Our New Zealand Cousins/Chapter 1
OUR NEW ZEALAND COUSINS.
CHAPTER I.
One reads much now-a-days of the progress of colonization. One hears much of the rapid rise of communities, of the quick changes of modern life, and the sudden surprises of contemporary history. It is rare, however, that one is privileged to see for oneself the startling contrasts and pregnant transformations, which have been effected during twenty years of bristling activity and onward progress, in a young country like New Zealand. To endeavour to describe something of these is my aim in these notes of travel.
It is now more than twenty years since I first landed on the shingly beach at Port Lyttelton, in the Canterbury province, and with light pockets and hopeful heart trudged over the high hill that then barred the city of Christchurch from its port. The great tunnel (monument to the foresight and energy of Mr. Moorhouse, who at that time was superintendent of the province) was then only in course of perforation. In the whole of the New Zealand group, only some nine miles of railways were in working order. It was my fate to travel pretty extensively through the islands then. I visited nearly all the towns of any note, and being young, impressionable, and not unobservant, those early scenes are indelibly fixed in my memory.
When I left India some years ago, after spending some twelve years there as an indigo-planter, an account of which has been given in a former work,[1] my intention was to revisit New Zealand, and compare its present appearance with my recollections of its former state; but hitherto circumstances had prevented my carrying out that intention, until, in the month of March, 1885, I found the opportunity I had so fondly desired, and these notes of travel are the result of my recent wanderings in the scenes of my early experience, and I shall endeavour to make them as interesting and instructive as I can.
The incidents of steamship travel are pretty uniform now-a-days. I could, I daresay, draw a graphic contrast between the old Mermaid, clipper ship, for instance, in which I made my first voyage to the antipodes, and the smart, well-found, modern steamer Manapouri, one of the magnificent fleet of the Union S.S. Co. of N.Z., with her genial, lovable commander, Captain Logan; but it may be sufficient to say that, having left Sydney with her peerless harbour and sickening smells behind us, after a few days' steaming we sighted Cape Maria early on a Monday morning, and I once more gazed with strangely mingled feelings on "the land of the Maori and the moa," the new Great Britain of the Southern Seas.
Cape Maria is the northernmost point of the mainland of the colony, but it is not the first land sighted by the voyager from Sydney to Auckland. The triple islets named "The Three Kings" lie to the north of Cape Maria, and are the first spot of the Maori domain that catches the eye of the man on the look-out.
Eastward of the cape is a wide, shallow bay, known as Spirit Bay. The coast-line terminates here, in an abrupt solitary conical bluff called Spirit Point. The designation, however, relates not to that mundane medium of seduction which a Scotchman would call "speerits," but owes its name to a legendary belief of the waning Maori race. These dusky warriors hold that the spirits of the departed here congregate, and poise themselves on the dizzy verge, preparatory to taking a final farewell of the shores of their earthly dwelling-place. From this point they wing their flight to the Three Kings above-mentioned, which are thus the veritable Walhalla of the Maori race. A sacrilegious cynic aboard, remarked, that if a private still were only set to work on the Three Kings, the spirits of a good many more than merely defunct Maories might be expected to muster thick when the roll was called.
Behind Cape Maria stretches a weary, wild sand-drift. We could see the clouds of shifting sand whirling aloft like a mist. The country does not, indeed, look inviting here. It is reputed to be the most barren tract in all New Zealand. Indeed, as the reader will find if he follows me, a suspicion sometimes steals across the mind of the observant traveller that, on the whole, perhaps the fertility of the country has been overrated.
Farther inland a good breed of Herefords has been introduced; and at North Cape, a few miles to the eastward, many sheep can from the steamer be seen browsing on the scanty pastures.
The chief industry on this part of the island, is the digging for kauri gum by the natives, and by scattered parties of bushmen. The diggers probe in the likely places for the buried deposits of the amber-like gum with long slender spears. In Auckland great warehouses are filled with huge blocks of this unearthed treasure. It looks just like clouded amber, and a lively foreign trade is done with the steamer passengers in trinkets made from it.
The North Cape presents a rugged, scarred, weather-beaten front. It is capped by a thin layer of red earth, and in the precipitous gullies, a patchy undergrowth of stunted bushes maintains a precarious foothold. In one ravine, the smoke from a bush-fire rolls lazily up in murky columns, till the gale, catching it as it emerges from the shelter of the gully, whirls it abroad, amid the dashing spray and driving rain. Truly a wild, forbidding, tempestuous coast. And what awful tragedies have been enacted here in the grim past! The red earth looks ominous. It suggests bloodshed. I had pictured something greener and fresher-looking. This is not one whit less sombre than the ordinary Australian coast, with its eternal fringe of neutral-tinted eucalyptus scrub.
