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Lake Matheson—Mirror of the Alps and Fox Glacier, South Island, New Zealand.
The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal booksellers, 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. unless accompanied with a stamped and addressed envelope.
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.
The Department's accounts show that the sales of the Magazine during the year ended 31st March, 1936, were more than treble those of the previous financial year.
Deputy-Controller and Auditor-General.
The crystal water sparkling drips
In liquid gems of light…
—Robert Richardson.
The Whangarei Falls, North Auckland, New Zealand.
The links and couplings of a train are the agents that keep the whole wonderful mechanism together in harmonious movement. The links and couplings between nations are not always so fortunate in their effects, although the necessity for closer contact between all nations follows from the conditions of modern transport, and becomes more pressing with each new transport development.
The stresses and strains of unfriendly association are particularly in evidence in Europe at the present time, but doubtless this phase will pass with the development of better understanding. Such under-standing is dependent upon the success of men of good will in penetrating the mass consciousness with their ideas. Difficulties of language stand in the way but these are gradually being bridged and will become less evident with increased intercourse.
It is found that all the English-speaking races are thinking increasingly along similar lines, and the link of a common language plays an important part in this approach towards a universal outlook upon most of the things that matter. The printed word, the cable, pictures and the radio make the spread of ideas, the development of tastes, and an appreciation of the other fellow's standpoint increasingly easier day by day.
This Magazine has taken for its province the story of New Zealand, including, of course, the railways of New Zealand; and month by month it tells in prose and verse and illustration, through the pens of leading authorities in literature, art and humour, about the features of development and romance associated with the country; and it discusses particularly those things of interest and value that are characteristic of, or distinctive to, this Dominion.
The main appeal of this field is naturally to New Zealanders themselves; but there is a surprising amount of interest shown in the publication amongst the peoples of other countries. The close family and business ties between the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand make it easy to understand why a publication which gives authentic information bearing on New Zealand and its people should be eagerly looked for by the many sections amongst whom it circulates in the other countries mentioned, but its overseas penetration is not confined to these. By the last American mail, for instance, casual letters arrived from Toronto, New York, Bermuda, Baldwyn (Mississippi) and Hyattsville (Maryland), mostly from people whom we did not know had any access to the Magazine, but all showing an exceptionally keen interest in the publication.
The Hyattsville man had missed the last October issue and was anxious for a replace copy so that he could follow, without break, the continuity of “The Thirteenth Clue.”
The lady on the somewhat insecure banks of the Mississippi wanted to trace family history through a Wellington street-name mentioned in an article of the August number; and Bermuda liked the Magazine all through—including the advertisements.
Toronto and New York, with big city sophistication, merely reached out their hands for more copies—and got them.
These facts are mentioned, not only as something that may prove of interest to our general readers, but as signs of the threads in the weaving of international knowledge, trivial in themselves, but indicative of what is going on upon a huge scale throughout the whole range of human intercourse.
All should remember that it is from the conglomerate mass of thoughts and words printed and spoken, the emotions they express and the spirit they reveal, that the future of world affairs depends.
Favourable comment has reached me from several quarters, through the press and from members of the public, regarding the satisfactory time-keeping maintained by the principal main trunk express and inter-provincial passenger train services during the recent holiday period.
It is very pleasing to know that the efforts of the staff have produced such favourable results. Punctuality, next to safety, is one of the most important factors in railway operation, and experienced railwaymen recognise this and do all in their power to ensure that trains will run to time. Besides the importance of punctuality to the travelling public, connecting services, hotels and the like, promptness in the arrival and despatch of trains is a very vital feature in the general success of railway operation as a whole.
I feel that the matter of punctuality cannot be too strongly stressed at the present time, for we have many new appointees in the service who will appreciate advice and guidance at the commencement of their career in the elements of railroad operation, and if they can be adequately impressed, during the early days of their association with the Department, in the outstanding importance of safety and punctuality, it will stand them in good stead when they reach controlling positions in the service.
At a station every member in any way associated with the despatch of trains can aid towards punctuality. The porter can have the luggage properly labelled and conveniently placed for loading without delay. The cadet or clerk can see that waybills are clearly prepared and ready for acceptance by the guard. The booking staff can have the ticket windows opened in good time, and be deft and accurate in their attendance to the requirements of passengers. The signalling staff can see that no moments are lost in setting signals as required, and the guards and shunters can work in close co-operation to assist expedition in the handling of the trains, and drivers and firemen can be ever on the alert for signals and react to them quickly and safely. In giving prompt service of this kind, members are not only serving the public well, but they are also obtaining greater satisfaction out of their work and helping to avoid the troubles that develop in the wake of late trains.
In concluding this message, I wish to express my personal thanks to the staff for their good work in train punctuality throughout the recent Christmas and New Year holidays.
General Manager.
The fine ocean beach at Wainui, Oisborne, North Island.
New Zealand is unique in the whole wide world in its rich profusion of perfect bathing beaches. The three enemies of the foreshore as a place of enjoyment are shingle, mudflats, and excessive tidal rise and fall. The latter gives rise in the Old Country to scores of music hall jokes about taking the train out to low water mark, and the first two disfigure many famous watering places in the Mediterranean littoral, and elsewhere. The number of our beaches suffering in any of these ways is small, and our hundreds of leagues of coastline contain sealovers' faultless playgrounds every few miles. It would seem that Nature, when New Zealand was planned, having granted such lavish gifts of mild airs and copious sunshine, thought it as well to furnish also the means for their proper use. This article is a brief survey of this particular aspect of our wonderland and its blessings, and a still shorter summary of the extraordinary standard of man-made facilities for this form of human recreation which our fellow-countrymen, with their British love of open air life, have created throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand.
I Was in Timaru early last summer, and I encountered there a New Zealander who holds one of the most important official positions in London. We made a date to go down for a swim at seven in the morning. We sauntered down in Timaru sunshine in our dressing gowns, had a swim in the velvet-seeming waters of Caroline Bay, a shower each, and the use of a comfortable dressing shed. In the hunt for coins in our well-worn garments we eventually mustered a shilling between us and it was ample. Then my friend burst into speech. He indicated with a sweep of his hand the lovely spreading lawns, the groves of noble trees and the hundred and one other amenities of Caroline Bay. “Better than Deauville,” he said, “and by now at that place or any like it in Europe we would have been up for a pound … and yet I heard someone say he was going to retire from Timaru … to Timaru is sense, the other is lunacy.”
He was a soul-mate of mine, inasmuch as he was an addict, not of drugs, but of sun and sea bathing. If I am not approaching a good cream colour in late October, and a medium tan by the end of November, I have a feeling that life has been in vain up to that date. Through the gift of circumstance, I have a nodding acquaintance with a large number of New Zealand beaches. I have a written record of two hundred swims on the same number of different beaches. I was controlling a business once which compelled me to visit every place once every two years that had a picture show. This, as you may know, means every place larger than an incubator or a “K” wagon. I was sea bathing all the year round in Wellington in those days, and when I went on my travels I carried on the practice. I am afraid my itinerary usually provided that I did the Far North in the winter and the South in the summer.
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School House Bay, Mahurangi. A typical North Auckland beach.
I do not want to pretend that I sampled anything like a fair percentàge of New Zealand's golden sands, but when and wherever I arrived I inquired the way to the beach, that is if the sea were not in sight, as it usually was. In any case, the beach was either “down the road” or “just past the first turn to the left.” How many New Zealanders stop to consider that, with a handful of exceptions to prove the rule, every settlement point, large or small, is within easy reach of a good sandy swimming beach? New Zealand's wealth of this type of Nature's bounty is the greatest in the world, and the extravagant beauty of our beaches,
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The Mount, the popular beach at Tauranga, North Island.
