whales which museums provide themselves with. I really believe that a
good-sized whale is the best bit of furniture that can be bought for
a juvenile museum. You get such a lot for your money, and it’s very
attractive to visitors, especially to the nursemaids and children.
There was certainly enough in the Dunedin Museum to occupy a student
for a lifetime, and the curator deserves great credit for what he has
done towards educating the young New Zealanders about the animal
kingdom. A New Zealander, if left to himself, must necessarily conclude
that the inhabitants of the world, are few in number. All that New
Zealand possessed prior to the introduction of ‘Captain Cook’ was a bat
and a rat.
There are no snakes in the country, and if ever any man introduces
one he is threatened with an immediate lynching. One felt inclined to
tell the Iceland story when I heard that there were no snakes, but I
judiciously refrained. It might make a New Zealander cross.
Another interesting place to visit is the University; but the best of
all things is to take a ride in a tramcar to the top of one of the
mountains, and have a look at the panorama of bay and island down
below. Everywhere we went--to railway stations, to hotels, in trains or
on trains--we were sure to see half a dozen people called Mac. This led
my friend at every opportunity into conversation with his neighbours as
to whether there were many Scotchmen in New Zealand.
‘Eh, no, mon; maybe thurs a wee sprinkle o’ Scotus,’ was a typical
reply.
This always enabled Mac to tell them that was what he thought. He had
been looking out for his countrymen, and was sorry to find that they
were so poorly represented. One or two of the casual acquaintances saw
the joke, and gently snorted.
We joined our ship at Port Chalmers, which is about eight miles’ ride
in the train from Dunedin. Looking back, we saw the hills and valleys
of the city we were leaving. One thing which was very striking, was the
number of houses built on the top of the highest hills. Judging from
the thousand-foot climb that the people who live in these houses must
often indulge in, they cannot be very lazy. To live on a pinnacle is
indicative of a romantic nature, and I thought Scotch folks were only
practical.
At Port Chalmers we began to load up with passengers and assume the
character of a coaster. The wharf was crowded, and so were our decks.
‘Good-bye, Mac. Tell Maggie I’ll be up by next boat.’ ‘Mind that hawser
there.’ ‘Give my love to Charlie, and send me word how baby is,’ and a
thousand other private communications, mixed up with the blustering of
sailors, was what we heard. Then there was a lot of crying, and a great
deal of kissing. Mac wanted to know how it was that the girls never
kissed us when the steamer left.
At seven o’clock next morning, we were steaming between the high
grassy hills, about 2,000 feet in height, which bound the harbour
of Lyttelton. Everything looked big and grand. A passenger who had
travelled said it looked like Madeira. Instead of trees there were a
few patches of snow.
Lyttelton is a quiet little town on the side of a steep hill. From here
you go by train to Christchurch. You are hardly out of the town before
you drive into a tunnel, which is a mile or more in length. Before
making this tunnel, which cost a fabulous sum of money, the good folks
of Christchurch could only reach their harbour by climbing the high
hills, which we saw as we steamed into Lyttelton. These hills consist
of volcanic rock, and the driving of the tunnel through them proved
that they were not so solid as they appeared, for here and there large
cavernous spaces were met with.
On emerging at the other side, we were amongst the green fields and
furze fences of the famous Canterbury Plains. Christchurch is a large
town conducted on strictly moral principles. Its streets are wide and
numerous. Notwithstanding the existence of steam-trams, good shops, and
a fair amount of traffic, it appeared to be dull. Perhaps it was the
general flatness which created this impression. The only shop which
had unusual attractions was an establishment for the sale of music and
musical instruments. It seemed to contain everything, from a Jew’s harp
to a church organ. It must be a musical depôt for the Colonies.
Christchurch has many churches and a cathedral. From the spire of
the latter, which you are allowed to ascend on paying a shilling, an
extensive view of this portion of New Zealand may be obtained.
The pride of the place is, however, the Museum, which is reckoned by
its energetic curator, Dr. Von Haast, to rank amongst the best in
the world. It is certainly the best museum within a radius of many
thousands of miles. It contains something of everything, from the
autograph of Nelson to a sewing-machine. There is a fine gallery of
paintings and statuary. Antiquities, from mummies to mediæval armour,
galleries of geological specimens, rooms full of birds and stuffed
animals, other chambers filled with bones, a Maori house chock-a-block
with Maori treasures, and finally a room full of moas. In the Moa room
we met a Chinaman.
