terror. But according to him everything was a terror--the roads were
terrors, the lake was a terror, some of the women were terrors (I
believed this). Terror is a New Zealand adjective. Shilling knives are
advertised as ‘perfect terrors.’ You can’t go wrong if you call a thing
a terror.
A young Englishman, however, called everything and everybody ‘a
Johnny.’ Mac thought him as big an ass as the other visitors.
That night it was cold, and in the morning the ground was white with
frost.
There are many Maoris at Ohinemutu, and we had good opportunities to
see both them and their houses. They are physically fine, but with
coarse, broad features. They are tolerably honest, fearful beggars,
consummate liars, and dreadfully lazy.
Their hardest work is to plant and dig potatoes, smoke, and
occasionally go in search of kauri gum, which they sell to foreign
merchants.
The Government built them a mill at Wairoa, but the Maoris did not
think well of it, so they took out the machinery, and now use it as a
dwelling-house. It was too hard work to grind corn.
Their homes (_wharis_) are, to look at, like the roof of a thatched
cottage minus the side-walls. At one end there are usually a number of
elaborately carved pieces of wood, many of the figures on which are
highly indecent.
They have churches, where they pray and sing according to formulæ
taught them by the missionaries.
In the afternoon we had an eleven miles’ drive over to Wairoa, the
headquarters from which one visits Rotomahana and the terraces--_the
glory of Wonderland_.
The drive was over a pretty country, past two crater lakes. One
of these, with a white bottom, has an exceedingly beautiful blue
appearance. The other is dark green.
Part of the way is through bush, very similar to what we had seen on
the way up from Cambridge. If we except skylarks, which are everywhere
in New Zealand, the country appears to be entirely without bird life.
In the sixteen-mile bush, a road-mender told me that in three months he
might have seen six birds.
We stayed at the Terrace Hotel. Here there is a large quantity of
sweetbrier. You meet with the plant in many parts of the northern
island. It is said to have been introduced by a missionary. It is now a
pest.
At Wairoa we were introduced to a curiosity in the form of an
animal-plant, or true zoophyte. The animal is undoubtedly a
caterpillar; but the plant, which appears to grow out of one end of the
caterpillar, may be anything. It is usually from six inches to two feet
in length, and looks like a flexible root or piece of a vine.
Our host said it was a young rata-vine, and the way in which the
combination of plant and animal came about was as follows. The
caterpillar lives beneath the rata-tree, and when the seeds are shed
they fall upon the caterpillar beneath. Most of the seeds roll off the
caterpillar’s back, but it sometimes happens that one will lodge in a
particularly large crease at the back of the caterpillar’s neck. Here
it germinates, and the caterpillar, being irritated by the process,
digs into the ground, where it dies while struggling to release itself
from the parasite. The parasite then grows, and the natives seeing the
shoot, carefully dig it up, dry it, and keep it as a curio to be sold
to the guileless tourist.
Our coachman who was there said:
‘No, that’s not it. I’ve found plenty of them; the root sticks in the
ground, and the caterpillar is on the end of it, standing up like
fruit on a tree. The caterpillar sees the young rata-tree sprouting,
and swallowing the end of it, gets stuck fast--the end of the plant
swelling in its mouth. The plant goes on growing, and the caterpillar
gets shoved up in the air end on.’
A tourist who was there said that a Maori told him that the caterpillar
ate the seed, and then it germinated.
Here Mac broke in with the remark, that if it chewed the seed, the seed
could not germinate.
The tourist seemed annoyed, and said:
‘Well, sir, it doesn’t eat it, but it swallows it like a Cockle’s
pill, and then it germinates. The body of the caterpillar becomes
a flower-pot for the plant, which grows until it has exhausted the
contents of its friend, and then both of them die. The caterpillar is
neither up nor down, but it lies horizontally with the plant sticking
out of its mouth.’
Here we appealed to the specimens, and pointed at the fact that the
plant might come out of the tail of the animal or the back of its neck;
but it was certain that it did not come out of its mouth.
‘Everybody gets mixed about them inseks,’ said a gentleman in a flannel
shirt, who had been listening to the argument. ‘The way they comes to
be as they is, is because they’ve been stuck in when you sees them.
