SPORT AND ATHLETICS
Sport in the islands resembles their climate and scenery. To name the
distinguishing feature I have once more to employ the well-worn word,
variety. Even if we limit the term to the pursuit of game, there is
enough of that to enable an idle man to pass his time all the year
round. In the autumn there is deer-shooting of the best, and in the
early winter the sportsman may turn to wild ducks and swamp-hen. Then
wild goats have begun to infest certain high ranges, especially the
backbone of the province of Wellington and the mountains in central
Otago. In stalking them the hunter may have to exhibit no small share
of the coolness of head and stoutness of limb which are brought to
play in Europe in the chase of the chamois, ibex, and moufflon. In
addition to sureness of foot, the goats have already developed an
activity and cunning unknown to their tame ancestors. They will lie or
stand motionless and unnoticed among the bewildering rocks, letting
the stalker seek for them in vain; and when roused they bound away at
a speed that is no mean test of rifle-shooting, particularly when the
marksman is hot and panting with fatigue. And when brought to a stand
against rocks, or among the roots of mountain beeches, or on the stones
of a river-bed, they will show fight and charge dogs and even men. The
twisted or wrinkled horns of an old he-goat are not despicable weapons.
As the reward of many hours’ hard clambering, varied by wading through
ice-cold torrents, and spiced, it may be, with some danger, the goat
hunter may secure a long pair of curving horns, or in mid-winter a
thick, warm pelt, sometimes, though rarely, pure white. Moreover, he
may feel that he is ridding the mountain pastures of an unlicensed
competitor of that sacred quadruped, the sheep. Goats are by no means
welcome on sheep-runs. Colonel Craddock, it is true, complains that it
is not easy to regard them as wild, inasmuch as their coats retain the
familiar colours of the domestic animals. He wishes they would change
to some distinctive hue. This feeling is perhaps akin to the soldier’s
dislike to shooting at men who retain the plain clothes of civilians
instead of donning uniform--a repugnance experienced now and then by
some of our fighting men in South Africa.
Rabbits, of course, as a national scourge, are to be shot at any time,
and though on the whole now held in check, are in some districts still
only too abundant. Occasionally when elaborate plans are being laid
for poisoning a tract of infested country, the owner of the land may
wish no interference, and the man with a gun may be warned off as a
disturber of a peace intended to lull the rabbit into security. But,
speaking generally, any one who wishes to shoot these vermin may find
country where he can do so to his heart’s content, and pose the while
as a public benefactor.
The largest game in the colony are the wild cattle. These, like the
goats and pigs, are descendants of tame and respectable farm animals.
On many mountain sheep-runs, annual cattle hunts are organised to
thin their numbers, for the young bulls become dangerous to lonely
shepherds and musterers, and do great damage to fences. Moreover, the
wild herds eat their full share of grass, as their fat condition when
shot often shows. Generations of life in the hills, fern, and bush
have had their effect on runaway breeds. The pigs especially have
put on an almost aristocratic air of lean savagery. Their heads and
flanks are thinner, their shoulders higher and more muscular, their
tusks have become formidable, and their nimbleness on steep hill-sides
almost astonishing. A quick dog, or even an athletic man on foot, may
keep pace with a boar on the upward track; but when going headlong
downhill the pig leaves everything behind. The ivory tusks of an old
boar will protrude three or four inches from his jaw, and woe to the
dog or horse that feels their razor-edge and cruel sidelong rip. The
hide, too, has become inches thick in places, where it would, I should
think, be insensible to a hot branding iron. At any rate, the spear
or sheath knife that is to pierce it must be held in clever as well
as strong hands. Even a rifle-bullet, if striking obliquely, will
glance off from the shield on the shoulder of a tough old boar. Wild
pigs are among the sheep-farmer’s enemies. Boars and sows alike prey
on his young lambs in spring-time, and every year do thousands of
pounds’ worth of mischief in certain out-of-the-way country. So here
again the sportsman may plume himself upon making war upon a public
nuisance. In bygone days these destructive brutes could be found in
numbers prowling over open grassy downs, where riders could chase them
spear in hand, and where sheep-dogs could bring them to bay. They were
killed without exception or mercy for age or sex; and the spectacle of
pigs a few weeks old being speared or knifed along with their mothers
was not exhilarating. But they were pests, and contracts were often let
for clearing a certain piece of country of them. As evidence of their
slaughter the contractors had to bring in their long, tufted tails.