It may be as well to ascertain the reason. The angry Irishman, discovering his idle son trying to do circus tricks on the farm plough horse sáid that “the only show in the ring the ‘omadhaun could put on would be to thravel as the world's smallest giant.” New Zealand is the world's smallest continent, and a continent is described in the dictionary as “a large mass or great division of land.” However, to quote from a scientific work, “It is continental in structure. The rocks are of the same kind as those of which continents are built.” It is surmised, also, that once the continent of New Zealand was of larger area than at present; but the most interesting fact of all is that, geologically speaking, New Zealand is a mixture of youth and hoary antiquity. It is thus the proper environment for its people, who are young in their settlement here as citizens and as old as England herself in heritage, tradition and racial history. In spite of the great age of much of New Zealand's structural elements, the forces which change the earth's shape, mould its contours and grave its features, are still actively at work here. It is this strange combination of physical phenomena that makes our country a pocket world, a miniature universe, a museum of natural wonders, and provides us with a replica of every world sight.
Now our beaches and their sands that range from the shining gold of Cooper's Beach to the glossy dark ironsand of Fitzroy, are all the product of water and rock. These two constituents are here in unique quality, quantity and combination. The elemental contents of the rocks are responsible for the formation of sand, and we have a surpassing percentage of sand-making rock. We have other natural advantages, too, that assist in the creation of such a multitude of choice beaches. New Zealand stretches across the “Roaring Forties” and is washed by great ocean currents. We have therefore a private climate. There is a good deal of wind, there is a varying but ample rainfall, and there is a constant stream of sunshine. Thus, every foot of our four thousand miles of coastline is flooded with the “little fingers of the rain,” with copious sunlight, and refreshed with steady breezes. Auckland is in the corresponding latitude to Algiers, but it is ten degrees cooler and its sunshine is comparable, and its rainfall immeasurably superior. Our three largest capitals have more than 2,000 hours of sunshine each year, and dozens of lesser towns have 500 hours more. A great part of our terrain has been sculptured by glacial action, and we have many glaciers still busily at work. Other great portions of our country are of recent volcanic origin; and we can sum up by saying that by the greatest of good luck our whole physical frame contains the perfect mechanism for the making of delectable sandy beaches.
Then, the New Zealand coastline is a network of inlet and cove, a tracery of fiord and deep bays, relieved now and again by long sweeps of sea frontage. These smooth outlines are usually magnificent beaches. Everyone has heard of the Ninety Mile Beach in the Far North, but old atlases had others, notably that stretching from Lake Ellesmere down to the Waitaki River, being the sea-line of the whole of the Canterbury Plains. The West Coast of the North Island has another mighty stretch of sand, and in a dry summer a car can be driven from just outside Paekakariki to the Manawatu River mouth. There are also the thirty-five miles of Muriwai, and the firm, white level of Awakino which has carried many a race meeting. The sweep of the Bay of Plenty is a good hundred miles, and it is a radiant procession of gay, smooth beaches from the
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A portion of the famous waterfront at Napier.
It is a far cry from the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula to the bold headland of Cape Farewell, standing at the top of the South Island. At the foot of the big bluff is a semicircular beach with the most perfect surf of all the hundreds in New Zealand. But farther south is Porari, close to the Blowhole and the bizarre Pancake Rocks which are heaped up in enormous flat layers, as if some primal gods had been playing a game with titanic counters. I spent eleven hours once at Porari, and it seemed like one dream hour. The heavy green background of bush, the sand that shone like a million jewels, the laughing sea that broke gently into creamy foam, make up a memory that gives the lie to the yarn about the “wet West Coast.” Here I would like to say, too, that New Zealand rejoices in hundreds of beaches which are close to bush trees, in many cases the forest running right down to the border of the beach. This characteristic belongs to New Zealand alone, and should be mentioned in a loud, clear tone whenever beaches are quoted that belong to other lands.
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Oriental Bay, one of Wellington's conveniently situated beaches.
It is a pleasant pastime, too, to run through the names, for they have a habit of being picturesque. I take these at random: Goose Bay, near Kaikoura; Fuller's Ti Beach, Bay of Islands; Oreti, near Invercargill; Anaura Bay, East Coast, past Tologa Bay; Spirits Bay, in the very Far North; Oruaiti, a pohutukawa-lined crescent of creamy sand; Goat Island Beach, on the East Coast of the North Auckland Peninsula near Leigh; Red Beach, in the Kaipara; and Paekakariki. At Tauranga they have been affected by the movies, for there are Honolulu Beach and Sixth Avenue Beach. A quartette from Canterbury are Corsair Bay, a delicious dimple in Lyttelton Harbour, Woodend, Waikuku, and Kairakei, where there “is the splendid combination of the Waimakariri Estuary and the Pacific; then there are the rolling names from North Auckland: Ahipara, Parakerake, Taipa, and Ngungururu, and a hundred more.
I suppose, however, it is to our city dwellers that the heaviest and heartiest
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Caroline Bay, Timaru, South Island.
Christchurch has the fine surf beach at New Brighton, and the neat little coves of Sumner and Redcliffs. I have swum in the Sumner pool under the electric lights at eleven o'clock in the evening, and the scene had all the glamour of the best Hollywood cinema production. Dunedin, for my taste, has the red-haired girl of them all in the way of a public swimming place in the St. Clair baths hewn out of the shore rocks. Its harbour beaches are counted by the dozen, and everyone has looked out of the mail train and noted the sheer beauty of Waitati, once decorated by the unpoetic name of Blueskin.
Then when it comes to our provincial capitals and large towns, most of them are on or very near the coast. There is not one without a flawless specimen of beach wonder, and most of them have more than two. Where there are river mouths or harbour enclosures as, for instance, Gisborne, one has the choice of surf or inner sea.
Then there is a type of sea beach which is inimitable and almost wholly ours. It exists at Keri Keri, Whangaroa, and the other exquisite deep inlets of the Auckland Peninsula; it is to be found all about the mighty Kaipara Harbour and is seen in its best form possibly in the complex system of fiords known as the Picton Sounds. This is the tiny beach which sleeps in between the curving shores of waterways which are almost enclosed. The shore line of Pelorus Sound is no less than 237 miles, and its beaches are numbered by the round dozen in every arm of its lovely length.
One would say that there is little need for New Zealanders to go far for their summer sea sports. But if an air view could be quickly taken of the greater part of our land on a summer holiday, it would appear to be a mass of swift trains carrying happy crowds to beaches. The comfort-loving New Zealander has seen to it that his beaches are equipped as efficiently and as luxuriously in many cases as the best of the South of France. The universality of the love of the sea makes for love of change, and we have the delightful spectacle for instance of sun-tanned crowds filling a special train to go right across the North Island from the dark sands of New Plymouth to the gleaming white of Mount Maunganui. Into Auckland great trains pour tens of thousands to scatter about the Queen City's garland of creamy sands. As for Timaru, several twenty coach expresses rush up and down there from and to Christchurch, and from Oamaru, while Dunedin and Oamaru exchange sea-loving crowds with steady expedition. Out of Wellington on fine days, thousands pour to the five “P's,” Paremata, Plimmerton, Pukerua, Paekakariki, and Paraparaumu, and a dozen intervening stations that are gateways to sunshine and sea breezes. These trains puff past equally large crowds on their way down from the inland towns of the Manawatu and Rangitikei.