It’s a sandpiper as does it. The sandpiper builds in rata-trees, and,
just to ornament the surroundings, fills up its spare time in sticking
caterpillars on the branches. I’ve seen a sandpiper and its mate in
two hours cover a tree so thick that you couldn’t see the sky for
caterpillars.’
By this time I had learnt that a caterpillar did something with the
rata-seed, or else the rata-seed did something with a caterpillar, or
else a sandpiper----here I got mixed.
But rata-trees begin to grow from the tops of other trees! Perhaps
our zoophyte was found suspended in the air like fruit. Altogether it
was as mysterious as a mermaid. Somehow or other, I don’t think it
has anything to do with rata-trees. Caterpillars do not take pills.
Possibly they may take in the spores of a fungus which use the stomach
of their host as a flower-pot.
Another curious object for the naturalist was a plant called _Pisonia_
something or other. A friend of mine had one in his garden, and he gave
me some seeds. The peculiarity of this plant is that it catches birds.
The way in which this is done is by its having seed-pods covered with a
kind of birdlime. Insects stick on the birdlime, and sparrows and other
feathered pets coming for a feed, get stuck themselves. Cats then go
round and catch the sparrows. I never heard of the tree catching cats.
I am sorry I never made inquiries.
Next day we went to see the terraces--the hub of Wonderland. Our guide
was a Maori called Sophia. Sophia and Kate are historical characters in
Wonderland, and everybody who visits this district passes through the
hands of one of these ladies.
Kate, who is decorated with a medal for having saved life--I think it
was the life of a bishop--was away on her twenty-fifth honeymoon, so we
fell into the arms of Sophia. Sophia is a big woman, and it would be
a big man who ever escaped should he ever fall into her arms. I don’t
know her age, but I should guess it at being about forty-five.
Although Sophia is masculine, she speaks English with the affectation
of a well-bred duchess. She is always merry, and has a twinkle in her
eye, indicating that she is continually on the _qui vive_ for fun. She
wore a short dress like a Welshwoman, black stockings, and buckled
shoes.
From the hotel we walked a mile or so down to the lake, where we all
embarked in a whale-boat. Here we had a row of a mile and a half down a
river-like arm of the lake before we were fairly launched in the lake
itself. Before us were the rugged rocky heights of Mount Tarawera, a
volcano after which the lake is named. On the opposite side of the lake
there are hills covered with trees.
It was a pull of nearly eight miles against a stiff breeze, before we
came to the top of the lake. On the way we made one stoppage. This
was to interview a fisherman in a dug-out. Sophia told us that to buy
craw-fish from the fishermen of Tarawera was the correct thing, and
as we could not oppose the wishes of a lady, we stopped. Luckily the
fisherman had not caught any craw-fish. We were very cold and a little
wet when we reached the head of the lake.
A walk of a mile and a half up the banks of a small creek, which was in
many places steaming, and we were on the shores of Lake Rotomahana and
at the foot of the White Terrace. At a distance the terrace looked like
one side of a pyramid which had been made by piling together rows of
white wash-hand basins.
Another comparison is to liken it to a huge white marble staircase on
the side of a hill, each step being rounded in front and hollowed out
above. These steps, or wash-hand basins, are from one foot to twelve
feet in height, and they are all filled with water, which is hotter
and hotter the higher you ascend. At the top there is one large basin
filled with water that is boiling. When the wind is in a certain
direction (north-east, Sophia said), this may be entirely empty.
When we saw it, it was twenty feet or so in depth, and overflowing. The
water was running down from basin to basin, getting cooler and cooler
and depositing silica as it descended. One exceedingly striking point
connected with the marble-like basins of limpid water is that the water
appears to be of a brilliant light-blue colour--so blue that it often
looks unnatural.
The pool at the top looks like a crater that had been breached on one
side, and from the breach a lava stream had descended to the lake. The
terraced arrangements of basins have been built on the lava stream.
In many places, especially at the foot of the terraces, you could see
basins in the process of formation. As a stream of water flows over an
inclined surface, it spreads out to form a fan-like film.
At a certain distance from its origin it has become sufficiently
cooled to deposit the silica which, while hot, it holds in solution.
The deposition takes place on a curved ridge, the curvature of which
corresponds to the curvature of the flowing fan-like film of water.
In time the ridge grows higher and higher, until finally it becomes
a basin in which water does not cool so rapidly as it did when the
formation commenced.