These the station manager counted with care, for the contract money
was at the rate of so much a tail. I have known ninepence to be the
reigning price. Nowadays, however, the pigs are chiefly to be found
in remote forests, dense manuka scrub, or tall bracken, and if caught
in the open it is when they have stolen out by moonlight on a raid
upon lambs. The thick fern not only affords them cover but food: “the
wild boar out of the wood doth root it up,” and finds in it a clean,
sweet diet. Many a combat at close quarters takes place every year
in the North Island, in fern from three to six feet high, when some
avenging farmer makes an end of the ravager of his flocks. Numbers
of the pigs are shot; but shooting, though a practical way of ridding
a countryside of them, lacks, of course, the excitement and spice of
danger that belong to the chase on foot with heavy knife or straight
short sword. Here the hunter trusts both for success and safety to his
dogs, who, when cunning and well-trained, will catch a boar by the ears
and hold him till he has been stabbed. Ordinary sheep-dogs will not
often do this; a cattle-dog, or a strong mongrel with a dash of mastiff
or bulldog, is less likely to be shaken off. Good collies, moreover,
are valuable animals. Not that sheep-dogs fail in eagerness for the
chase; they will often stray off to track pigs on their own account.
And any one who has seen and heard them when the boar, brought to bay
against some tree trunk, rock, or high bank, makes short mad rushes at
his tormentors, will understand how fully the average dog shares the
hunter’s zest.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL PEAKS]
Another though much rarer plague to the flock-owner are the wild
dogs. These also prey by night and lie close by day, and if they were
numerous the lot of farmers near rough, unoccupied stretches of country
would be anxious indeed; for the wild dogs not only kill enough for a
meal, but go on worrying and tearing sheep, either for their blood, or
for the excitement and pleasure of killing. When three or four of them
form a small pack and hunt together, the damage they can do in a few
nights is such that the persecuted farmer counts the cost in ten-pound
notes. They are often too fast and savage to be stopped by a shepherd’s
dogs, and accurate rifle-shooting by moonlight--to say nothing of
moonless nights--is not the easiest of accomplishments. Failing a lucky
shot, poison is perhaps the most efficacious remedy. Happily these
dogs--which are not sprung from the fat, harmless little native curs
which the Maori once used to fondle and eat--are almost confined to a
few remote tracts. Any notorious pack soon gets short shrift, so there
need be no fear of any distinct race of wild hounds establishing itself
in the wilderness.
