Chapter VIII: Part 8

‘Um, how’s that?’ asked Mac.

‘You never hea?’ inquired John; ‘no man talkee you about Mr. Haast? Mr. Haast dig garden one day, find plenty moa bones. Then he send letter all country: “Suppose you send me twenty piecee mummy, 400 piecee papyros, two sphinxes, one smalla pyramid,” he talkee Egyptian man, “I sendie you one piecee moa.”’

John then said that the Egyptian Government were delighted with the offer, and sent the twenty piecee mummy, 400 piecee papyros, two sphinxes, and the small pyramid, and then received their allowance of moa.

‘Next time he write that man live top side North Pole.’

I suppose John meant that he entered into communication with the Esquimaux.

‘“You sendee two piecee polar bear, and one piecee iceberg, you can catchee all same Egypt man.”’

Of course the Esquimaux were delighted. Next, John told us he wrote to the British Government.

‘“I wantee five piecee steamer, four piecee outside walkee can see, and another piecee inside walkee no can see; I pay you plenty moa bones.’”

And according to our friend he went on swapping moa bones all over the universe, obtaining in exchange Turner’s masterpieces, button-hooks, anchors, relics from ancient Rome, specimens of small volcanoes, pumpkins, and, in short, almost everything you see in the Museum. These the talented and energetic director has classified and reduced to the orderly system in which they are now presented to the visitor.

Although Christchurch has been a centre from which moa bones have been distributed throughout the world, the best collection of them has remained in their old habitat. There were big moas and little moas, and each of them had a different name. The first bit of moa that went home was a thigh-bone. The uninitiated would have pronounced it as belonging to an elephant. Professor Owen, however, said it was the relic of a gigantic bird. People smiled; now the Professor smiles.

The biggest moa had a neck like a giraffe. When he straightened and stood on his toes, he might have picked a weather cock off the top of a church spire. Naturalists say that the moa could not fly, but an old Maori, who I think was a king, told me that they could fly beautifully. Sometimes you could flush a dozen in a morning, and the shooting was grand. When they dropped they shook the ground like an earthquake. The best were roasted. I quite believed the latter statement, as their singed bones could be seen by the basketful in every museum we went to. They were pretty tough, and strangers, after once partaking of the delicacy, often refused to take any ‘moa.’ Thus the name of the animal.

Mac had not a soul for the anatomy of an extinct animal, and said it was dry.

This took us from the Museum to an hotel, where we found a bar supplied by an overflowing artesian well. Many of the people in Canterbury get their water from artesian wells. A hole is bored, and up shoots the water. Geologists say that this is due to hydraulic pressure communicated from the hills through inclined strata. These theories may be true where inclined strata exist, but it does not explain the coming up of water, when the strata are horizoned by flat river plains, which is the case in many parts of the world. The artesian-well theory wants considerable amplification in our mind.

At the railway station we found a little boy in uniform who wanted to insure our lives! The reason for his anxiety was that we might suffer harm in the tunnel. ‘It’s only a penny, sir, and we insure nearly everybody.’

In the Colonies they will insure you against a heartache. At the book-store I observed a notice that anyone found after a railway accident with a copy of the _Daily Chronicle_ (if I remember rightly), issued on the day of the disaster, in his possession would receive £500.

After a rough-and-tumble night, crammed in a small cabin with three sick passengers, I was not sorry to find that we were steering into Wellington. On all sides there were high and irregular hills. Some of them on the left were capped with snow. The view was by no means so smooth in its outlines as on entering Lyttelton. The hills, instead of being round and green, were ragged and brown. Wellington is situated at the foot of these hills at the head of the bay. The position seemed to be snug and quiet, but we soon discovered it was quite the contrary.

Wellington seems to have been built in a sort of natural funnel, through which there is a perpetual gale of wind. You can always tell a man from Wellington, for wherever he goes he will grip hold of his hat on turning a corner. When we got ashore we found that we had to grip our hats, and could quite understand how a prolonged residence at Wellington might lead to an instinctive desire to save your hat on turning a corner.

We had a talk with a resident about the winds of Wellington.

‘Wind, indeed! Why, it’s only a week or so ago when a whole girls’ school was blown clean out to sea. Now they have invented a way for reefing their petticoats. Too much sail doesn’t do in these parts. All the nursemaids and children never turn out now without carrying a small kedge and a few fathoms of chain hooked to their perambulators.’