‘Good-morning, John,’ said Mac; ‘you live at Christchurch?’
‘No, I come this side all samee you; my wantchee see moa. S’pose can
catchee moa, can catchee plenty dolla.’
‘Um, how’s that?’ asked Mac.
‘You never hea?’ inquired John; ‘no man talkee you about Mr. Haast? Mr.
Haast dig garden one day, find plenty moa bones. Then he send letter
all country: “Suppose you send me twenty piecee mummy, 400 piecee
papyros, two sphinxes, one smalla pyramid,” he talkee Egyptian man, “I
sendie you one piecee moa.”’
John then said that the Egyptian Government were delighted with the
offer, and sent the twenty piecee mummy, 400 piecee papyros, two
sphinxes, and the small pyramid, and then received their allowance of
moa.
‘Next time he write that man live top side North Pole.’
I suppose John meant that he entered into communication with the
Esquimaux.
‘“You sendee two piecee polar bear, and one piecee iceberg, you can
catchee all same Egypt man.”’
Of course the Esquimaux were delighted. Next, John told us he wrote to
the British Government.
‘“I wantee five piecee steamer, four piecee outside walkee can see, and
another piecee inside walkee no can see; I pay you plenty moa bones.’”
And according to our friend he went on swapping moa bones all over the
universe, obtaining in exchange Turner’s masterpieces, button-hooks,
anchors, relics from ancient Rome, specimens of small volcanoes,
pumpkins, and, in short, almost everything you see in the Museum.
These the talented and energetic director has classified and reduced to
the orderly system in which they are now presented to the visitor.
Although Christchurch has been a centre from which moa bones have been
distributed throughout the world, the best collection of them has
remained in their old habitat. There were big moas and little moas, and
each of them had a different name. The first bit of moa that went home
was a thigh-bone. The uninitiated would have pronounced it as belonging
to an elephant. Professor Owen, however, said it was the relic of a
gigantic bird. People smiled; now the Professor smiles.
The biggest moa had a neck like a giraffe. When he straightened and
stood on his toes, he might have picked a weather cock off the top of
a church spire. Naturalists say that the moa could not fly, but an old
Maori, who I think was a king, told me that they could fly beautifully.
Sometimes you could flush a dozen in a morning, and the shooting was
grand. When they dropped they shook the ground like an earthquake. The
best were roasted. I quite believed the latter statement, as their
singed bones could be seen by the basketful in every museum we went
to. They were pretty tough, and strangers, after once partaking of the
delicacy, often refused to take any ‘moa.’ Thus the name of the animal.
Mac had not a soul for the anatomy of an extinct animal, and said it
was dry.
This took us from the Museum to an hotel, where we found a bar supplied
by an overflowing artesian well. Many of the people in Canterbury
get their water from artesian wells. A hole is bored, and up shoots
the water. Geologists say that this is due to hydraulic pressure
communicated from the hills through inclined strata. These theories may
be true where inclined strata exist, but it does not explain the coming
up of water, when the strata are horizoned by flat river plains, which
is the case in many parts of the world. The artesian-well theory wants
considerable amplification in our mind.
At the railway station we found a little boy in uniform who wanted to
insure our lives! The reason for his anxiety was that we might suffer
harm in the tunnel. ‘It’s only a penny, sir, and we insure nearly
everybody.’
In the Colonies they will insure you against a heartache. At the
book-store I observed a notice that anyone found after a railway
accident with a copy of the _Daily Chronicle_ (if I remember rightly),
issued on the day of the disaster, in his possession would receive £500.
After a rough-and-tumble night, crammed in a small cabin with three
sick passengers, I was not sorry to find that we were steering into
Wellington. On all sides there were high and irregular hills. Some of
them on the left were capped with snow. The view was by no means so
smooth in its outlines as on entering Lyttelton. The hills, instead of
being round and green, were ragged and brown. Wellington is situated at
the foot of these hills at the head of the bay. The position seemed to
be snug and quiet, but we soon discovered it was quite the contrary.
