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Rotorua's claim to be the “Cureland” of this Dominion is one which it would be hard indeed to dispute.
Nowhere else in the wide world does Nature work more kindly for humanity than at Rotorua. Nowhere else does the term “Mother Nature” have better application—a truth admitted by grateful sufferers from all parts of the world, folk who ceased to suffer after taking the waters and treatments at Rotorua.
Many thousands of New Zealanders have also found new life at Rotorua—bright life, free from racking pain and dread—but many others, who have not yet been to the Thermal Wonderland, have only a dim notion of what Nature is ready to do there for the unwell and the weary. Wonderful as the geysers and other thermal spectacles are, Rotorua will be probably more famous for its curative waters than for its scenery.
From sixty thousand to eighty thousand baths are given annually, and about thirty thousand special treatments—massage, electrical therapy, etc. —are administered each year at the Rotorua Spa.
“The high percentage of cures and improvements testifies to the value of the thermal mineral waters and the various special curative treatments associated with the wonderful waters,” runs an official statement.
Besides the direct effect of curative baths and thermal waters upon health, much of the benefit of Rotorua as a holiday resort lies in the stimulating air of the locality, nearly 1,000 feet above sea-level, and the interest associated with Maori life in the district.
In and about, Rotorua, visitors have many charming glimpses of this. It is well known, of course, that the Maori race has reached a high standard of culture—a fact which has greatly impressed many distinguished visitors from other countries. They have mentioned that they have been very pleasantly surprised by the high intelligence and delightful personality of the Maori folk.
In the Thermal Wonderland natives may be seen happily at home in their villages where Nature helps to keep down the cost of living with an unfailing provision of free hot water.
The Maori guides in Geyserland have a remarkable range of interesting folklore and knowledge, readily told to visitors.
Rotorua is renowned, too, for its Maori entertainments—the spectacular dances and the native chants and songs.
Indeed the Maori feature is so impressive in “Cureland” that it vies in interest with the thermal scenes.
Rotorua lays itself out to interest and amuse tourists, hence the accommodation in general is maintained at a high standard, and the visitor receives much friendly attention, in suggestions for outings and facilities for entertainment that make the enjoyment of a holiday particularly easy.
The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal book-sellers, or may be obtained post-free for 6/- per annum.
Employees of the Railway Department are invited to forward news items or articles bearing on railway affairs. The aim of contributors should be to supply interesting topical material tending generally towards the betterment of the service.
In all cases where the Administration makes announcements through the medium of this journal the fact will be clearly indicated.
The Department does not identify itself with any opinions which may be expressed in other portions of the publication, whether appearing over the author's name or under a nom de plume.
Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.
Payment for short paragraphs will be made at 2d. a line. Successful contributors will be expected to send in clippings from the Magazine for assessment of the payment due to them.
The Editor cannot undertake the return of Ms.
All communications should be addressed to The Editor, New Zealand Railways Magazine, Wellington.
I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 20,000 copies each issue since July, 1930.
Deputy-Controller and Auditor-General.
Readers of this Journal will be greatly interested in the seasonable suggestion of how they may best express Christmas sentiment and grood-will.
Much has been said recently of the growing interest of peoples of the world, in events—past and present in other spheres; in customs and life in strange countries; in acquiring a true appreciation of art in its many forms and in gaining knowledge, culture and broader vision.
This universal thirst for knowledge suggests to readers the thought that information on all these vitally interesting subjects can be easily given to those to whom they desire to give really appropriate gifts, in the form of gift works such as Universal History of the World; Lands and Peoples; The World's Famous Pictures; I-See-All Pictorial Dictionary. These works are available in handsomely bound sets of volumes and can be obtained on an easy payment method ' A gift of this nature will demonstrate discrimination and earn the utmost appreciation.
For full particulars see the announcement on page 3 of this issue.
(Rly. Publicity photo)
The wonderful limestone formations in the Ruakuri Caves (Waitomo), North Island, New Zealand.
Waitomo Caves, seven miles from the North Island Main Trunk railway station of Hangatiki, are served by a spiendid accommodation house, and have a reputation equal to that of the famous Jenolan Caves of New South Wales. All the wonderful still life of limestone caves, the grottos, cathedral scenes, and other chaste designs—these the Waitomo Caves posses abundantly. And they have a novel feature in the glow-worms that “flsh” for insect life, which are at once a biological curiosity and a brilliant spectacle of the dark underground.
”Sights more beautiful than we ever beheld in the land of sleep.” —Goethe.
This is the month of the bold plum duff, the hopeful stocking and the Christmas cheer.
Now the stored dislikes in the rag-bag of the mind are discarded, scandals and illnature are forgotten, and the glad feeling of friendly kinship prevails; for now, if ever, can that genial aspiration of Robert Burns be brought about, “That man to man the world o'er shall brothers be for a’ that!”
In the same spirit, and clad in the gay habiliments of its Christmas suit, this Magazine greets its large family of readers with all good wishes for their welfare and happiness.
Kindliness and consideration for others are of the essence of that religion from which Christmas derives its meaning, and they are gaining ground in the world to-day as never before.
A survey of things as they are bears out this statment.
The welding of the League of Nations into one effective whole, in the interests of the world at large, is one great evidence of this spirit.
The changing attitude towards work is another.
The tremendous speed with which invention after invention is serving to simplify and ease the burden of all kinds of toil is an indication, not so much of an increased fertility in inventive genius, but of an increased interest in their work by those responsible for the inventions—for nearly all improvements nowadays are the result of thought applied to their employment by those directly engaged in the occupation to which the inventions apply.
Until the present century there was more evidence of a reluctance towards work. The idea of it as part of the primal curse was prevalent, and the thought of living in comfort without working appealed as a kind of terrestrial bliss.
In recent years, however, has developed the sounder belief that work can be rightly regarded as a blessing—something to provide a useful outlet for physical and mental energy, from the proper application of which much pleasure and satisfaction is to be derived, not only through the personal adeptness and skill which practice and interested application develop, but also from the knowledge that such work is for the ultimate welfare of others.
At the same time the conviction has grown that a life with “nothing to do” is the most uninteresting of all aspirations.
Certainly, in the railway world, there is plenty to do round about Christmas time. All available rolling-stock has to be prepared for traffic; passengers by the hundreds of thousands in numbers, and goods by the tens of thousands in tons, have to be carried safely and punctually for the Christmas holidays and the Christmas trade.
Special time-tables, extra expresses, rush orders, crowds of passengers, and mountains of luggage make the railwayman's lot a particularly busy one.
But use and forethought have developed, to a very high degree, the standard of efficiency with which these crowded times are met.
And the men who do the work are well pleased to assist in making the holidays of others as happy as possible, for when their own turn comes to take a vacation they will enjoy it all the more from the knowledge of good work well done while “on the job.”
So on we go, full steam ahead, running to schedule and freighted with happiness, into the bright dawn of gay December—the month of gladness.
The near approach of the season of goodwill may assist us to remember that conditions generally are very much better in the railway world than they have been for some years past. This applies to railways in almost every country; for, as the facts of the transport situation are made clearer, the predominating importance of the railways in the transport field is leading to a fuller appreciation of the real service they render in the economic life of the country. From this has arisen a policy of regulation which tends to preserve for the nation concerned an equilibrium as between road and rail to ensure that the best qualities of each may be turned to good account in the public interest.
In New Zealand the principle of transport regulation has been recognised as the only feasible course to reduce transport costs for the community, and where the principle is judicially applied in accordance with the terms of existing legislation undoubted benefit should accrue not only to the industry but to the country as a whole.
The Railway Administration has pursued a policy designed to give a service as helpful as the circumstances applying to each kind of traffic might necessitate, and has been rewarded by a distinct improvement in the financial returns from the undertaking and an increasing goodwill amongst all sections of the community.
In securing this improvement the staff have most willingly played their part with a high degree of attentiveness and judgment, resulting in general appreciation of their courtesy to the public and assistance in extending the Department's usefulness to its customers.
Goodwill creates goodwill, and this fact is certainly borne out in the experience of the Management and staff in their relations with the public as well as in the internal affairs of the Department; and in this spirit the Board desires me to express, on its behalf, the Season's Greetings to all clients and members of the Department, and its best wishes for a pleasant festive season and a prosperous New Year. I desire heartily to associate myself with these greetings and good wishes.
