said before, I dislike exhibitions of dead bodies. Certainly one of the
shops was beautifully decorated, and all the lambs and other creatures,
which were hung up by their hind-legs, were ornamented with rosettes
and bouquets. These additions possibly toned down the appearance of the
shambles, but they looked as much out of place as a blue ribbon does
round the neck of a statue.
To me a butcher’s shop is as pleasing as a dissecting-room or a morgue.
With a little training we shall have public windows in which to exhibit
the operations of the slaughterhouse. Butchers’ shops ought to have
screens before them.
Besides the shops there were the theatres, public gardens, an embryonic
University, and a Museum to be seen. At the Museum there was the usual
collection of Maori productions, implements, and weapons, mineralogical
and geological specimens, a good collection of pictures, and, not to
do the place an injustice, a little moa.
‘A little moa what?’ said Mac.
This was the second time he made his moa joke, so I remained silent.
I gazed at the rusty-looking little animal for some time, for I knew
it might be years before I should again have the opportunity of
interviewing this extinct giant of the feathered world.
In and about volcanic Auckland a common sign is, ‘Ash, lapilli, scoria,
lava, bombs, etc., on sale.’ When you order a load the vendor asks how
you like it--vesicular, amygdaloidal, pumiceous, crypto-crystalline, or
how?
Walking about Auckland made me very tired. Coming down a hill you have
your toes jammed in the end of your boots, while going up a hill you
have your body hanging over your toes. Boots with elevating toes and
heels would be a valuable boon to those who live in Auckland.
One climb we made was up Mount Eden. It was a pleasant walk, and the
view of the crater filled with browsing cattle, and then of the town
and the surrounding country, well repaid the trouble. When on the
top we could easily count some twenty other volcanic cones, many of
which were accompanied by streams of lava. At one time the district of
Auckland must have been bubbling like a porridge-pot.
‘Pretty hot business in Auckland some years ago,’ said Mac, as he wiped
his forehead after the climb, and looked down on the twenty extinct
porridge-pots.
When returning, we took a look at the Cemetery. From the ages
indicated on the tombstones it would appear that the climate of New
Zealand is good for the human species. One noticeable thing was the
number of people who had been killed by falls from horses. Is there
more riding in New Zealand than in other places, or are the horses more
frisky, or are the people more clumsy? No doubt there is a reason, if
it could be discovered.
One afternoon I went to see a review of the various rifle corps
which have been raised in Auckland. There were six companies, all in
different uniforms, with a grizzly old general commanding the lot. For
a long time they stood in rows doing nothing. The old general, however,
kept capering up and down, while two aides-de-camp struggled to keep
behind him. Now and then a man would gallop across the field with his
sword up and his horse’s tail whirling round and round, as if it was
the motive power that made it go.
I thought he was going to have a sham fight with the general; but when
he reached him he suddenly put his sword up to his nose, then stuck it
in his sheath, whirled round, and went scampering away to where he had
come from.
It was a nice warm afternoon, and as I had nothing to do, I did not
object to these military manœuvres.
By-and-by they began to move. The idea was to make the six companies
march in oblique lines until at certain points they stopped and wheeled
to form one long line. They tried it a lot of times, but the line they
made had always big gaps left in it.
The crowd said it was the fault of the sergeants, who had to run ahead
and mark out the wheeling-points.
The number of Volunteers is about 300, and as that is a number which
history tells us can get back safely from the jaws of death, we hope
they may do well. The Aucklanders are proud of their Volunteers, and
they may well be so.
After this I took a cruise in the domain, where I saw a lovely cricket
ground, where eighteen cricket-matches can be played simultaneously.
Outside the cricket ground two or three football-matches were going
on. I sat down upon the side of a volcano to watch them. The place
where the play was going on was in the hollows between several small
volcanoes, or, at least, volcanic slopes. It was all fresh and green,
and round the sides of the grounds were clumps of oaks and other trees
bursting into summer costume. Beyond this arcadian scene came islands,
islets, more volcanoes, and then the ocean.
With Italian scenery and warm sunshine I felt as comfortable as a
tom-cat sunning itself on a red-tile roof.