‘Good for windmills,’ I remarked.

‘Yes, we thought so, until we tried them. One was blown away and landed somewhere up amongst the Maoris, who refused to return it, saying that it had been presented to them last year by a gentleman from Australia. The other mill we anchored down, but when it once commenced to move, we were never able to stop it.’

‘And how was that?’ said I, and I was told the story of

Dickey Adams.

‘It was a sad affair, that was. It was Dickey Adams who thought he could make a fortune out of the Wellington winds. We told him to let them alone.

‘“Look,” Dickey, said I, “nothing can stand against these Wellington winds. You’ll find your blessed windmill up amongst the Maoris the day after you put it up, and they’ll say it was given to them last year by a gentleman from Australia. Don’t you remember that train which was blown backwards right through the terminus, and landed the passengers forty miles in the opposite direction to what they had started?” says I. “Dickey, Dickey, it’ll never do to fight against the Almighty. The Almighty has made these winds, and we must bear them.”

‘But Dickey wasn’t to be persuaded, and it just ended by his being ruined and breaking his heart and then dying. It was just like pulling at a pig’s tail to talk to Dickey. The more you pulled back the more Dickey went ahead.

‘Well, we watched Dickey’s mill being put up with considerable interest. Every stone he stuck in he had dovetailed into those below it, for all the world like a lighthouse. At last he got the top on, and then, waiting for a fine day when the breeze slackened a little, he put up the sails. These he held fast with chains and anchors.

‘At last the mill got finished, and Dickey invited us all up to see him slip the anchors, and give the machinery a turn, just to ease it a bit, you know, for it was all new. Of course we all went, and Dickey was as happy as a skylark. There he was, hopping about and chirping away to everyone about the way he had built his mill. Dickey’s smiles did me good. It was certainly a red-letter day for him. Some of the old hands shook their heads, and called the mill Dickey’s Folly.

‘At last the inspection was over, and then came the loosening. He had had his chains nicely arranged by a sailor man, he said, but no sooner was one cast off than the old thing gave a groan and a heave, and away she went carrying the other three chains with her. My word, how we scattered as the sails went flying round quicker and quicker, and at every turn three great chains came beating on the ground. People down below thought there was an earthquake. By-and-by, as the chains didn’t come off, some of us ventured back, and Dickey said he would go inside and put on a patent friction brake which he had invented, and show us how it stopped.

‘But what do you think we found? Why, we found the blessed sails, with their twenty fathoms of iron tassels, were lashing round and round right in front of the mill door. Of course Dickey couldn’t get inside. “But the wind may shift a bit by-and-by,” said he, and he looked quite cheerful. So we sat down and watched it.

‘All that night the thumping of the chains and the rattling of Dickey’s machinery stopped a lot of us from sleeping. Next morning we found that Dickey, who had been sitting up watching his machine all night, as was natural, was looking a bit anxious.

‘This went on for fully a week, until, instead of being a curiosity, Dickey’s mill became a nuisance, and several who lived near him said they had earthquakes enough about the place without his starting a perpetual one. Next they began to hint that their window-frames were getting loose, and the children couldn’t sleep, and that Dickey’s mill must be stopped somehow. A few who sympathized with Dickey’s bad luck suggested that they need not trouble, it would wear itself out in a week or so. Others, however, said Dickey had built it so strong that it might go thumping and turning for a lifetime, and proceedings ought to be taken against it as a public nuisance.

‘Well, all this ended by the Town Council sitting to discuss how Dickey’s mill was to be got rid of. Some suggested blowing it up with powder, others said we ought to get the artillery to come down from Auckland; but the suggestion which found the greatest favour was to pump on it with the fire-engines and then try if the thing would rust up solid. The fire-brigade had a fine time of it; the more water they pumped into Dickey’s mill, the quicker the hanged thing seemed to go--it just acted like oil.

‘By this time Dickey was getting pretty low in spirits, and with sitting up all night had got quite thin. Many’s the time I walked up to the hill to see Dickey sitting on a bank of stones with his face in his hands and great tear-drops trickling down his face. What with building the thing, paying compensation for new window-frames, making presents to the women all round just to keep their tongues quiet, and paying the bill presented to him by the fire-brigade, unless the mill stopped, Dickey was a ruined man.

‘Then the cold weather came on, and yet Dickey would never leave his mill. He was always hoping the wind might change, and he could get inside.