We spent a considerable time paddling about the White Terrace. At
one pool Sophia showed us some sparrows which she had placed in the
water to petrify. Strangers are not supposed to remove the stalactitic
formations and various petrifactions which are met with on the
terraces, but a few shillings will usually enable you to procure a few
specimens.
A short distance from the White Terrace we saw several boiling
caldrons, which every now and then would shoot up columns of water
twenty or thirty feet in height.
Farther on, we met a dug-out canoe and two boatmen who had brought our
lunch. The potatoes had, of course, been boiled in a hot spring.
Sophia told us that the last party she had the honour of conducting
were missionaries. One old man had given her a drink of brandy, and
when in the dug-out, where you have to sit fore and aft, had placed
his head in her lap.
‘I told the old gentleman,’ said Sophia, ‘that drinking brandy and
putting his head into the lap of an unmarried girl did not go well with
a white necktie. What do you think he said? why, he whispered, “Never
mind, Sophia,” and he gave me a squeeze.’
Sophia in talking to us always called us ‘poor boys.’ Mac, who was
getting bald, did not like it.
After lunch, we carefully balanced ourselves in the dug-out, Mac
putting his head in Sophia’s lap, and set sail on Rotomahana. This is
a little round lake bounded on all sides with low hills. Most of them
are steaming with hot springs, the water from which comes down into the
lake, so that the lake itself is hot.
Although the water is quite warm, and has a nasty taste, some sort of
beetles appear to live in it. The trip across the lake is one where
everything depends on the accuracy of your balance. There is no turning
round, and Mac having once put his head in Sophia’s lap, he had to keep
it there, or else run the risk of overturning the boat.
The Pink Terrace on the other side of the lake is far more pink in
description and books than it is in reality. On the top there is a
boiling pond, and below this comes the staircase of basins just like
the White Terrace. We had a bath here. We unstripped in a grove of
Ti-trees, and then had our first dip in a pool which was moderately
warm. From this we ascended, step by step, to other pools which were
warmer.
It would take a long time to describe all we saw. One little valley
we went up was filled with small mud volcanoes, one of which was
called the Porridge-Pot. This contained a beautiful bluish-grey creamy
mud which was gently simmering. All of these had certain medicinal
qualities attributed to them. The Porridge-Pot was good for dysentery.
I took a spoonful of it. It was smooth, warm, and inky.
Many visitors have written a description of these wonders. One man, who
describes the place in blank verse, speaks of the waters as a ‘lithic
lymph.’ But about all this I will speak more fully in my Guide-book to
New Zealand.
Another man, struck by the quantity of steam, the pits, the bubbling
and snorting, the ponds of steaming mud, and the sulphurous burning
hillsides, entitled his description ‘An Introduction to the Devil; or,
The Vestibule of Hell.’ I could not get a copy of his work.
The activity is continually shifting. One day you find a steam-hole in
the scrub, and next day it has gone. Some of these holes are big enough
to receive a bullock, and we were told the story of a herd of bullocks
falling into a hole, and their coming up out of another about a mile
distant from the place where they had disappeared. The subterranean
activity of Wonderland is a kind of public works which are difficult to
inspect. Mac said he would not live there at any price; he was afraid
the whole thing might blow up.
On our way back Sophia gave us a lot of information about the terraces
and their visitors. Several American speculators had from time to time
paid Rotomahana a visit.
One old gentleman, who had a craze for natural phenomena, tried to
buy up the terraces; what he wanted to do with them we never properly
learned. One idea was that he was going to cut them up in sections,
and then ship them to New York; another idea was that he intended to
light them up with the electric light, and show them through variously
coloured glasses to visitors; a third notion was that he intended
to convert the heat into electricity, and send it down by wire to
Auckland; but what the old man really wanted was never known.
‘What did he offer for your Wonderland, Sophia?’ asked Mac.
‘He offered us a yearly rental of five shillings, or £10 down.’
We reached Ohinemutu on Saturday afternoon. In the evening we paid a
shilling to get entrance to a Maori dance, which was going on in a shed
opposite the hotel.
There were a great many persons present--half-whites, and half-Maoris.
I reckon the half-castes, some of whom were very pretty, in with the
Maoris. The ladies sat in benches round the sides of the room. Five
or six of these ladies were white. Many of the Maori girls, who were
dressed in European dresses, with French boots and plaited pig-tails,
spoiled their appearance by having tattooed lips.