General Manager.
Seven rail cars will soon be running on the Wellington-Masterton-Palmerston North service, and three rail cars will be engaged on the Wellington-New Plymouth route.
All you have to do is to send in a list of names which you consider would be appropriate for these cars. It is suggested that groups of names should be given, which would be in a series appropriate to the quality of service to be given by the rail cars, taking into account national features, appearance, speed, convenience, etc. Some groups have already been suggested, e.g., birds, flowers, race-horses, Maori Chiefs, trees, etc.
Prizes will be awarded according to the lists which the Government Railways Board considers most suitable for the purpose. If found appropriate, the prize-winning list is the one which it is intended to use in naming the rail cars.
This is a contest in which everyone can enter, and it is so simple that the prizes offered are expected to attract many entries.
The winning story in the New Zealand Women Writers’ and Artists’ Society's competition.
As Jill Weston moved deftly about her spotless kitchen preparing the mid-day meal, she sang softly. It was the Tuesday before Christmas Eve, a dazzling summer's day with the sunlight shimmering in the air, and the vast stretch of blue sea below glistening like dancing silver.
How happy she felt for this afternoon she would don her only decent frock, the spotted crepe-de-chine, and with the few shillings saved from ‘selling eggs and making frocks, she would sail into one of the biggest shops and buy Peter a good silk canoe shirt for a Christmas box. Peter would be in to dinner soon, but she would not tell him the motive of her visit to the city. As usual, he would say she must spend the money on herself, and until he was able to provide a crust, it only made him feel miserable for her to spend on him. Poor, willing Peter, how desperately he had tried to get work, but for three long years now, it had seemed almost impossible, and he found it difficult enough to earn a bare pittance a week to keep them in food alone. Jill, by sheer enterprise and optimism had supplied the rest, which had enabled them to keep up the payments for their quaint little home, “Hamurana.”
Peter never lost heart that one day would see him in a decent job, when a chap could feel some respect for himself and then he would see that Jill had leisure like other young women, and, above all, the pretty clothes so dear to a woman's heart.
Jill had just placed an apple pie in the oven, when she heard Peter talking to little Bryan Huxley from next door, down in the rockery. Almost immediately Peter was wiping his soilclogged boots on the door mat.
“What do you think, Jill,” he called, “those Warren ‘boys have had a male chaffinch penned up for three days and his mate is in a terrible dither, flying against the cage which is out on their lawn.”
“The horrid little creatures!” cried Jill indignantly, “it's probably one of those poor chaffinches we've been feeding. Bryan, ask Billy Warren to come in and see me, I'll talk to him.”
Within a few minutes, the chief culprit of the bird trappers arrived, a thatch of sandy-red hair framing his round freckled face.
“‘Morning, Mrs. Weston,” he greeted Jill, grinning rather sheepishly, “did you want me?”
Jill eyed him gravely. “Is it true Billy,” she began, “that you have a poor chaffinch penned up in a cage, while his little mate is nearly fretting herself to death over him?”
Billy looked abashed. “Why,” he replied quickly, “we've been all the winter and spring trying to catch a chaffinch, and this is the only catch of the whole school. They're worth a lot of money, too,” he added importantly.
Jill decided to sound the sentimental side of Billy's nature, for those blue eyes were not devoid of kindness.
“Surely Billy, you wouldn't deprive a poor chaffinch of his mate just before Christmas, would you?” she appealed, a note of pathos creeping into her voice.
But Billy was not to be won over by mere feminine whims.
“I can't help that,” he replied shrugging his shoulders. “If he'd been quicker he wouldn't have been caught, it's his own fault really.”
“What do you intend to do with him?” demanded Jill, a trifle crestfallen that her best trump card had been a failure.
“I'll sell him to Mick Morgan. He pays the best prices for good birds, in the school and he'll give me half a crown for this one.” Billy's face flushed with pride.
“Wouldn't you let this one free just to please me and for the sake of his poor little mate?” coaxed Jill.
“I'll let a green linnet free for you,” compromised Billy ruefully, “but oh, I couldn't lose the chaffinch, I should never catch another.”
Peter, who had been planting verbena amongst the marigolds in the rockery, pricked up his ears.
“Here, you young mischief, will you sell me that bird for half a crown?” he boomed.
“Sure, I will,” replied Billy, fairly bubbling over with enthusiasm. “You can have him right now if you like.”
Peter fished eagerly in his pockets, but strangely no money seemed to be forthcoming.
Suddenly he looked up in dismay and embarrassment.
“Great Scott!” he blushed, “I remember now, I paid in that half-crown yesterday to have my boots fixed, and it has left me without a feather to fly with. Sorry, old man.”
Jill did not hesitate. She went to her little tin box in the bedroom and drew from it a precious, shining halfcrown
Her eyes were a little misty as she handed Billy the half-crown, but she was happy in doing so, for to Jill's sweet nature, she could never have forgiven herself if she had refused to liberate a poor wild creature when it was in her power.
She felt Peter's strong, brown arms around her, and he was kissing her fondly. “Dearest, I could kick myself for being such a chump. If only I had remembered, I wouldn't have dreamt of making a bargain with that young Shylock, for I know how difficult it is for you to keep even a half-crown for yourself.”
“We'll never miss it, when we think of the joy it will give those poor birds, honey,” replied Jill fastening a flower in his coat.
When the warm, fluttering little life had been pressed into her hand, Jill felt wonderfully happy. There was something so appealing and pathetic about those terrified Jittle eyes that gazed into hers. It made Jill wonder how anyone in the world could dream of hurting anything so beautiful as a bird.
She opened her hand and set it free, watching its joyous flight down into the pine trees fringing the sea.
Light-heartedly they went into dinner.
It was quite evident now that Jill's trip into the city would have to be postponed, for, sadly, fifteen shillings is quite inadequate when the gift contemplated is seventeen and six.
It would mean putting it off for a few days, and Jill sat down to do some more sewing.
She had been puzzling out rather a tricky pattern for a georgette frock, when the door bell rang loudly, causing her to jump and prick her finger. Throwing off her apron, she hastened to the door, blessing a probable hawker for disturbing her work.
Jill found herself confronted by a dark, youngish-looking man with a pleasant face.
“Mrs. Weston,” he began immediately, “my small son has just confessed to transacting a bargain with you, and I was amazed to learn that you had paid him half a crown to set a chaffinch free. I have just returned from the Dunedin branch of our firm and I had no idea the young rascals were penning wild birds to sell them. I must insist that you accept your half-crown back again, and I shall give those boys a good talking to. By the way, if Mr. Weston isn't too busy, I wonder if he would spare me a few minutes?”
No one was more surprised and pleased than Jill, as she went off to summon Peter, the shining half-crown miraculously back in her hand again. Thank goodness she would be able to buy Peter's present before Christmas Eve after all.
Resuming her sewing, she reflected that probably Mr. Warren sought Peter's advice about his Virginian Stock, for no one else in the street could grow stock quite as well as Peter could.
Just then there was a knock at the back door and Jill sighed as she laid down her sewing as it seemed for the fortieth time.
“Lady, would you like a fine turkey for Christmas?” coaxed a small urchin. “I'm taking orders for Sunnyhill Farm, and you won't get ‘em fresher or cheaper anywhere in town.”
Turkey! Jill smiled. Why the last time she had tasted turkey was on their honeymoon, Christmas, six years ago. Peter had had a good post then and it had been a glorious Christmas—just the two of them together in Rotorua, but now it would have to be a sirloin of beef; turkey was a past dream.
At Jill's rather sorrowful shake of her head, the lad pulled out of his pocket a number of squares cut from an empty biscuit carton. Handing her one, he said, “Well, lady, in case you change your mind, here's my card, and if you ring the farm, don't forget to say that Dick Plimmer asked you to buy a turkey. I get ninepence for each one I sell. You see, I'm saving up to buy Mum a Christmas present, and I want to buy a bike for myself some day.”
Jill glanced at the card and smiled. This was certainly a most enterprising young gentleman to present his prospective customers with hand-printed cards, made from biscuit cartons.