Rounding the Cape we get under the lee of the island. The steamer glides into a blessed calm, and wan figures begin to emerge from
and soon we sight Stephenson Island, with its isolated masses of upstanding rock jutting out into the sea.
Behind this island lies the harbour of Whangaroa, once a noisy, lawless whaling-station. Only the other day an enormous whale, which had been harpooned in the Bay of Islands, far to the south, was secured by the natives in the harbour, and the sale of the carcase, or rather the products therefrom, realized 1000l. The port is now, however, quiet enough. The old whalers lie idly rotting in Auckland or Hobart harbours. The roving, rollicking Jackey Tars belong to Seamen's Unions now-a-days; own suburban allotments or steamboat shares; study the law of contracts, and pass in political economy. To "turn in a dead eye" is as defunct an accomplishment as dancing a minuet, and "shiver my timbers" is a phrase of no meaning, in these days of iron ships and steel steamers. Some little timber trade is still done at Whangaroa, and there is a large native settlement, but the roystering days of the whaling industry are gone, never to return.
There are few lights on this part of the New Zealand coast, a lack which badly wants supplying. As I write, there is a gathering of over five hundred natives assembled at Whangarei, another northern port, for the purpose of indulging in one of their famous war-dances. Nothing could more forcibly mark the difference between these latter days and the former order of things, when feasts of human flesh were the accompaniment of these orgies, than the fact that now this gathering is extensively advertised. Steamers are specially put on to make the run, and take up large numbers of curious sightseers, who throng to see the war-dance, as they would to any ordinary exhibition. This may be less romantic from the novel-reader's point of view, but surely it is well that over the old ruthless savagery "Ichabod" should be written. 'Tis pity though, that the lust for fire-water and the vulgar thirst for beer, should all so easily have formed the modern substitute for that fierce craving for human blood, which was wont to rouse the Maori nature to verge of madness.
All the night, on through the darkness our good steamer glides swiftly along, and at break of day we are almost abreast of the approaches to Auckland, the commercial capital of the North, as Dunedin is of the South.
In the dim misty greyness of early morn we crept past the towering bulk of Rangitoto, the giant sentinel that guards Auckland harbour, and all hands hurried on deck to get the first glimpse of the far-famed panorama of beauty that lay stretched before us. This renowned harbour ranks in order and loveliness among the "most excellent of the earth." "See Naples and die," is an oft quoted saying. Rio has its worshippers. Peerless Sydney has her liege votaries, whose ardent homage naught can quench—and yet, in many respects, Auckland harbour has a beauty of its own, which in some measure exceeds that of any other spot of earth I have yet seen.
Its charm seems to me to lie in its wide diversity, the vastness of its extended embrace. Every charm of landscape blends together into one magnificent whole. Open sea, land-locked bay, deep firth, rocky islet, placid expanse of unruffled deep blue, cloud-capped mountain, wooded height, bosky dell, villa-crowned ridges, and terrace on terrace of massive buildings, all can be seen by a single roving glance from whatever coign of vantage the beholder may command. For league upon league the eye may run down the ever-varying configuration of a beautiful coast, the promontories reflected in the lapping waters of magnificent bays, till far out to seaward the Coromandel headlands lie shimmering in the sun, crowned with fleecy clouds; and almost hidden in the misty haze of distance.
Out towards the open sea, the watery void is broken up and relieved by lovely mountainous islands, round whose wooded summits the quick changing clouds chase each other in bewildering rapidity; and ever and anon white sails flash across the ken of vision, or trailing lines of black smoke from some swift steamer mar for a moment the clear brilliancy of the azure sky. The cloudless blue of the Australian sky has here given place to the exquisite variety of ever changing hue and form, which gives such animation to the New Zealand landscape, and forms one of the chiefest charms to the visitor from the bigger island.
Yes, Sydney harbour is lovely. But Auckland, with its wider sweep, its greater diversity and bolder features, has a beauty of its own which makes her a not unworthy rival.
In other respects the city presents features which might well be copied by the great metropolis which clusters so thickly on the shores of Port Jackson. For instance, there is here a well-endowed harbour trust, which has a near prospective income of close on half a million per annum, and an agitation has even now been commenced in favour of making the port free in the widest sense. Large reclamations have been and are being made; spacious wharfs run out into deep water. The reclaimed land is let on fifty years' leases. So valuable is it that the trustees get 10l. per foot per annum for the first twenty-five years, and an enhancement upon that of fifty per cent, for the second twenty-five years. A handsome custom-house is now in course of erection. Public baths, well-ordered and cleanly kept, are extensively patronized close by. An enormous building is rapidly going up close to the chief wharf for a further extension of the meat-freezing industry. The sea-line is faced with spacious warehouses and handsome commercial buildings, and, chiefest convenience of all, the railway station is being built within the harbour precincts, and the locomotive and the steamer are within neighbourly hail of each other. Thus there is no waste of time, of power, or of money, in shipping and discharging operations.
