good that we are almost ashamed to accept them at $2.62 per day each.
The taxi system here is also very agreeable. In most cities, taxis
are disreputable-looking vehicles you are almost ashamed to ride in.
Here they are new automobiles of different makes, and they cannot be
distinguished from private vehicles. Today we rode about in a Cadillac
of 1913 model that had been in service only three weeks. The charge
was $3.12 per hour. At home the Cadillac costs about $2,000; here it
costs a third more. The driver told us he paid forty cents a gallon
for gasoline (known as petrol here); we pay about eighteen cents a
gallon. An exposition will be opened here in nine or ten months, and
the buildings are being erected in a park adjoining the city. We went
out in the Cadillac to see them, and it was very pleasant to hear the
sound of the open muffler again, for Auckland is a very hilly city.
One park we visited consists of four hundred acres, and it was given
to the city by Sir John Logan Campbell. Before he died, citizens of
Auckland erected a statue in his honor, and he was present at the
unveiling, which seemed to me rather unusual. From the top of a
mountain in this park, we could see across New Zealand. The country is
nearly a thousand miles long, and has an average width of one hundred
and fifty miles, but at Auckland the width is only seven miles. The
city will soon extend across the isthmus, and there is already talk of
digging a canal.... Auckland is accustomed to giving. One of the
handsomest and largest structures here is a Y. M. C. A. building, and
near it is a Y. W. C. A. building. The campaign in which the money was
raised for these two buildings must have been a strenuous one....
Workingmen’s clubs are common here. I have often wondered that we
do not see them in the United States.... A few days ago, the New
Zealand Press Association, which answers to our Associated Press, sent
out a telegram which offended labor-union men. Thereupon the firemen in
an Auckland ferry service went on strike, and greatly inconvenienced
the public. The firemen had no quarrel with their employers, but quit
work because their dignity had been offended by the newspapers. The
newspapers of Australia and New Zealand criticise the labor unions
much more freely than do the newspapers of the United States. Here
business houses are compelled by law to close on certain days, and the
workingmen have become so powerful that they have divided into two
parties, and are fighting each other. Many New Zealanders have told me
that the big fight is yet to come, and that this fight will be between
the people and the labor unions.... I went into a meat market
today, and inquired prices. A rib roast of beef costs twelve cents a
pound; a sirloin roast, fourteen cents. Round steak costs thirteen
cents a pound; the butcher told me he rarely sold a sirloin steak,
but when he does, he gets twenty cents a pound for it. Leg of mutton
sells for twelve cents a pound, and mutton chops, thirteen. Pork chops
are sixteen cents a pound, and ham and bacon twenty-four cents. The
butcher makes a difference in price when a customer has meat delivered
and charged. Butchers at home do not make this distinction; the man
who pays cash, and carries his purchase home, is charged as much as
the patron who runs an account, and has everything delivered. The beef
here is inferior to ours; there is no such thing in New Zealand as
corn-fed cattle.... We also visited a dry-goods store, and, so far
as Adelaide was able to judge, prices were not much lower than at home.
Besides, everything seemed out of style.... In Atchison, market
gardeners sell tomato and cabbage plants growing in boxes. Today we
saw plants grown in exactly the same way in front of Auckland grocery
stores, as this is the season for making garden here.... I have
never seen better-looking horses anywhere than I see in Auckland. They
are usually of the Clydesdale strain. All sorts of live-stock seem
well fed and well bred.... This is a poor trip, compared with the
trip through Japan, China, India, etc. There the people dress and look
different; here the people are so much like those at home that we do
not seem to have been away, if we can forget the pronunciations....
In the poorer quarters of Auckland, we saw a meal advertised for twelve
cents. It consisted of tea, bread and butter, and fish.... Anything
that sells for a nickel at home, is six cents here. I had my shoes
shined at a street stand today, and the price was six cents. There is
no five-cent piece in English currency, but there is a six-cent silver
piece. There is nothing here answering to our ten-cent piece except the
sixpence, which is worth twelve cents. There are five and ten-cent
stores here, but their prices are six and twelve cents.... When we
want a guide, we get a boy from the hotel, who is known as “Buttons.”
