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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. 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. 26/5/36.
There was a touch of humour in the solution advanced by a recent visitor that New Zealand's adverse balance of trade with America might be adjusted by selling them our scenery. No Scotsman, with all his reputation for making a keen bargain, could have conceived such a “slick” way to achieve an appearance of economic adjustment. The shade of Adam Smith would shudder at the thought. Even the original Adam could not take his scenery with him.
Scenery is no trading asset; it is rather a windfall of nature, like the lucrative catch-crop of red clover a farmer may sometimes chance upon from a shorn and fallow wheat-field.
Ideas may be exchanged for eggs and bacon—they frequently are—but the operation forms no equalising feature in the local or national economic balance-sheet. And scenery, although more tangible than ideas, is less transferable; and the best of it stays where nature has put it, and cannot thrive in a foreign clime.
New Zealand's scenery is outstanding in range and beauty, and has enchantments that are in no way related to the marts of commerce. Its chief virtues lie in the mental and physical stimulus it gives, and the inevitable adjustment of outlook it produces upon the real and relative value and importance of things. As Emerson declared: “At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes in these precincts.”
As has been well said of the beauty in nature, it “serves as a differential thermometer, detecting the presence or absence of the divine sentiment in man.” To serve this purpose our mountains and rivers, lakes and forests, geysers and glow-worms all contribute, and they are open to all who care to enjoy them.
The excellent work done for years past by such bodies as the Forest and Bird Protection Society and the various Beautifying Societies throughout the Dominion has helped to impress on the minds of our own people the need for scenery preservation and an attitude towards the protection of nature's assets which helps to ensure them against desecration. And this attitude becomes more necessary as the vantage points from which the most dazzling spectacles may be viewed become increasingly accessible through the opening up of roads and tracks, and the improvements constantly taking place in transport facilities. Some of the country's greatest scenic attractions still remain to be opened up for the approach of the average traveller, and when this has been done this country will have a still more overwhelming claim to be the world's scenic playground.
One glory of the country is its tendency to revert to its original state if left alone for a while. Where clearings were made in the early days of settlement and then abandoned for some reason—a gold rush, or difficulty of access, or insufficient capital for development—it has been seen that nature has claimed the land for its own again, covering the scarred surfaces with the lovely verdure of native grass and fern and forest.
This power of recuperation means much in the preservation of the country's scenic assets, and will help to ensure for all time the most essential factors in the composition of the country's scenery.
The value of these assets is realised, and every encouragement is given, by good publicity overseas and by good transport facilities within the Dominion, for the peoples of all the world to come and enjoy what nature has provided here so lavishly. The cost of such a visit is recompensed by the value in service and scenery received.
But to suggest that a New Zealand farmer need not sell his butter because an American tourist is coming to see the waterfall in his back paddock, is to carry the idea of reciprocity in trade right out of its proper sphere.
Railway work is, in the nature of things, a very variable business, and those who engage in it require to develop a philosophy that assists them to meet with equanimity and success, seasonal variations in traffic, the stress of rush periods and the slacks that usually follow. Unless they do this their lives are not as happy as they should be, and they are probably more suited for routine jobs of steadier gait, if perhaps, of a more monotonous type.
But if they develop the philosophy which makes for happiness in railway work, then the romance of the rail gets into their blood and every day is filled with interest—it has its trials and triumphs, demanding their best efforts, but they are rewarded by the feeling of good work well done and emergencies met with understanding, sympathy and judgment.
From my personal experience of railwaymen through many years in all ranks of the service, I may say that the vast majority of our members reach this sound outlook, and play their part in the railway team in good spirit and with pleasure in their jobs, and also with trust in their fellow railwaymen.
It was this attitude towards their work by our staff that gave rise to the remark of a recent visitor, the Hon. E. H. Angelo, M.L.C., of Perth, who represents the Northern Province of Western Australia.
Mr. Angelo was on a visit to New Zealand with his wife and daughter and, when interviewed by the “Evening Post” of Wellington, remarked: “The courtesy of the railway officials passes all understanding. They pointed out all the places of interest, and made a special effort so that we would not miss the more important spots.”
That was high praise indeed, and as it was quite spontaneous, it should give pleasure to every railwayman that so complete a tribute was paid to their courtesy by this distinguished visitor and experienced traveller.
The Department does what it can, by its monthly Magazine, by special publications such as the “Romance of the Rail” books, contour maps, “Station Name” booklets, and folders of many kinds, to keep the staff posted regarding the facts of interest in the various localities, particularly information of a historical and descriptive character that may add to the useful knowledge of New Zealanders as well as overseas visitors. But it requires that right attitude of mind, of which I have written, for such information to be turned to effective use by our staff, for the benefit of travellers, as was evidently the case during Mr. Angelo's railway trips in this country.
I desire to thank all concerned in earning the fine tribute the Hon. Mr. Angelo has been kind enough to pay the service, and trust that all other travellers on our lines may continue to receive equal consideration and assistance from the members of the railway service with whom they make contact.
General Manager.
(See article page 11).
The territory of South Westland, past the Franz Josef and the Fox glaciers and onward to the Haast, is now a better known feature of travel enterprise in New Zealand. But few venture beyond the Haast. Southward of there the arrival of strangers is an event to which even the rabbits are not yet wise, while beyond Barn Bay so difficult is the route that to take pack-horses would be sheer cruelty to animals. We were told that in an attempt of this kind two years ago, when a pair of pack-horses carried the camping outfit, one horse was killed on the way and the other had to be shot at the end of the beach route. Thus from Barn Bay to Big Bay (approximately 25 miles) travellers must proceed per foot, with heavy swags up, as floods in the rivers and wild mountain torrents may cause delays for days or weeks. From Big Bay to Martin's Bay and then inland via Lake McKerrow, the Pyke River, and Lake Alabaster and south up the Hollyford Valley to the Eglinton Divide is, comparatively speaking, much easier walking and is, perhaps, the most striking scenic section of all New Zealand.
It was a journey for which careful planning had to be done. Accurate information, particularly in regard to distances, supplies, and communication, was not easy to obtain, but officers of the Public Works Department and the people of the districts traversed, particularly Captain Mercer, of the West Coast Airways, the Cronn family at the Haast, the Nolans at Okuru, and Mr. David Gunn of Big Bay, Martin's Bay, McKerrow, and points south and east, were most helpful in facilitating both the plans for the excursion and the details of the actual trip.
The people of the West Coast have a great reputation for hospitality and in the course of the trip there was ample evidence that the reputation is well earned. The further we went into the back of beyond the more overflowing was the hospitality extended by the handful of people who occupy that detached section of New Zealand—South Westland.
The last boat for Jackson's Bay sailed in November and carried stores for use on our trip. The cases were zinc-lined as a precaution against weather and rodents, and although consigned to Jackson's Bay were intercepted by our good friend, Mr. Paddy Nolan, who packed them to Okuru and stored them pending our arrival.
A rail-car scheduled to leave Christ-church on Saturday, the 19th December, at 6.40 p.m., carried a number of other passengers and ourselves on a fast run to Greymouth and Hokitika. Although several stops were made to pick up and set down passengers and for refreshments, Hokitika was reached in exactly five hours.
Sunday morning in Hokitika was a time of peace. The sun shone warmly and the sea lapped gently, while high beyond the foothills rose the outline
We broke away by car at 11 a.m. and took the wonderful West Coast road. At Lake Ianthe Hotel we dined with Mr. J. McLean, chairman of the Greymouth Chamber of Commerce and Harbour Board, who was on his way to pay a visit to his model farm at Haast. Then we came to the forks of the Okarito Road, and went along the branch to visit the small seaside settlement of Okarito, where Mr. G. F. Clapcott, engineer to the Okarito Harbour Coy. Ltd., and Mr. Norman Friend, a settler who has experienced and come through the shifts and vagaries of a difficult river outlet and a changing seafront, told the tale of the growth of Okarito, and led us in the rain to see their river-estuary wharf and explained in detail the proposed harbour improvement.
At Waiho there was a warm welcome from Alick and Peter Graham, ideal hosts and noted guides of the world-famed Franz Josef Glacier and hotel.
Fat Hereford cattle and sheep which looked as big as ponies testify to the nourishing qualities of excellent feed that grows on the cultivated flats on the way southward to the Fox.