Another _hostis humani generis_, against which every man’s hand or
gun may be turned at any season, is the kea. A wild parrot, known to
science as _Nestor notabilis_, the kea nevertheless shows how fierce
and hawk-like a parrot can become. His sharp, curving beak, and
dark-green plumage, brightened by patches of red under the wings, are
parrot-like enough. But see him in his home among the High Alps of the
South Island, and he resembles anything rather than the grey African
domestic who talks in cages. Nor does he suggest the white cockatoos
that may be watched passing in flights above rivers and forest glades
in the Australian bush. Unlike his cousin the kaka, who is a forest
bird, the kea nests on steep rocky faces or lofty cliffs, between two
and five thousand feet above sea-level. If he descends thence to visit
the trees of the mountain valleys, it is usually in search of food;
though Thomas Potts, the naturalist, says that keas will fly from the
western flanks of the Alps to the bluffs on the sea-coast and rest
there. One envies them that flight, for it must give them in mid-air
an unequalled bird’s-eye view of some of the noblest scenery in the
island. Before the coming of the settlers these bold mountaineers
supported a harmless life on honey, seeds, insects, and such apologies
for fruits as our sub-alpine forests afford. But as sheep spread
into the higher pastures of the backbone ranges, the kea discovered
the attractions of flesh, and especially of mutton fat. Beginning,
probably, by picking up scraps of meat in the station slaughter-yards,
he learned to prey on dead sheep, and, finally, to attack living
animals. His favourite titbit being kidney fat, he perches on the
unhappy sheep and thrusts his merciless beak through the wool into
their backs. Strangely enough, it seems to take more than one assault
of the kind to kill a sheep; but though forty years have passed since
the kea began to practise his trick, the victims do not yet seem to
have learned to roll over on their backs and thereby rid themselves of
their persecutors. Even the light active sheep of the mountains are,
it would seem, more stupid than birds of prey. Ingenious persons have
suggested that the kea was led to peck at the sheep’s fleecy backs
through their likeness to those odd grey masses of mossy vegetation,
called “vegetable sheep,” which dot so many New Zealand mountain
slopes, and which birds investigate in search of insects.
[Illustration: THE REES VALLEY AND RICHARDSON RANGE]
Shepherds and station hands wage war on the kea, sometimes encouraged
thereto by a bounty; for there are run-holders and local councils who
will give one, two, or three shillings for each bird killed. Let a pair
of keas be seen near a shepherd’s hut, and the master runs for
his gun, while his wife will imitate the bird’s long whining note to
attract them downwards; for, venturesome and rapacious as the kea is,
he is just as confiding and sociable as the gentler kaka, and can be
lured by the same devices. Stoats and weasels, too, harass him on their
own account. Thus the bird’s numbers are kept down, and the damage they
do to flocks is not on the whole as great as of yore. Indeed, some
sceptics doubt the whole story, while other flippant persons suggest
that the kea’s ravages are chiefly in evidence when the Government
is about to re-assess the rents of the Alpine runs. Against these
sneers, however, may be quoted a large, indeed overwhelming, mass of
testimony from the pastoral people of the back-country. This evidence
seems to show that most keas do not molest sheep. The evil work is done
by a few reprobate birds--two or three pairs out of a large flock,
perhaps--which the shepherds nickname “butchers.” Only this year I was
told of a flock of hoggets which, when penned up in a sheep-yard, were
attacked by a couple of beaked marauders, who in a single night killed
or wounded scores of them as they stood packed together and helpless.
No laws, therefore, protect the kea, nor does any public opinion shield
him from the gun in any month. His only defences are inaccessible
mountain cliffs and the wild weather of winter and spring-time in the
Southern Alps.
Acclimatisation has made some woeful mistakes in New Zealand, for is
it not responsible for the rabbit and the house-sparrow, the stoat
and the weasel? On the other hand, it has many striking successes to
boast of in the shape of birds, beasts, and fishes, which commerce and
industry would never have brought to the islands in the regular way of
business. Of these, one may select the deer among beasts, the trout
among fishes, and the pheasant, quail, and starling among birds. Many
colonists, it is true, would include skylarks, blackbirds, and thrushes
among the good works for which acclimatising societies have to be
thanked; but of late years these songsters have been compassed about
with a great cloud of hostile witnesses who bear vehement testimony
against them as pestilent thieves. No such complaints, however, are
made against the red-deer, the handsomest wild animals yet introduced
into New Zealand. Indeed, several provinces compete for the honour
of having been their first New Zealand home. As a matter of fact, it
would appear that as long ago as 1861 a stag and two hinds, the gift
of Lord Petre, were turned out on the Nelson hills. Next year another
small shipment reached Wellington safely, and were liberated in the
Wairarapa. These came from the Royal Park at Windsor, and were secured
by the courtesy of the Prince Consort.