On the most distant island, away out in the blue ocean, Sir George Grey
lives. Sir George is a great man in New Zealand, a lover of the Maori,
and generally original in his conceptions. Anyone would be original if
they lived the Robinson-Crusoe-like life that Sir George endures. They
say that he does not get many callers.
Everything in Auckland was very nice, excepting my hotel. I was told
that it was the best in the place, but the statement made it no better.
The bedrooms were like boxes, and everything was untidy and badly
managed. The arrival of some passengers by the American mail quite
demoralized the establishment. The waiters were bewildered with the
orders, and to get anything to eat you had to forage for yourself. I
remember that I contented myself with a salt-spoon to stir my coffee.
I spent one afternoon on the north shore, where there is a race-course
and some pretty walks. I was rather struck with one house, called
Rangitoto View. Rangitoto is a volcanic island lying off Auckland, the
view of which is exceedingly striking. Any house that faces Rangitoto
has before it a picture. Now, this house faced a stone quarry on the
side of a hill, Rangitoto being out of sight.
_TRIP TO THE HOT LAKES._
There are several ways by which a visitor from Auckland can reach the
Wonderland of New Zealand. The quickest way is by steamer to Tauranga,
and then in coach to Ohinemutu, where you are at once amongst the hot
springs. By starting on certain days in the week, when coaches and
steamers are arranged to meet, the journey takes twenty-four hours.
Mac and I went viâ Cambridge to Ohinemutu, and returned by the Thames.
These routes are much longer, but that was not to be objected to, as it
gave us better opportunities for seeing the country.
We left for Cambridge by the 11.15 a.m. train, reaching the end of our
journey at dark. Travelling with us there was a gentleman who knew the
Maoris, spoke their language, and who gave us much information about
Maori-land.
A few miles after starting we passed close to a place called Onehunga,
where there are some large works for the conversion of iron-sand
into iron. The sand is collected on the sea-shore, then dried, and
passed through a magnetic arrangement by which the black sand is
separated from earthy impurities with which it may be mixed. Next it
is mixed with charcoal and deoxidized in retorts. From the retorts,
where it ought not to come in contact with the air, it is passed into
reverberatory furnaces, where it is puddled and made into blooms. After
this it passes through shingling machines, steam-hammers, and rolls, as
in ordinary ironworks.
On the beach where the ore occurs, an old Maori cooking-stove was
turned up. The method of cooking was to heat stones, which were then
put into a small pit and covered with a few ferns. The food was placed
on the ferns, and after being moistened to cause the generation of
steam, the whole was closed in with more ferns and a cloth, and allowed
to sweat.
Eight or nine human skeletons gave a clear idea of the nature of the
joints. At one time Maoris were in great force about Auckland. This is
indicated by the remains of many old fortifications or Pahs.
The top of Mount Eden is terraced and embanked all round its summit
with the remains of such fortifications. The number of old shell-heaps
or kitchen-middens which cover the mountain also points to a former
population.
For sixteen miles or so, we ran along between green fields and green
volcanic cones. Here and there moss-covered black stones indicated
the line of a lava stream. Many of the fields were walled with blocks
of lava, whilst the line on which we ran was ballasted for miles with
volcanic ash and scoria. At Mercer we struck the Waikata River, and the
country became undulating and swampy. Parts of it were covered with Ti
bush, and the whole looked like a brown moorland.
Our average rate of travelling was about ten miles an hour, a pace
which might have delighted Stephenson, but which we found tedious. When
we arrived in Wonderland, as the lake country is called, our companion
wished us to go some 120 miles in the bush to interview the Maori
king, to whom he kindly offered a letter of introduction. As Mac and I
didn’t hanker after copper-coloured royalty, we politely declined the
invitation. The reason that the lake district is called Wonderland is
on account of visitors wondering why they were ever induced to pay it a
visit.
At one of the small stations an untidy little man, with a shock head, a
fuzzy beard, and a pair of spectacles, joined us.
‘One of our traffic managers,’ whispered our Maori-speaking friend;
‘I’ll have a talk to him.’
‘Good-morning, Mr. Smith,’ said Maori.
‘Good-morning, good-morning, Mr. Maori,’ was Mr. Smith’s reply.
‘You’re getting things to work very nicely on your line this year. Very
few of the other lines can beat what you’ve done up here.’