Heavy mist and rain made flying impossible on Monday and Tuesday, but we drove and walked round the adjacent country. A sight that indicated the way-back life, was the mounted mailman, Mr. Charles Smith, with led pack-horse crossing the Cook River on his two days' southward trek with a heavy Christmas mail. We crossed the footbridges of the Fox and Cook Rivers to traverse the splendid four-mile road which now connects the two. Traffic suspension bridges over both rivers are under construction. The anchor masonry and ironwork now in position at each end of these bridges is of great weight and strength. When these structures are completed, road-making for many miles further south will be comparatively easy, and the tourist attractions in the vicinity of the Fox glacier will be considerably enhanced, while transport will be much simplified for settlers southward to Bruce Bay, the Haast and Okuru.
The evenings at Sullivan's Hotel were bright and cheery with song and story. There is a quality about the glacier atmosphere that makes for good cheer; and the hotel party, as usually happens in the tourist season, included people from many places overseas whose tales and reactions were particularly interesting to hear and observe.
Wednesday, 23rd December, was very misty, with some rain. However, Captain Mercer arrived at the Weheka landing ground at 10 a.m. and we were aloft at 10.5 in a very comfortable ‘plane, proud and happy in the knowledge that it was formerly owned by the Duke of Windsor when Prince of Wales. The going was quite smooth, with an occasional bump when flying over the mountain spurs. First we flew northward to Okarito and Franz Josef where we landed at 10.45 a.m. to pick up the mail, and then southward to the Haast.
We obtained some good movie film of the coastline—in fact, the movie record of the whole trip, if it could be seen by all, would largely take the place of this story.
The rata coming into bloom for miles along the route paralleling the foreshore, provided a magnificent forest spectacle.
We left Franz Josef at 11.10 a.m. and arrived Bruce Bay at 11.35 a.m.
We left Bruce Bay at 12.20 p.m. and arrived at the Cronn's on the Haast River at 12.45 p.m. The landing ground is right alongside the Cronn homestead, and Captain Mercer was able to taxi to within 50 yards of the back door. The Cronns are most hospitable people with the real West Coast spirit of good cheer, courage and enterprise. Here we had a delayed morning tea, followed by a dinner of super-excellence. The family certainly know how to treat themselves and their guests well.
Leaving reluctantly and heavily, but cheerfully, at 2.10 p.m. we were soon at the landing ground at Okuru Point where Charlie Eggeling and Jack Matson, who were to accompany us, were waiting. The ground was too heavy at Upper Okuru to descend there that day, but after a while Mr. Paddy Nolan arrived with a heavy spring cart to take us to his home at Upper Okuru. In fording the Okuru, which is a tidal river, the water came some inches over the floor of the cart. The road there is very rough—but no one, among these hardy pioneers, worries at all about a bit of roughness—they are tough and game, and ready with a “make-do” remedy for any emergency. Further along the road we met Paddy Nolan's brother, Dennis, a very hearty, free-speaking, humorous member of the Nolan family. We later met the families of both brothers in their respective homes and found them to be delightful people. The children had been to high schools on the other side of the Island and combined a modern outlook with a knowledge of how to be happy and comfortable in the more natural conditions of an outpost settlement.
These people have the latest style of radio, a perfect fishing river at their doors, abundance of flowers, good food from the land, a care-free, open-air life, and—with the coming of the aeroplane—opportunity
On Christmas Eve we commenced the big trek southward. About two hours were spent after breakfast in unpacking the stores, carefully weighing up what was essential and discarding everything else; for with so much travel to be done without the aid of pack horses, every pound had to be considered. We started off at 11.45 a.m. after a call at Mr. Dennis Nolan's to despatch telegrams. Here we received a farewell gift of bottled sunshine, and after another stop (this time at Mr. Dick Eggeling's place) for a stirrup cup, the cavalcade really got going.
The main ride in the afternoon was along the beach, with occasional river crossings. The Turnbull is a clear stream and has a reputation as a great fishing river. The Waiatoto has a fairly deep crossing over a wide tidal entrance, the water coming well up the saddle flaps. Here we saw a number of water fowl. We passed Mt. McLean, a perfectly shaped sugar-loaf mountain, adorned with layers of rata. Then, with the coming of rain, we struck up the north bank of the Arawata River for about a mile through a very rough bush track.
Paradise ducks were fairly plentiful
It is about a three hours' ride from Upper Okuru to the Arawata ford, but it was 4.30 p.m. when we were all across, and 6 o'clock by the time we were in the shelter of Nolan's hut about half a mile beyond the south bank of the river. There we made a meal of tea and sardines, butter and ship's biscuits.
Paddy Nolan, with undimmed vivacity for all his sixty-one years, filled in most of the evening with hearty declamation of a huge range of Banjo Patterson's ballads, including “The Man from Snowy River” and other similar wayback poems which he drew from a seemingly endless repertoire.
The night was comfortably warm, the rain exceedingly heavy, and sandflies and mosquitoes worked in shifts to keep the wakeful worried. The hut, built by a German family about forty years ago, has six bunks, three rooms, a big fireplace and a camp oven which meets all cooking requirements.
And nothing could be more appetising than the great scones made with flour, baking powder and water, taken hot off the log fire.
Christmas Day was one continuous rain, when even fishing was fruitless, but Boxing Day saw us up at 6 a.m.
We rode up the Arawata banks, up the Jackson River and over the Martyr saddle, and so down into the clearings of the Cascade River—a fine open space lying northwest of the Olivine Range and south of the Plateau—that most regularly gradual of all mountain slopes. Between 4 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. some good fishing was done, and then there was a high tea, with a Nolan lamb providing the choicest meat. Here the Nolans maintain a comfortable place, with several rooms, for it is used as a base camp during a month or two each year. At Cascade, as well as at Okuru, the Nolans raise horses and cattle. Paddy Nolan has a system of his own by which he trains the young cattle with dogs so that when they are old enough to take to market they are well disciplined for driving over the main highway. This system has helped his droving through difficult country to be very free from losses and incidentally assists other road traffic.
Next morning (27th) we were all up at 5 a.m. to view a mountain marvel—the five-pointed star of the Olivine Range shining in austere brilliance among the dark peaks as the rising sun lit up its polished greenstone splendour.
Then we took the track at 7.15 a.m. to ride to a small clearing 7 1/2 miles away. There we abandoned our mounts as the track was too difficult for riding. As I said good-bye to Gladys, the gay young mare who had made a monkey of me for three days, she gave me a real horsey “ha-ha!” Her system was to lag behind, cropping the grass till the others were almost out of sight, and then to gallop full tilt to catch up, when the process would be repeated. A really managing horseman might have resented this method of progression, but it seemed to pan out all right for both of us.
We now walked 4 1/2 miles through heavy bush down the Hope River to Barn Bay.
Then, with heavy swags up, we set off from Barn Bay at 2.30 p.m. and walked the coast to Brown's Refuge, a further 7 miles. We made camp there at 8.15 p.m. Most of the distance was over a very rough boulder beach which made the going very hard. Sandflies and mosquitoes in the open punga whare, an early prospector's shelter (and a very small one at that) at Brown's Refuge, made sleep difficult—tired though we were.
We roused at 2.45 a.m. and left the camp as daylight came at 4.15 a.m. on Monday, 28th December. We arrived at the Gorge River at 5.30 a.m. and left there at 6 a.m. This is another fast tidal river, and it was so deep, even at low tide, that we almost had to swim. This was the hardest day of the trip as we only made thirteen miles headway along the boulder beach. Those boulders were large and polished like marble, and in places slippery with sea slime and the coast above them was impenetrable. By four in the afternoon we called it a day, pitched the tent about a mile
On the 29th we left camp at 7 a.m. and took things easy, to arrive at The Landing, Big Bay, about 2.15 p.m. From the moment we turned Awarua Point into Big Bay the going became
About 3.30 p.m. we reached Mr. David Gunn's camp, just across the Awarua River at the head of Big Bay (north-east corner). Mr. Gunn was not there, but we found two prospectors in possession who were resting after arrival from the camp at Homer Saddle. After a cup of tea together they proceeded on their prospecting tour, and we had the luck to secure some rabbits and make a very palatable stew. We bathed on the beach, which is a very safe one with a wide stretch of fine, unbroken sand. The slope seaward is so slight as to be almost imperceptible for a considerable distance. The beach sand-flies were unbelievably numerous and active. The hut was quite comfortable with bunks, rough chairs and the usual cooking equipment, including the indispensable camp oven and frying pan. Here a new loaf of soda bread was made, to supply a change from the cabin biscuits which by this time had ceased to have any trace of popularity, particuarly as our November shipment of butter had developed a much stronger taste than its makers ever intended.