Wellington seems to have been built in a sort of natural funnel,
through which there is a perpetual gale of wind. You can always tell
a man from Wellington, for wherever he goes he will grip hold of his
hat on turning a corner. When we got ashore we found that we had to
grip our hats, and could quite understand how a prolonged residence
at Wellington might lead to an instinctive desire to save your hat on
turning a corner.
We had a talk with a resident about the winds of Wellington.
‘Wind, indeed! Why, it’s only a week or so ago when a whole girls’
school was blown clean out to sea. Now they have invented a way for
reefing their petticoats. Too much sail doesn’t do in these parts. All
the nursemaids and children never turn out now without carrying a small
kedge and a few fathoms of chain hooked to their perambulators.’
‘Good for windmills,’ I remarked.
‘Yes, we thought so, until we tried them. One was blown away and landed
somewhere up amongst the Maoris, who refused to return it, saying that
it had been presented to them last year by a gentleman from Australia.
The other mill we anchored down, but when it once commenced to move, we
were never able to stop it.’
‘And how was that?’ said I, and I was told the story of
Dickey Adams.
‘It was a sad affair, that was. It was Dickey Adams who thought he
could make a fortune out of the Wellington winds. We told him to let
them alone.
‘“Look,” Dickey, said I, “nothing can stand against these Wellington
winds. You’ll find your blessed windmill up amongst the Maoris the day
after you put it up, and they’ll say it was given to them last year by
a gentleman from Australia. Don’t you remember that train which was
blown backwards right through the terminus, and landed the passengers
forty miles in the opposite direction to what they had started?” says
I. “Dickey, Dickey, it’ll never do to fight against the Almighty. The
Almighty has made these winds, and we must bear them.”
‘But Dickey wasn’t to be persuaded, and it just ended by his being
ruined and breaking his heart and then dying. It was just like pulling
at a pig’s tail to talk to Dickey. The more you pulled back the more
Dickey went ahead.
‘Well, we watched Dickey’s mill being put up with considerable
interest. Every stone he stuck in he had dovetailed into those below
it, for all the world like a lighthouse. At last he got the top on, and
then, waiting for a fine day when the breeze slackened a little, he put
up the sails. These he held fast with chains and anchors.
‘At last the mill got finished, and Dickey invited us all up to see him
slip the anchors, and give the machinery a turn, just to ease it a bit,
you know, for it was all new. Of course we all went, and Dickey was as
happy as a skylark. There he was, hopping about and chirping away to
everyone about the way he had built his mill. Dickey’s smiles did me
good. It was certainly a red-letter day for him. Some of the old hands
shook their heads, and called the mill Dickey’s Folly.
‘At last the inspection was over, and then came the loosening. He had
had his chains nicely arranged by a sailor man, he said, but no sooner
was one cast off than the old thing gave a groan and a heave, and away
she went carrying the other three chains with her. My word, how we
scattered as the sails went flying round quicker and quicker, and at
every turn three great chains came beating on the ground. People down
below thought there was an earthquake. By-and-by, as the chains didn’t
come off, some of us ventured back, and Dickey said he would go inside
and put on a patent friction brake which he had invented, and show us
how it stopped.
‘But what do you think we found? Why, we found the blessed sails, with
their twenty fathoms of iron tassels, were lashing round and round
right in front of the mill door. Of course Dickey couldn’t get inside.
“But the wind may shift a bit by-and-by,” said he, and he looked quite
cheerful. So we sat down and watched it.
‘All that night the thumping of the chains and the rattling of Dickey’s
machinery stopped a lot of us from sleeping. Next morning we found that
Dickey, who had been sitting up watching his machine all night, as was
natural, was looking a bit anxious.
‘This went on for fully a week, until, instead of being a curiosity,
Dickey’s mill became a nuisance, and several who lived near him said
they had earthquakes enough about the place without his starting a
perpetual one. Next they began to hint that their window-frames were
getting loose, and the children couldn’t sleep, and that Dickey’s mill
must be stopped somehow. A few who sympathized with Dickey’s bad luck
suggested that they need not trouble, it would wear itself out in a
week or so. Others, however, said Dickey had built it so strong that it
might go thumping and turning for a lifetime, and proceedings ought to
be taken against it as a public nuisance.