When counting our blessings, we New Zealanders should include in the forefront of the gifts that should make us a fellowship of the happy ones of earth, our priceless, our resplendent boon, of the best sea beaches to be found on the surface of the globe.
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Through passenger train operation between London and continental points, rendered possible by the spanning of the Channel either by a railway tunnel or train ferry, is an objective upon which Home railway experts long ago set their minds. For some years to come, at any rate, there seems no likelihood of a Channel tunnel scheme actually being embarked upon. Thanks to the enterprise of the Southern Railway, however, a cross-Channel passenger train ferry is now in active operation, between Dover and Dunkirk, and a new era in European travel has thereby been opened up. A nightly sleeping-car service between London and Paris is the first result of the enterprise, and across the Channel the Northern Railway of France is co-operating whole-heartedly with our own authorities to make the facility a huge success. Instead of having to change from railway train to steamer, and vice-versa, at the Channel ports, the continental traveller journeying by the new night service is carried right through from one capital to the other without leaving his comfortable sleeping berth.
Three ferry vessels have been built for the service. Each carries a train of twelve sleeping-cars, there being four sets of railway tracks on the ferry deck. Above the train deck, restaurants, lounges and cabins have been installed for passengers who desire to vacate their berths and stretch their legs. In addition to accommodating 500 passengers, the ferries have a special garage for passengers' motor-cars. These are driven aboard up an inclined ramp. In recent years, there has been a growing tendency for travellers going on a continental tour to take their own motorcars along with them, and the liberal accommodation provided for cars on the new train ferries should prove a great convenience. Looking ahead, it seems likely that, eventually, the operation of these Channel ferries will enable through working to be introduced between London and most of the principal continental cities. In the coming Coronation rush of passengers to London, the new facility should prove of the greatest utility.
From the tourist viewpoint, Coronation year promises to be a red-letter one. Hundreds of thousands of visitors from overseas and the continent will be drawn to this unique pageant, while from every city and hamlet in the British Isles the railways will be called upon to carry to the metropolis sight-seers galore. For handling passenger traffic from overseas, the Home railways have recently improved their terminal facilities at the principal points of entry. Southampton, Plymouth, Liverpool and London, are four ports anticipating record business. The railway hotels, too, are well prepared to cater for the special needs of Coronation guests. Specially fast trains, operated at reduced fares, will link the provinces with London. For Coronation Day cheap tickets at approximately a single fare for the return journey will be issued to the capital from all stations where the train services will permit of both the outward and homeward journeys being accomplished on the same day, these tickets being available by any train. For distances over 150 miles, the outward journey may be commenced from 9 p.m. the previous day.
Railway stations in the metropolis and the principal provincial centres will be gaily decorated for the occasion. Special fare will be provided in the dining-cars, with menus carrying appropriate decorations. To relieve the pressure on hotel and boarding-house accommodation, the London and North Eastern line announces that, it is arranging to place camping coaches on suitable sites in the London suburban districts. Each of these coaches will accommodate six people, and will be let at the moderate rental of £10 for the whole of Coronation week to visitors to London from points on the company's system. The rental charge will also include a free ticket from the suburban station to the London terminus every day of the week for all six members forming the party.
Many noteworthy contributions to Home railway locomotive construction have from time to time been made by the Great Western Company. Recently there has been turned out of
The “Grange” locomotives are of the 4-6-0 type, and similar in design to the “Hall” class. They carry a standard boiler, but are fitted with 5 ft. 8 in. diameter coupled wheels. A new pattern of cylinder has also been provided. The total wheelbase of engine and tender is 53 ft. 4 3/4 in. The Coupled wheelbase is 14 ft. 9 in., and the length of the engine and tender over buffers is 63 ft. 0 ¼ in. The engines are equipped with a standard 3,500 gallons tender. Other principal details are: Cylinders (2), 18 ½ in. diameter, 30 in. stroke; total heating surface, 2,104 sq. ft.; area of firegrate, 27.07 sq. ft.; working pressure, 225 lb. per sq. in.; tractive effort, 28,875 lb.; total loaded weight, engine and tender, 114 tons.
One hundred years ago, there was opened for traffic one of the world's pioneer railways—the historic Grand Junction system — commencing at Curzon Street Station, Birmingham, and running to Newton, 82 ½ miles distant, where it joined the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened seven years earlier. The Grand Junction line was merged into the London and North Western, and later into the London, Midland and Scottish Company.
From the outset, one of the principal stations on the system was Crewe. Owing to its unique geographical situation, Crewe ranks as a leading railway junction. It is also the site of the famous Crewe locomotive shops, where so many of the world's outstanding locomotive designers spent their early years. In the pioneering days of the Grand Junction Railway, there were twelve passenger trains passing through Crewe daily. During the summer, about 530 trains now call daily at the station. In winter, the daily total is approximately 420. Twenty per cent, of the trains divide at Crewe for two or more destinations. Crewe passenger station has six platforms, and ten bays, totalling 3,790 yards in length. The station buildings have an area of 64,600 sq. ft., and apart from numerous railway offices, include six refreshment rooms, dining and tea rooms, and eight waiting rooms.
A most important obligation falling on railways everywhere is the protection of their properties against fire. At Home, fire brigades are specially trained and equipped by the railways, and thanks to their efficiency serious outbreaks are a rarity. It is at the larger locomotive and carriage centres that the principal brigades are located. So efficient are some of these railway teams that, in certain instances, they act as the city fire brigade in addition to their railway responsibilities. Special trains are also maintained in readiness at many of the larger railway centres. These trains are equipped with fire-fighting equipment, ready to move out at express speed to any fires which may occur on or adjoining railway property. The fire trains have one or more coaches for the conveyance of the brigade, a petrol driven fire pump, water tanks, and a large assortment of fire-fighting equipment. With the exception of watchmen, all the railway works firemen are volunteers, chosen for their interest in the work and their physical fitness. They drill regularly, and are capable of acting singly in an emergency, or as a unit in a brigade.
City collection and delivery services for freight traffic have for long been a feature of Home railway practice. On the continent, also, countries like Germany and France are becoming increasingly interested in combined rail and road movement. In Germany, there has recently been introduced an articulated tractor-trailer unit for hauling standard goods wagons along the road, and giving through door-to-door service. The tractor takes the form of a truck chassis with a 100 h.p. six-cylinder Diesel engine. Six wheels are employed on the trailer, four being mounted on a single axle serving as driving shaft, and the other two on a separate trailing axle. Within the frame of the trailer is a second inner steel frame carrying a pair of lifting rams, for tilting the loaded goods wagon and discharging its contents. A light steel ramp affords connection between the trailer and the railway tracks.
These incidents are complete in themselves, but the characters are all related.
Gang all here?” asked Gillespie as he rapped on the table for attention with the legbone of a cannibal warrior from the Waikanae sand-dunes.
“All here,” said Teasewell, “but I don't like the sound of ‘gang.’ Talk polite like me. ‘Gang’ is Chicagoish. We are a committee of investigators endeavouring to get at the bottom of a blinking mystery, Heaven knows what, I don't. But ‘gang’—no!”
“All here but Lauder, poor fellow,” said Lloyd. “Alas, let his short and too-bacchanalian career be a lesson to all of us. That musical mug of his at our last séance—or was it a tankard—ah, how little did he dream when he introduced us to its mysteries that it would be the last swig he ever swug.”