We slept well, but rose at 3.30 next morning, 30th December, and after a good meal of rabbit stew, took the road at 5.30 a.m. The first four miles was along the sand at the head of Big or Awarua Bay, and despite our ample packs we made good time. Somewhere about noon we rounded the point into Martin's Bay and there met Mr. Dave Gunn with a party of a dozen or so—tourists who had been gathered by an Invercargill tourist firm from various parts of the Dominion to make a trip to Big Bay from the south.
Mr. Gunn was guiding them, and the whole party seemed to be happy and greatly enjoying their unusual outing. We all lunched there together in the bright sunshine. They told us one of their party was to be picked up by Bradshaw's ‘plane at 4.30 that afternoon in Big Bay, and that the ‘plane was bringing another member to join the party for their return journey on foot. This party had pack horses for their heavier equipment and appeared to be making good progress. After the party had gone on, we bathed in the sea there and then strolled along to Gunn's place at the mouth of the Hollyford River, where we arrived at 4.0 in the afternoon.
Two of Mr. Gunn's assistants were at the house, and after we had made tea they assisted us in getting the boat ready for our row up Lake McKerrow. We left at 6.30 p.m., and although the wind was slightly against us most of the way, we reached the head of the lake, fifteen or sixteen miles from the starting point at Gunn's, in 3 1/4 hours. The scenery along the lower reach of the Hollyford River and all along Lake McKerrow is of great beauty. There are a number of unscarred forest-clad spurs reaching down to the lake on each side in orderly procession, and spaced along its whole length. Any one of these would provide all the charm of water, wooded mountain and sky that make the composition of the most attractive scenic paintings; but seen together, in one long, clear view up a thirteen-mile stretch of pellucid water and backed by the snow-clad peaks of the Humboldt Mountains, the whole effect is breath-taking in its magnificence. An interesting feature of this lake is that it has a tidal rise and fall even at the head of the lake.
Darkness had come by the time we landed and found our way to the small hut at the head of Lake McKerrow. It is another of Dave Gunn's shelter places which are scattered through the 100,000 acres of rough territory in which he rears his cattle and horses. There was no trouble with sandflies or mosquitoes at this hut, and sleep came easily and lasted long.
The following morning (31st) Mr. David Gunn, looking white, weary and worried, arrived hurriedly at 6.30 with news of the accident to Bradshaw's ‘plane which had crashed at Big Bay about 4.30 the previous afternoon, just after Mr. Gunn with his tourist party had arrived there. The sad news of death and injury caused by the crash was received with shocked feelings, but the need for prompt medical aid was pressing, and everything possible was done to speed
He had left Big Bay about 8.30 the previous night, walked the coast from there to Martin's Bay in the night hours, and about 2.30 in the morning started the long row up Lake McKerrow, reaching us four hours later.
(continued on p. 49.)
Summit tunnel, L.M.S. Lancashire-Yorkshire Main Line.
Coronation year is to see the introduction on the Home railways of new high-speed passenger train services breaking all previous records. His Majesty the King, always intensely interested in railway progress, has graciously given permission for a new daily flyer between London (King's Cross) and Edinburgh, to be named “Coronation.” This London and North Eastern express is to commence running in July. It will be a streamlined service, covering the 392 1/4 miles between the English and Scottish capitals in exactly six hours. This compares with the present quickest timing of 7 1/4 hours by the non-stop “Flying Scotsman.” Later in the year, the King's Cross authorities will introduce another record-breaking streamlined service, this time between London and the Yorkshire cities of Leeds and Bradford. Making the double journey between King's Cross and Yorkshire daily, this train will average 67.6 miles an hour. Both the new Edinburgh and Leeds-Bradford trains will follow on general lines the existing “Silver Jubilee” trains between London and Newcastle. The “Silver Jubilee”—Britain's first streamlined express—carried no fewer than 68,000 passengers in its first year of operation, running 133,464 miles at an average speed of 66 m.p.h. Some 90,000 miles were traversed at 80 m.p.h. or over.
Streamlined trains hauled by steam lccomotives seem likely to form the principal means of movement on the Home railway trunk routes for some years to come. Like Germany, we are finding high-speed streamlined trains a decided success, although here and there, where conditions are peculiarly favourable, advantage is being taken of electrification. Two ambitious electrification works are now in hand. On the Southern system, the London-Portsmouth tracks will shortly be electrified throughout; while Reading also will be linked with London by electric trains at a later date. On the London and North Eastern, an especially noteworthy electrification work is being put in hand—the conversion to electricity of the Manchester-Sheffield main line. This will involve 74 1/2 route miles, equivalent with sidings to 292 1/4 single track miles. Unlike the Southern electrification will increase the capacity of train movement, the Manchester-Sheffield conversion provides for the electrical haulage of all trains—passenger, freight and coal.
The electrical equipment will be of the overhead transmission type, employing direct current at 1,500 volts. Included in the tracks involved are two tunnels each three miles long. Electrification will increase the capacity of these tunnels—the controlling factor in the train density of the route—by 25 per cent. It is planned to replace the 181 steam engines at present utilised in the Manchester-Sheffield services by 88 electric locomotives. There will be nine express passenger locomotives,
(Photo., London Passenger Transport Board.)
Wood Green Station, Piccadilly Tube Railway, London.
A noteworthy feature of every electrification scheme is the vastly improved signalling associated therewith. Thus, on the Southern Railway, particular attention has been paid to modernised signalling in its big electrification plan. The opening of a new all-electric signal box at Waterloo Station, London, marks the last stage of an ambitious improvement scheme aiming at the speeding-up of train movement. The new box contains 309 small levers, and controls the area formerly supervised by six signal boxes with a total of 499 levers. A feature are the four illuminated track diagrams, showing the signalmen when the various sections of track are occupied. Telephones, too, have freely been made use
Probably one of the most famous steam locomotive types in the world is found in the “King” class of engines, turned out of the Swindon shops of the Great Western Railway. The “King George V” engine, in addition to performing wonderful service at Home, also made a tour of the United States in connection with the centenary celebrations of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Incidentally, this well-known locomotive still carries a suitably inscribed brass bell, presented by the Baltimore authorities as a souvenir of its trans-Atlantic tour. The latest “King” class engine—No. 6029— promises to become just as famous as the “King George V.”
Naming railway engines after royalty is no new thing. The first four-cylinder express passenger engine built at Swindon in 1910 was christened “Queen Mary.” Later, in 1927, the first of the same company's “King” class giants came along, and it was this engine which was named “King George V.’ On the marriage of King George and Queen Mary, two passenger locomotives were named after the royal couple—No. 1128, “Duke of York,” and No. 1129, “Princess Mary.” At their coronation, in 1911, a London and North Western express locomotive was christened “Coronation.” Saloon cars on the Great Western are also honoured by royal names. Eight saloons operating in the London-Plymouth services are named after members of the Royal Family, the first two being christened “King George” and “Queen Mary” respectively.
London's transportation system will be called upon to handle unprecedented crowds during Coronation week. The London Passenger Transport Board, however, is accustomed to “rush” business, and so all this extra work will be tackled calmly and without fuss. In an ordinary normal year, 3,648,000,000 passengers are conveyed over the routes of the L.P.T.B. undertaking—the big pool established to coordinate rail and road transport in the metropolis. The Board services a population of 9,500,000, and covers a large suburban area as well as the city proper. Underground railways, main-line suburban services, bus and trackless trolley systems, all come under its control.
From a railway viewpoint, the underground railways are probably as interesting as any of the services covered. These consist of tube lines, and tracks laid in shallow tunnels with stations in the open. Among the tubes, may be named the Central London, running from Liverpool Street in the east to the western suburbs; the Bakerloo (Baker Street and Waterloo); and the Piccadilly Tube, centred on Piccadilly Circus. Distinct from the tubes are the Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Railways—shallow tunnel lines which originally were operated by steam. The “Inner Circle” forms the most important “Metro” route. This is an irregular oval of tracks, enclosing the busiest portion of the metropolis, and linking the mainline termini.