She slipped it beneath the clock on the kitchen mantlepiece, and began meditating on the wonderful Christmases of the past, when they had given open-handedly, and the table had fairly groaned with delectable Christmas fare. There had always been a fine, fat turkey, garlanded with crisp, brown sausages, and rich, fruity plum puddings with brandy sauce. If only she had been able to give Dick Plimmer an order for turkey to make it seem really like Christmas! Ah, but it was of no use wishing, times were so very different now.
Peter and Mr. Warren were still talking in the sitting-room, so Jill decided to pop the kettle on and make them a cup of tea.
Just then she heard the front door click, and to her amazement, Peter came charging out to her like an excited young buffalo.
“Jill dearest, put that rotten sewing away and hear something too good to be true,” he cried triumphantly.
“I've found a job at last, Jill, and one that'll suit me down to the ground. You see, darling, Mr. Warren met Billy padding up the path, and demanded to know how he had acquired the half-crown. On learning the story and knowing that I was out of work, he immediately rang a friend who has a large bird and dog shop here, and recommended me for the position which has just fallen vacant. Mr. Rogers replied that on his friend's recommendation, I could start immediately if I cared to accept the position. You see what my kind, self-sacrificing little wife has done for me!”
“Oh Peter, it's marvellous I” exclaimed Jill as she threw her arms about his neck in an ecstasy of happiness. “Daring, I never thought that poor chaffinch would send us our feather to fly with.”
Then instantly Jill went to the clock and drew from beneath it a quaint-looking card which she handed to her husband.
“Peter darling,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “this is to be a very special celebration, so I want you to ring Dickie Plimmer at Sunnyhill Farm and tell him we'll be ordering a fine, fat turkey for Christmas dinner.”
The “Wairarapa Age” states that in a forceful and interesting address at a meeting convened by the Masterton Chamber of Commerce, Mr. G. H. Mackley, General Manager of Railways, observed that they must concede from the point of view of efficiency and in the national interest, the railway case was unanswerable.
Mr. Mackley said that in his dealings with prominent business men throughout the country who handled important transactions, he had been impressed by their appreciation of the problems confronting the executive officers of the Railways Board. It was certainly an encouragement to the administration to know that its efforts to render the best possible service were interesting the commercial community. Contacts with business leaders were both necessary and desirable and such meetings invariably resulted in good. The Department was vigorously attacking the difficult task of coping with the transportation needs of the Dominion. The railways had played an important part in the progressive development of transportation facilities and, he said, the rapid growth of New Zealand's industries was directly the result of railway expansion.
Continuing, Mr. Mackley said that the railways were not an obsolete form of transport as was so frequently suggested. Road and air transport had not supplanted the railways as the latter had superseded the canal and coach. The new forms of transport were restricted in their scope, though it would be admitted that they possessed some differential advantages. The railway, however, must remain for many years to come the backbone of the transportation service. Throughout the world railways were playing as important a part as they had ever done in the destiny of countries, and he felt they would continue to do so. There was a revolutionary development in railway equipment all over the world, and in New Zealand the introduction of the rail car was an effective answer to all criticism. Mr. Mackley went on to quote statistics in support of his claim that the railways were a vital part of the Dominion's economic and social life. If the railways were a back number would it be likely, he asked, that the Home Government would guarantee £25,000,000 in loans to finance the principal railways’ programmes? In New Zealand they had anticipated similar developments to those in England, and their programme along the same general lines was well forward. Renewals, replacements and new works provided for in the 1935–36 programme would cost £1,460,913, while a further expenditure of £42,353 was contained in a supplementary programme to be carried out with the assistance of the Unemployment Board. Consideration had already been given to the 1936–37 programme in which provision would be made for an expenditure of £1,665,-659. He quoted those figures to indicate the stupendous expenditure necessary to maintain the railways in a reasonable state of efficiency.
The equipment, passenger and goods, that was provided by the Department, Mr. Mackley observed, was equal in quality to anything produced by a railway concern anywhere in the world. After stating that the railways were still vitally essential as an agency of transportation, Mr. Mackley said:
Coaling a “K” Iocomotive.
“Rightly or wrongly, we have a huge capital equipment invested in our railways, and it is idle to suggest that it should not be used to its full capacity. The extent to which we do so is the real test of its social effectiveness.”
Notwithstanding extensive competition, Mr. Mackley added, the railways were steadily gaining ground, but the ratio of gross ton miles to net ton miles could be improved considerably. That meant that better loading per wagon could be obtained. “We believe,” he declared, “that we can give you a service that, taking due consideration of all factors, is as economic as any other form of transport can offer you. If you, and all the primary producers, gave us the whole of your business, our contribution to the Consolidated Fund would be such that the Government would be enabled to reduce some of the taxation you are now subjected to. It would also enable the railways to lower its rates.” (Applause.)
Mr. H. Valentine, Chief Accountant, gave a very comprehensive analysis of the incidence of railway rating which fully bore out the General Manager's statements on the financial aspects of the competitive problem.
Hongi Hika.
(From a drawing by Major-General Robley, after the painting of Hongi and Waikato in England, 1820). (Drawing Protected by Copyright.)
The most commanding figures in North New Zealand during the first half of the nineteenth century, and the men who had the greatest share in the shaping of history there, were the Ngapuhi chiefs, Hongi Hika, his nephew Hone Heke, and their kinsman, Tamati Waka Nene. Their history and doings have often been related. In this character sketch the careers of the chiefs are not entered into at length, but they are revealed in a somewhat different light from that in which New Zealand writers have been accustomed to view them. I have often discussed the actions and motives of the leaders with elders of the Northern tribes, including several of the veterans who fought in Heke's war of 1845-46. Several of Hongi's warriors survived to a great age; and on the Little Barrier Island, in 1895, one of the last of them gave me a stirring narrative of his war-canoe expeditions under the famous conqueror in his youth.
There were three native New Zealanders who, in my view, stand in history as the strongest types of Maori character, in their several ways. One is Hongi Hika, the others are the great patriot Wiremu Tamehana te Waharoa, the King-maker, and Te Whiti, the peace-loving preacher, who was the temporal and spiritual head of the Taranaki tribes after the wars. (I am tempted to add Te Kooti to the list, but his acts and methods place him in a somewhat different category, to be considered later perhaps.)
For the present, Hongi. The great war-chieftain of the north, whose name spread such terror in the cannibal raids, and whose muskets made his armies invincible, has been denounced as a horrible cannibal who ever thirsted for blood and whose reign of terror spread devastation and slaughter everywhere. Those who have written and spoken about Hongi—and in this amazing age of talk-by-machinery much is talked of the country's early history—have laid undue emphasis on the savagery of the man. That cannibalism, that slave-making, however, were but the ancient customary accompaniments of Maori-Polynesian warfare. There were cannibals by choice and craving, as in other primitive races; but the kai-tangata habit in New Zealand was in the main a ceremonial practice, reserved for the war-path and the aftermath, the warriors’ “bringing home the sheaves.”
At close quarters, the heroic missionaries, newly-come from England, were horrified by such deeds of slaughter and cannibalism as they witnessed at the Bay of Islands and their other stations. Had they lived to these days they might have admitted that there are many worse things in our supercivilised world than ever there were in wild Maori Land. The Maori did not torture his prisoners, except in rare cases; he did not condemn his enemy to a living death in prison.
Revenge was Hongi's ruling passion in the last decade of his life, and in fulfilment of that passion he was capable of extraordinary enterprise in attaining his desire. Yet in that he differed in no way, primitive man as he was, from some great European rulers of to-day. They plan and carry out vengeance and invasions on a vastly more dreadful scale than the petty wars of cannibal chieftains. By comparison with a Napoleon or a Mussolini, Hongi was as a “cockabully” to a shark, writing in a military sense, of course. Nevertheless, he was a ruthless Attila to the tribes who were less well armed than his Ngapuhi musketeers.