“Not by a long chalk,” came a hearty voice from the quietly opened door. Lauder stood there in the life. “No, it's not my ghost. ‘Tis I, be not afraid.”
“But your sudden death!” gasped Teasewell. “And what the doctor said about decomposition and all that?”
“Only a rumour,” replied Lauder with a merry ringing laugh.
“Misguided medical practitioner made a bloomer, that was all. What he took for symptoms were simply some over-mature fragments of crayfish which I had inadvertently left in a pocket or two. Did'nt notice it myself, of course, being so Búlletinish, you know. I've been misreported. Death notice exaggerated. So we'll carry on, little ones.”
Fanning rose to a point of order. Could a member of the brotherhood, after being postmortemed and all, and a good deal deader than even a cray, be permitted to return as cool as a cucumber and take part in the business of the living? No, decidedly no! It wasn't done, that was all. It would establish a dangerous precedent. However could this young and—he ventured to say it in spite of all contradiction—prosperous nation forge ahead and all that if these dead-and-done-for jokers were allowed to butt in? It would clog the wheels of progress and clip its wings by drawing dead—or was it red?—herrings across the trail. I move “that Lauder be regarded as merely a Shade henceforth, a deeply regretted Shade.”
“Oh, all right, I'll be a Shade, anything for a quiet life,” said Lauder. “Last time I saw Fanning he was a policeman. Now, apparently, he has become a politician. Ah, me, he was a good policeman, but—no matter. But this is why I have come, I have a message.”
In sepulchral tones Gillespie said: “Shade, or Lauder himself, or whosoever you be, I charge you by the sacred bone I hold in my fist, and the ashes of our ancestors, give over your Message!”
“My Message,” returned Lauder, “is here.” He stepped two paces to the left. “Enter, oh Envoy of the Orient,” he said, “and announce your mission.”
In came a short, sturdy, brown man, dressed in a brown suit. He bowed to the company, advanced and bowed again. He might have been a Jap swordsman, he was so keen and muscular; he might again have been a Polynesian pearl-diver; or half-caste Indian from British Columbia.
The stranger spoke, after bowing again to Gillespie, who he perceived was the Most Noble Grand of the Lodgé.
“I have been charged by the Government, by a great Pacific Government that need not be named, with the task of assisting your honourable bliddy committee in the task of elucidating this most bliddy mystery. I am one Topside Criminal Investigator. I have seen life everywhere, I have helped quell bliddy crime in Yukon City. I have helped crowned heads in Europe lose their bliddy crowns. I have done some honourable bit of everything. I now reveal to you I am original bliddy Japanese House Boy. Ha, you start, honourable sirs! Yes, I am the he for which your Hon. Professor Shellback is on warpath with tomahawk, seeking to gag!”
Cries of “No, no! It cannot be!”
“Yes,” said the Envoy, “but let that pass. Now, to cut the matter short. I have a Clue already. I shall reveal it to you at midnight to-night on board our Harbour Board's inimitable dredge,
Beckoning the members, fixing them with a mesmeric eye, the mysterious Messenger led the way out of the committee-room. They did not notice that six brown-suited brown gentlemen stepped quietly after them. At the wharf boat landing to which the stranger silently led them, a motor-launch was waiting.
“On board, gentlemen,” he said.
“What the blinky hell does this mean?” asked Gillespie. But the stranger quelled him with a glance of his glittering eyes. “Wait!” he said, “it will be the surprise of your lives, and everything depends on it. It is a matter of life or death.”
No more was said until the dredge was reached. As it was Sunday evening all the crew were ashore at Church. The six mysterious brown figures who had formed the committee's rearguard had quietly boarded the launch too. They leaped aboard the dredge. Some of them sped about their business in the darkness, the others remained behind our friends.
“Down below,” said the stranger. He led the way into the expensively furnished saloon, which was panelled with pearlshell. “Sit down,” he said. “Now I shall reveal the secret to you.” He produced from one pocket a revolver, from another an automatic pistol, and levelled them at the members of the Society.
“Bliddy disguise now thrown off, gentlemen!” he said, in tones that froze every soul with horror. “This is honourable bliddy fact of case. My Government has followed proceedings of your Society with bated breath and great disgust. It has come to conclusion that whole honourable boiling of you are Potential Bliddy Menace to peace of the Pacific, for which our more honourable Government is striving tooth and nail, hook and crook. We consider you have not bliddy feather to fly with. Therefore I have been deputed to carry out certain decision which will totally eliminate potential peril of Pacific and restore status quo in criminal world. So—“ and the terrible stranger drew a silver whistle from his left-hand trousers pocket. He blew a shrill pipe and in rushed the mysterious brown men. They spoke not a word, but they carried eloquent tomahawks.
They threw themselves on Gillespie and his comrades, who were in turns hot with indignation, and frozen with horror, and petrified with amazement.
The stranger threw aside a curtain. His gang, or whatever they were, dragged forth mysterious heavy blocks of a dirty white hue. They quickly tied these to the prisoners.
The stranger grinned fiendishly as he watched this operation. “Blocks of salt,” he explained. “I derived that bliddy clever idea from dear old Edgar Wallace. You remember it? Salt remains solid block long enough to carry you through bottom of dredge to bottom of sea, then melts and not a trace is left to show how deed was done. Oh, very clever! I wonder where Edgar got it? Anyhow, down you go—down, down, and Potential Menace is gone bung, what!”
Gillespie, recognising the inevitable, sang in solemn accents: “Down went McGinty to the bottom of the sea,
Dressed in his best suit of clothes.”
“Oh, don't, don't” moaned Lloyd. “In a few moments we will be no more!”
“Too bliddy well, you will!” said the stranger, fiendishly as before. “You see that lever there.” He touched a machine in the side of the dredge. “At my touch you will be precipitated through the bottom of the dredge. It will open to dump you like a load of mud—see! Now, there's no time to lose. Down, and out goes the Menace Gang!”
“They used to say in England once upon a time, that the seductive cigarette would sooner or later supplant the pipe altogether, but “the trade,” in the Old Land, says that pipe smoking there was never more popular than at the present time. Parsons, lawyers, doctors, politicians are all patrons of the pipe and Mr. Baldwin's Cherrywood has become world-famous. New Zealanders smoke millions of cigarettes every year, but the pipe still holds pride of place with smokers innumerable in Maoriland. As for tobacco, tastes proverbially differ, but it's no less true that “toasted” is first favourite with smoker throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion. The five genuine toasted brands, Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold are in incessant demand, for it's now generally recognised that while they give the most enjoyable smoke it's possible to get, they are (thanks to toasting) the purest and least harmful of any tobaccos manufactured. And you never tire of them! Once you take to toasted you'll never want to change.*
Hark! What is that row on deck? A shot, a whistle, shouts—hearty British shouts!
“Ha! Saved, saved!” gasped Teasewell. “Saved at the very last tick!” He fainted.
(To be Continued.)
The Trans-Australian Railway (4ft. 8 ½in. gauge), which provides the connecting rail service between the Eastern States and overseas mail steamers arriving at Freemantle, is commencing upon a modernisation programme in order to save a day on the overland journey of 2,169 miles between Perth and Melbourne and reduce the time of trans-continental travel to three days. These trains have long been noted for their spacious interiors (the cars being 10ft. 6ins. wide), for the comfortable lounge equipped with piano, and the sleeping cars with wide comfortable berths and bathrooms. Now the trains are being air-conditioned, ensuring the prevention of noise and dust and providing cool air in summer and warm air in the colder months of the year.