We are reminded of the unique permanence of railway engineering by the announcement that recently the one-millionth brick was laid by workmen who, since 1930, have been engaged on the re-lining of Summit Tunnel. Piercing the Pennine Mountains for a distance of 2,885 yards, 300 feet below the surface, the Summit Tunnel carries the L.M. and S. main-line between Lancashire and Yorkshire beneath this formidable mountain chain. Eight hundred tons of sand and 400 tons of cement have so far been used in repairing two of the five rings of bricks forming the tunnel, and the work will continue for several years. Except for temporary speed restrictions, the relining has not disturbed train working, despite the fact that on busy days as many as 500 or 600 trains pass through the Summit Tunnel.
He has a little blue-striped body, is nervous of visitors, calls with a high, sweet call, two syllables rather like “Pio-pio, pio-pio,” and is known to the Stewart Islanders as the Summer Bird. And they say that to see him—their shining cuckoo, a visitor from the warm north just when the honey is full in the wild red fuchsias again—is an omen of good luck. I saw him, walking in the evening past Old Mill Creek, to a turn of the road where outside a little farmhouse children were playing, and beyond lay apparently nothing whatever, but thick bush. This year's has been a very late summer, and on Stewart Island the clematis still made snowdrifts, white and golden masses, over the old rimus. All the cattle go belled, and you hear the thin tinkling of their bells before you turn the corner of the road, and see whatever there is to be seen, summer bird or other stranger …
The launch wasn't in commission, but rowing by dinghy a matter of five miles down Paterson Inlet isn't considered anything unnatural to the common lot of man. You can row (or travel by launch, but that is quicker and noisier), seventeen miles down a branch of this Inlet, which is true fiord country, utterly hidden in bush except where a curve of beach rounds out, soft yellow, sparkling in company with iron sand. And there on the little golden beach we landed and boiled the mussels which are small but quite toothsome; these plus thick new bread and butter, plus billy tea, while the thin curls of blue smoke, a veil in shimmering air, went up from a fire of sticks. The sea-swallows were nesting—the daintiest of the sea-birds, with their spotless white wings forked and crossed in true swallow style, their little bodies skimming about the rocks, filling the air with plaintive cries. They were rather annoyed, having been bereaved of one recently-laid egg … only one, a handsome greyish-lavender production, mottled with black. Young visitors to the Island are so interested in this aspect of nature study that an occasional egg is filched from the nests; but even in Half-Moon Bay, barely a stone's throw from shore, the seabirds nest so thickly on Bird Rock that their guano-droppings have killed off the shrubs which cover every other islet, and their shrewish scolding can be plainly heard as you go to buy your papers—which arrive six at a time, brought over once a week from the mainland.
On the waves the heavier bodies of penguins, little sandhoppers and another variety with yolk-of-egg waistcoat, bob grotesquely about, or dip out of sight as the dinghy comes near. And shags show how clever they are, staying under water until you can hardly believe that a black robber-bird (very plentiful all around this coast) will bob up again, greedy for another fish. To watch the shags fishing is amusing: as the old countrywoman said, “His eye's too big for his belly,” and frequently you notice wild gyrations on a wave-crest, as a shag wrestles with the flesh, trying to swallow a fish about three times his proper size. But with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause, he keeps on trying until the fish is in its proper place, and then immediately hunts about for a new one.
When people tell you that the New Zealanders' own bird, the emblem of its All Blacks, its butter, its woollens, and everything that is Its, is gradually becoming extinct—smile, and tell them to visit Stewart Island. An Islander who has been familiar with the beaches
(Photo, Thelma R. Kent.)
The well-known Mountain Daisy of New Zealand.
paua shells, glittering under the water, and the Devil's Cave, containing a camp despite its sinister name—you put up in a deer-lodge, sleeping in a bunk. Only if you're a real enthusiast, sleep should be your last consideration, because the kiwi is a night-goer, never seen by daylight, when he himself is dozing in his underground burrow, usually found beneath the roots of some big tree. After dark, and afar off, begin weird screeching noises; and as these get nearer, your time comes to forget how tired you are, and venture forth by torchlight. The kiwis are on their march….
That the Stewart Island kiwis really do have a night march, many of them moving together down to their feeding grounds, is a firm belief of the Islanders. There are three species of New Zealand's favourite bird—the little grey fellow, of the North Island, the larger kiwi of the West Coast Sounds, and the Stewart Islander, who is brown, and during the last twenty years has increased until it is calculated that thousands of his kind must be scattered over the southern and western parts
(Photo, Theima R. Kent.)
On the road between Lakes Hawea and Wanaka, South Island, New Zealand.
apteryx maxima has nostrils at the tip, not the base, of his seven-inch beak, which he uses for grub-digging. His colony-burrows are always in high country, and his midnight march takes him down to the flat, damp feeding grounds. An island naturalist has noted his quaint method of walking; kiwi footprints are always found one directly behind another, which suggest a sort of tightrope-gait, as odd as all the other facts about him. The female succeeds in producing an egg, to which, on a comparative scale, the Dionne quintuplets were just a laugh—her egg averages 5 1/4 inches by 3 1/2. The naturalist I mentioned above, has spent many days puzzling as to why the kiwi should devote so much of its time to walking an imaginary chalk line in the heart of the bush, but can reach no conclusion: the facts just are, like many of the odd things noticeable in New Zealand fauna and flora. And can it be that kiwis have a “bush telegraph,” or are they gifted with an amazing power of scent? At Mason's Beach, some years ago, 400 blackfish went ashore. Local residents collected the oil and tried it out in the old whaling try-pots, which still stand about as the whalers left them. Some of the escaping oil soaked the ground, and apparently the grubs decided they had had about enough of a good thing, and started on a migration. It was an unfortunate effort: the kiwis got to know, and the new feeding-ground was simply raided by hundreds of large, solemn, long-nosed birds.
Kiwi in his native wilds is a friendly fellow, and has not the faintest objection to being observed by visitors, under the bright eye of the torches. He has no natural enemies, though his former scarcity suggests that perhaps the Maoris once hunted him, either for food or for down. (He is, of course, a strictly protected bird, and undoubtedly this has helped in his recent large increase. Eating him nowadays would be out of the question. But I heard from one Islander—who heard it from the Maoris—that of old the kiwi used to be considered rather like pork, but too leggy to be really a gourmet's dish.) Nowadays he stalks about where he wishes, and even if mischance brings him into contact with a ‘possum-hunter's trap, the feet are so tough and thick that he is quite uninjured.
(Photo, Thelma R. Kent.)
The Railway Department's Steamer, “Earnslaw,” on Lake Wakatipu, South Island, New Zealand.
In this plight, he lies quite still until released. He can be handled, but if a suspicion enters his mind that your intentions are not all they ought to be, he lies on his back and kicks—a quaint way of defence, about which, however, prowling dogs think twice before they offer a closer acquaintance. Another queer thing about the kiwi: he has two calls, one a low, harsh, guttural screech, the other a shrill scream, repeated over and over, like the cry of the little weka, who is another well-known and popular Stewart Islander. Naturalists will have to decide whether the one bird utters the two calls, or whether the soprano is the lady….
Music can't be associated with these queer Island identities, but I think that in a preceding article I told you how the Stewart Island tuis and bell-birds, bloated with honey and an apparent sense of perfect security, tumble out of the trees, revealing the fact that their shining plumage is not pure black at all, but shot with a green and purple sheen, as well as garnished with a creamy bib and tucker. On Ulva Island, where the Government has preserved bush and bird so that one sees all manner of delicate, tiny growing things, unknown elsewhere, the music rings from daybreak till dark; and still the funny little scuttling noises of the weka go on, as he investigates camps or cottages, and decides whether any particular objet d'art would be a nice little present to take home to the wife. I think, if she hasn't been there, that Eileen Duggan, who wrote that delightful book, “New Zealand Bird Songs,” should be given a month on Ulva Island as a reward: she would meet many of her old bird acquaintances
Titi, the muttonbird, is the only fowl who had the honour of having his name mentioned in the Treaty of Waitangi, when his taking was reserved for all time as the right of the Maoris, who are the only vendors. There is a very heavy fine on the taking of even one muttonbird by a white man: and certainly the restriction has given the bird protection against extermination, for what the Maori takes, in the autumn of every year, is a mere drop in the bucket. Millions of muttonbirds nest in burrows, not on Stewart Island itself, but on two long islands (one known as Mummy Island, from its odd shape), within a few miles of the mainland. Their burrows are sometimes occupied by terns and little gulls, though owing to their underground life, you cannot see from a distance, nearly as much of their activities as you can of the sea-swallows nesting on Bird Rock. When I went to the Island Titi had recently begun to nest: and from the thousands of burrows, the visitor to the special muttonbird islands would have heard the evening filled with a queer crooning, as the birds returned with food for their chicks. Titi (about whom the distinguished New Zealand naturalist, Guthrie Smith, has written a fascinating book), turns its food into oil, and feeds this back to the chicks who are soon to be knocked on the head to make a Maori feast-day. But while the early nesting season is in full swing, the islands are certainly worth a visit: and isn't it awful to think that New Zealand was really the inventor of the first crooner, pre-Jolson and “Sonny Boy?”