The story of Hongi's voyage to England and his return with munitions of war (most of which he acquired in Sydney, or Port Jackson as it was then called) reveals him as a truly great man. His was the long vision; he had the brains, the indomitable resolution and the enterprise to plan a great armament programme in order to make his people invincible and execute his accumulated utu schemes. He seized joyfully the opportunity of accompanying the Rev. Thomas Kendall to England under the mana of the Church Mission Society. Hongi had been from the first a friend of the white traders and ship captains and missionaries; he saw shrewdly that he had everything to gain by peaceful association with the pakeha. He saved the Bay of Islands mission establishments from molestation. Some of the mission people bemoaned his obdurate paganism, and his cannibal expeditions; they were apt to forget that but for protection by himself and his chiefs the Christian propagandists would have encountered severe critics, their chief argument the tomahawk. And the Church proved extremely useful to him.
In England, with his near relative, the chief Waikato, he learned English manners, wore English clothes, assumed a surface piety—this greatly pleased the mission folk. He had entry to the homes of the great; he met Royalty, he was an honoured guest everywhere as King of New Zealand. Mr. Kendall was an excellent press agent and business manager; but the good man (he fell from grace later on in New Zealand) did not altogether realise then how shrewdly Hongi Hika was making use of him and his Society.
The pair of tattooed New Zealand-ers, wearing for the occasion their finest native garments, were presented to King George IV, with whom they shook hands.
“How do you do, Mr. King George?” said Hongi, as he bowed to the King.
(From a watercolour drawing by Sergeant J. Williams, 58th Regiment).
“How do you do, Mr. King Hongi?” was the good-natured monarch's reply.
The King gave the chiefs courtesy titles. Waikato was styled “Prince Waikato.” Hongi and he were each given, among other presents, gold-mounted double-barrel flintlock guns on which their names were engraved. These weapons, the best makes procurable at that time, were particularly acceptable to King Hongi and Prince Waikato. They soon came in useful in battle.
The interview with Royalty did not tend to promote humility in the two chiefs. It is related in the just-published reminiscences of the celebrated Danish trader Hans Tapsell, of Maketu* that Waikato and his brother Wharepoaka made much of the honour they achieved. Their sister was Tapsell's second wife. Waikato would say to Tapsell, “Who are you? I have shaken hands with the King and you would not be allowed even to see him.”
A picture of the two chiefs, with their missionary friend, Mr. Kendall, was painted while they were in England. This painting became the property of the Church Mission Society. It was presented to the New Zealand Government about twenty years ago, and it has been in the care of the Tourist Department ever since. When the new National Museum and Art Gallery in Wellington is ready, the historic picture will be hung there. The late Major-General Gordon Robley, from whose pencil and pen came many valuable sketches of Maori life, and especially of moko or tattooing, in 1864-65, made a black-and-white drawing of Hongi, from this painting, and he sent me the drawing, here reproduced.
The narrative of Hongi's accumulation of English gifts, most of which he exchanged at Sydney for muskets and gunpowder and lead, is a familiar story; so too is the record of his many great expeditions in the early Twenties of last century in pursuance of his methodical programme of wiping out one enemy after another. In the North country long ago I saw some of the last of his warriors, tottering relics with deeply moko-chiselled and pigmented faces, who spoke of events that seemed very ancient history indeed. A still vigorous specimen of the cannibal canoe-men was a quite wonderful old fellow I met on Hauturu, the Little Barrier Island, just forty years ago; the Government had purchased the island for a native bird sanctuary—a compulsory purchase, in which poor old Paratene te Manu had very little share except to make his X on the dotted line. Hongi's white-haired veteran—he was of the Ngati-Wai section of Ngapuhi—was about to be evicted with others of his hapu who disputed the Government purchase, and he raised a lament for the island of his birth.
A present of tobacco gained his confidence for a talk; and he gave me a seriatim account of his musket-and-tomahawk adventures. He ticked them off on his fingers, eight expeditions in all, first under the great Hongi himself, then under his lieutenant, Te Wera. It was curious indeed, to talk with a man who had helped to invade and conquer the Tamaki towns on the present site of Auckland City, and eat the inhabitants, more than seventy years before. I asked him his age in years; he replied “Kotahi rau” (“One hundred”), like many another ancient of the race. My computation, from the known dates of various expeditions in which he served, was ninety at least.
Leaving that memory of the tattooed old soldier of the “A Trader in Cannibal Land: The Adventures of Captain Tapsell,” by James Cowan. (A. H. Reed & A. W. Reed, Dunedin and Wellington.)kai-tangata conqueror slowly hoeing his potato-patch under the trees where the bellbirds chimed and the tui fluted—a memory I rather like to linger on—I return to Hongi for a moment. This thought occurs: What attitude would Hongi have taken had he survived until the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi? I am strongly disposed to believe that, in spite of all the one-time close association of Hongi with the pakeha race, he would have opposed the signing of the Treaty,
Hone Heke, of Kaikohe and the Bay of Islands, had been reared in the cannibal warfare school, before he became for a time a “mission boy,” amiably rounding off in the establishment of the Rev. Henry Williams at Paihia the varied and turbulent experience gained on the warpath and in the war-canoe flotillas and among the rough whaleship crews in Kororareka bay. His portrait is in some degree an index to his character. The picture of him illustrating this article is from a pencil drawing which I possess, excellently sharp after nearly eighty years. It was drawn at the Bay of Islands by J. Gilfillan, of Wanganui—the Gilfillan of the tragic Mataraua affair in 1847. The date is uncertain, but it was probably 1846. His nose though not the predatory ihu-kaka (“parrot-beak”) the strong hook-nose that distinguished some great Maori leaders, was prominent and well-shaped; the prominent jaws and chin denoted firmness and resolution. He was tattooed but not with the full design of moko, such as that engraved deeply on the face of his great kinsman and antagonist, Tamati Waka Nene. His character was a blend of ambition, strong patriotism that became a fervid passion, a considerable degree of vanity and bravado, and a shrewdness quickened by his partial civilisation. Like his uncle, Hongi (who was also the father of his wife, Hariata) he had high regard for the missionaries; and commercial considerations actuated his friendly feeling for the traders and the ship captains. But, like Hongi again, he dreaded the military power of the pakeha, of which he had heard much and which he was to encounter in a few years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. His vision was keen; he was not long in realising that the immigration of the strong English race would in time submerge the Maori.
He signed the Treaty, but his dissatisfaction when British authority became effective soon after 1840 is not to be wondered at. It struck at his pocket—or his substitute for a pocket—for it deprived him of most of his accustomed revenue from the visiting ships. Before the British flag was hoisted he and his cousin, Titore (whose pa was on a hill just in rear of the present town of Russell) divided a levy of £5 on each ship, a kind of Maori port fee. They collected their dues from the whaleships and other vessels outside the anchorage, boarding them in their canoes before Tapeka Point was rounded. Then there was Pomare, whose pa was on Otuihu, that beautiful place where great pohutukawa trees adorn the cliffs and shore, in the inner waters between Kororareka and Opua. Pomare collected the toll from ships using Wahapu Bay and the inner waters. The Customs duties, and the introduction of British maritime control, spoiled all that trade for the chiefs; it moreover made every pakeha commodity, especially tobacco, more expensive.
Hone Heke. (From a drawing by J. A. Gilfillan, at the Bay of Islands). (Protected by Copyright.)
A variety of real and imaginary grievances, gradually simmering and at last boiling over, set Heke on the warpath and made the British flag on the Maiki signal-mast the special object of his hate. The story of all this is well-known; but what is not widely known is the fact that the chanting of a song was the culminating incident that set Hone Heke mustering his followers for battle. Maketu, the first Maori hanged by process of law in New Zealand was the son of the old chief Ruhe. The father acknowledged the justice of the death sentence (for the murder of the Robertson family on Motu - arohia Island), but the ignominious manner of death shocked the people, and the old man grieved over it continually. At last, in 1844, he went to Hone Heke at Kaikohe and chanted to him a lament for his son, beginning with these words:
“Kaore te aroha mohukihuki ana, Te panga mai ki ahau, me he ahi e tahu.”
(“Alas, this all-devouring grief, That burns within me like a flame.”)
This was an adaptation of an ancient poem in which a great warrior was called upon to avenge the death of a kinsman. Ruhe's chant aroused the intense sympathy of Heke and his Ngati-Hine and many other clans of Ngapuhi; it was probably the clinching element in the general feeling of rebellion against British authority, symbolised by the flag and the mast on which it flew on Maiki Hill.