At meal-times, his business is to go through the dining-room, and
take orders for liquor. He also sings in the vested choir in the
largest Episcopal church in town. We passed his church yesterday, and
he offered to take us in and introduce us to the pastor, but we were
compelled to decline the honor, owing to lack of time. Wherever I go,
I employ boy guides. They know the interesting places, and point them
out, but have no problems to discuss as men have.... A sign we see
here frequently is “Private Bar.” What is a private bar? Does it mean
a bar operated by a man who has a saloon for his own private use, and
a bartender who waits on no one else?... In the bar connected with
the Hotel Royal are two girl bartenders, and they are good-looking,
stylish girls.... A big store near our hotel is operated by “John
Court, Limited.” That word Limited is frequently seen abroad, and
seems to mean the same thing as “Incorporated” with us.... At home,
we have a saying that oysters are good only in the months which have
an “r” in them. Here, oysters are at their best in April, May, June,
July and August, and out of season in the months which have an “r” in
them.... In an early walk this morning, I saw a man riding a horse,
and driving a big bunch of sheep and cattle through the streets. He was
assisted by three of the cleverest shepherd dogs I have ever seen, and
it was a sight well worth seeing. During the same walk I ran across a
man who was selling rabbits from a cart. He told me the rabbits had
been trapped the day before, and shipped to Auckland by rail. He sold
two young rabbits for a shilling, or twelve cents each, and called
out as he drove along: “Wild rabbits; wild rabbits.” In Australia,
rabbits have become so numerous that they are a menace and a danger,
but this Auckland rabbit-seller told me that in New Zealand the supply
of rabbits is not equal to the demand.... New Zealand is not an old
country; its history really dates from about 1840. Although Captain
Cook, in 1769, discovered and explored the two islands composing New
Zealand, its real history did not begin until almost a century later,
when the native Maoris, after a war lasting eleven years, concluded a
treaty with the English. Australia and New Zealand, although nominally
English colonies, are as free and independent as any countries in the
world.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14.—We have devoted this day to a railroad journey
from Auckland to Rotorua, the center of the Lake district. Here are
located the geysers which are said to rival those in Yellowstone
Park. Here are located, also, famous baths, and Rotorua is probably
the most noted watering-place in Australasia.... The railway station
in Auckland is located next to the postoffice, and very properly,
since the government owns the railway as well as the postoffice. No
trains are run at night, as a rule, and none on Sunday, except an
important mail train between Auckland and Wellington. The railway is
a narrow-gauge, and we traveled on it very comfortably from 10 A. M.
until 6 P. M. At noon, luncheon was served in a dining-car, and at 3:30
P. M. the dining-car servants announced afternoon tea. When we gave our
tickets to the conductor, he said “Thank you;” over here, when a hotel
waiter shows you the bill of fare, and you say you will take soup, he
always says “Thank you.”... For miles and miles we saw nothing but
pasture land, and cattle and sheep; a hundred sheep, probably, to ten
cattle. In a railroad journey of eight hours, we saw only half a dozen
cultivated fields. These were devoted to oats and turnips. Oats were
in the shock, and we saw several orchards containing ripe fruit. But
mainly we saw pastures. The country is beautiful, and it is prosperous,
but its prosperity comes mainly from sheep. At several places we saw
this sign: “Poison laid for dogs.”... All the stations are named for
the original Maori settlers, as many of our towns have Indian names.
At many stations we saw the Maoris in considerable numbers.... I do
not believe there is a shingle roof in New Zealand; the roofs of the
cheaper houses are of corrugated iron while the roofs of the better
class houses are of red tile. Nearly all the houses in the country have
fireplaces, and most of them are built of sheet-iron. The winters here
are very mild, and a little fire in a grate is all that is needed. New
Zealand is a wonderful stock-raising country, because of its mild
winters.... In the smoking-car of the train, the spittoons were holes
in the floor, with a brass top of the regulation spittoon pattern....