‘Well, all this ended by the Town Council sitting to discuss how
Dickey’s mill was to be got rid of. Some suggested blowing it up with
powder, others said we ought to get the artillery to come down from
Auckland; but the suggestion which found the greatest favour was to
pump on it with the fire-engines and then try if the thing would rust
up solid. The fire-brigade had a fine time of it; the more water they
pumped into Dickey’s mill, the quicker the hanged thing seemed to
go--it just acted like oil.
‘By this time Dickey was getting pretty low in spirits, and with
sitting up all night had got quite thin. Many’s the time I walked up to
the hill to see Dickey sitting on a bank of stones with his face in his
hands and great tear-drops trickling down his face. What with building
the thing, paying compensation for new window-frames, making presents
to the women all round just to keep their tongues quiet, and paying the
bill presented to him by the fire-brigade, unless the mill stopped,
Dickey was a ruined man.
‘Then the cold weather came on, and yet Dickey would never leave his
mill. He was always hoping the wind might change, and he could get
inside.
‘It finished him at last, however. One cold frosty morning the children
who used to take him his tucker came running back, saying Dickey
was dead. It was true enough; there was poor old Dickey lying out
stiff and cold, on the frosty grass. We were all sorry about Dickey.
Wellington wind killed a good man when it carried off poor old Dickey.’
‘And how did the windmill finish?’ I asked.
‘Why, a man fenced it in, and used to take visitors up to see it at a
shilling a head. One night, however, a heavier gale than usual blew,
and carried it right away.’
Here Mac broke in, ‘I suppose a Maori has got it, and says it was
presented to him last year by a gentleman from Australia.’
Our communicative acquaintance was evidently a little piqued by Mac’s
query, and replied that he didn’t know; but anyhow, after Dickey’s
windmill, no wonder people talked about ‘windy Wellington.’
About Earthquakes.
Another thing that Wellington is famous for is its earthquakes. Many
of these have been sufficiently violent to become landmarks in New
Zealand history. It has often happened that the coast-line to the west
of Wellington has been permanently raised several feet by earthquakes.
Wellington has been a gainer by these upheavals, and houses which were
once on the sea-shore are now some distance back.
Any year may bring the announcement that Wellington has taken another
upward start, and what is now the quay may be a street with houses
on either side. Events like these, together with the minor shakings
which are of continual occurrence, very naturally alarm many of the
Wellingtonians. At one time nearly every person in Wellington felt it a
duty to have all loose articles like ornaments on shelves fastened in
position by wires.
The greatest proof that Wellingtonians fear these disturbances is the
fact that nearly all their houses are built of wood. The Government
buildings are spoken of as the largest wooden buildings in the world.
Wellington is certainly wooden as well as windy. I met with quite a
number of people who had seismological experiences to relate. Some
apparently did not mind the shakings--just tremors, they said. These
people were, for the most part, new chums, who had not yet been imbued
with a due respect for plutonic force. Others told me that they did
not mind earthquakes so much as at first, but that they had gradually
come to have a great antipathy for them; they alarmed their wives and
children so much.
There is a feeling of insecurity with these phenomena; you feel you
can’t stop them, and you expect after a thing has begun, the next shake
may be like that of 1855, when all the buildings came down.
‘The last good shake we had,’ said a gentleman, ‘gave a terrible fright
to my neighbours, who are married people living in a two-story house.
Every night they were very particular to see that things were locked
up safely. I suppose they were afraid of their servants getting out at
night. When they went upstairs they always took the keys with them, and
put them under their pillows. One night a shake came on pretty smart,
and they both bundled out of bed and bolted downstairs. It wasn’t until
they had got to the bottom and tried to open the front door that they
remembered that unless they went back to get the keys they were fast
prisoners. Now, will you believe me, there they stood shivering in the
cold at their front door, both afraid to go upstairs and get the keys,
until the motion finished. They leave the keys downstairs now.’
‘What did you do?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I, well--I bolted through the front parlour window, and landed on
my stomach on a flower-bed. It is as true as I am here that I could
feel that flower-bed palpitating as if it were alive.