In 1871 some Scottish red-deer were turned loose in the Otago mountains
near Lakes Wanaka and Hawea. In all these districts the deer have
spread and thriven mightily, and it is possible that the herds of the
colony now number altogether as many as ten thousand. Otago sportsmen
boast of the unadulterated Scottish blood of their stags, whose fine
heads are certainly worthy of any ancestry. In the Wairarapa the
remarkable size of the deer is attributed to the strain of German blood
in the animals imported from the Royal Park. As yet, however, the
finest head secured in the colony was not carried by a deer belonging
to any of the three largest and best-known shooting-grounds of the
islands. It was obtained in 1907 from a stag shot by Mr. George Gerard
in the Rakaia Gorge in Canterbury. The Rakaia Gorge herd only dates
from 1897, and is still small, but astonishing stories are told of some
of its heads. At any rate the antlers of Mr. Gerard’s stag have been
repeatedly measured. One of them is forty-seven inches long, the other
forty-two inches and a half.
Deer-stalking in New Zealand can scarcely be recommended as an easy
diversion for rich and elderly London gentlemen. It is not sport for
the fat and scant-of-breath who may be suffering from sedentary living
and a plethora of public banquets. New Zealand hills are steep, new
Zealand forests and scrubs are dense or matted. Even the open country
of the mountains requires lungs of leather and sinews of wire. The
hunter when unlucky cannot solace his evenings with gay human society
or with the best cookery to be found in a luxurious, civilised country.
If he be an old bush-hand, skilful at camping-out, he may make himself
fairly comfortable in a rough way, but that is all. Nor are such things
as big drives, or slaughter on a large scale, to be had at any price.
Shooting licences are cheap--they can be had from the secretary of an
acclimatisation society for from one to three pounds; but the number
of stags a man is permitted to shoot in any one district varies from
two to six. To get these, weeks of physical labour and self-denial may
be required. On the other hand, trustworthy guides may be engaged, and
colonial hospitality may vary the rigours of camp life. Then, too,
may be counted the delights of a mountain life, the scenery of which
excels Scotland, while the freshness of the upland air is brilliant and
exhilarating in a fashion that Britons can scarcely imagine. And to
counterbalance loneliness, the hunter has the sensation of undisturbed
independence and freedom from the trammels of convention, as he looks
round him in a true wilderness which the hand of man has not yet gashed
or fouled.
Wild-fowl shooting ranges from tame butchery of trustful native pigeons
and parrots to the pursuit of the nimble godwit, and of that wary
bird and strong flyer, the grey duck. The godwit is so interesting a
bird to science that one almost wonders that ornithologists do not
petition Parliament to have it declared _tapu_. They tell us that in
the Southern winter it migrates oversea and makes no less a journey
than that from New Zealand to Northern Siberia by way of Formosa and
the Sea of Okhotsk. Even if this distance is covered in easy stages
during three months’ time, it seems a great feat of bird instinct, and
makes one regret that the godwit so often returns to our tidal inlets
only to fall a prey to some keen sportsmen indifferent to its migratory
achievements.
The only excuse for molesting the wood-pigeon is that he is very good
to eat. The kaka parrot, too, another woodlander, makes a capital
stew. Neither victim offers the slightest difficulty to the gunner--I
cannot say sportsman. Indeed the kaka will flutter round the slayer
as he stands with his foot on the wing of a wounded bird, a cruel but
effective decoy-trick. Another native bird easy to hit on the wing is
the queer-looking pukeko, a big rail with bright-red beak and rich-blue
plumage. The pukeko, however, though he flies so heavily, can run fast
and hide cleverly. Moreover, in addition to being good for the table,
he is a plague to the owners of standing corn. In order to reach the
half-ripe ears he beats down the tops of a number of stalks, and so
constructs a light platform on which he stands and moves about, looking
like a feathered stilt-walker, and feasting the while to his heart’s
content. Grain-growers, therefore, show him no mercy, and follow him
into his native swamps, where the tall flax bushes, toé-toé, and giant
bulrushes furnish even so large a bird with ample cover. When, however,
a dog puts him up, and he takes to the air, he is the easiest of marks,
for any one capable of hitting a flying haystack can hit a pukeko.