Heke's war was waged in a knightly fashion strange to remember in these unchivalrous days. When the troops marched inland against him in 1845, he regarded them in a semi-friendly way, not at all the manner of a professional soldier. He laid no ambuscades; he cut no communications; he waylaid no supply convoys. Some of his young men even took pity on the soldiers and gave them assistance in the bush. He did not interfere with non-combatants; in fact, he made the war something like a chivalrous tournament. The heavily-equipped soldiers were helpless in the bush; they could all have been cut off and destroyed had the Maoris been so inclined. There was no fighting at night. Civilised nations have changed all that!
Heke is the popular hero of the North even to-day. He was the hero of most of the Maori tribes when the news of the war went forth. Mention of Heke brings tears of affection to many Ngapuhi eyes to-day. And so with his lamented grand-nephew, the late Hone Heke, for many years M.P. for the Northern Maori district. He was adored by his people of Kaikohe and other centres of the old tradition.
Writers and orators have praised Tamati Waka Nene as the benevolent friend of the British and the chief agent in persuading the Maoris to assent to the Treaty by which these islands became a British land. Naval and military officers found him a sage warrior who, out of the wealth of his campaigning experiences could offer
hapus influenced by him thrown their weight on the side of Heke, the Northern War would have been prolonged greatly. He was a more shrewd and calculating soldier than the impulsive Heke. A British tribute to his merits described him as an able field - officer. Ever since he first made contact with pakeha ship captains and traders he had acted on the conviction that it was wise policy to keep on good terms with the whites.
Tamati Waka Nene. From a photograph, probably about 1860 (in the collection of Mr. H. E. Flides, Wellington).
There were other considerations which prompted his support of the British forces when the war began. Although Heke was his relative, a kind of junior Highland cousin, there was an utu account to balance. In the cannibal warfare era Hongi Hika, Heke's uncle, had killed Te Tihi at Hokianga, and swallowed his eyes, and Te Tihi was a matua (elder relative) of Nene. So, besides helping the pakeha, Nene, by taking the field with several hundreds of men against Heke and other former followers of Hongi, was working off an old score of his own.
Nene was regarded by the greater number of the Ngapuhi nation as a renegade, a foe to his own people. He left them and went to live among the whites at Russell, and died there. He never was so popular among his fellow-countrymen as Heke was, although his wisdom and ability were acknowledged by all. That Maori estimate of Nene remains to this day. Our orators who have so eulogised the friend of the English do not understand the Maori point of view.
Heke was and is the darling of the North. He was the Maori “bonnie Prince Charlie.” A Jacobite-like sentiment persists; everyone admires a gallant rebel, especially if he loses the day. Heke's dash and daring captured the Maori heart as the sage advice and diplomatic wisdom of Nene never could.
“No; chewing is not a refined habit,” said the wholesaler to the reporter, with a laugh, “but it's going out. Most everybody smokes now. Where does all the tobacco come from? Why, chiefly from America, of course. But other countries contribute, and it's astonishing what a lot of toasted New Zealand tobacco goes up in smoke! The true toasted of course, I mean. The manufacturers turn it out by the ton, and the bigger the output the greater the demand seemingly. Why so popular? Well, to begin with the quality's O.K. There's nothing like it! Secondly, the toasting purifies—eliminates the nicotine, and makes these blends perfectly safe to smoke. You can't overdo it with the genuine toasted—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold. How is the toasting done? Sorry, but I can't tell you. That's the manufacturer's secret. But I've seen the process at the factory. Wonderfully ingenious!” The scribe, well satisfied with his “story,” shut up his note-book and vanished.*
Oneroa Bay (near Kororareka, Bay of Islands).
Hone Heke's war-party landed in this bay, in rear of Kororareka, on the night of March 10, 1845, and captured the British flagstaff and blockhouse early next morning.
* * *
* * *
There is a window watching where the sun, Rests on its leap each morning as it wakes
Egmont's proud peak from blue to burnished gold, And speeds the dark chariots of the night
O'er grass where gleams the dew, as spears coldly bright.
Barring his march black cloud against the light, Then brown leaves in the hazel copse ashake, Sighing to Death the down wind eddies take; The mist comes whirling from the stream in spate, And its dull roar the jarring note of Fate
Paints to fancy a fresh and piquant face
With golden curls agleam o'er snowy lace.
' ' The House is ruined and its years are old, Yet still one pane tight shut against the cold
Catches the sun and coffers its dull mold
A moment: the dream as those days ended
Fades sun, glass, gleam, her bright spirit tended.
—
* * *
The sun was still very hot although the shadows were lengthening, as Santa Claus came into view of the long white road which runs across Cabbage Tree Flat. His disguise was perfect, for, so far from being a rotund old gentleman in a red flannel suit, he was lean and spare, dressed in shabby clothes, and, in place of the traditional sack of Christmas presents carried a rolled up swag and billy. Indeed there was little about him by which he might have been recognised, unless it were his eyes. Quick, merry eyes of the brightest blue and full of the old spirit of peace and goodwill.
The first object that attracted his attention as he halted at the bend in the road was the mailman's buggy standing in the shade of a mighty puriri tree, the horses idly whisking their tails and the mailman's dog asleep beneath the back axle. Of the mailman himself there was no sign.
Santa Claus hitched up his swag and strode over to investigate. The dog, a fine Irish setter woke up, and seeing who it was (animals and birds it seems, are always much quicker than human beings to recognise the Saint) did not bark, but wagged his tail and ran off round the tree with that, “Come with me—and I'll show you what's up,” air that dogs are so well able to express. Santa Claus followed him, and there, at full stretch with his mouth wide open and snoring like a blacksmith's bellows, lay the mailman.
Santa Claus pushed back his weatherbeaten hat and laughed, and bending down shook the mailman by the shoulder. But the dog barked impatiently as though to say: “Sure, it's not a bit of use doing that—for we dined at O'Reilly's this day and O'Reilly, he opened up a bottle of parsnip wine, and then bedad, he opened another and two more, so he did. An’ the pair of them they forgot it was Christmas Eve and himself with a big load of mail to deliver, and they began running races and wrasslin', and jumpin’ over the clothes line, until they wore themselves out entirely!”
Santa Claus rolled himself a cigarette and looked thoughtful.
“I think it would be best if you stayed here and looked after your boss, old man,” he said at length. “I'll go on and deliver the mail and pick you up here this evening. We can't let people go without their mail on Christmas Eve.”
So the setter lay down beside his master while Santa Claus climbed into the buggy, chirruped to the horses, and drove off down the dusty road.
Cabbage Tree Flat is a fertile valley given over chiefly to dairying. The houses are, for the most part, well back from the road, and at the main gate of each, farm is the usual creamstand and mail box, the latter consisting of anything from an old soap-box to a proper galvanised iron affair furnished with a flag and name plate.
At the first gate Santa Claus had put letters in the box and deposited one or two parcels on the cream stand. He was about to start his team again when he heard someone shouting “Hoy!” and saw a stout little man running along the fence line waving a hoe.
He waited and the little man presently came alongside.
“Hey, Joe,” he puffed, “why didn't you blow your whistle?”
“Hullo,” he added, staring at Santa Claus, “you're new aren't you, where's Joe?”
“I'm relieving him,” said Santa Claus, “I never thought about whistling.”
“If you're anything like as dry as I am,” said the little man with a grin, “you couldn't whistle. What about coming up for a cup of tea?” he added. “We've got some letters we want posted.”
“Why, thank'ee,” said Santa Claus.
“Hop up, and I'll turn the horses and drive up to the house.”
“Stranger to these parts, eh?” remarked the little man, as, a few minutes later, they swayed and jolted over the rough track, “what might your name be?”
“Santer,” said Santa Claus, thinking a moment, “Tom Santer.”
The little man looked at him and then burst out laughing.
“Ho!” he cried, “Santer, and you come on Christmas Eve! Don't you let the kids know what your name is Mister, or they'll turn this outfit inside out looking for Christmas presents!”
Santa Claus smiled and said he wouldn't.