Recently the construction of a new section of railway has been undertaken between Port Augusta and Red Hill, a distance of 84 miles. This will reduce the distance of the overland journey by 70 miles, but more important still it will eliminate two breaks of gauge, which have for many years constituted the most unpleasant feature of trans-continental travel in Australia.
New express locomotives are being constructed for the Trans-Australian Railway by Messrs. Walkers Ltd., in Queensland, to the order of the Commonwealth Railways Commissioner (Mr. Geo. A. Gahan, M.I.E., Aust.). The tenders of these locomotives will be the largest capacity tenders in Australia. They will permit of long distances being negotiated without stopping for fuel and water, the 17 ½ tons of coal which will be carried being sufficient for 560 miles, and the 12,000 gallons of water meeting requirements for a distance of 200 miles. The distance of 1,100 miles between Port Pirie, and Kalgoorlie (the section of the overland journey owned and controlled by the Commonwealth) will be negotiated with only one change of locomotive. As a matter of fact for a number of years locomotives on this railway have been running a distance of 1,051 miles with only one change, but it has been necessary for tenders to be replenished with coal, an operation which will no longer be entailed when the new locomotives are placed in service.
A feature of the Trans-Australian railway is the continuous stretch of perfectly straight track over 300 miles in length which is regarded as the world's longest “straight.” This, of course, is a great aid to fast long distance travel, but other factors, such as the scarcity of good surface water and the strong side winds, which set up considerable flange friction, are local conditions which present unusual difficulties in railway operation.
The brakevans used on this transcontinental journey are distinctive, for not only do they provide the usual accommodation for the guard and passengers' luggage, but they are equipped with living accommodation for a crew of ten dining car staff and sleeping car conductors. These brakevans, which are 60ft. long, are the widest in Australia, namely, 10ft. 4ins. across the outside walls.
The accelerated trans-continental service will be introduced in July, 1937, when the 84 mile section of new railway is expected to be open for traffic.
When the Silver Jubilee Express of the L.N.E.R. passed Hitchin on its northward journey on Thursday, 2nd July, at a speed in the region of 85 m.p.h. it will have achieved a world's endurance record for a steam train—100,000 miles of high-speed work in the short period of nine months.
Introduced into regular service on 30th September, 1935, the train has made the daily journey in both directions (Saturdays and Sundays excepted) between Newcastle and London, 268 miles, at an average speed of 67.1 m.p.h.
Here is an analysis of this record:—
100,000 miles at an average of 67.1 m.p.h.; 86,567 miles at an average of 70.4 m.p.h.; 18,283 miles at speeds exceeding 80 m.p.h.
This performance has been achieved without loss of time attributable to the locomotive.
The work of hauling this train has been shared by the four famous streamlined Pacific type locomotives “Silver Link,” “Silver King,” “Silver Fox,” and “Quicksilver,” but only one set of the special carriages composing the train is in existence, and that they have performed this feat without mechanical defects arising is a remarkable tribute to British manufacture and the designer, Mr. H. N. Gresley, who has mad conferred upon him the honour of Knighthood.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Marine Parade, Napier, North Island, New Zealand.
One of Napier's most perfect mornings filled me with reluctance to leave for the Southern trip. From the windows of the Masonic Hotel the bay looked warm and blue and inviting, and on the long slow Pacific swell two or three trawlers were patrolling slowly.
The coaches of the Wellington express stood clean, and cool, and fresh at the station; and the roomy, comfortable single seat promised a day of lazy enjoyment in the contemplation of the varied scenery of three provinces.
Smoothly and without appearance of undue haste the train pulled out, and during the short stop at Hastings a diversion occurred. A party of Maoris stood on the platform farewelling a friend, who was most truly a rangatira. His healthy, cheerful, brown face was well set off by his well-cut suit of rough tweed, and the manner in which everyone, pakeha and Maori alike, greeted him, irresistibly suggested that greatly overworked word “personality.”
At last he took his seat in the smoking carriage with a pleasant “Tenakoe” directed generally at the occupants. On the other side of the aisle from him was a party of four young fellows, who started up and maintained an animated conversation on every variety of gossipy subject. As the mail ran smoothly southward into the Te Aute district, one or two motor cars raced the train in the customary way. Here was a topic ready to hand, and the four made the most of it. One of them was particularly emphatic on the subject of road versus rail. In his opinion, the only way for a modern reasonable human being to travel was by motor. One by one he produced his reasons, and in the hope of getting them endorsed, he turned to the
rangatira
with the question:—
“Don't you think so, Kerehi?”
Then spoke the oracle.
(Rly Publicity photo.)
The Napier-Welhngton Express, passing: through the Manawatu Gorge, North Island, New Zealand.
“Well, I like te motor. I have one of my own and I use him a lot when I run round Hawke's Bay after stock—you know, Hastings, Havelock, Give, Greenmeadows—ho! all round. Now to-day I making for Poneke, Wellington. I don't want te car. I take te car, Henare want to come with me. Pretty hot in that car and Henare get thirsty—I get thirsty. Stop at te pub for beer. Drive a few mile, stop again for beer. Get to Palmerston North and have dinner and some beer. Too tire to go on. Then we stay te night, and next day we drive to Poneke. I think that trip cost too much.
“Now, look here. I get te comfortable seat, I can stretch out my leg—go for a walk on te platform—get a cup of tea. No Henare, no petrol, no driving. That motor car being pretty warm to-day and full of carbon monopoly—you know te gas that choke you.
“This railway carriage, he pretty comfortable, I think—don't waste no time. Pefore half past four I get to te hotel in Wellington, clean, fresh, not tired. You looka here, young fellow, you can have te car. I have te railway train every time. What would you say, Mister?”
The round pleasant face and shrewd brown eyes were swung in my direction.
“You are right, most decidedly,” I answered, and I have continued to think so ever since.
This is supposed to be a piece of descriptive writing, a little mild encouragement of the “Go South, young man, go South” variety, and if anyone likes, he or she can still take it as such; but I mean it differently now.
If you haven't been there, you may like to know what this tail end of New Zealand is like; before you reach it. Sliding out from Invercargill southwards, your train passes between long level sheets, of tidal water, and where the banks grow flat and brown, millions of marsh-reeds thrust up, all blowing the same way; as if, hundreds of: years ago, tribes of fighting redheaded chieftains all took cover in the swamps, and have since remained camouflaged, except their irrepressible topknots. This flat, glittering, reedy look, broken only by bright thickets of flowering yellow broom, continues all the way into Bluff; where, unless you happened to be a seagull, and hence interested in the outgoings of the big Melbourne-bound steamers, you might find life a little on the quiet side, though one hostelry was called “The Golden Age,” and from a bar or two came the sounds of revelry by day. I looked about for something that would say: “End of New Zealand” whenever I wanted to call up the memory, and, cxcept for the gulls, could see only a massive black bull in a hillside pasture, the wind flowing round the grave clean lines of his flanks. With head thrust forward, he stood, the breed of bull who, born into the old Greek legend instead of a New Zealand pasture, might have carried off the maiden Europa, and founded another continent and a subsequent peck of trouble.