The taking of Titi seems to the white man like one big picnic for the Maoris, though a Maori whom I met on the homeward voyage told me that it involved plenty of hard work, especially the making of the kelp baskets in which the birds are salted down. The kelp is first dried to board-stiffness, then softened and made pliable again; if anything goes wrong with this “curing,” you might as well throw out the mutton-birds, for they turn rank very quickly unless popped away in the salty security where they will last for a year. The method of catching is for the hundred or more Maoris to thrust long sticks down the burrows: when they come in contact with the young bird, they either haul him out, or else, if he is a difficult customer, twine fibre at the end of the sticks, and tangle him in this. He is removed from this world by a pinch or bite on the soft part of the skull. Plucking follows, and finally the day's catch is salted away, and the kelp bags wrapped up in bark. I tasted muttonbird (salted), in Dunedin, and thought it rather like salt herring—perfectly palatable, though decidedly on the fishy side. But the Maoris themselves say that titi is best when eaten fresh—roasted, propped up on sticks which allow the oil to run out. However, that may be, titi, in all his white-winged strength of numbers, undeterred by the hungry people who wait outside his burrows, has nested on these islands as far back as anyone can remember,
(Photo, Thelma R. Kent.)
The New Zealand Bush Clematis.
Which reminds me of the hermit horse of Pegasus Cove. Before the war, tin-mining enterprise made use of him, and somehow he was jettisoned there in the wilderness, in a very wild, steep-browed region. There is no way of getting him off, and there he abides, as far as the Islanders know, to this day, with only his very distant cousins, the sea-horses, to keep him company.
There are many things on the Island that I didn't see (Pegasus Cove was one of them), and I'm going back, perhaps in the season when the deer are roaring round the inlets of the surf-beaches on the western side. It is curious that Stewart Island seems to be one of the few places in New Zealand where they have not wreaked havoc with the bush: perhaps, on the wilder west, they may have been responsible for serious depredations, or perhaps the Island habit of living at least partly on venison keeps them down. But around Paterson Inlet and the other lovely bays I was able to visit, the bush was more unspoiled, soft and gracious than any other that I have seen, north or south. But there seems to be some wonderful recuperative power in the soil of Rakiura. Years ago there were milling interests on the island: to-day, thank heaven or the Government, the sawmills are stationary, and the trees spared. Very little trace of the places where they bit into the bush can now be seen. The old mill-chute used for bringing logs down still remains, a streak of grey on a hillside, but all around it climb the trees.
I am going back, perhaps to find a catseye at the Devil's Cave (New Zealand produces beautiful, queerly-marked green catseyes, and doesn't appreciate them at all, whereas, according to a famous traveller's reminiscences, in Ceylon, the Tom Tiddler's ground of semiprecious stones, the natives put such a value on catseyes that it is rarely possible to obtain a good specimen). Or perhaps another whale might come floating in from the feeding-ground of the great sperm monsters, twelve miles south-west of the Solander Islands, about thirty miles west of Mason's Beach: and prove, on investigation, to contain in its disordered interior, a quantity of ambergris like that found by the whale chaser Campbell in 1912. The full value of the find has never been told, but the first consignment sent to Europe was insured for £65,000.
Or perhaps, on another visit, I might learn the full story of King Topi's greenstone mere, which one of his descendants, still living on the island, allowed me to see. But only to hear the birds sing as they do in the afternoons would be sufficient reason.
Now and again one meets a man whose life narrative is a breath of the real adventure more absorbing than any novel. I talked the other day with an old-timer of the North who had commanded whaling crews in the heroic days when the hunters of the greatest sea-game tackled the sperm whale in their small boats and fought it with hand-hurled harpoon and lance. The scientific mass-slaughter of to-day, when huge factory ships and gun-armed killing steamers make havoc in the Southern Seas, was undreamed of in his time. This Auckland veteran of the sea is George Howe Cook, who comes of a notable part-Maori pioneering family; with a New Zealand history extending over more than a century. He is eighty-two, but he does not look more than sixty, if that.
Long, lean, spry, with a quiet air of confidence and decision, and an often humorous glint in his wise, keen eyes, Mr. Cook looks the kind of man who could wrestle with any emergency and take the lead in any enterprise calling for quick decision.
Mr. Cook, who sometimes writes reminiscences under the style of “Lonehander,” was chief officer of the whaling barque “Splendid,” more than half a century ago. This was the wonderful old ship which Frank Bullen described in his “Cruise of the Cachalot.” The “Captain Count” of his book was really Captain Earle, an excellent specimen of the American sailor and whaleman. The “Splendid” alias “Cachalot,” was then a New Bedford-owned vessel. Later she was bought by a Dunedin firm, and cruised around
I knew, long ago, George Cook's younger brother, Captain Bert Cook, now dead. He was the whaler of Whangamumu, on the North Auckland Coast, where he and his Maori crews used to set strong nets to entangle the humpback whales when they came close in to the rocky bay. There were lively scenes there when those expert harpooneers and lance-men fought and killed the flurried whales tangled in the nets set near the rocks.
Bert was a deep-sea sailor, too, and sailed on many a Pacific whaling cruise. Once, when he was in a boat's crew belonging to the American barque “Alaska,” there was a strange and dramatic race for a whale off the Chathams, with a rival whaleship's boat in which his brother George was in charge as boatsteerer. Bert was a tremendously powerful oarsman, and he put forth a herculean effort which won by a boat's bow the race for the whale. “Your whale, Bert!” shouted George, as his brother's crew swept past and the harpooneer poised his iron to strike.
The old barque “Othello,” which we used to see in Auckland, was one of George Cook's whaling homes on the deep. At another period he was whaling master on a cruise out of Auckland in the topsail schooner “Christine.” The schooner was an antiquated Danish-built little craft, singularly small for the “blubber-hunting” business. Well I remember her return to the Waitemata after her long cruise off the coast and the Kermadecs. I went aboard to get an account of it. A hard-luck expedition, her owner, Captain Jack McLiver told me. But not until I met “Lonehander” the other day did I learn the true inwardness of that luckless cruise. Taihoa; it is too long, and withal humorous, to tell just now.
But Cook was usually a very lucky man, in whale-hunting; he and his brother Bert were both successful men when they were in such vessels as the “Splendid” and the “Alaska” and “Othello,” and they had the reputation among all the American ships working the South Seas of being smart and lucky officers.
The Cook family of the Bay of Islands are part Maori, and George Cook speaks Maori with the accuracy and knowledge of the old-time people. He remembers well the great Tamati Waka Nene, an elder of his mother's people; he gave the family a piece of land in the centre of Kororareka, now Russell, facing the present wharf.
When he was a boy, Mr. Cook lived with his parents at Rarotonga for some years, and there they were visited by the celebrated Bully Hayes, who came in to Avarua Bay in his brig, the “Rona,” bringing the Rev. James Chalmers and the crew of the wrecked mission ship, “John Williams.” Hayes in fact, stayed with the Cooks while he was at Rarotonga. He had his wife and their two little girls with him.
Mr. Cook well remembers what a big, fine looking man Bully was. He wore his hair long, and curled up in a wave at the back, in the manner of many sailors and American gold-diggers and frontiersmen of those days.