Very different are the wild ducks. They soon learn the fear of man and
the fowling-piece. They are, moreover, carefully protected both by law
and by public opinion among sportsmen. So they are still to be found
in numbers on lakes and lagoons by the sea-coast as well as in the
sequestered interior. Large flocks of them, for example, haunt Lake
Ellesmere, a wide brackish stretch of shallow water not many miles from
the city of Christchurch. But in such localities all the arts of the
English duck-hunter have to be employed, and artificial cover, decoys,
and first-rate markmanship must be brought into play. The grey duck,
the shoveller, and teal, both black and red, all give good sport.
Strong of flight and well defended by thick, close-fitting suits of
feathers, they need quick, straight shooting. A long shot at a scared
grey duck, as, taking the alarm, he makes off down the wind, is no
bad test of eye and hand. In return, they are as excellent game-birds
dead as living. This last is more than can be said for the handsomest
game-bird of the country, the so-called paradise duck. Its plumage, so
oddly contrasting in the dark male and reddish white-headed female,
makes it the most easily recognised of wild-fowl. It also has developed
a well-founded suspiciousness of man and his traps, and so manages
to survive and occupy mountain lakes and valleys in considerable
flocks. Unlike the grey species which are found beyond the Tasman Sea,
the smaller and more delicately framed blue duck is peculiar to the
islands. It is neither shy nor common, and, as it does no harm to any
sort of crop, law and public opinion might, one would think, combine to
save it from the gun and leave it to swim unmolested among the boulders
and rocks of its cold streams and dripping mountain gorges.
Nature did not furnish New Zealand much better with fresh-water fish
than with quadrupeds: her allowance of both was curiously scanty. A
worthless little bull-trout was the most common fish, and that white
men found uneatable, though the Maoris made of it a staple article of
diet. Large eels, indeed, are found in both lakes and rivers, and where
they live in clear, clean, running water, are good food enough; but
the excellent whitebait and smelts which go up the tidal rivers can
scarcely be termed dwellers in fresh water; and for the rest, the fresh
waters used to yield nothing but small crayfish. Here our acclimatisers
had a fair field before them, and their efforts to stock it have been
on the whole successful, though the success has been chequered. For
fifty years they have striven to introduce the salmon, taking much
care and thought, and spending many thousands of pounds on repeated
experiments; but the salmon will not thrive in the southern rivers. The
young, when hatched out and turned adrift, make their way down to the
sea, but never return themselves. Many legends are current of their
misadventures in salt water. They are said, for instance, to be pursued
and devoured by the big barracouta, so well known to deep-sea fishermen
in the southern ocean. But every explanation of the disappearance of
the young salmon still lacks proof. The fact is undoubted, but its
cause may be classed with certain other fishy mysteries of our coast.
Why, for instance, does that delectable creature the frost-fish cast
itself up on our beaches in the coldest weather, committing suicide for
the pleasure of our _gourmets_? Why does that cream-coloured playfellow
of our coasters, Pelorus Jack, dart out to frolic round the bows of
steamships as they run through the French Pass?
[Illustration: AT THE HEAD OF LAKE WAKATIPU]
But if our acclimatisers have failed with salmon, fortune has been kind
to their efforts with trout. Forty years ago there was no such fish
in the islands. Now from north to south the rivers and lakes are well
stocked, while certain waters may be said with literal truth to swarm
with them. Here, they are the brown trout so well known to anglers at
home; there, they are the rainbow kind, equally good for sport. At
present the chief local peculiarity of both breeds seems to be the size
to which they frequently attain. They are large enough in the rivers;
and in many lakes they show a size and weight which could throw into
the shade old English stories of giant pike. Fish of from fifteen to
twenty-five pounds in weight are frequently captured by anglers. Above
the higher of these figures, catches with the rod are rare. Indeed, the
giant trout of the southern lakes will not look at a fly. Perhaps the
best sport in lakes anywhere is to be had with the minnow. Trolling
from steam-launches is a favourite amusement at Roto-rua. It seems
generally agreed that in the rivers trout tend to decrease in size as
they increase in numbers. The size, however, still remains large enough
to make an English angler’s mouth water. So it has come about that
the fame of New Zealand fishing has gone abroad into many lands, and
that men come with rod and line from far and near to try our waters.