“Not but what,” the little man continued, “it wouldn't be a good lurk if you really were Santa. You could do a lot of good round about here.”
“Could I,” said Santa Claus, “what way?”
“Well you could send me three days’ solid rain for a start,” grinned the little man. “You see,” he added confidentially, “I'm in a bad place here, not that the land isn't good—it is—but there's no running water to speak of and it won't stand a drought. I depend on a dam for all the water I get—and after a month like we've had —” he shrugged his shoulders. “You know how it is—cows get bogged, and the pump gets blocked, and one thing and another.
“I've been wanting to put an artesian down for the past two years, but that costs money—and I can't get any money out of the firm while I've got these pests—” He waved his hand toward a big patch of Californian thistle. “The greenest thing on the place,” he added. “Every time the
Santa Claus became thoughtful as he drove back to the road after his cup of tea with the Beans. They were nice people, and he felt he would like to do something for them. “After all,” he said to himself, “I don't suppose I shall be coming this way again for many a long day.”
Accordingly, as he stopped his horses at the gate, he felt about in his pockets until he found a stump of pencil and an old envelope. He drew a line down the centre of the envelope and on one side of it wrote “Mr. Bean,” and the other “three days’ rain.”
“That ought to cheer him up a bit,” he smiled, folding the paper and tucking it into the top pocket of his waistcoat.
About a mile further on he came upon a man grubbing gorse in the drain at the roadside. A sour-looking man he was, who gave a surly answer when Santa Claus bid him “good day.”
“What's so good about it?” he growled. “It's alright for you I daresay, sitting up there with nothing to do but hold the reins. You want to have a go at this flaming stuff!”
Santa Claus laughed and swung his legs over the side rail.
“Have a smoke,” he said, tossing down his tobacco and papers, and the man's face lightened somewhat.
“Ah!” he said inhaling gratefully, “that's good, that is—I lost me blanky pipe—it's bad enough having to grub gorse at all—but having no smoke as well—a man might as well be in gaol!”
“Do you have to grub gorse on Christmas Eve?” asked Santa Claus.
“Yes, and on Christmas Day, too, for all that flamin’ Noxious Weed Inspector cares. What d'ye make of a bloke that gives you twenty-eight days to clear a growth like that in? ‘Get it cut before the fifteenth of January, Mr. Dean,’ ‘e says, ‘or I'll have to send you a summons'.” The man passed up the tobacco tin, but Santa Claus shook his head.
“No, keep it,” he said, “it'll keep you going till you can get a new pipe.”
“Well,” said the man, “that's nice of you, that is.” Here he climbed up out of the drain, “Drive along to where me tucker bag is—I've got a bottle of cold tea. I'd ask you to come over to the house, but,” apologetically, “I expect the Missus is in trouble with the stove again. You see,“—they had arrived at the tucker-bag by now, and the man sat down on the edge of the drain and extracted some sandwiches, and the promised bottle of tea—“when they put the power lines across the hills at the back here, the Missus took a fancy to have one of them electric stoves. ‘No chopping kindling, or carting wood in the summer,’ she says, ‘all we do when we want a cup of tea or a four-course dinner is press a button!'
“So out goes the old range and I go to town and buy a secondhand electric stove from a bloke that must have been a great, grandnephew of Ned Kelly's—for from that day to this we never know whether the roast's goin’ to be raw or burnt to a cinder, or whether we'll get a cup of tea or a duck's breakfast!”
“That's too bad,” said Santa Claus.
“It is that,” sighed the man, “but it's just about on a par with things in general. I haven't been too good lately and it seems to have affected everything. The cows are going off already, the turnip seed was crook and didn't take properly, and then this gorse. It only needed that Inspector to come along to put the stopper on things, didn't it?”
Santa Claus nodded. “Suppose,” he said after a moment, “that a fellow came along and said ‘I'm Santa Claus —you can have one wish and I'll grant it, what would you say?”
“Well,” the man laughed, “seeing as I'd probably be stuck into that gorse—I'd say, ‘put the makuta on this stuff, Santa, and it'll be the best day's work you ever did!”
Santa Claus rose, “I must be going,” he said, “I'll leave your mail at the box—Mr. Dean, isn't it?”
“Good oh!” answered the man, “and thanks for the tobacco.”
“You're welcome,” said Santa Claus, “merry Christmas.”
He drove on, and presently crossed a bridge spanning a creek. On the further side stood a little white cottage which, together with its bright flower beds, made a pretty picture against a dark background of macrocarpa. There was native bush here, too, and the tinkling of bell birds. The air was full of the drowsy hum of bees.
A girl in a crisp blue dress stepped from the verandah and Santa Claus felt that it needed only her presence to complete the air of romance that pervaded the place. Trim and dainty, she nevertheless trod the path with a firm step; there was strength and vigour in her carriage, as well as beauty.
Santa Claus glanced at the name painted upon the mail box and began to search through his mail. Twice and a third time he looked, but on no letter or package could he find the name of “Miss Green.”
“I'm sorry,” he said, “there is nothing for you.”
She laughed shortly, and Santa Claus noticed that for all her grace and beauty her eyes were unhappy. Something deeper than mere disappointment, something to which perhaps even she would find it difficult to put a name lurked in their hazel depths.
“Well,” he said, somewhat abashed, “a merry Christmas to you.”
But as he moved away and watched from the tail of his eye the listless walk of her as she returned to the cottage, he felt that it was a rather vain wish.
The road now began to rise slightly, and lose some of its straightness, winding in and out among low hills. Santa Claus pulled out his envelope and pencil stump, and added to the name of Mr. Bean, that of Mr. Dean, and opposite it, “remove noxious weeds.” Then he wrote tentatively, Miss Green—but here he paused—she had made no request and he found it difficult to solve the problem in her eyes. A problem more vital than the worldly wants of the others.
He was roused from his reverie by the sound of hoof beats, and looking up saw a young man on a thoroughbred mare cantering across the paddock on his right hand.
Straight he came towards a five-foot gate and sweeping off his hat slapped it against the flank of his mount. Turf flew and sunlight flashed on stirrup irons as the mare rose to the jump.
“Hullo there,” cried the young man, as he reined alongside the buggy, “lucky I saw you—I was on my way to the back of the place. You're so late I thought I must have missed you. Any mail for me?” he added, “my name's Jack Keene.”
Santa Claus handed him several letters and the young man examined them as he rode beside the buggy.
“I've got a parcel for you to deliver,” he said thrusting the letters into the pocket of his riding breeches. “I can't deliver it myself because”—he smoothed a brown hand over the pommel of his saddle—“because—well—I haven't got time.”
A bend in the road brought them to a house, rambling and unkempt looking, with long grass growing up to the verandah steps.
“Here we are,” said the young man swinging from his saddle, “now just a minute and I'll get you the parcel.”
In a moment he reappeared in the doorway of the house—a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. “Come and have a spot,” he called.
Santa Claus grinned, and presently found himself in a room that was genial in its disarray. There were guns and fishing rods upon the walls and in the centre of the worn carpet stood a table littered with books and pipes and loose cartridges. In the wide fireplace were ashes many weeks dead.
“Bachelor quarters,” said the young man with a laugh, “help yourself.”
“All I want you to do,” he continued when Santa Claus had tasted his whisky, “is to call at Miss Green's place and leave this in her mail box,” he lifted a small package from the table, “will you do that?”
Santa Claus nodded, “Gladly,” he replied, “but would it not be better if you took it down yourself?”
“No,” said the young man decidedly, “no, it would not.” And thereafter he fell into a moody silence.
Shortly afterwards Santa Claus took his leave, and from the bend in the road looked back. The young man was standing at the doorway of his ramshackle home, a lonely figure who raised a hand in farewell as the last rays of the sun faded beyond the hills.
The mailman's team was headed for home now and stepped out smartly in the cool of the evening. With his free hand Santa Claus drew the envelope from his pocket and regarded it long and thoughtfully.
Then, perhaps because of the song of crickets in the roadside grass, perhaps because the scent of new mown hay and the lights that were beginning to shine from the houses down the valley roused in him feelings that were more human than saintly, he took an unpardonable liberty, and wrote in the space opposite Miss Green's name, “Jack Keene!”