Civic and Business Enterprise in South Taranaki.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
(1) Eltham—the sunspot of Taranaki. (2) The Renco laboratory at Eltham (Mr. Fitzgerald standing on right). (3) Vats holding rennet for 10,000 tons of cheese. (4) The main thoroughfare of Patea. (5) Naumai Park, Hawera. (6) Hawera from the water tower. (7) A view of Kaponga. (8) The road to the Stratford Mountain House (Mt. Egmont).
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Mt. Egmont (8,260 ft.), the noble sentinel of Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand.
If there is anyone in Mars with a telescope large enough he should turn it towards the Earth when the North Island of New Zealand shows clear in the Southern Hemisphere.
He would find on the jutting eastern shoulder of the island, a tall gleaming white-coned pyramid surrounded by luminous green. If his lens were good enough he would be able to dissect the green, for it is made up of two qualities; a spreading and endless green velvet turf, and an intricate tracery of dark road ribbons with emerald hedgerows. If South Taranaki wants a distinctive and original emblem, I think it should be the shining red berry of the box thorn. The roads throughout the district are winding paved avenues bordered by these cool and orderly green walls. In one place I saw a lofty hedge of holly, but in the main it is mile upon mile of tall thorn. Our observer could also see that in amazingly short intervals, almost wherever there is a knot of roads, there is a little town; not so much a town, however, as a city in miniature. These South Taranaki centres from Hawera to Kaponga rejoice in a standard of amenities and facilities for enjoyment which would make envious many large cities of the Old World.
I have repeated so often that I must be approaching monotony that life in a small New Zealand town is the pleasantest form of living available on the variegated surface of the whole earth. It is comparatively simple to prove this fact when dealing with provincial capitals, but I wanted to enlarge on this development so individual to New Zealand. I wanted to tell the story of the places still smaller from a population point of view, and I selected the cluster of South Taranaki towns. I have made arbitrary boundaries, Stratford on the North and Patea on the South, although outside these two ends, as it were, there are the pleasant places of Inglewood and Waverley.
In the area thus defined, there are four boroughs, Hawera, Stratford, Eltham and Patea, and four Town
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Broadway—Stratford's fine thoroughfare.
Districts, Opunake, Manaia, Kaponga and Normanby. Five of these occur on a direct road line of less than forty miles and the other three are within ten miles of each other. Their populations grade by almost regular steps from five thousand down to five hundred. More than merely lavish richness of soil and climatic largess have gone to this amazing and delightful achievement of men.
Taranaki is steeped in history. In many places are garden enclosures with the dreaming decorative air of ancient sunlit Southern France; but the whole province was a battleground for many long weary years. The shapes of old redoubts, of fortified pas of pre-pakeha architecture, of historic fighting posts, haunt hillside and valley in every direction. The whole province was aforetime clothed in rich forest, but the subjugation of the wall trees by the alien grasses was swift and efficient, and in most of the broad area there is little sign that the farm lands were
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Picturesque parking area in Hawera.
We print a picture taken from York Hill on the road between Hawera and Manaia which shows a panorama of ordered beauty, the dainty chessboard of light and dark green, with dotted homestead groves and regular lines of hedgerows that might be a country scene in Surrey or Kent.
And everywhere, dominating the scene with friendly majesty, is the towering symmetry of Mount Egmont. In the few days that we were there, he showed clear from foot to summit and only occasionally threw a small scarf of cloud about his shoulders. I was therefore nearly driven crazy by my friend of the camera who wanted him for a background for every picture, even of the Renco factory at Eltham, or the main street of Kaponga. It was not so difficult either. Those folks of the early days were poets, unconsciously, and they seemed to have striven to make every main road look towards their mountain and every town scene finds its focussing point in the view of his white crown. We had one grey day after a row of fine ones, and that was Mount Egmont's finest showing. The massive sides melted from slate colour to purple as evening fell, and the white cone remained chilly pure. The whole effect was spectral, but there seemed somewhere a kindly fleeting smile. I would like to have been able to fly to Dawson's Falls to find the secret spring of this grave and ghostly humour. It may be there in the comfortable Mountain House.
On my journey I entered at the gateway of Taranaki which was historically correct. Patea was the place where Turi landed. Here it was this ancient Polynesian navigator put ashore after his mighty voyage across the Pacific from Hawaiki. This was “the land with the sweet smelling soil where the river flows towards the setting sun.” The countless legends that tell the story of the explorer of the Long Ago who found that Patea answered to this description are full of the poetic imagery of those ancient storytellers who, as a reverend writer has said, wrought in “a language which was probably old when David composed and sang the Twenty-third Psalm.”
One of the show places of Patea is the fine figure-filled replica of the Canoe of Turi, which stands on lofty pillars outside the entrance to the handsome municipal buildings and theatre—the latter, by the way, being well worthy of any city. It gives a picturesque touch to the pretty main street with its good business premises and its neat triangle relief, where the Central Hotel faces South. This good country hostel is enlarging extensively, a sign of the general prosperity of the town.
The primary school is imposing, standing in ornamental grounds of over six acres, with a neat swimming bath and a splendid Memorial Avenue in memory of a former headmaster, Lieutenant G. A. Robbie.
Patea is a port of importance and is in actual fact the leading cheese exporting centre of the whole Dominion. I stayed at the seaside resort of Carlyle with its plentiful “baches,” coloured tents, and a sprinkling of permanent homes. There is a riverside beach, a small surf frontage sheltered by one mole and the noble sweep of the open coastal beach ringed by a semi-circle of perpendicular cliffs. On a windless night we watched the little steamers making their way through the moles, assisted by a fascinating coloured lights display. I was assisting at a picnic meal of sausages and sand beloved of youngsters, but the sheer sweetness of the scene made up for it. Across the river from us stood the winking harbour beacon exactly on the spot where Turi built his first fort. It is fine when the industrial activity
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Ngaere Gardens, near Stratford.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
remains of the fortrees pa of turuturu mokai, constructed by the maoris 400 years ago.
I got a still better peep at the real life of South Taranaki at the “Nicht wi Burns” at Patea. I am a constant attender at celebrations for the greatest of Scottish poets, but this was the best I had witnessed, the most complete. To the scroll programmes, pipes and snuff, neat Scotch thistles, candles in bottles, a haggis that was perfection, and the modestly named “Scottish drink,” accompanied by excellent speechmaking, there was added the cheery arrival of the Mayor and his guests from Hawera and New Plymouth. It was a cheery night of culture, indeed, and I believe would have really pleased Robbie himself. I suspect that many of the solemn tributes he gets on some occasions would have the reverse effect.
From Patea to Hawera is the bare score of miles. My first arrival there was in the evening and the coloured Neon sign on the lofty water tower was visible early. Here is a beacon worthy of its builders. It can be seen by aviators far out at sea and from the front doors of farm-houses for many and many a mile. It typifies the realised ideals of the company of British folk who made this lovely place.
The town of Hawera is compact, covering, in fact, little more than a square mile in its official area. Its streets are bright and busy, its buildings of all types are modern and handsome, and it possesses in common with so many other Dominion towns, an extraordinarily high standard of civic comfort. Its very neatness of design, its orderly layout of cross streets, its steady growth and history of abounding prosperity, give it an air of permanence and solidity. It is not all prosaic commercial soundness, however. It was a military outpost in 1870, and its environs are full of memories.
I found its very practical mayor engaged in the earnest fulfilment of a splendid dream. He desires to preserve for all time the mighty fortress pa of Turuturu Mokai, and re-erect it exactly as it stood four hundred years ago. We show the photographs of the massive earthworks designed of course, before the need of countering the effect of firearms. It was, in fact, impregnable and was only taken by a form of strategy, of which there is little boasting by the descendants of the victors. Over against it is the outpost pa of Te Umu a Tongahake. The task is one of enormous difficulty, but it is of tremendous national and cultural importance and I believe that it will be carried through. Students of history and tourists from all over the world would be interested in this authentic scene of that great military science that the Maoris had evolved.
However, if I were asked to name the distinctive feature of Hawera
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
I would instance its parks. Naumai is an example of intelligent beauty worship, the salient points of this terrain have been utilised with skill, and the pavilions of native whare design on the high slopes about the little lake, harmonize exactly with the landscape.
King Edward Park is, of course, well-known from begonia house to exquisite flower beds. Indeed, Hawera is a flower town. Even in the neat blue-tinted tea room where we lunched, there were bowls of floating blossoms in profusion.