In Australia and New Zealand you see the sign “No smoking” very much
oftener than anywhere else in the world.... There is no prairie land
in New Zealand. There is a bush to be cleared off all the farm land;
I don’t know what it is, but it looks like scrub cedar. All along the
route we saw this burning; that seems to be one method of clearing
land here. And after the land is cleared, it must be heavily manured;
at one country town I saw a store sign which announced dry goods,
artificial manures, iron mongery, etc. There is as much evidence of
prosperity here as in the best sections of the Middle West, and you
wonder where it comes from, since you see almost nothing but sheep.
I didn’t see a poverty-stricken looking house all day, nor at any of
the dozens of stopping-places did I see anyone who seemed to be poor..
.. About 2 P. M. we approached the mountains, and traveled in them
until we reached the summit, and ran rapidly down the other side. Near
the top we encountered several sawmills, but they were rather small
affairs. At 5 P. M. we began seeing, in the distance, steam ascending
from geysers. At 6 P. M. we steamed into Rotorua. The railroad stops
here, and all the passengers left the crowded train. There are dozens
of boarding-houses and hotels; excellent accommodations may be had
for $10.50 a week, and the Grand, the best hotel, charges only $3.12
a day for board and room. The baths rival the best in the most famous
watering-places of the Old World, and many spouting geysers may be
seen in an hour’s walk. In addition, Rotorua has a beautiful lake, and
anyone can catch fish in it; so, little wonder that the town is growing
rapidly.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15.—At 10 o’clock this morning we left for a trip
on the lake. There were about a dozen other passengers in the motor
boat, and in half an hour most of them were seasick, as the wind was
blowing a gale. Our destination was a famous spring eight miles away.
This spring heads a river so large that we sailed in it in a boat. The
water gushes up from a great hole, and with such force that a coin
will not sink in it. The flow is twelve million gallons in twenty-four
hours, and the water as cold as ice. From the wonderful spring, we
went through a wonderful river to a wonderful fall. Three other boats
accompanied us; tourists are as common here as they are in Egypt.
At the wonderful fall, we ate lunch. The Grand Hotel sent a hamper
along, and we ate while sitting on a cliff overlooking the mighty
rush of water. At the fall we left the boat, and took a stage back to
Rotorua, stopping on the way at a thermal center of great interest:
Tikitere. An Irishman married a Maori woman who owns the place, and he
insists upon charging fifty cents admission. This is the only sight
in the district for which a charge is made; the Irishman is smarter
than the New Zealand government, and every visitor is compelled to
pay two shillings, or miss one of the best sights in the district.
Tikitere covers several acres, and is mainly devoted to boiling mud
springs. There are thousands of these springs, some of them not much
larger than your hand, and some of them big enough to float a ship.
Imagine a loblolly of mud boiling violently, and you have the main
idea. At one place there are cold and hot springs within five feet of
each other. Near them is a fall of hot water from two boiling lakes.
Then we drove to Blue Lake, an extinct crater filled with water of a
perfect blue, and returned to the hotel at 6 P. M., badly sunburned
as a result of our trip on the lake and in the stage-coach....