It may here be mentioned that the carriages were dirty, curtainless,
and uncomfortable; the average pace was, as I have said, about ten
miles an hour, and there were only two trains each way per day.
Smith felt Maori’s compliment, and replied with a sigh--‘Yes, yes,
it has cost me a lot of thought. You can’t imagine the anxiety and
scheming I have gone through to get things as they are.’
Then he passed his hand over his little brow, as if he wished us to
imagine that his brain was yet feeling the effects of the strain that
had been imposed upon it.
‘Everything fits to a nicety, and I think--the employés are satisfied,
and the public are pleased.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Maori, with a twinkle in his eye; ‘the very
fact that no one grumbles shows that things are satisfactory. It’s
impossible to improve on what you have done, Mr. Smith.’ Mac afterwards
suggested to me that walking would be a great improvement.
It was dark when we reached Cambridge. After some tea at an hotel
called Kirkwood’s Cottage, at the recommendation of our landlady, we
adjourned to the Town Hall to witness the spiritualistic performance
of Professor Baldwin. The performance, which was clever and amusing,
consisted of many rope-tying tricks after the manner of the original
Davenport Brothers, finding a pin hidden amongst the audience,
and finally an exhibition by Mrs. Baldwin of her powers as a
thought-reader. In the latter performance you wrote a question on a
piece of paper which you placed in your pocket. Mrs. Baldwin undertook,
while in a trance, to tell you what the question was, and to give the
same an answer. How she succeeded to the extent she did was a mystery.
All we could do when we got outside was to say, ‘Well, it’s a trick, do
you know.’
When I went to my bedroom that night, I observed standing on my
dressing-table a spherically shaped blue flask, with a corrugated
surface. When I first went into the room on my arrival, I had seen this
same bottle, and thought it was a scent-bottle or something or other
which had been left in the room by accident. As I undressed I could
not keep my eyes away from the queer-looking bottle, which I observed
was corked and had evidently not been opened. Some sort of schnaps,
perhaps? No, I know what it is; we are getting near the hot springs,
and there is some sort of mineral water put up here as a sample just to
induce strangers to buy. It might, however, be whisky, I said to myself
on reflection; but whatever it was, if I opened it, I must pay.
So, blowing the light out, I jumped into bed, congratulating myself
on having escaped from a dodgy old landlady. Still, I could not help
thinking about the blue bottle. It was so very different to all bottles
that I had seen before. It’s a funny way of forcing business by
exciting the curiosity of people who want to go to sleep, I thought.
And so I kept on thinking, and thinking, and speculating as to the
contents and _raison d’être_ of the blue bottle. I suppose it must have
been two hours before I went to sleep.
When I awakened, the first thing I saw was the blue bottle. The
prominent position it occupied upon the dressing-table, together with
its oddness of shape and colour, made it an object from which I could
not remove my eyes. The more I looked at the thing the more I desired
to solve the riddle.
My curiosity at last escaped control. Schnaps, whisky, scent, mineral
water, bomb-shell, or whatever you are, I must investigate, even if
it cost the expenses of a funeral. I could not stand the mystery any
longer, so with a one, two, three, I tumbled out of bed and picked up
the bugbear. _Semper paratus_, it said on the top. Yes, it’s always
been ready. Then on the neck were directions as to how I could break
it and throw it on the fire. By jingo, it’s only a hand-grenade, and
here I’ve been fooling round thinking it might be whisky. As I put the
bottle down I saw a rope peeping out from beneath the dressing-table.
Looking underneath, I found a new rope with knots in it fastened at one
end to the wall. This was a fire-escape. When a fire occurs you shy the
bottle at the conflagration, and then bolt in your _robe de chambre_ to
the window, and slide down the rope into the garden.
Mac’s room had similar furniture. If I had known of all these
precautionary measures before I went to bed, I might not have slept at
all. In time I got accustomed to knotted ropes and blue bottles, for I
found them in almost every house where we stayed.
In some hotels I heard that from time to time they had a fire drill.