Fishing in these is not always child’s play. Most of the streams
are swift and chilling; the wader wants boots of the stoutest, and, in
default of guidance, must trust to his own wits to protect him among
rapids, sharp rocks, and deep swirling pools. He may, of course, obtain
sport in spots where everything is made easy for the visitor, as in
the waters near Roto-rua. Or he may cast a fly in the willow-bordered,
shingly rivers of Canterbury, among fields and hedgerows as orderly and
comfortable-looking as anything in the south of England. But much of
the best fishing in the islands is rougher and more solitary work, and,
big as the baskets to be obtained are, the sport requires enthusiasm
as well as skill. Moreover, rules have to be observed. Licences are
cheap enough, but the acclimatisation societies are wisely despotic,
and regulate many things, from the methods of catching to the privilege
of sale. In the main, the satisfactory results speak for themselves,
though of course a certain amount of poaching and illegal catching
goes on. In certain mountain lakes, by the way, one rule--that against
spearing--has to be relaxed; otherwise the huge trout would prey upon
their small brethren to such an extent as to stop all increase. So
occasionally an exciting night’s sport may be enjoyed from a boat in
one or other of the Alpine lakes. The boatmen prepare a huge torch
of sacking or sugar-bags wound round a pole and saturated with tar
or kerosene. Then the boat is rowed gently into six or eight feet of
water, and the flaring torch held steadily over the surface. Soon the
big trout come swarming to the light, diving under the boat, knocking
against the bow, and leaping and splashing. The spearman standing erect
makes thrust after thrust, now transfixing his prey, now missing his
aim, or it may be, before the night’s work is done, losing his footing
and falling headlong into the lake, amid a roar of laughter from boat
and shore.
[Illustration: NORTH FIORD, LAKE TE-ANAU]
The merest sketch of sports and amusements in New Zealand demands
more space for the horse than I can afford to give. My countrymen are
not, as is sometimes supposed, a nation of riders, any more than they
are a nation of marksmen; but the proportion of men who can shoot and
ride is far greater among them than in older countries. The horse is
still a means of locomotion and a necessity of life everywhere outside
the towns, while even among townsmen a respectable minority of riders
can be found. How far the rapid increase of motors and cycles of all
kinds is likely to displace the horse is a matter for speculation. At
present, perhaps, the machine is more likely to interfere with the
carriage-horse than the saddle-horse. Nor will I hazard an opinion as
to the place that might be held by New Zealanders in a competition
between riding nations. Australians, I fancy, consider their stockmen
and steeplechase-riders superior to anything of the kind in our
islands. And in a certain kind of riding--that through open bush after
cattle, amongst standing and fallen timber--I can scarcely imagine any
horsemen in the world surpassing the best Australian stock-riders.
On the other hand, in a hilly country, and on wet, slippery ground,
New Zealanders and New Zealand horses show cat-like qualities,
which would puzzle Australians, whose experience has been gathered
chiefly on dry plains and easy downs. Comparisons apart, the Dominion
certainly rears clever riders and good horses. A meet of New Zealand
harriers would not be despised even by Leicestershire fox-hunters. To
begin with, the hare of the Antipodes, like so many other European
animals there, has gained in size and strength, and therefore in pace.