The home gardens are dreamlands of every kind. One feature that is unique is that, in both parks, and in many home gardens, the roadways and paths are of velvet turf. One treads with a feeling of uncanny softness on these emerald carpets in place of gravel or paved paths.
I ran out to Ohawe Beach and saw its remarkable swimming pool, a deep still circle of clear water surrounded by ferny cliffs.
However, we had to leave Hawera, with its air of competence and certainty of progress. All the way out we caught sight of little many-petalled Edens behind the hedges, and the civic authorities of Hawera have placed in every remote spare corner small formal triangles and squares of gaily tinted annuals. I suspect the authors of this to be the same enthusiasts who transformed a stockyard siding into the exquisite Hawera Railway Station gardens, known to passengers from far and near.
As we went along the neat Taranaki road we noticed again at odd corners of the intersecting sideroads, more flower bed gardens and thus we reached Eltham, the “sunspot of Taranaki.” In our picture of a residential street
(Continued on page 35).
In previous numbers of the “Railways Magazine,” many Maori place names throughout New Zealand have been explained on this page and stories of the origins of the names have been given. It was not always easy to ascertain the circumstances under which names well-known to-day, were given to localities, for not every Maori knows the origins of the place nomenclature in his district. The knowledge, as I have found from experience, is often preserved only by one or two old men or women in a community and it is now liable to be lost so far as the younger generation is concerned, except for the data that a few of us have placed on record.
The collecting of place names and their sources and meanings yielded me many little stories, many songs, and many sidelights on the customs and beliefs of the olden Maori. The shores of Rotorua and other lakes, were rich in anecdotes and nature lore, and it was unusually interesting to search out the original names of places now made familiar to tourists under modern English names.
The following are a few examples, as explained by elders of the Arawa, with whom I walked around the places mentioned and discussed their history.
The name of the famous Priest's Bath in the Rotorua Spa gardens is Te Pupunitanga, which means “The Ambuscade.” It derives its name from an incident in the cannibal wars of old Rotorua. A battle was fought close to this spot four hundred years ago between the descendants of the chief Tu-o-Rotorua and the tribe Ngati-Tama-ihu-toroa. The cause of the trouble, according to local tradition, was the killing by Ngati-Tama of Kataore, the monster ngarara, or taniwha (perhaps a pet tuatara!) belonging to the chief Tangaroa-mihi, of Lake Tikitapu.
The Children of Tu lay in ambush for their foes in the green manuka scrub close to the hot spring, and at the appointed moment they threw themselves upon the Ngati-Tama war-party in an irresistible onslaught. The name given to this fight by the victors was “Te Wai whiti inanga” (“The waters of jumping whitebait”), because, said the old tattooed warrior, Kiharoa, of the appearance of the lakeside battlefield, covered with quivering and writhing heaps of men, like so many whitebait (inanga) struggling in a net.
Te Toto (“The Place of Blood”), a pretty spot in the Government Grounds, now bears a much pleasanter name, Picnic Point. It is a shady retreat, close to a chain of shallow ponds near the lake shore. Arawa traditions tell of a battle which was fought here in the long ago between Ngati-Whakaue, the dominant tribe of Lakeland, and Ngati-Uenukukopako, another important local clan.
Te Paepae-Hakumanu (“The Place of Bird-snares”) is on the Rotorua shore at Picnic Point. Here, in former times, the Maoris set their snares of flax and cabbage-tree fibre loops to catch the birds that abounded in the manuka thickets and the wild ducks and teal on the marshy foreshore.
Out in Rotorua Lake in the shallow bay on the eastern side of Sulphur Point (Motu-tara) there is a green-tufted islet peeping from the surface of the water a few hundred yards from the shore. That tiny isle is all that remains to mark the site of a sunken pa called Timanga. It was an island village, surrounded by a palisade, in the olden times, but the land subsided. Nearby is another nearly submerged islet called Motu-tere (“Floating Island”). Like Timanga it subsided during the last half-century or so, and was denuded until now it is a patch of pumice sand, with a few scrubby bushes of manuka, elevated only a foot or two above the level of the lake. Timanga belonged to the clan Ngati-Korouateka. Motu-tere, with its thickets of manuka, was a secure hiding-place for its owners. The last man who lived there was the chief, Te Pukuatua; he dwelt in a little whará on the bushy islet during the days of the Maori wars, 1864–70.
Motu-Tara Point was so named because there was an islet there frequented by the little grey lake gull, the tara-punga.
The stories gathered as I explored those places showed that there had been a general subsidence of the land along the southern side of Rotorua. On the end of Motu-tara Point is a marshy tract which was once well above the lake level and was occupied as a kainga. On the landward side the hamlet was fortified by a trench and breastwork that I traced in the tangled vegetation. The name of this old village was “Te Kauanga-a-Hatupatu,” “The Swimming of Hatupatu.” The legend went that this semi-defied ancestor, on escaping from the clutches of the forest-ogre Kura-ngaituku, dived into the lake here and swam under the surface until he reached Mokoia Island.
Oruawhata, where the Government Sanatorium stands, was so named because Hatu’ divested himself of his garments there and hung them up on a tree, so making a whata (tree-storehouse) of it, preparatory to his herculean dive. Oruawhata is the general name of the place where the bath buildings stand in the Government Gardens.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Pretty homes in Eltham.
Here we came to the Renco Factory and (as my friend with the camera said), “began to see life.” Here is an industry which supplies, annually, the rennet and cheese colour for 100,000 tons of cheese. Here is the largest rennet factory in the British Empire. I had a dim notion that our factories used our own make of rennet, but I did not know that the ratio was 95%. It should be 100% of course. The local product wins all the prizes and the vells from which it is made are prepared under the supervision of our own Government. They are in quantity enough to supply Australia and New Zealand. The factory is entirely modern, as our illustrations show, and contracts are now let for the erection of extensions to the laboratory which will enable it to be used for research work.
However, the newsy part of our investigation report is the discovery of “Birthday Renco,” and every New Zealand housewife should learn about this at once. “Renco” is made up in six flavours, lemon, orange, raspberry, vanilla, greengage and passion fruit. I made a junket coloured and flavoured, when I got home—and I have no references as a cook. I can visualise the day when thousands of cases of this delectable product go overseas.
In case I seemed to have spent too much time on this important factor, I remember that industries founded on our own primary production, are necessarily sound. Where a factory is carried on in such a place as Eltham, the operatives have surroundings that are ideal and conditions that are fruitful of human happiness. Here is an object wholly worthy of our collective and enthusiastic support.
We took the pretty lakelet at the Ngaere Gardens on our short journey of six miles to our northern boundary town, Stratford. It has a Broadway and it is a noble main street.
This important railway junction has almost an air of stateliness. Its buildings are most imposing and very uniform. On our day there Broadway was massed with motor cars as if for a motor ghymkhana; but it was an everyday occurence.
The railway station at Stratford is a scene of bustle and activity. Here the cross country trunk railway meets the southern route after traversing the middle of the Island. This will always be a factor in the progress of Stratford. Here, by the way, too, is a large
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Municipal offices and Turi's canoe, Patea.
The parks in Stratford are instances again of the use of perfect aesthetic taste. The King Edward Park has preserved masses of native bush, and the winding Patea river finds its picturesque way about like a lovely bush creek.
Stratford is at an altitude of over a thousand feet, and the clear air gives Mount Egmont an added nearness and majesty. The citizens have made a wonderful road up to the Plateau on the northern-looking shoulder of the mountain and the drive up there and the view obtainable will make memories for the most jaded sight-seer.
Roads radiate everywhere from Stratford, and we took one to go and see the little sisters, Kaponga, and then Manaia.
They are simply smaller editions of their neighbours, possessing the same basic amenities such as water supply, drainage, theatres, electric light and so on.
Once more let me say this; these achievements of British folk, strictly adhering to the best of British traditions, are only fitting and proper when we remember whence we are sprung. I pause to say that in these towns I noticed an extraordinary standard of civic management, contributed to largely by the selfless public spirit displayed by their civic leaders. How lucky is the Dominion in its possession of these men of devotion, experience and zeal who tend the affairs of civic administration so unremittingly.
The lustre of this galaxy of South Taranaki towns can be safely left in the hands of their dwellers. They have brought it to its present glory and it will wax and never wane.
These incidents are complete in themselves, but the characters are all related.