Father, said little George Washington, I cannot tell a lie. The old Tamatea, queen of the Bluff-Stewart Island run, does roll a little. Anyhow, it is fine to sit, head in the wind, and watch the waves dance; anyhow again, under Captain Hamilton, the Tamatea could just as well be christened the Unsinkable; and anyhow, further than that, he who can't stand a couple of hours' mild rolling for the sake of Stewart Island and its companion isledots is, in my opinion, a long way past praying for. He should be gently but firmly dropped, if not on the head in infancy at least later by his family and girl friends, and left to eke out a miserable existence riding up and down in tramcars and listening in to defective radios. You may think I speak warmly. But you can't see spread out in front of me on this table my beautiful green and blue paua shell, my pieces of ambergris, my shell-fans, my Maori weather-glass, my wild yellow orchids from Ryan's Creek, my white stars of ake-ake, which, hanging in masses of bloom over little rocky islands, smells like some queer tropical fruit, a cross between pineapple and mango. Oh, if I could but get at the idiot who first put about the legend that in New Zealand the flowers have no scent! Why, from the tiny yellow sprays steals the most delicate, enchanting perfume: they are sweetest when the mist or dew is upon them, but sweeter still, the Stewart Islanders say, are the white Easter orchids, which garland the bush in late autumn. And those aren't all. Pressed in the pages of a book, I have the little purple and green spider orchids, with long feelers to their petals: I picked them yesterday afternoon on Ulva Island, under ferns and great rimu trees, while in the bush a tui went into fits of shameless laughter, evidently because I had only succeeded in spearing one flounder while the white dinghy rocked a few feet from shore. Remember the Highland gentleman in the ballad?
“Oh, I'm the laird of Ulva's Isle—“
If he had owned this Ulva, when its rata was just going into flower, and then had gone trapesing about the country for the sake of any hackneyed elopement, he didn't deserve his good luck. Stewart Island's Ulva is a lonely little place, so beautiful with bird and berry, hanging fern and wild orchid, that you might think it waiting for its lord and lady out of the old song. Once it was the home of a botanist, the late Mr. Charles Traill. His house still stands in one of the bushy, golden-sanded curves which are mere repetitions of Stewart Island's commonplace, and is inhabited in the summer time.
I am beginning altogether at the wrong end of the island, my lovely island of dropping wild fuchsias and bellbirds, called by the Maoris, Rakiura, “The Glowing Sky,” because, from far out at sea, they could see it surrounded by a faint crimson glow. Perhaps its blossoming masses of rata—not fully out at the time of my visit—caused the reflection. But it is an island of beautiful names, as well as beautiful sights. One well-known resident, who had the world to choose from, and decided to live at Stewart Island, has a house whose name, being interpreted, means “Leafy Groves Arising from the Sea.”
At the wharf you are met by a patient-looking old horse and a lorry. There are only three cars on the island, and it is quaint to see roads being levelled, and loads drawn by the horses so out-of-date in the rest of the world; quaint, but eminently satisfactory, and the road-menders, judging by their bush cottages, don't get on so badly away from what we call civilisation. Nearly every hut, deep among the ferns and fuchsias, was partly walled with punga trunks; there were neat little gardens, and at most doors hung flax Maori kits, used in season for storing away one's dinner of mutton-birds.
If you want to learn something of Stewart Island lore, the authority you should apply to is Mr. Fred Traill, a nephew of the botanist of Ulva Island mentioned a little above, and himself born and brought up an Islander. For a long time, Mr. Traill lived a business life in the much more densely populated parts of New Zealand; then, some few years ago, he decided that Stewart Island was the only place, came back with his wife and family, and has since been guide, philosopher and friend to hundreds of visitors who, like myself, hear from him so much of the Island and its secrets that they hardly know where to begin—whether with the green pearls found in the paua shells, with the kiwis living in colonies near the deer-camp at Mason's Beach, or with the weather-glass. The weather-glass is a quaint bit of Maori land lore. Washed up on the beach, the huge leathery strands of bull kelp are common-place enough, but only the initiated look for the places where the stem is swollen by an enclosed bubble of air. This is cut out, making a rather decorative little brown globe, whose merits, however, are not its looks. If your kelp weather-glass is full of air and resilient, fine weather is unfailingly ahead. If the ordinary barometer is dropping, and rain is near, the kelp feels spongy, and there is very little air in the bubble. I have tried my weather-glass in all weathers, and unlike normal humanity, it lies not. This simple way of telling the treats wind and weather have in store has been in vogue among the Maoris of Stewart Island long before the white man settled there.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Paua shells, pearls, and the wonderful harp…. A few years ago, Prosper Ralston, famed abroad as “The Man With the Harp” (his life story was published in the Wide World Magazine), entered into correspondence with Mr. Traill over the New Zealand paua shell. Travelling the world with a collection of opals whose value ran into five figures, a harp, and a stenographer to take down the book he was writing, Prosper Ralston decided that the rainbow blue and rose of the paua shell would serve equally as well as opals, to inlay his “dream harp,” in which tone was to take on an exquisite reflection from colour. Shells were collected, and crossed the seas to the Canadian harpist; at last Prosper and the harp turned up at Stewart Island, and he camped down at Mason's Beach, where magnificent surf comes rolling in on a huge expanse of shining sand broken by cliffs and caves. The “red-fire” pauas—those with a deep rose lustre—and the deepest blue-green ones were exactly what he wanted, and when last he wrote from Australia, “The Man with the Harp” said: “Those beautiful shells of yours may mean a great deal to me.” Perhaps the paua shell—long used by the Maoris for decorating images, ornaments and canoes, and occasionally made into knick-knacks for tourists—may yet provide a far more substantial industry, for it can take a high polish, and one of my own island souvenirs is a tiny war-canoe cut from a paua shell rim. A necklace of green pearls was another interesting commission from an English lady. The pauas bearing the little green pearls—larger than seed-pearls, and of a very soft colour—are only to be found at one place on the Island. But what is there that can't be found somewhere or other on the Isle of the Glowing Sky? Seals pushing their foolish whiskered faces enquiringly round their basking rocks—stern-looking mollymawks, and the beautiful, sad-faced wandering albatrosses, almost their next-door neighbours—little seahorses, much prized by curio seekers—kiwis, supposed to be extinct, but cheerfully turning up in thousands on the western side—these are just a few of the quainter individualities.
How does it look, this ignored but beautiful tailpiece of New Zealand, if you come seeking not for curiosities, but for rest and new scenery? Even in the most inhabited part of the Island, Half-Moon Bay, the houses stand out against a soft background of bush, and a rock scarcely a stone's throw from the perfect harbour is a colony of nesting seagulls, screaming so loudly that you can hear their very unseemly invective on the mainland. Wild fuchsia trees line the roads, and out of them tumble fat tuis. The fuchsias were in blossom, and the tuis—not to mince matters—were as drunk as lords. Came from the bush the
Toy, an amber brunette Pomeranian, accompanied me to most of the best nearby resorts: Old Mill Creek, where timber washes, and the lovely “Leafy Groves Rising Out of the Sea,” where Miss Dorothy Baker, author of “A Surveyor in New Zealand,” has built a home that makes you rub your eyes. Picture a white and black English house—peak-gabled, its rimu doors copies of those in an old English house belonging to a relative—looking down on unspoiled New Zealand bush. Rimu is the Island's tall timber, but, besides the fuchsias, all manner of soft-edged, strangely-flowering things grow uncontrollably here. The garden, starting off with a little rockery of New Zealand mountain plants, slopes into green terraces, where the steps are not stone, but the much more appropriate punga fern, until one comes to a green ampi-theatre, whose borders, in a few seasons, will be rife with English primroses and wild daffodils. On this green circlet, in a few days, Stewart Islanders will be watching folk-dancing: the Island is one of the few places which still supports a maypole, and knows how to use it. Inside, “Leafy Grove” is a most charming place of soft colourings, old china, old prints. Half-Moon Bay spreads out beneath it, a crinkled shawl of blue silk. Probably this house is the peak of the Island's homes; but Stewart Island possesses mansions in every style, from the cave inhabited by its authentic caveman (who uses a tent-flap and a few punga ferns to shield him from the icy blast, but whose campfire has for several years crackled merrily up in the cleft he occupies for a dwelling), to the Norwegian whaler's house, its gables crowned with bright-painted wooden dragons. It is some years now since the Norwegians called at Stewart Island, reviving memories of the grand old times when the iron try-pots stood on the beaches, and places like Hell-fire Beach and the Devil's Cave got their names. But they loved the Island, and promised, when the bad days of the depression were over, to come back again. Their base is still intact at Paterson Inlet.