Very much later that evening Santa Claus was giving his final instructions for the great day which would presently begin. Entrenched behind a desk in the office of a city warehouse, he now appeared as a forceful business man coping with the last minutes of a Christmas rush.
At his side was seated a blonde secretary, and in response to his commands a constant stream of clerks and messengers hurried in and out of the office. At last, at five minutes to twelve, he stretched himself and the
W. W. Stewart Collection.)
In readiness for the day's run—“K” locomotives at the Auckland Locomotive Shed, North Island, New Zealand
“The success of Christmas Day is assured for another year,” said Santa Claus thankfully, “except for one thing.” He rose and crossed the room to a clothes closet, which, on being opened revealed a number of disguises, among them the shabby clothes he had worn at Cabbage Tree Flat.
He felt in the waistcoat pocket and frowned, he felt in the coat, the trousers, in all the pockets of the old suit, and his frown deepened to a look of dismay as he realised that his precious envelope had gone!
He returned hurriedly to the desk—time was getting short—a messenger must be dispatched before midnight if the people on Cabbage Tree Flat were not to be disappointed. He must make a new list from memory.
“Let me see”—he said, tapping his teeth with a gold pencil, “there were only three items. ‘Three days rain, removal of noxious weeds, and a young man.’ The names were,” he frowned in perplexity as the ridiculous similarity of the names was suddenly borne upon him.
“Green, Bean, Dean, Keene,” he muttered. “Absurd!” He hastily wrote a new list and summoning a messenger, dispatched him just as the clocks began to toll the hour of midnight.
“I'm almost sure,” he said to his secretary, “that I got them in the right order.”
The next morning in defiance of both the wireless forecast and the predictions of local weather prophets, rain fell in the high country at the back of Jack Keene's place. Good steady rain that soaked into the cracks of the parched hillsides and, towards evening, brought down a slip which effectually dammed the creek a mile or so above the spot where it crossed the road by Miss Green's cottage. Throughout the next forty-eight hours the water backed up behind this extempore dam, until, on the evening of the second day after Christmas it burst its way out.
Miss Green had gone to milk her solitary cow. To do so she had to cross the creek on a light plank bridge which had been constructed on that side of her cottage farthest from the road. Returning, she had but set foot upon the bridge, when she was startled to hear a rushing and a roaring as though a great wind lashed the trees in her patch of shelter bush. But there was no wind, instead there came foaming between and beyond the banks of the creek a yellow, crested wave.
Miss Green started to run, but before she was half way over, the wave struck and swirled with alarming force around her knees. She let go her milk pail and grasped the hand rail of the bridge. When the first rush of the flood was past she began to work her way gingerly forward. The water was rising and the frail bridge quivered. It lurched ominously and Miss Green leaped for the bank as the whole structure swung sideways. Her feet sank into loose earth thrown up by the broken sill, roots tore out as her hands grasped them, for an instant she struggled waist-deep and then the muddy water closed over her head.
Earlier that afternoon, Jack Keene, who made his money raising fat stock, and thus had not the ties of his dairy farming neighbours, returned from two days’ absence. He was surprised and not particularly gratified to find his place inundated, for there were cattle in the paddocks bordering the creek, and he made haste to change his clothes and ride over to see how they fared. He found them safe, but marooned on the farther side of a lagoon nearly a hundred feet broad.
Abruptly he turned his horse and cantered along the edge of this everwidening sheet of water until he arrived at the slip.
His first impulse was to return to the house for gelignite and fuse with which to weaken the obstruction, but on second thought realised that such a head of pent-up water suddenly released must cause damage to properties further down; especially Miss Green's ten acres which lay in an elbow with the creek on two sides of it. In imagination he saw the flood sweep down through the shelter bush, carrying away beehives and fowlhouses, and surging right into the cottage itself perhaps. In any case, there was danger of which the girl must be warned.
He arrived at the cottage five minutes after the plank bridge had collapsed and his horse's hoofs splashed soggily over ruined flower beds as he turned a corner of the cottage to view a scene of increasing desolation.
The beehives gone, the fowlhouses upended. He made a cup of his hands and hallooed, and was answered by a faint cry. The next instant horse and rider were plunging in the direction of a bedraggled figure that clung desperately to some overhanging willow branches.
“Please,” said Miss Green, some minutes later, when, aided by Jack Keene's gallant mare, they had emerged from the flood and found themselves, dripping but safe, in the cottage kitchen. “Put me down. You don't have to carry me all round the house you know.”
Her rescuer grinned. “Well,” he said, “I was just considering where to put you. You see you aren't fit to go in the sitting-room, you'll make the cushions all wet. If I leave you on the verandah you'll be in a draught, and the kitchen chairs are rather hard. It's quite a problem, isn't it?”
“I suppose,” said Miss Green, “that where I really want to sit doesn't matter?”
“As Miss Anne Green of the ruined bee farm—no. As the future Mrs. Jack Keene of Kotare Station—perhaps!”
“I don't like that ‘perhaps',” said Miss Green, “I warn you I am in the habit of having my own way.”
“My dear,” replied Jack boldly, “If it's your own way you're having, when you hold me as tightly round the neck as you are at this moment, I shall never have any objection to make!”
Early in the New Year, the neighbours of Cabbage Tree Flat were gathered at the home of the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Jack Keene. In a corner of the dining room Mr. Bean and Mr. Dean were weaving patterns in the air with their beer glasses as they slapped each other's backs in mutual congratulation.
“Harry,” said Mr. Bean, “this is a great occasion.”
“It is that,” agreed Mr. Dean.
“This morning,” said Mr. Bean, “I had a visit from the agent. I'm getting shaved to come up here, so I ask him to have a look round by himself. He's away for about half an hour and when he comes in he says, ‘I congratulate you, Mr. Bean.’ ‘What for?’ I ask. ‘Why,’ says he, looking surprised, ‘for getting rid of your noxious weeds—you must have worked like a galley slave!’ with that I look out of the window, and as true as I stand here, there's not a Californian thistle to be seen. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather, but of course I don't let on. ‘Oh that’ says I—‘well now, Mr. Sellers, what about putting down an artesian bore or two—you know you promised—‘Say no more, Mr. Bean,” he says, ‘I'll send out a diviner next week'.”
“Haw, haw, haw,” laughed Mr. Dean. “Well now, what d'ye think happened to me? You remember I bought Miss Green's electric stove at her clearing sale? Well it's a hummer! All we have to do now if we want a cup o’ tea or a four-course dinner, is press a button, and—give her her due, Charlie—the old Missus can cook if there's anything fit to cook with.”
“Ha, ha,” said Mr. Bean, “You'd look as if you'd been doing a bit of stoking lately, Harry.”
“I have that,” replied Mr. Dean, “d'ye know what's been wrong with me the last year, Charlie? Indigestion, all on account of that rotten old stove I bought in town.
“You know,” he added sagely, “things don't look the same to a man with indigestion, he can't work and he gets bad tempered. If he can't work, little things like a bit of gorse along his boundary get him down. If he's bad tempered he's no good with cows—I '”
IV.
In the vast city warehouse where Santa Claus carried on his business, the blonde secretary was doing a little tidying up. In the bottom of the clothes closet she came across a crumpled envelope, and straightening it out discovered it to be the missing list for Cabbage Tree Flat.
She studied it a moment, then tossed it into the waste paper basket.
“Well,” she said, “it doesn't look the same to me as the one he sent—but maybe it'll turn out alright!”
Courtesy, Great Western Railway.)
An antiquated method of filling the boilers without stopping the engine, before the introduction of the water-trough system.
The Island of Kawau lies in the Hauraki Gulf, about thirty miles from Auckland. Its rugged hills draw the attention of the voyager as the vessel turns in from the open sea.
Its history goes back beyond the first beginnings of Auckland. Before 1840 manganese was being mined there, and that led to the accidental finding of copper ore. From the time of the discovery, Kawau hummed with activity. Governor FitzRoy had made an extended grant of Kawau Island on account of the mining industry, but when Captain Grey arrived, he demanded restitution of all land exceeding 2,560 acres from those who had obtained extended grants. The owners put up a determined fight for their grants which were held under the Seal of the Colony. Eventually Grey took two cases to the Supreme Court, and lost both. One of these, Queen v. Taylor, concerned the ownership of Kawau. Once this was satisfactorily settled, the mining company resumed operations.