The music, consisting of a concertina, at length commenced, and a young
Englishman, desirous of dancing with a live Maori, asked a young lady
for the pleasure of her hand.
‘You play schottische?’ said she.
‘Waal, no; but can try, you know.’
So they commenced. The Maori pranced, and the poor young man acted like
a brake.
‘You no play schottische?’ she again inquired; and while he was looking
at her, searching for a reply, she gave him a push, and rushed off to
her seat, saying:
‘Horrible! horrible!’
He did not solicit the hand of any other princess. The Ohinemutu
whites, with their dark-skinned friends, danced grandly. All the
quadrilles and country-dances were of an old type.
The gentlemen would cavotte and shuffle about by themselves in the
centre, then rush in and whirl their partners with vigour.
A schottische was superb; everybody danced all over the room, throwing
up their arms, cutting little capers, and yelping in true Highland
fashion.
Mac was enraged. He looked upon all this as an insult to his country.
Why should white people lower themselves by hob-nobbing with, and even
marrying, what he called ‘female cannibals?’ If he were ruler, he would
begin by making them pay taxes, like other people; and if they would
not pay, he would have the country cleared.
With all his raillery I observed that he did not seem so hard on the
flounces and French boots.
All Sunday was spent in exploring Ohinemutu. At one place the
Government have built a hospital, and covered in some of the baths. All
the Maoris go to their churches. When the Wesleyans are having service,
the Catholics sit outside playing cards in the porch; and when the
Catholics occupy the buildings, the Wesleyans play cards in the porch.
They are passionately fond of cards.
By the afternoon all the hot springs and cooking-holes had been
examined, and life at Ohinemutu became a burden. This resulted in
all the guests taking a nap. Ten miles away I heard that a big Maori
funeral was going on. These funerals are conducted on the principle of
a wake. The visitors eat, drink, and mourn. They may last two weeks.
We left Ohinemutu next morning at seven, in the coach for Cambridge.
When I came to take my seat, I found that the box-seat had been
occupied by Mac and a gentleman with a red beard. Inside there was a
Maori lady, evidently the wife of the gentleman with the red beard.
I felt a little annoyed at having an inside place, and I showed my
annoyance by sitting on a narrow seat opposite to my Maori, rather than
on the broad and relatively comfortable seat by her side. But having
taken my seat, I was stupid, and preferred discomfort to giving in and
shifting.
I succeeded in getting discomfort fairly well. For thirty-three miles
I was dragged, with my back to the horses, looking at rows of trees,
cart-ruts, sticks, pebbles, and puddles, all appearing to chase each
other and run backwards.
Inside, however, I could study my tame savage. She had a dark olive
complexion, black flashing eyes, and white incisors. She did not wear
feathers on her head, but a Sultana plush hat, turned up on one side,
_à la_ Madam Rousby, and decorated with ostrich plumes. Round her neck
she had a ‘masher’ collar. Her dress was a tight-fitting gabrielle,
ornamented with bretelle, the fronts apparently opening over a long
plaited vest, which had an effective extension over the entire front.
The skirt was draped and trimmed with gore plaiting, the ornamentation
being soutache embroidery. I estimated the garment as containing
eighteen yards and three-eighths of twenty-four inch stuff. The
double-breasted polonaise and pointed basque were particularly
attractive. Behind, she carried a bouffant bow, and feather-trimming
tastefully draped below the waistband.
One point to which I would draw the attention of all ladies, was the
deep box-plaiting round the collar. The redingote, which she cast aside
shortly after taking her seat, was a plain sacque, shirred around the
neck and shoulders, giving the effect of a circular yoke and Spanish
flounce.
The general appearance was that of a graceful and elegant combination
of twenty-four inch goods, suitable for boating, yachting, bathing,
archery, the seaside, the drawing-room, the tropic of Capricorn, the
ballroom, the dining-room, for both hemispheres, and for all seasons.
Her boots were high-heeled number sixes. I had a good view of these,
because she put them up on the seat by my side. Her gloves were number
five brown silks.
The only indication of savage restlessness which she exhibited at
being cooped up and jolted was now and then to eject saliva. This
she did with a neatness and precision which would excite the envy of
a professional. Some people splash or slobber, others guffaw as an
introductory accompaniment to their performance.