How many people know that ambergris of the value of many thousands of pounds has been found, and is still being found, on Stewart Island, which is the world's steadiest source of supply? A piece valued at over £10,000 was found by one man still living on the Island—and, depression or no depression, he has remained an ambergris-hunter. Ambergris, valued as a perfume-fixer, and used also in giving champagne its bouquet, is quite ordinary to look at—the best quality like a soft, greyish piece of stone, the worst black. It is only when you touch it that you discover it is plastic, and notice its odd pungence. Incidentally, ambergris is sold to the merchants of the East, as well as the perfumers of Paris, and Arab potentates put it in their coffee, under the impression that it is a very potent love-charm. Incidentally again, some hold the same belief about mussels, which, of small size and delicious flavour, flourish in great abundance on the Island. It is certainly true that at the moment the Island is suffering from an epidemic of babies, and the only kinds of wheel traffic you meet are perambulators and horse-lorries, perambulators leading by a big majority. This, like anything else, may be coincidence. It reminds me, however, that Stewart Island's biggest day was about seven years back, when Oscar Garden's aeroplane arrived—and stuck its nose in the sad sea waves a few yards from shore—and almost at the same minute, triplets were born. All the men of the Island were away when this first aeroplane landed—not assisting at the triplets' arrival, just fishing—so the Stewart Island women formed a line, waded out into the sea, and brought Mr. Garden's plane to shore. They were too much excited over this, their first aeroplane, to take off their frocks before starting with the good work, and the consequence was that when the rope broke, their comments very nearly equalled the surprised exclamations of the father of the triplets, bonny little lasses of whom the Island was tremendously proud until they went to live on the mainland.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The glass boxes are something familiar, I believe, in the South Seas, but Mr. Fred Traill's novelty in New Zealand. First row out in a dinghy, just a few yards from Golden Bay. Float the glass box behind you, and look down through the wavering green. Huge red starfish, sea-urchins, living in colonies, the waving thickets of rose-coloured and golden seaweeds, the blue of a rock-cod lying on ocean floor…. Sometimes your starfish has gone in for slimming, and has whiplash tentacles; sometimes the fat sausage-shaped beche de mer lies there, unhonoured and unsung, plaintively waiting for a Chinese mandarin to arrive and go into ecstasies about it. All this, a world of green light and queer people, gleams up at you through the plate-glass, and, like the light in women's eyes, you lie and lie, oblivious of the fact that you are getting a crick in your elbow and the sandmes, in squads, are sauntering up and down your stockings, selecting what they consider, upon reflection, a really tasty bit.
The birds of Stewart Island, titi and kiwi and purure and pigeon-gull, deserve an article to themselves; those and the little golden bay. Bear with me if I seem garrulous. In all probability, your women and children will detect in you signs of the same complaint,
(Continued on p. 34.)
Robbie'S arm moved with the speed of bad news and rescued the bottle that was just about to topple. It was Saturday morning and as usual we were gathered at Mr. Robertson's residence “Kai-iwi.” Naturally, he was known as Robbie, and his morning reception was usually well attended for, failing appearance at his place, he had a habit of calling on everybody else. As he carried the refreshment in a well-worn cricket bag with the necks showing clear, the wisest course was to go and see him. Our street is of the kind that adorns Wellington. It exists in its highest form in our city. It has a small bend in the middle where there is a short piece of flat, but as a rule it climbs steadily all the way. Consequently all the houses have a view, not only of the harbour, but of all the lower back yards, and the last house on the right at the top carries a prospect clear over to the tram terminus. This place belongs to Smith, who has a ladyhelp who, according to Robbie, “makes Lord Peter Wimsey look half blind, and Hercules Poirot slow in the detective uptake.”
Our suburb is so high up that it is almost self-contained, and its life therefore, is much like that of a country town. We know the amounts approximately of each other's mortgages, all the wives' “At Home” days, and get fairly close to the contents of Monday's mail. According to our most distinguished citizen, Major Owen (retired), it has all the disabilities of the country and no corresponding metropolitan advantages. The major is one of our prize possessions, especially in the summer. He wears a tie that looks like the cross section of a circus flag, and I feel when he is looking at me that I know I am neither crease-conscious, sock-selective, nor tie-minded. His hot day wear, with a hat with green lining, mustard coloured drill, and tenderly coloured silk shirts, makes everyone look in front or behind for a skulking tiger. He uses “sahib, pukka and tiffin,” and (we heard from the Smith's ladyhelp) he got really angry when he spoke Hindustani to the bottle-oh, and the incredible scoundrel said in reply, “I know little of the northern dialects, sir, but my English is quite serviceable.”
He always comes round to Robbie's on Sunday morning—mainly, I think, with the idea, of keeping our views sound. He suspects me, I know of far too charitable views about Afghans, dacoits, Ghandi, and other folk who have never been elected to a decent club. His son is a great trouble to him. He is farming in the Wairarapa and has acquired some very New Zealand ideas. He brought his head shepherd to stay for the match against the Wallabies, and blew down to the Ran-furly Shield match with two Maori shearers. He blasphemes about the prices British manufacturers charge for farming requisites and questions the riding abilities of the members of the Quorn.
Robbie comes second on our list of leading inhabitants—for far different reasons. He has a large income, but devotes a large slice of it to the thorough investigation of the merits of various brands of whisky. His picket fence is a picket one with the points downwards and the flat ends on top. Once a week, at least, he has trouble as he navigates past my matipo hedge and strikes his own. He sees at once that something is wrong and leans over, bit by bit, to get the fence the right way up. Finally he overdoes it and makes a good, but horizontal landing. Watson says that one of these days “He'll just be strong enough to make the last part walking on his hands, and his yell of triumph when he enters his own garden path will be heard in Malaga and Addis Ababa.”
He keeps a gardener who is (according to our maid) his wife's brother, and who (according to Robbie) “came a crash because of his drinking habits.” By mid-day on Saturdays, Robbie was always at his best. He would demonstrate the blunders of the Italian commanders in Abyssinia with bits of cheese for mountain heights and rivers indicated on the garden table with the wet bottom of a beer
(W. W. Stewart collection).
The Wairarapa Mail Train passing the rail car at Kaitoke Station, North Island, New Zealand.
The willows will be changing now from red to green, in the bends of the river. They glowed so warmly beneath the clay banks and the jumble of broken limestone cliffs. All the winter the willows flamed as if the burnished husks that imprisoned the green tip of the Spring were polished till they caught light from the wind and rain. The husks knotted the feeble twigs and gave the trees a burning warmth beside the icy river, until one day, they were no longer red, but green with gossamer lightness.
I remember those willows with affection, and the smoke that came up through them as the afternoon sun dipped early down behind the hills, and with the smoke the friendly chugging sound that filled all the lonely valley with a sound like home.