The shipping facilities in Sydney are a disgrace to the age, and a reproach to the character of the New South Wales people. The sanitary state of the city is even worse than the state of her wharfs and shipping arrangements. A Harbour Improvement Association has lately been started by private citizens. All honour and good speed to it.
By contrast with the miserable makeshifts and primitive arrangements of Sydney, Auckland rises to the rank of a modern city, while Sydney, by the comparison, sinks to the level of a mediæval fishing village, only she does not even have a decent supply of fish, which Auckland has.
No good is got by burking unpleasant truths. He is a false prophet who only "prophesies smooth things." He is no true journalist or publicist who cries "Peace, peace," when there is no peace.
What has been done in Auckland could be almost infinitely outdone by Sydney with her greater wealth and wider commerce. A trust established in Sydney for the same purposes as the one in Auckland, would in a few years be enormously wealthy, and the reputation of the port, and the public convenience would be a millionfold enhanced. The vested interests of a selfish few, into whose hands the beautiful foreshores of the harbour have been allowed to fall, and who will do nothing whatever to move in accordance with the spirit of the times, cannot for ever be allowed to bar the way of national progress.
Queen Street is the chief artery of Auckland. It runs up a natural valley somewhat after the manner of Pitt Street, Sydney, only the street is much wider, and now that a Building Act is in operation, very handsome structures are rising on every hand. Evidences of the old régime are yet apparent in very unsightly ramshackle verandahs here and there. I observe several necessary conveniences for pedestrians at modest intervals. Here again the Maori city scores a point against the metropolis of New South Wales.
During our visit a gum warehouse and bedding factory took fire. Such is the splendid nature of the water supply, and the efficiency of the fire brigades, that in less than thirty minutes from the first clanging of the great bells the fire was extinct. Bell towers are a prominent feature in all New Zealand towns, and where wooden houses are the rule, fires, of course, are very frequent.
The magnificent jets of water paled into puny insignificance the dribbling gouts of our intermittent Sydney supply, and in Auckland the painful "clank, clank" of the pumps is never heard when the fire-fiend has to be battled with.
There are two capital, commodious theatres. We went to hear Remenyi, the famous Hungarian violinist. The Governor, and Mayor, and councillors were there. Ostrich feathers seemed the leading feature in the head-dresses of the ladies. Gigantic structures of the Queen Anne era were surmounted by a panoply of feathers that would have turned a fashionable undertaker green with envy. These kept nodding time to the magic sweetness evoked by the gifted violinist; and the effect was really ludicrous in the extreme.
One Herr Himmel sang a ballad. The deep German gutturals rang through the building with an unmistakable Teutonic twang. A corpulent civic dignitary sitting behind us, turned to his beplumed dowager, and asked very audibly,—
"What's that, Mariar? Is that Hitalian?"
"Lor no, dear; that's French," said Maria. Foreign critics say the English are wofully deficient in modern languages. Perhaps so!
Banks are numerous. The buildings fine. But the hotels are legion. And yet it is noticeable how many passers-by wear the blue ribbon. When I say hotels, I err. Public-houses or drink-shops there are in abundance, but the bonâ-fide first-class family hotels, might be counted on the fingers of a one-armed soldier.
Oram's hotel is comfortable, clean, quiet, and the host is obliging, and looks personally after the welfare of his guests. It is a favourite house with passengers waiting for the San Francisco steamer, and tourists generally.
Let no visitor to Auckland omit a trip to North Shore, and a drive out to Lake Takapuna. The scenery will amply repay the trouble, although in the endeavour to reach the lake may be included a jolting vehicle, a larrikin driver, a pair of jibbing horses, necessitating a walk up every incline over rough scoriæ or through blinding dust. Truth compels me to add that this was the only occasion on which I saw a badly-horsed conveyance round about Auckland. As a rule, the visitor will mark with delight the grandly developed, robust, well-fed horses. The trams are served by splendid animals. The strain is not that of the fast but slender weeds which are so common about Sydney. The breed is a mixture of the Suffolk Punch, the Clydesdale, the Cleveland, with a good dash of the thoroughbred, and they appear to be generously fed. In the old war times the Commissariat got down the very finest stock procurable from Tasmania and New South Wales, paying 200l. and even 300l. for a good mare. They bred for work and usefulness in these olden times, not for short races and gambling handicaps, and the result is seen now in the magnificent chargers and sleek Samsons which one sees in every conveyance.
