon Lloyd I went to the lawyer's office to see Mr. (afterwards Sir Frederick) Whittaker, and sign the marriage settlement, but it was not ready for my signature, and that had to be put off until Monday morning. After purchasing the wedding ring and making some calls with Miss Jones, I returned to my lodgings, where I found a note from Bishop Selwyn asking me to take morning service at Remuera the following day. It was rather an ordeal for me, for I knew that the whole Buchanan family attended that church, and that I should be the object of their critical study during the

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whole service. As it was only the third service I had taken since my ordination, I felt rather nervous, and I was not quite satisfied with my clerical outfit, which was by no means above criticism.

In the evening, dear E. and I went to St. Matthew's Church. Rev. David Jones preached, as usual, a striking sermon on the reply of Abraham to the rich man's request that Lazarus might be sent to relieve his thirst. I have never forgotten it. It was an appalling sermon, every paragraph emphasised by some eccentric movement of the preacher's body. His favourite action was to pull desperately at his collar as if to escape being throttled by it.

I got an early breakfast on Monday morning and walked down to the Registrar's office in Shortland Street, arriving about nine o'clock and expecting every moment to see the door open. There was not a breath of wind stirring, the sun was scorchingly hot, and I was wet through with perspiration. Half-past nine struck, and then ten, but no Mr. Bennett. I hurried up to Mr. Whittaker's office. He had not arrived, and the marriage settlement was still not ready for my signature. I went back to the Registrar's, and here was old Mr. Bennett, full of apologies, but still not ready. I did not get the certificate until half-past ten, when I hurried off to the lawyers, and was relieved to find I could sign the papers. It was a long, hot walk to St. Stephen's, and I did not get there until a quarter-past eleven. I had just three-quarters of an hour to shave, dress, and get down to the little chapel, a quarter of a mile distant. Old Mr. Burrows told me I was late, and he had to hurry off to join his household and the students, who were gone to

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a picnic at the North Shore. I looked to see if I had everything I wanted in the room. Yes, there was the tub of water for my bath, and the hot water for shaving, and my bag with my clothes. The warm morning had made my beard sprout thickly, and I looked a perfect ruffian; but when I began shaving the razor would not cut at all, so I was obliged to strop it for fully ten minutes. Though I got a smooth face, it began bleeding, and I was delayed some minutes staunching the blood. After a bath I began dressing, and got as far as putting on my new boots when, to my dismay, I found my feet were so swollen, with walking and the heat, that I could not get into them. There was no help for it but to stand in the tub of cold water until the feet shrank a little. While I was doing this I heard the carriage with my bride pass by, and had the mortification of knowing that she would reach the chapel before me, and that I should be the butt of our friends' jokes all the day. I cried out for help, but no help came, as the great building was quite deserted, and I was the only soul in it. After much coaxing and pulling I got my boots on, and started down the hill to the chapel, oozing at every pore. Attorney-General Swainson met me at the stile and the Montressor Smiths at the door. There was no time for explanations, and I did not attempt any. I walked in and took my place before the Communion rails, where my bride met me, and Bishop Selwyn duly performed the service.

At the wedding breakfast Bishop Selwyn was, as usual, the life of the party, and his presence made me feel more at my ease. He proposed our health, and I felt less

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nervous in acknowledging his very kind speech than I should have done replying to anyone else.

To me, after all my years of loneliness and isolation, and longing for sympathetic companionship, it was delightful to find myself at last in possession of what I had desired, in its most perfect form. It was with heartfelt gratitude to God that we knelt together at the close of the first day of our union, and thanked Him for all His goodness to us in the past, and prayed for a continuance of His favour in the future--a prayer which, after nearly sixty years of married life, we can truly say has been abundantly granted.

Owing to our marriage taking place later in January than was expected, the gathering of the schools at Waikato, arranged to greet us there, broke up before our arrival, and the Melanesians were already on their way back before we left Auckland for Waikato. But we were told that if we could hasten our movements we should find the Ashwells' school still at Kohanga, awaiting our arrival.

Fortunately Mr. John Gorst, 1 who was married about

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the same time as we were, wished to visit Waikato with his bride, and he suggested that we should hire a small vessel to take us across the Manukau harbour to the Waikato "portage," where we could get a canoe to convey us across to the Maunsells. I gladly fell in with the suggestion, and we went to Kohanga together. Unfortunately we got aground on the mud flats in Manukau harbour, and were delayed so long that it was Saturday night before we reached the portage, where we were devoured by mosquitoes.