Late winter or early spring is a sharp time to take to the road, but it is a good time. Southward through a gap of the hills that edge the Canterbury Plains a little railway line goes on from the branch line town of Waimate. It was laid down in the hearty and optimistic ‘eighties, but now it keeps to its quiet way, holding occasional and conversational intercourse with the slow stream and the road through the gorge, until it runs into the wider atmosphere of the twin basins of the Waihao Forks and Wai-hao Downs.
It is no longer a passenger line, but when as a goods train, it goes out, the surprising thing is how it draws its own peculiar life towards its quiet terminals. Waihao Forks and Waihao Downs are two stations, though almost one in thought and mood. A willow filled gully and a short fertile stretch keep them one and a half miles apart. When the train whistles at one you can hear it at the other. Yet they are sufficiently distinctive to be each a little focal point of a valley's life. At Waihao Forks a stream joins a good trout river. The hotel hobnobs with the station. The cattle pens are opposite the Post Office, but the Post Office is simply a box at a roadside cottage door. Waihao Downs, further on, is buried in the low hills. It has the homestead, the store, the station sheds and workmen's houses, and it has the blacksmith.
The blacksmith is important. He has a proprietary air towards the station buildings. On the days in the week when no train runs, or when there is no official at the station, he keeps the key of the sheds. He knows his man. He is a chronicle of the country's doings. I see him now smoking his pipe, his hair like Esau's, curly in his neck, his slit leather apron polished with wear, his eyes rarely moving with the slow mechanism of his thought.
Near the wide doorway and behind the tethered horse the wooden slabs of the walls of his shop were covered with the burned marks of sheep brands. The Waihao is good sheep country. Horseshoes piled the floor; links of chain were buried in the dust; the windows were curtained with cobwebs; the tongs were ready in front of the forge. As the smith leans on the arm-lever that works the old-fashioned bellows he peoples the countryside with his talk. Not that he goes often beyond his “shop.” News comes to him at the railhead. But when the train whistles the bellows hang idle. The forge is abandoned. The train, indeed, is a magnet drawing to it not only the township's desultory workers and the idlers from the store, but all the slow quiet industry of the soil.
I had a fancy once to put this country in a book, and so I started making
(Continued on page iv.).
(Photo., R. W. Carr).
The Railway Station at Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand.
A recent view of Nelson, South Island, New Zealand.
The cowboy's boots are white with mud that has gone the colour of dust. He walks with a footsore tread as if the soles of his boots had never bent with the pressure of an easy step. He clops along in the wake of the cattles rolling flanks. The cumbersome beasts watch the road, and he is silent too, and shy as a calf.
The shepherd brings his sheep down by slow stages, six or seven miles a day from the back country. The dogs pad across the road and back again.
You know the slow way countrymen talk, chewing on their thought as on the soft end of a stem of grass.
I remarked on the day. The country was washed and warm. A lark trembled over the hill.
“I could envy you your life,” I said, “walking like this through the countryside.”
He looked at me and then at the sky. “And what would you do when it rained?”
I looked at his boots. Like the cowboy's, they were also white, but with dust that had caked to mud.
And thus I passed on all the day, talking to the roadman, the ploughman, the post mistress, and hailed the passing trolleymen rolling along the rails like oarsmen in rhythmical motion. But at that hour when the sun dips and the ground fogs begin to creep eerily over the ploughed paddocks, and a homeward craving, a stomach craving besets one, the chain of my cycle rode the sprocket; the old machine baulked and tipped me down with aching legs and mind a little sated with the sweet alure of country joys. I had lingered too long at Waihao Downs. I was now at the Forks and far from home.
Was ever sound more musical then than the whistle of an engine, or an engine's chug-chug, or sight more blessed than engine smoke coming out of willow trees, red willows turning green. A train is a grand thing in that it always links a strange land with the promise of home.
The smell of the cattle and sheep in the trucks was only warmly and inoffensively odorous during the leisurely unconcern of that branch line loading. A guard's van is a homely place and gangers are good company, for if the blacksmith had the gossip, they had all the blacksmiths' gossip and more. In the mind of the guard, too, the slightly aloof consideration of the guard, the prosperity of the countryside is interpreted in the figures he holds in his hand. He pushes his hat back to scratch his forehead the more easily to make the calculations on his lading sheet.
And thus it came to me, not by words, but by the spirit of the day, that the little train running Downwards and in again to the town, tapped the human and material heart of the country with complete understanding. The train belonged. It knew the sheep yield, the bushels to the acre. It knew the very soil.
mug. However, Watson tells me, his best efforts were during the Great War, when he kept count of the huge masses of prisoners reported in the communiques: “Four hundred thousand Russians taken by the Germans last Saturday, three hundred Russians taken prisoners by the Germans, two hundred thousand Austrians taken on Wednesday” and so on … Robbie reckoned that eventually “all the Germans would be prisoners in Russia and
Watson is the only adequate disputant with Robbie, and in many ways is even more picturesque. His money troubles provide our streets with breathless half hours. His radio is not back yet and it was taken away for repairs, he said, over three weeks ago. The Smith's ladyhelp, discussing with our maid, his inability to meet the current half year's second mortgage interest, said it was ridiculous to see him giving a law clerk beer in the back garden for the second time in one week. He is a crank on sprays. His garden shed is a laboratory of tins, bottles, and containers of lethal mixtures. He has a habit of singing “Down the Vale” while he is spraying, and Smith reckons that he is imagining he is dealing death and destruction to his creditors. Smith is a good sort, but has a wife who, in Johnston's words, “puts on the largest record in creation for the size gramophone she is.” She runs a continuous performance, too. They get very good reception of it without static for three houses each way. It has the steady remorseless persistence of our wireless set when the girls are at home. The ladyhelp told our maid that when Mrs. Smith was away last month, Smith was so lonely without the buzz of Mrs. Smith's insistent tones, that he took the radio set up to the bedroom and only switched it off just as he was dropping off to sleep. Johnston is an obliging sort, but he has an irritating habit of coming round on Sunday mornings and giving advice about the treatment of sweet peas, laborious methods of dealing with slugs that attack dahlia leaves, and other strenuous ways of improving the garden. He has a loud carrying voice which easily reaches the wife's ears, and gives her quite wrong ideas. He has the smallest model yapping toy Pom., a genuine miniature. Robbie pulled one of his best about this one, on one of his long benders. He had missed his own path and was trying to focus this tiny animal growth which was hopping here and there. Mrs. Johnston gathered her darling and Robbie said, trying still to really see it clearly, “Why, Mrshs Johns'on, you're prackertially outer dogsh, aren't you?”
I've missed out the retired Official Assignee who lives two doors from me, and is a mine of stories about the country province in which he officiated; the widow Martin who is rather a mystery, and many others who may appear later on. Robbie is completely out of Major Owen's list just now. He advanced the theory that all wars could be stopped by making the officers wear slop suits, and restricting military age to those over fifty. He reckons there'd be a business conference in No Man's Land in less than a week and the thing would be settled by splitting the difference. It seems sense, too.
after your first visit to Rakiura. You won't want to desist from talking about it. And after all, why should you? It's not every Saturday night you can go to the southernmost picture theatre in the entire world, and, wrapped up in a borrowed fur coat, hear a most impressive rendering of the late King's Jubilee speech to his Empire. Perhaps that, like the sober horses pulling the Rakiura lorries between the wild fuchsias, sounds a little old-fashioned. But there was somet