They usually, so my informants said, chose a night when there was a
guest with a red head staying in the house. At about 2 a.m. ‘_Fire!
fire!_’ is shouted through the building; the guests all rise, shy the
bottles at the red-headed visitor, and slide down the ropes. The ladies
object to the performance, as they consider that they do not look well
dangling on a rope. However, as the people wish to stick to the _semper
paratus_ motto of their bottles, the fire drill is not neglected. If
the man with a red head is not killed, he receives profuse apologies
for his hair having been mistaken for a conflagration. I did not see a
fire drill.
We left Cambridge very early next morning. The conveyance was of the
usual stagecoach type. Mac and I had inside seats, I being on the
weather-side and he on the lee-side of the vehicle. By lee-side is
meant the side that was usually leaning over a precipice.
Shortly after starting we dived down a steep slope at the end of the
town, and crossed the Waikata River. All the country was open and
brown. Here and there a lonely cabbage-tree reared its green round
head. Ti-trees, which in height are anything between six inches and six
feet, occurred in patches. They looked like sage-bushes, and from their
twiggy character might possibly make good besoms.
Next in importance to the Ti-tree comes bracken. The Maoris eat young
bracken, that is, when they can get nothing else. When Ti-trees and
brackens find some useful application, New Zealand will have the means
of speedily reducing her public debt. The public debt of New Zealand is
per head greater than that of any other country, the population of the
country being about 500,000, and the debt about £30,000,000.
Sir Julius Vogel, a New Zealand Disraeli, has much to answer for as
author of the incubus.
The defence for having such a debt is that with the money they build
railways and other public works, and as these pay, or are destined to
yield huge profits, it is a good thing to have a debt.
The most wonderful things up the Waikata River are the terraces. When
you look ahead you see the river like a long bright band surging down
towards you, between high perpendicular banks. Above these banks on
either side there is a strip of flat ground, perhaps fifty, perhaps
two hundred yards in width, and then two more steep banks. Above these
there is more flat ground, and another set of banks--each flat strip
representing an old flood plain of the river. In some places five or
six of these terraces could be counted, each of them being beautifully
defined. They had the appearance of so many parallel roads cut in the
hills on either side the river gorge.
The first sixteen miles of our road was very clayey, in fact, places
were so extremely sticky and puddle-like that we were in danger
of being stuck fast. In summer-time the driver said it was like a
billiard-table. What we crossed was like a brick-field.
After twelve miles’ driving we stopped at a post-office. There were no
houses. The country looked like open moorland covered with bracken. The
post-office was a square box about as big as a tea-chest. It stood at
the side of the road on four stout legs in amongst the bracken. It was
painted sky-blue, and on it was written, in very large letters, ‘V.R.
Matanabe Letterbox.’
The V.R. brought such vivid pictures to my eyes of the chairs in a
British Consulate, that I had to turn my head from Mac and hide my
sorrow.
A great deal of the land along the road is wire fenced. If it was
put upon wooden posts or electrically insulated tests would tell the
squatter where it was broken.
This would be convenient for travellers who had lost their bearings.
They might break a wire and then sit down until a shepherd came to
repair the damage.
Inside the fences I saw a lot of fat cattle. They were all red and had
white faces. Ti-trees and bracken appear to suit cattle.
After twenty-one miles we stayed at a solitary inn, where there was
an Irish landlord, and many pictures of O’Connell, Parnell, and other
Hibernian celebrities.
When we looked at Dan with his thumb in the armhole of his waistcoat,
we thought of his famous address to a mob of his supporters:
‘Will ye live for yéer Dan?’
‘We will, we will.’
‘Will ye fight for yéer Dan?’
‘We will, we will.’
‘Will ye run when the cavalry come?’
‘We will, we will.’
If our host had not been so jovial we should certainly have looked
under the table for a box of dynamite. I did not note the name of
this place because, as I told Mac, it would probably be one of those
heathen names with forty-three _hiki pikis_ and _rapi tapis_ which we
could neither pronounce nor write correctly. That evening I learnt that
it was called Oxford. It is either at Oxford or the place next to it
where there is a _lusus naturæ_, which for many years has attracted the
attention of the medical faculty. This is a boy who has the attributes
of a small bull. When a stranger arrives he comes and snuffs, then he
stares and snorts and ‘moos’ like an ox. When a gate or door is shut,
instead of opening it with his hands he will stand in front of it and
paw the ground. If it is not opened he lowers his head and butts. It
is expected that some day he will smash his skull, and this remarkable
phenomenon will be lost to science.