But to return to the North Shore. The beauties of land and sea are here displayed with a lavishness and variety that fairly exceed my powers of description. The houses (many of them exceedingly pretty villas) are all wooden. Bricks are scarce and dear; blue stone of a volcanic origin and more than granite hardness is much used in the larger public buildings in town. There are few gardens, and what there are, are scantily supplied with flowers.
Fruit is abundant all through the North Island. The apples are really fine, grapes are choice, pears exquisite; plums luxuriate; oranges do not thrive; yet tons of fruit are imported from Tasmania, to the exclusion of the home-grown crops. Growers here say it does not pay for carriage to put up the produce of their orchards. Apples in the city are 4d.. or 5d. per lb., and yet in the Waikato district pigs are fed with tons upon tons of the finest varieties. How is this? Is it not a complaint in Sydney also? Dear fruit in the midst of abundance? Here is a problem the solution of which might well attract the philanthropists of our little Pedlingtons. Nay, the question after all is a serious one, and worthy of the best solution the best minds of our community can bring to it. Freights along the coast for one thing are excessive in N.Z. Other means of communication and conveyance are scanty, precarious, and expensive.
Surely co-operation might work some reform. The profits that will alone content the "middle man" are out of all proportion to the benefits he confers on the patient consumer. It is high time Australians awaked out of their apathy as regards their fruit trade.
So, too, with fish supplies. Schnapper here (I am speaking of Auckland) can be caught, down by the Thames estuaries and bays, in thousands; delicious flounders and flatfish abound, mullet teem, other kinds swarm. And yet it is either a famine or a feast. At times none can be had. Wellington, I am told, is the best supplied with fish of any city in Australasia, and the fishmonger's shop and the fisherman's calling are recognized as being of equal importance with the butcher's or baker's. Room surely for a new departure in our fish supply.
Butcher meat, too, as I am on gastronomic topics, demands a word. The beef and mutton in Auckland are delicious. Immeasurably superior to the supplies common to Sydney—and the sausages! My mouth waters yet as I recall their succulent juiciness and exquisite flavour. The ordinary Australian sausage is a B.M.—a bag of mystery—so long as there is plenty of thyme and sage; it matters not how old, how black, how dry, and how unsavoury the other ingredients may be.
The butchers' shops in Auckland are better than anything of the kind I had yet seen in the colonies, and it should be remembered, too, that the climate is more favourable to the trade than the sweltering heat of New South Wales.
The shops are lofty, well ventilated, and scrupulously clean. All interior arrangements of hooks, blocks, and gear have been evidently specially designed to suit the requirements of the meat trade. The chief and crowning excellence, however, which is well worthy of record for Sydney readers, was this. All the walls were inlaid with glazed encaustic tiles. The counters were cool marble slabs. The windows were furnished with porcelain plates, and the whole looked so temptingly clean and cool that I could not help wishing some of our Sydney "knights of the cleaver" would take a lesson, and be fired with a noble emulation to even outvie the Auckland butchers in obeying the dictates of common sense and the instincts of cleanliness.
But to get once more back to the North Shore. Lake Takapuna is a lovely circular sheet, evidently the crater of an extinct volcano. The black rugged masses of scoriæ all around leave no doubt as to its volcanic antecedents. There are a few tame swans on the lake. Lovely ferns, orchids, and the crimson flowering pohutaukaua, or Christmas bush of New Zealand, fringe the steep banks, and the scene is one of perfect loveliness. The Maoris tell the legend that as Tahapuna sank and filled with water, so Rangitoto, the steep mountain in the bay, arose. The energy and enterprise of the Aucklanders are here well exemplified in the use they make of the telephone. They have carried it across the harbour in submarine pipes, and a lady on North Shore can order her groceries and joints in town without going more than a few steps.
Terrific gales occasionally rage here. We saw the devastating traces of one such, in myriads of half-prostrate young pine-trees. The sides which had been exposed to the gale were withered and shrivelled as if smitten by fire. Pines have been very extensively planted all round Auckland. They form quite a feature in the scenery, and seem to thrive luxuriantly in the volcanic soil. So, alas, do briars and the Scotch whins or furze, which some enthusiastic idiot has at some former time introduced from a mistaken sentiment of patriotism.
The furze, with its aggressive spikes and golden blossom, is becoming ubiquitous all over New Zealand, and promises to become as great a nuisance, in its way, as the briars of the west, or the prickly pear of the north, are in New South Wales.
- ↑ "Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier." London: Macmillan and Co., 1878.