The horses, if rather lighter than English, have plenty of speed and
staying-power, and their owners are a hard-riding lot. Gorse fences,
though not, perhaps, so formidable as they look at first sight, afford
stiff jumping. And if a spice of danger be desired, the riders who
put their horses at them may always speculate upon the chances of
encountering hidden wire. The legend that New Zealand horses jump wire
almost as a matter of course has only a foundation of fact; some of
them do, many of them do not. Nor are the somewhat wild stories of
meets where unkempt horses with flowing manes and tails and coats never
touched by brush or curry-comb, are bestridden by riders as untidy, to
be taken for gospel now. Very few of those who follow the harriers in
New Zealand at all resemble dog-fanciers bestriding mustangs. True,
they do not dress in the faultless fashion of those English masters of
fox-hounds whose portraits flame on the walls of the Royal Academy.
Some at least of them do their own grooming. Yet, speaking generally,
the impression left is neat and workmanlike, and is none the worse
for a certain simplicity and even a touch of roughness. The meets
are pleasant gatherings, all the more so because they are neither
overcrowded, nor are there too many of them. Much the same may be said
of the polo matches, where good riding and good ponies are to be seen.
Twenty years ago trained ponies could be bought in the islands for
£25 apiece. Now they, in common with all horseflesh, are a good deal
more costly. However, sport in New Zealand, though more expensive than
of yore, is still comparatively cheap, and that, and the absence of
crowds, are among its chief attractions.
As in other countries, there are tens of thousands of men and women
who never ride a horse, but who find in horse-racing--or in attending
race-meetings--an absorbing amusement. The number of race-meetings
held in both islands is very great. Flat-racing, hurdle-racing,
steeplechasing, and trotting,--all these can assemble their votaries
in thousands. Sportsmen and others think little of traversing hundreds
of miles of land or sea to attend one of the larger meetings. Ladies
muster at these almost as strongly as men. As for the smaller meetings
up-country, they, of course, are social gatherings of the easiest and
most cheerful sort. In bygone years they not seldom degenerated towards
evening into uproarious affairs. Nowadays, however, race-meetings,
small and large, are marked by a sobriety which, to a former
generation, might have seemed wasteful and depressing. To a stranger
the chief features of the races appear to be their number, the size
of the stakes, the average quality of the horses, and the working of
the totalisator. This last, a betting machine, is in use wherever the
law will allow it, and is a source of profit both to the Government
and the racing clubs. The Government taxes its receipts, and the clubs
retain ten per cent of them; hence the handsome stakes offered by the
jockey club committees. The sum that passes through these machines in
the course of the year is enormous, and represents, in the opinion of
many, a national weakness and evil. In defence of the totalisator it
is argued that the individual wagers which it registers are small, and
that it has almost put an end to a more ruinous and disastrous form of
betting, that with bookmakers. It is certainly a popular institution
with an odd flavour of democracy about it, for it has levelled down
betting and at the same time extended it. Indeed, it almost seems to
exhaust the gambling element in New Zealand life; for, as compared with
other nations, my countrymen are not especially addicted to throwing
away their money on games of chance.
Passing from what is commonly called sport to athletic games, we tread
safer ground. One of these games, football, is quite as popular as
horse-racing--indeed, among boys and lads more popular; and whatever
may be its future, football has up to the present time been a clean,
honest, genuine game, free from professionalism and excessive gambling.
The influence of the New Zealand Rugby Union, with its net-work of
federations and clubs, has been and still is a power for good; and
though it is true that the famous and successful visit of the “All
Black” team to Great Britain has lately been parodied by a professional
tour in England and Wales, there is still hope that professionalism
may be held at bay. For, as yet, the passion for football, which is
perhaps the main peculiarity of New Zealand athletics, is a simple
love of the game, and of the struggles and triumphs attending it. The
average New Zealand lad and young man looks for nothing but a good
hard tussle in which his side may win and he, if luck wills it, may
distinguish himself. As yet, money-making scarcely enters into his
thoughts. The day may come in New Zealand, as it has in England, when
bands of skilled mercenaries, recruited from far and near, may play in
the name of cities and districts, the population of which turns out to
bet pounds or pence on their paid dexterity. But, as yet, a football
match in the colony is just a whole-hearted struggle between manly
youths whose zeal for their club and town is not based on the receipt
of a weekly stipend.