At one time over four hundred people, miners and their families, lived on Kawau, but after some years the copper ore was no longer obtainable in payable quantities, and the population of the island rapidly diminished. The homes of the pioneer men and women have tumbled to decay, and the children whose voices rang across the quiet bays are now old men and women. Soon old Kawau will be but a legend among us, marked for a little while longer by one chimney stack standing solitary above the saltwater-filled shafts, and by the walls of another ancient building in Bon Accord Harbour, in which furnaces once roared and the molten copper flowed from the retorts.
It is interesting to look upon the humble mementoes of that time, now gathered together in the Old Colonists’ Museum at Auckland. The sight of the worn brass candlestick and the heavy glass salt-cellar used at Kawau, carries our thoughts back to-the days of our great-grandmothers, those brave pioneer women who came across far seas to find all their world within the four walls of a tiny cottage beside the mine at Kawau. There are also the four crucibles for testing minerals, in use at Kawau from 1843 to 1860, and old-time gun cases and tools donated by one who was a worker there in the old days. I knew the old man well. He spent the evening of his days at Brown's Bay, and often we sat together on the warm sand under the shade of a pine tree, talking of early days on Kawau.
In the Museum may also be seen two water-colour sketches made by Lieutenant Morton Jones, of H.M.S. Pandora, in 1851. These two views, one landward, one seaward, of Momona Bay, now called Bon Accord Harbour, show the mine manager's house which was afterwards adapted by Sir George Grey for his own residence. In the sketch, cottages and garden plots are shown where the Governor later made his beautiful gardens.
These few relics of the copper-mining days on Kawau should have a peculiar interest to all New Zealanders, for we must remember that manganese and copper were the first minerals mined in the Colony. Neither coal nor gold had been discovered at that time.
There are old men and women in Auckland to-day to whom Kawau in their childhood meant Fairyland. Looking down the long vista of years that lie between, they once more see the sailing boats setting out from inlet or river mouth on the opposite shore of the mainland. The south-westerly wafted them across the four miles of blue water, past the many islands, and into the great harbour of Bon Accord. Sails were lowered and boats gently beached. They had come from bare farmsteads where there was little time or money to spare for beautification. They had come to Kawau.
From the moment their roughly-shod little feet touched the shingly beach, Fairyland opened before their wondering eyes. Fathers and mothers stopped to exchange greetings with the courtly gentleman who had come to the edge of the strand to welcome them, but the children sped on to the wondrous gardens. There they wandered hand in hand beneath towering palms and great trees laden with blossoms, strange to their eyes, for in that fairy garden were gathered together flowers and shrubs and trees from many a distant land. Rose bowers led to green sward, where surely the elves danced on moonlit nights, while under the mysterious sighing pines they
Through the open doors and windows of the great mansion—Sir George threw his whole house open to these humble friends and neighbours—eager young eyes gazed on treasures of crowded cabinets and pictures that they, in their ignorance, did not know were not to be matched even in the wide world beyond the seas. One boy, who penetrated unbidden into a book-filled room, was there found on his knees before a volume of rare prints, too fascinated by its beauties to hear the step which paused beside him, until the gentle pressure of a hand on his shoulder made him look up abashed into the blue eyes of the owner of this treasured room.
Soon he was telling Sir George Grey of all the books he had read and the difficulties of getting more. He followed his host from one bookcase to another, while quaint old volumes of the first days of printing—old black-lettered Bibles—were spread open before him. Manuscripts gilded by the patient hands of cloistered monks who had become dust hundreds of years before New Zealand had ever been heard of, were put into his hands, and their beauties pointed out with winning simplicity. It was the lad's introduction to a great library and to a great scholar. He never forgot that crowded hour, nor Grey's kindness in bringing him under the notice of his friend, the minister on the mainland, who became his tutor—it was long before the days of board schools.
Until the last few years you might sometimes have seen a grey-haired old gentleman in the stately chamber of Auckland's Public Library, where the city has housed the Grey collection—one of the most munificent gifts to a city that the world can show, and one which will ever draw to it the student, the historian and the bibliophile. Perhaps we hardly yet realise that we have in our midst treasures so unique. The old man first saw them on a summer day long ago in the library at Kawau.
For twenty years Kawau was the home of the “great Pro-consul.” For three years after his return from England he rested there before again entering the fray. His political enemies might be many, but his friends were legion and never a traveller sojourned in Auckland but was eager to visit Kawau. Thither came the royal Prince Alfred in H.M.S. Galatea in 1869. Statesmen, poets, historians and scientists rested there. They valued their privilege of listening to their host's cultivated talk and of viewing the beauties of his rare collections. There is no doubt that they also enjoyed the freedom of the island life. They sailed in and out of the many beautiful bays, and to the mainland. In the pages of Froude's Oceania we can read of one such visit to a settler's farm. There were wallaby to shoot; the waters abounded with fish, and the rocks were covered with oysters.
In his island fastness, Sir George lived like some old-time lord of the manor, beloved by his dependents, to whom he showed the best side of his many-sided character. In fragmentary pages of his diaries of these quiet years, I have read, between notes on the island farming and cropping, heart - searching records of sunny spring mornings spent with the three little boys of one of his workmen, sailing over the glittering sea, to land on a tiny island out in the fairway; of the sudden call at dusk to the far end of the island to see one of the little playmates, taken seriously ill; of remedies applied; of hopes for speedy recovery; of fears; then, a few days later, of Smith's boat returning from Auckland with the little coffin containing all that was left of a beloved little friend, whom he had sent up to Auckland as a last resort, but in vain. He had ever a tender heart for little children, for the poor and needy, for the humble; but he could not recognise another man as his equal or work with him, and he proved himself a bitter and implacable enemy to many who crossed his autocratic will. Kawau,
It was there, in the early days of the Maori war, that Sir George Grey sent for safe-keeping the Maori prisoners taken at the capture of Rangiriri. The Maoris have never liked Kawau. Water has always been too scarce, and shellfish, other than oysters, never plentiful. At the first opportunity, these enforced guests of the Governor made a speedy escape to the mainland. Surely these were the only visitors who willingly left the Enchanted Isle!
To-day one goes to Kawau by steamboat, or launch or yacht. The run takes three or four hours. The steamer lies beside the jetty in Mansion House Bay below the historic house, which is now a big summer hotel with adjacent annexe.
After passing the jutting headland of Whangaparoa, a beam sea struck the launch, and from there we tumbled about uncomfortably as we approached Kawau. Off the south end of the island four trawlers, with steadying sails hoisted, steamed slowly backwards and forwards. Occasionally a dense cloud of smoke hid them from our sight; then the evening sun would glint upon the glass of the wheel-house, and weird heliographs seemed to be flashed towards us. These little ships conjured up for one of the party visions of other little ships trawling in the rough waters of the North Sea for four long years, not for fish for the markets, but for mines!
The sun sank below the low hills of the mainland and darkness fell. As we turned the point into Bon Accord Harbour the lights in the windows of the summer hotel and on boats in the bay flashed a welcome. Thus, after many years, we came again to Kawau. That night we lay in Schoolhouse Bay, and never a ripple of the water disturbed our sleep.
During the days which followed, we many times slipped to quiet anchorage in one or other of the bays of the spacious harbour, within whose waters the shipping of the port of Auckland might find shelter. When the wind blew from the south-west we lay either in Mansion House Bay or further up in Schoolhouse Bay. When it changed into the north we lay snug, close beside the old smelter-house on the opposite shore.
In this country, where there is little belonging to our own race that is old, these four skeleton walls, built of native stone, and marking the vanished industry of a past generation, have a pathetic interest. Lying in the dusk on the soft carpet of moss at the edge of the strand, it was easy to imagine that the faint sounds in the bush were movements of those bygone folk, coming back in the faint moonlight to visit homes where now the ti-trees crowd together. If you are lacking in imagination, you will know that that breaking twig was probably caused by a wallaby. These quaint denizens of the Kawau bush were brought from Australia by Sir George Grey. Soon they became a pest, and denuded the island o