Like hell!” snapped the Grandfather of All Detectives, Unna Lloyd. “Like hell!”
He consulted the telegram again. It was from headquarters and read:
You are recalled. Stop. Commissioner frothing with indignation. Stop. Have resignation ready. Stop. Look—Listen.
Lloyd's Hapsburg bottom lip, heavy and protruding, curled. That was like headquarters, a bunch of boneheads themselves, not one of whom had written a novel or staged a radio thriller. Psychological duds.
Far off a morepork called emotionally. Patently it was fixing a date with a lady friend on the opposite range. It was the night for such dalliance. A sunburnt passionate moon full of desire (vide Swinburne) drenched the world about Mata Hari—pardon, Matamata—with sensuous romance. Even the pines leaned one against the other caressingly. Seated by the window of the pubbedsittingroom, Lloyd fancied he could hear the snails in the cabbage patch beneath delicately wooing. “A Grace Moore Night of Love,” he said to himself.
But the G.O.A.D. was in no mood for sentimental reflection. Love was all very well in its place, but Matamata was not the place. Even if it were, his reputation (as a detective) came first. It was now under a cloud, and if the problem of the Lauder homicide were not speedily solved, his prestige would be hopelessly involved. And he loathed the idea of having to work hard for a good living.
Who had slain Lauder … stretched him out cold in the signal cabin. And why? And with what? Had the Trot-sky-ites discovered that Lauder was a natural son of Stalin surreptitiously at work communising the bucolic and incredulous Matamatoes? The publican's daughter, sweet and unsophisticated, and always anxious to help in an emergency, had made that suggestion with an ingenuousness which made him savage.
Said Lloyd to himself (for the third and last time): “Like hell!” Which indicated that he was having the devil's own time. He turned impatiently at his desk and tumbled his paperweight, a skull, to the floor. At the percussion, the chauffeur under the table ceased snoring; he was sleeping the sleep of the just—one-over-eighteen. His nose was a dissolute crimson, his tie had worked round under one ear, one hand opened and shut slowly as if feeling for a pewter pot.
“I'm in a tough spot,” remarked Lloyd to himself. “By the way—where's P.C. Fanning? I'll wager he's downstairs playing dominoes with the porter for drinks.” And all the bally-hoodlums who had led him into what were nothing else but blind streets. The crazy clues he had followed, until his soles were through and his head clanged like a chain of dredge buckets crying out for oil. He tore the flesh of another orange ravenously, wished he had relied on bloodhounds instead of morons, cursed the moon, swore at the moreporks (now in long distance touch), swallowed a pip blasphemously, and came to a sudden, almost inspirational decision. He would go round to the local mortuary and have another look at the sad cadaver. He was far from convinced that Lauder had been bumped off in any of the ways suggested. No ordinary homicidal hombre could have so cleverly covered up his tracks. No. Not even a Dorothy Sayers expert in murder could have got away with it so easily.
The G.O.A.D. grabbed his hat, his swordstick (just in case!), his sal volatile, crept cat-like down the stairs out of the pub and headed straight for the “freezer.” The assistant mortician, a fellow with soapy, unhygienic hands, and memorable side-whiskers, admitted him, took him to the pall, and drew back the grey blanket. Lloyd bent over the clay. His mind was on the step of going back to the days when Lauder and he had been foundation members of the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool, when—
“Quite a nice specimen, sir, if I may say so,” genially observed the mortician, dry washing his paws.
Unna Lloyd stood silent, serious, gazing down on what had once been a boon companion.
“A good son and a worthy father, sir, I understand,” continued the mortician chattily. “I hope and trust he was well insured.”
“Would you mind shutting and locking your face,” said Lloyd cuttingly; “I'm thinking.”
The lugubrious-looking official permitted the G.O.A.D's. cerebullum to churn for a space; then he crashed the silence with—
“My idea of it all, sir, is that the pore young man was practising levitation in the signal cabin and the concealed rope broke, concussing his brain.”
Fortunately, Lloyd did not hear him; he was busy giving the body the onceover, from the crown to the feet. It wasn't a pleasant job, but when duty called, he was never one to pretend that he was out for the day. That was his reputation. He must live up to it.
His sensitive fingers found a depression in the thick hair at the top centre of the head.
He turned his 250 candlepower torch on to it. There was a bare patch, the size of a dollar piece. Strange, most strange. When he touched it, his fingertips tingled. It was almost as though the dead man were trying to tell him something. What?
Something clattered to the floor behind him. He leapt aside with a curse, his heart pounding—to meet the squirmy eyes of the a.m.
“Sorry, sir. It was your sword-stick, sir. I was only looking at it and carelessly dropped it. Which reminds me, I forgot to take my nerve tonic after tea. Anything fresh, sir?”
Lloyd dismembered him with such a look! Then he returned to business. That curious bald, scorched spot. Probably due to trouble at the roots of the hair. He worked down the body, finding nothing new except what appeared to be a similar patch below the right knee.
Seems to me,” he said to himself. “Lauder's blood was out of order. I always thought he should have eaten more spinach.” At that, he retrieved his swordstick, brushed back his Ethyl locks, lit a cork-tip Abdullah at the wrong end and set off on the return journey back to the pub. A sense of frustration seized him. That slam from headquarters rankled. It just wasn't fair. Play the game, you cads, play the g-a-a-ame. The G-men back in Wellington were hopeless, helpless. Their big feature was chasing hairy matmen for their autographs. None of them had heard of “Father Brown,” and all of them thought that deductive methods applied only to wage “cuts.” As for Fanning—mentally he thrust his swordstick between that officer's brawny shoulder blades, just where Hemingway's matadors reach for the bull's heart.
Maurisca, who had sent out the S.O.S. from the cabin that fateful night, was dumber than a dumb-waiter, and that was praising him. And what sort of an ass was Lauder to be messing around the signal cabin at all.
“The game's wrong,” he muttered, self-pityingly. In the half-dark of the descending moon, even the shadows on the boulevard seemed alive. A black cat slid past his ankles like a lithe little sin in soundless flight. Curse it! As he rounded the corner, a rubber-tyred scooter at top speed grazed his splashboard. Lloyd jumped sideways, panting. Why didn't the blighter blow his horn? His nerve was shaken. There was evil abroad in the night. For the first time fear came to him. He felt for his gun—a sawn-off Spring-field (it cost him £80), loaded with shells at £4/10/0 a hundred, which hung in his right armpit.
He was now within a couple of hundreds yards of his bed-sitting room. The moon was nearly out of sight. When he reached the pub, the first thing he would—
Two hulking shapes moved out of a crystal gazer's shoppe door; descended upon the G.O.A.D. villainously.
“Bam!” And “Bam!” once more. Lloyd slumped down like a pithed steer, in his ears the wild Wagner music of a billion stars …
* * *
After the sleuth “came to” an hour later, he discovered that he was in a strange room, bound tightly and most professionally in a considerable chair. Of all things! A suffused baleful light filled the den. As he vainly twisted about, his aching eyes caught sight of an oleograph of King Edward VI and his missus on the wall opposite. His aesthetic soul contracted within him. A bush moth straggled along his forehead, sharpening his agony.
“Where am I?” he moaned. “Help!”
At his call a loathesome Thing emerged from nowhere and knuckled ham-like fists before him.
“Whachyer whinin’ about?” It growled.
“Oh these straps! My head! Everything! Unhand me!”
“Ain't you comfortable?” asked the Blot sneeringly. “It's a perfectly good and roomy chair, ain't it?”
Lloyd groaned. “Who are you? Why am I here?”
“'Cos we brought you here. ‘Ow's the ‘eadache? Your name's Lloyd, ain't it?”
“You'll find out later on,” said the victim. “And then watch out. You'll pay for this tomfoolery. What do you want with me? I'm parched. A whisky for the love of Mike. Even a milk-shake—Worcester sauce—anything.”
The shape snickered: “Whisky's orf. We'll give you some juice presently—our own special brand.” He began to play round with gadgets on the wall to the right of Lloyd, below the oleograph. There was a rustle on the fire-escape pendent from the window opposite.
“What's that?” said the Monstrosity, turning sharply.
The trussed-up prisoner moaned feebly. He was “all in.” He smelt death in that deadly room. “For God's sake,” he whimpered, “free me.”
(Continued on page 40).