[Illustration: CHRISTCHURCH]
Why cricket should lag so far behind football seems at first sight
puzzling; for few countries would seem better suited to the most
scientific of out-door games than the east and centre of New Zealand,
with their sunny but not tropical climate, and their fresh sward of
good green grass. Two reasons, probably, account for the disparity. To
begin with, cricket, at any rate first-class cricket, takes up far more
time than football. Its matches last for days; even practice at the
nets consumes hours. Athletics in New Zealand are the exercise and
recreation of men who have to work for a livelihood. The idle amateur
and the trained professional are equally rare: you see neither the
professional who plays to live, nor the gentleman who lives to play.
The shorter hours of the ordinary working day, helped by the longer
measure of daylight allowed by nature, enable a much larger class than
in England to give a limited amount of time to athletics. But the time
is limited, and first-class cricket therefore, with its heavy demands
on the attention of its votaries, suffers accordingly. Cricket, again,
is a summer game, and in summer the middle or poorer classes have a
far larger variety of amusements to turn to than in winter. Sailing,
rowing, cycling, lawn tennis, fishing, picnics by the sea or in the
forest, mountain-climbing, and tramps in the wilderness, all compete
with cricket to a much greater degree than with football. Indeed the
horse and the gun are well-nigh the only dangerous rivals that football
has, and they are confined to a much more limited class. So while New
Zealand stands at the head of the list of countries that play the Rugby
game, our cricketers could at the best furnish an eleven able to play a
moderately strong English county. The game does, indeed, make headway,
but is eclipsed both by the pre-eminent local success of football, and
by the triumphs of cricket in Australia and South Africa. Meanwhile,
cricket matches in New Zealand, if not Olympian contests, are at any
rate pleasant games. One is not sure whether the less strenuous sort
of cricket, when played in bright weather among surroundings where
good-fellowship and sociability take the place of the excitement of
yelling thousands, is not, after all, the better side of a noble game.
[Illustration: CANOE HURDLE RACE]
[Illustration: WAIHI BAY, WHANGAROA HARBOUR]
As rowing men know, New Zealand has produced more than one sculler of
repute, and at this moment Webb, of the Wanganui River, holds the title
of champion of the world. With this development of sculling, there is
a curiously contrasted lack of especial excellence in other forms of
rowing. Indeed one is inclined to predict that aquatic skill in the
islands will, in days to come, display itself rather in sailing. The
South Pacific is an unquiet ocean, and long stretches of our coast
are iron-bound cliffs or monotonous beaches. But to say nothing of
half-a-hundred large lakes, there are at least three coastal regions
which seem made for yachting. The most striking of these, but one
better adapted for steam yachts than for sailing or small open craft,
is at the butt-end of the South Island, and includes the fiords of the
south-west coast and the harbours of eastern Stewart Island. Between
the two Bluff Harbour lies handy as the yachtsman’s headquarters.
The second of the three chief yachting grounds of the colony has
been placed by nature on the southern side of Cook’s Strait among a
multitude of channels, islands, and sheltered bays, accessible alike
from Wellington, Nelson, or Picton, and affording a delightful change
and refuge from bleak, wind-smitten Cook’s Strait. The best, because
the most easily enjoyed of the three, is the Hauraki Gulf, studded with
islands, fringed with pleasant beaches and inviting coves,
and commanded by the most convenient of harbours in the shape of
the Waitemata. Nor, charming and spacious as the gulf is, need the
Auckland yachtsmen limit themselves to it. Unless entirely wedded to
smooth water, they can run northward past the Little Barrier Island
and visit that fine succession of beautiful inlets, Whangarei, the
Bay of Islands, and Whangaroa. All lie within easy reach, and all are
so extensive and so picturesquely diversified with cliffs, spurs,
bays, and islets, that any yachtsman able to navigate a cutter with
reasonable skill should ask for nothing better than a summer cruise to
and about them.