When I tell people I had no sleep on the “Maheno” because of snoring
gentlemen, they say, “Let me tell you what they did to me.” And then
they relate inconveniences suffered on different ships. But in spite of
these uncomfortable incidents of travel, nothing can keep the people
at home.... The stage in which we traveled today was pulled by five
horses: two wheelers, and three hitched side by side ahead of them. The
roads were so dusty that the driver was frequently compelled to stop,
and wait until he could see his way.... Speaking of differences in
the English language at home and abroad: opposite my room at the Grand
Hotel is a livery and bait stable. Rotorua is a great place for livery
and bait stables, owing to the tourist trade. From my window early in
the morning, I see men and women coming from the different bath-houses,
with towels over their arms. Frequently stages drive up in front of
the hotel, and passengers depart for sights quite distant from the
town. There are a good many automobiles, also, and we shall travel in
these quite extensively when we leave Rotorua to see the other sights
in the district. On an average, there are fifteen hundred visitors in
Rotorua, and a resident population of 2,500. The great watering-places
in Europe are insignificant compared with this place, because of the
variety of natural baths procurable here. The government has spent
$200,000 on a bathhouse, and surrounded it with a very beautiful garden
in which sweet peas are now in bloom. This is also the home of the
gladioli; I see these flowers everywhere in splendid profusion. In the
park surrounding the government bathhouse are several spouting geysers,
steam whistlers, sulphur springs, etc. Outside the park grounds may be
seen many sanitariums, with invalids on the porches. There is nothing
as effective in restoring health as natural hot springs, and the
variety is so great here that I wonder the visiting population is not
much larger than fifteen hundred.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16.—The Maoris, or native inhabitants of New
Zealand, look very much like our Indians, and have most of their
characteristics. They are lazy and shiftless, but good fighters, which
will be generally recognized as a trait of the North-American Indians.
At the photograph galleries we see pictures of beautiful Maori girls,
but none are to be seen in the native villages, two of which are
located near Rotorua. In both of these are hot springs, and the natives
use them for cooking, heating their houses, and for bathing. In the
hot springs are placed pots containing meat and vegetables, and the
springs are then covered over with old gunny-sacks until the cooking
is complete. The women also do their washing in the same way; the
clothes are boiled in a hot spring, and then soaped and rubbed in a
stream of cooler water. While the women are washing, their children are
bathing in warm pools near by. The houses are built over hot springs,
and in cool weather the warmth is found very agreeable. A few feet away
from the hot springs may be found a geyser in constant eruption, or
which erupts every ten minutes, every hour, every day, or every month.
Yesterday all the geysers were going, but most of them were quiet
today. The district where I saw the native village covers many acres,
in a depression between mountains, and is marked by white patches which
look like old lime-kilns. These white patches were made by the geysers;
the water is strongly impregnated with lime, and the steam and spray
give everything touched a coating of white. We saw great holes in the
earth filled with blue water, and the bottom as white as snow. Not far
away would be found another geyser; a great loblolly of mud, boiling
lazily. Beside a rushing stream of cold water we saw a hot spring, and
heard the old story that a man might stand in one spot, catch a trout,
and boil it. A Maori woman was our guide, and we greatly admired her
beautiful voice. She was elderly, and ugly, but her voice was soft and
musical. She took us to a native Maori fort, and pointed out a sort of
bird-box situated on top of a pole. This was a Spirit House; a spirit
lived in it, and, when danger threatened, the spirit would speak in a
loud voice, and tell the people what the danger was, and when it would
appear.
“Most ladies and gentlemen do not believe it,” the Maori woman said.
I asked her if she believed it, and she replied in her broken English:
“I used to did.” She said that when she was a child, her people always
put food in the spirit house for the spirit, but that lately the custom
is going out of fashion. In the village are Catholic and Episcopal
churches; the Catholic priest is a native Maori, and the church is
heated in cool weather from a hot spring beneath it.... The Maoris
were originally cannibals, but the guide said they ate each other, and
did not bother the whites much. In one place we visited here, we saw
forks made of human bones.... We called at the guide’s home, and saw
one of the tin fireplaces which are seen in seven-tenths of the poorer
houses. They cost about $8 put up, and are used for cooking purposes,
as well as for heating. They burn out, after a time, but a tinner will
rivet in a patch for a small charge. They are certainly very much
cheaper than the stone and brick fireplaces we have. A native Maori
village looks much like a negro suburb in an American town, but the
Maoris are not black; they look like Indians and have straight hair.