Behaviour like this is intolerable, and it ought to be suppressed. My
Maori friend, who found spitting a necessity, expectorated with grace.
First she puckered up her lips to a pretty point, as if about to take
the soprano at a whistling show. Then placing the tip of her tongue in
juxtaposition with her teeth, she gave a sudden gentle, but decided
contraction of her facial muscles. The only sound was a gentle click.
From the initials S. M. upon her trunk, her name may have been Susan
Macintosh. Susan could spit with grace. The sparkling thin spheroid,
as it pursued its paraboloidal course, glittered in the sunlight with
a meteoric brilliancy. But for Susan’s performance I should have felt
dull and miserable.
Outside I could hear that Mac and Red Beard were becoming quite
chummy, obtaining information from each other and the driver. This
conversation, and an occasional ‘Git ep,’ addressed to the horses, was
all that I could hear.
After about twenty-five miles Susan, who had been watching my attempts
to write, asked me what I was noting. I felt that I was suspected of
describing objects belonging to my companion. I replied:
‘I’m writing, madam, on the trajectory of a fluid projectile passing
rapidly through a yielding but non-viscous medium.’
Madam glared, gave another spit, and wiping her mouth with the back of
her hand, said:
‘Do you mind showing me your book, young man?’
My writing was never good, and the jolting of the coach had made it
worse, so I passed it to my companion. She looked at it a moment, then
remarked that the road was very rough, and handed it back.
This is the only time that I ever felt thankful for having cultivated
an illegible hand. Had it not been illegible, Susan might have
slaughtered me.
Shortly after this, at the driver’s request, I sat on the same seat
with Susan, who, keeping her feet on the opposite seat, propped her
back against me and fell asleep. I now recognised why Red Beard sat
outside. When she awoke I offered her a cigarette. She replied with
a look. The reference to the customs of her uncivilized sisters had
evidently given offence, and she did not speak again.
The distance to Cambridge was fifty-five miles, and it cost thirty
shillings a head each way.
Maoris are very susceptible to insult. In speaking to them you must be
particular. To a common man you may call a pig a pig; to a swell you
ought to say a porcine animal; but to a duke you can only refer to a
pachydermatous quadruped, or one of the Suidæ. This joke is very old.
At Cambridge we again put up at Kirkwood’s Cottage. On the opposite
side of the road there is Kirkwood’s Hotel. During the evening we
picked up a little information about the Good Templars and Blue
Ribbonites. Sometimes they are elected on a licensing committee, when
they at once proceed to refuse all licences, even to houses which the
police report as being well kept.
At some of the New Zealand hotels the landlords are compelled to be
very strict. If they hold a licence for liquors to be drunk at the bar,
even if you are a guest at the house, you may have to leave your dinner
and go to the bar to obtain a drink, at least that is what we were
told.
We returned to Auckland viâ the Thames Gold Fields. First, we went by
train to Hamilton, where there is a very small town and two or three
hotels. From here we crossed an exceedingly flat country in the train
to Morrinsville, where the only buildings are the sheds at the station
and two hotels. I suppose the landlords take turn about at each other’s
houses.
A twelve-mile drive in a coach brought us to Te Aroa, where there are
one or two hot springs, and at a place three miles distant some gold
mines. Te Aroa is a straggling street situated at the foot of a steep
range of hills parallel to which is the River Thames. Twice a week
there is a steamer on the river down to a town called Thames. We went
in the coach. Distance, thirty-five miles; price, 9s.
For the first six miles our road was along the foot of the hills
overlooking Te Aroa. The open plain of the Thames, brown with Ti-trees,
was on our right. After this came a pass through the mountains. The
most noticeable tree was the tree-fern. Some of these were of immense
size, and they waved their fronds like the plumes of a gigantic hearse.
The driver pointed out a kauri-tree to us. This is the tree which
yields gum. Much gum is, however, found buried in marshes where
kauri-trees once flourished. The natives search for it with pronged
forks, much in the same way that fishermen catch eels.
When descending the other side of the hill, I saw what I took to be a
field filled with troughs at which to feed cattle or sheep. It turned
out to be a bee farm, and what I saw were the hives.
Near the Thames I noticed what I thought was a second bee farm. This
turned out to be a cemetery.