The last and worst part of our journey was through sixteen miles of
what is known in these parts as ‘the bush.’ At the entrance to it there
were some pretty steep precipice-like slopes, about 1,000 feet in
depth, from the edges of which our wheels often did not have more than
six inches clearance.
Mac, who was on the hanging or lee-side of the coach, said he did not
like it.
To describe the sixteen-mile bush I must ask you to imagine the Suez
Canal lined on either bank with tall trees, and an undergrowth so thick
that it formed a dense black wall. Next imagine the Suez Canal, instead
of being straight, to be curved. Finally, imagine the Suez Canal to be
filled with from six inches to two feet of stiff clay and water-holes.
When you have done this, you will have a picture of something not very
much like the Suez Canal, but very much like the sixteen-mile bush.
Some of the fern leaves were big enough to thatch a haystack. A
botanist collecting specimens of these plants would require twenty-four
foot screens in which to press his specimens. Many of the trees were
covered with things which Mac called orchids, and which he said were
worth from £5 to £20 apiece. I expect he thought I should stop the
coach and begin to climb.
The trunks of some of the trees were completely buried by these
parasites, while their heads were bowed down by the weight they had to
carry.
If a tree was cut down, the grass, or whatever it is which grows upon
it, ought to fodder a herd of oxen for several months.
Vine-like climbers are very common in this bush. There is one called
the Rata, which grows to a larger size than the tree it embraces. Many
tall, straight trees which were being slowly compressed to death by the
rata, looked like huge maypoles clasped by monstrous centipedes.
I don’t know how the rata grows, whether it commences at the top of
the tree and grows downwards, or whether it commences below and grows
upwards. Perhaps it does both; anyhow, if you cut a rata off near the
ground it will send down roots and re-establish communication.
A guide-book we had said the road was extremely interesting, calling
our attention to the rata-trees and £20 orchids.
The chief interest which Mac and I found was with regard to our hats,
which were continually in danger of being smashed on the roof of the
coach. The bumps and rolls that we experienced along the Suez Canal
were perfectly awful. Every moment you expected the vehicle either
to capsize or else roll down a precipice. Most of the time you were
holding on to an upright or a strap, like a cat to a waterspout. And
all this time you could hear the driver telling a fellow outside that
in summer it was as smooth as a billiard-table. Interesting indeed!
Yes, it was full of interest, but the man who wrote that book ought to
be hung.
The sun was setting when we emerged from the bush and descended
towards Lake Rotorua. A short drive brought us round to the village of
Ohinemutu. The hills near the lake are moderately high, and of a sad
green colour.
This particular bit of Wonderland will not appal anyone by its beauty.
But for the steam rising from numerous hot springs all is still and
dead. The faint smell of the springs is not pleasant.
There are several hotels here for the convenience of visitors wishing
to enjoy the baths. There are baths for everything; one will cure the
gout, another the rheumatism, another the toothache.
One of the baths is called the Priest’s Bath, another one the Lobster,
another Madame Rachael. The quantity of water and the temperature of
many of the springs vary considerably with changes of the wind.
When you want a bath, you find that you have at least to cross a road,
and generally to wander through the scrub to some wretchedly-built
shanty open to the heavens at more places than its windows and doors.
Here you undress in the cold, and if it is wet in the rain.
After a trial of one of these primitive baths, the arrangements for
which are hardly comparable with those which savages would provide, it
seems astonishing that invalids are not killed rather than cured. The
whites of New Zealand have come into a legacy which they have not yet
learned to use. When in a bath, put up your hands, and you are cool;
put them down, and you are hot; always go home with your wet towel
round your neck, and you cannot catch cold, are amongst the many other
wonderful things which the new owners of the springs have discovered.
There were one or two visitors at the hotel. One of them told us that
he had been out all day exploring mud-holes and hot springs.
‘Took a hammer, a magnifying-glass, and a bottle of vitriol acid, you
know.’
‘And what was that for?’ we asked.
‘Just a lark, you know. Testing the waters.’
He only wanted a pair of spectacles to become a complete _savant_.