Some of the women have their lips tattooed, to indicate submission
to their husbands, but there is a Suffragette movement on here, as
elsewhere, and the Maori woman who showed us about laughed scornfully
at the notion that woman is inferior to man.... Just then we came
to a place called the Frog Pond: a mud lake, and there is just enough
steam below to cause particles of mud to jump like frogs. Near by, in a
hole in the earth, the escaping steam made a sound like the croaking of
frogs. The Maori woman described these things, and then walked on in
silence, with a mean look in her eyes; she was evidently still thinking
of the foolish women of her race who tattoo their lips to indicate
submission to their husbands. I didn’t have a very good time after
the woman suffrage question came up, and was glad that we soon after
reached the last sight on the list. When women look at me in that funny
way indicating that I impose on them, I am thoroughly uncomfortable. So
we walked back to the entrance to the geyser field, and took a carriage
to Rotorua. On the way, we met dozens of other carriages containing
visitors; here people are always departing for a trip, or returning
from one, and when the sights are exhausted they go on to Wairakei,
where there is another collection of geysers, hot springs, etc. Between
trips, they take baths, and there is a great variety to choose from; no
other place in the world has as many different baths as Rotorua, but
the town is not easily reached, and it doesn’t attract as many people
as Hot Springs, Arkansas, which has only simple hot springs; no chain
of lakes, no wonderful fishing, no oil baths, no geysers, and no mud
baths, as has Rotorua.... There are only two geyser fields in the
world; the other is in Yellowstone Park, in the United States. So far
as I am able to judge, the geysers in Yellowstone Park are much finer.
There are no terraces here, as in the Yellowstone, and in every way
the Yellowstone district seems superior. But in a way, they are much
alike. The geysers here are undoubtedly losing their force; citizens
tell me they can see a difference from year to year. I have not seen a
geyser so far more than ten or twelve feet high, but I saw many big
ones in the Yellowstone. All the geysers were going yesterday, and it
is said some of them shot steam and hot water into the air to a height
of forty feet, but I was on the lake trip yesterday, and did not see
the big geyser display which everyone is talking about today. But in
the Yellowstone you can see a big geyser display any day; indeed, Old
Faithful goes off every hour, and shoots steam and hot water 150 to
200 feet into the air. Here soap is frequently put into the geysers,
to make them show off for visitors, but this is not necessary in the
Yellowstone. This district had terraces until a few years ago, when
they blew up, and now there are no others like those in Yellowstone
Park. Besides, the Yellowstone district is much wilder and grander
than the Hot Lake district of New Zealand. This is a wonderful place,
but the Yellowstone is much more wonderful, it seems to me.... We
are the only Americans at the hotel, and, except that a St. Paul man
was here two months ago, we are the only Americans who have been here
in a long time, the manager says.... In the fine park surrounding
the government bathhouse, this afternoon, we saw dozens of games
going. There was bowling, tennis, archery, cricket, and croquet, but
principally bowling. In this game a good many elderly men participated;
it is an old man’s game, but lately young men are playing it. The
lawn was as smooth as a floor, and the game seemed to be to roll
wooden balls to a goal. The men over here carry the wooden balls, when
traveling, and engage in the game at different places. I had never
seen the game before, and watched it for an hour. The players were
very polite and genteel, but all had the pronunciation which seems so
queer to us. I have seen no golf here, but I am rarely out of sight
of a tennis court; that seems to be the universal game.... The
New Zealand government has been so successful in business that it is
now branching out; it is operating a tourist agency in opposition to
Thos. Cook & Son, who have offices all over the world. People living
off the main lines of travel cannot realize how valuable travelers
are. In Europe, many cities devote millions of dollars to securing
tourist travel, and find that it pays. Paris spends millions annually
in this way, and rival cities are lately doing a good deal in the same
direction; it is generally said that Berlin is now a rival of Paris in
attractions for travelers. At this little town of Rotorua, a train-load
of tourists arrives every day, and without them the town would not
amount to much.