In pouring rain we started early on Sunday morning for Kohanga, but did not reach the mission station until one o'clock. The faces of three of the party looked as if they had been badly mauled in a boxing match, and the soaked and draggled dresses of the two brides were most forlorn looking. Our arrival was rather a shock to the Sabbatarian ideas of the Maoris, who hardly knew how to greet us. 2 But all coolness soon wore off, and our dear old friend, Mr. Ashwell, forgot our wrongdoing, and we all felt happy together.

Dr. Maunsell arranged for the Maoris to meet us a day or two after our arrival, and there was a great gathering, when my dear bride gave away the contents of a large box of presents which she had procured from England to distribute amongst the school children. When I made my speech to the Maoris they chaffed me a good deal for having introduced into it so many South

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Island provincialisms. They said, "You spoke pure Maori when you left us, and now you talk a jargon," the truth being that I used one or two words with which they were not familiar, and they jarred on their sensitive ears. 3

We spent several happy days with our friends at Kohanga, and then returned to Auckland to be present at the consecration of Mr. Patteson as Bishop of Melanesia.

1   John Gorst, afterwards the Right Hon. John Eldon Gorst, came out to New Zealand as a young man in 1860. His wife was the daughter of Rev Lorenzo Moore, of Christchurch. Their eldest son. Sir (John} Eldon Gorst, who became Consul-General in Egypt, and pre-deceased his father in 1911, was born in Auckland in 1861. In the early sixties the elder Gorst, appointed by Sir George Grey, acted as a magistrate in the Waikato, where he started a periodical to combat the Maori King Party's official paper. The Maori chief Rewi and his followers forcibly removed Gorst's printing plant at Te Awamutu, and ordered him to leave but the young Englishman coolly stuck to his post until instructions arrived from the Governor. After an absence of forty years, during which he became prominent in British politics, he returned to New Zealand for a visit in 1906, as special envoy from the British Government. During his visit he gave expression to this fine tribute as to the later relations between Pakeha and Maori. "There are places," he said, "where less civilised races have been reduced to a kind of servitude, but there is no country in the world where the uncivilised race is treated on equal terms, and where more justice and more consideration is shown to them." (Dictionary of National Biography and Shrimpton & Mulgan's Maori and Pakeha.)
2   In later years "the Sabbath, which had been so scrupulously honoured, became less sacred in their eyes, because of the total disregard of it by so many of our own countrymen. This was notably the case with the military. The Waikato war began on the Sabbath, and so likewise that at Wanganui; and it was on a Sabbath, when the defenders were engaged in worship without the pa, that our forces entered and took the Ruapekapeka fort. (Forty Years in New Zealand. James Buller.)
3   In 1840 Mr. E. M. Williams, son of Archdeacon Henry Williams, when visiting Otago to secure the signatures of southern chiefs to the Treaty of Waitangi, had to avail himself of the services of a native familiar with both northern and southern dialects, to make the purport of his visit thoroughly understood. (The Old Whaling Days. Robert McNab.)

James Watkin, the pioneer Otago missionary, found the publications of the Mission press at Mangungu of little use, and had to prepare and publish his own reading matter for the Otago Maoris. (The Pioneering Days of Southern Maoriland. M. A. Rugby Pratt.)

The chief difference was the substitution of k for ng by the southern Maori, and a softening of the final vowel often to a breath merely, so that kainga became kaik in the south. There were also some dialect words of the Ngatimamoe different from words in the north. But the fact that Tamihana Rauparaha was able to make himself at home with the southern people shows that they could understand one another perfectly. There may have been slightly more difference between the missionaries' Maori and the southern people's Maori, because the former was largely based on the Ngapuhi dialect. Still, there was not nearly so much difference in the dialects of the Maori as between county dialects in England. (Johannes C. Andersen.)

Mrs. Tiripa Te Hauraraka (Mana Kore) Pitama, of Tuahiwi, Canterbury, who stated that she remembered Stack well, informed me in April, 1936, that there was, and still is, a pronounced difference between the dialects of the northern and southern tribes; and that in the olden days this would have been more noticeable, in view of the Ngatimamoes having left the impress of their speech upon the southern dialect. (Editor.)

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