‘Oh, there were some funny things happened that night. The old man
who is supposed to study these things up at our observatory was found
by his wife standing in his nightshirt out in the snow, with the
window-sash round his neck. You know, the old ass had bolted head first
through his window without stopping to open it. When his wife asked him
what he was doing, he told her that he had just stepped out to make an
outside observation; “I wanted to see if the chimneys moved very much,
my dear,” he stammered.
‘Down at the club there were a lot of our boys and some naval officers
playing poker. You don’t know that game, I suppose? It is a game where
they have a pool, and this keeps getting bigger and bigger as the game
goes on. They call this pool a Jack Pot. Well, when the shake came on,
the pot was reckoned to be worth about £45. People never thought about
money when they felt the movement and heard the timbers creaking; they
just looked at each other and then stampeded. Some went for windows,
some for doors, and others, who did not know the place, got jammed in
the kitchen, and the ends of blank passages. One man landed in the
bath-room, another found himself a prisoner in the lavatory.
‘When the thing was over, one of the party was missing. Now just guess
where they found him. Why, shaking and shivering in a cupboard.
‘Well, after a laugh and a drink--for it needs something to square your
nerves after a good earthquake--they sat down to finish their game. But
do you think they found the Jack Pot on the table? No, sir, not a bit
of it; and what was more, they never did find it.
‘It was, however, observed that the man that was shaking in the
cupboard, and at whom they had laughed for being in such a funk, bought
himself a new watch that week. General opinion held that he had never
been in a funk at all, but had just stayed behind until his friends had
cleared, and then nobbled the pool, after which he quietly walked into
the cupboard.
‘You ought to have seen the mess our town was in next morning. All the
chimneys were slewed round, tiles were shaken off the houses, plaster
was down everywhere. It just looked as if the Russians had been in and
bombarded the place. It cost us on an average £100 apiece to put things
straight.
‘Up in the churchyard all the gravestones were turned round, but the
curious thing was that they had all gone in the same direction. The
disturbance gave us conversation for a fortnight.
‘You know, when we go to call at a house in Wellington it is just as
common to begin the conversation by--“That was a nasty shock last
night,” as to begin by telling people “the weather is getting a little
colder.”’
‘Which way do these earthquakes come?’ I asked.
‘Why, some folks say they come one way, and others say they come
another. They go by their senses, you see, and half of them lose their
senses when an earthquake comes.
‘Our old observatory man says they come from the sea, and that the
motion we feel may be in all directions, twisting and squirming about,
first one way, then another. Then again, you’re not moved so much if
you’re up on high ground, as you are down on the soft stuff.’
To gain as much information as possible, I asked if there were any
theories about how these things start.
‘Theories, why, yes, plenty of them. Some say they are
volcanic--explosion of steam in fissures--others say they are caused
by the rocks suddenly breaking, adjusting themselves to a position
of equilibrium, the observatory man calls it. I don’t believe in the
theories. I think earthquakes are just electrical phenomena, and kind
of subterranean lightning and thunderstorm.
‘Just to show you what I mean, the other day I was out having dinner
with Harris up the hill, when one of the hanged phenomena came along
and shook the house as if it was going to fetch it down. I knew if it
was so bad up there, down below I might expect at least to find my
chimneys through the roof.
‘As I knew the state my wife and daughters would be in, I didn’t stop
to finish dinner, but went off as hard as my legs could carry me home.
‘When I got in, what do you think I saw? My wife was knitting, with her
toes on the fender, and my daughters were playing with a little cat
they had.
‘“Good gracious, Tom!” said my wife, “we thought you were dining with
Mr. Harris. What’s the matter? You look too frightened to tell us. Is
it serious?”
‘“Thank God you’re safe,” said I, holding myself against the door-post,
and panting for breath, for I had run the last mile or so.
‘“Safe!” they all said, “of course we’re all safe. What’s the matter?”
‘“Oh, Tom, Tom!” said my wife, rushing up and putting her arms round my
neck, “don’t keep us in suspense. Is it something dreadful?”
‘“Why, the earthquake,” said I.
‘“Earthquake!” said they, “there hasn’t been an earthquake.”
‘“You’re crazy, Tom,” said my wife.
‘“Why, Harris’s house has been nearly shaken down, and I came to see
how you were getting on.”
‘Then they laughed, and told me I had been dreaming. Well, to be
called crazy, to be accused of dreaming, and to miss my dinner, set me
thinking.