‘It finished him at last, however. One cold frosty morning the children who used to take him his tucker came running back, saying Dickey was dead. It was true enough; there was poor old Dickey lying out stiff and cold, on the frosty grass. We were all sorry about Dickey. Wellington wind killed a good man when it carried off poor old Dickey.’

‘And how did the windmill finish?’ I asked.

‘Why, a man fenced it in, and used to take visitors up to see it at a shilling a head. One night, however, a heavier gale than usual blew, and carried it right away.’

Here Mac broke in, ‘I suppose a Maori has got it, and says it was presented to him last year by a gentleman from Australia.’

Our communicative acquaintance was evidently a little piqued by Mac’s query, and replied that he didn’t know; but anyhow, after Dickey’s windmill, no wonder people talked about ‘windy Wellington.’

About Earthquakes.

Another thing that Wellington is famous for is its earthquakes. Many of these have been sufficiently violent to become landmarks in New Zealand history. It has often happened that the coast-line to the west of Wellington has been permanently raised several feet by earthquakes. Wellington has been a gainer by these upheavals, and houses which were once on the sea-shore are now some distance back.

Any year may bring the announcement that Wellington has taken another upward start, and what is now the quay may be a street with houses on either side. Events like these, together with the minor shakings which are of continual occurrence, very naturally alarm many of the Wellingtonians. At one time nearly every person in Wellington felt it a duty to have all loose articles like ornaments on shelves fastened in position by wires.

The greatest proof that Wellingtonians fear these disturbances is the fact that nearly all their houses are built of wood. The Government buildings are spoken of as the largest wooden buildings in the world. Wellington is certainly wooden as well as windy. I met with quite a number of people who had seismological experiences to relate. Some apparently did not mind the shakings--just tremors, they said. These people were, for the most part, new chums, who had not yet been imbued with a due respect for plutonic force. Others told me that they did not mind earthquakes so much as at first, but that they had gradually come to have a great antipathy for them; they alarmed their wives and children so much.

There is a feeling of insecurity with these phenomena; you feel you can’t stop them, and you expect after a thing has begun, the next shake may be like that of 1855, when all the buildings came down.

‘The last good shake we had,’ said a gentleman, ‘gave a terrible fright to my neighbours, who are married people living in a two-story house. Every night they were very particular to see that things were locked up safely. I suppose they were afraid of their servants getting out at night. When they went upstairs they always took the keys with them, and put them under their pillows. One night a shake came on pretty smart, and they both bundled out of bed and bolted downstairs. It wasn’t until they had got to the bottom and tried to open the front door that they remembered that unless they went back to get the keys they were fast prisoners. Now, will you believe me, there they stood shivering in the cold at their front door, both afraid to go upstairs and get the keys, until the motion finished. They leave the keys downstairs now.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I, well--I bolted through the front parlour window, and landed on my stomach on a flower-bed. It is as true as I am here that I could feel that flower-bed palpitating as if it were alive.

‘Oh, there were some funny things happened that night. The old man who is supposed to study these things up at our observatory was found by his wife standing in his nightshirt out in the snow, with the window-sash round his neck. You know, the old ass had bolted head first through his window without stopping to open it. When his wife asked him what he was doing, he told her that he had just stepped out to make an outside observation; “I wanted to see if the chimneys moved very much, my dear,” he stammered.

‘Down at the club there were a lot of our boys and some naval officers playing poker. You don’t know that game, I suppose? It is a game where they have a pool, and this keeps getting bigger and bigger as the game goes on. They call this pool a Jack Pot. Well, when the shake came on, the pot was reckoned to be worth about £45. People never thought about money when they felt the movement and heard the timbers creaking; they just looked at each other and then stampeded. Some went for windows, some for doors, and others, who did not know the place, got jammed in the kitchen, and the ends of blank passages. One man landed in the bath-room, another found himself a prisoner in the lavatory.

‘When the thing was over, one of the party was missing. Now just guess where they found him. Why, shaking and shivering in a cupboard.

‘Well, after a laugh and a drink--for it needs something to square your nerves after a good earthquake--they sat down to finish their game. But do you think they found the Jack Pot on the table? No, sir, not a bit of it; and what was more, they never did find it.

‘It was, however, observed that the man that was shaking in the cupboard, and at whom they had laughed for being in such a funk, bought himself a new watch that week. General opinion held that he had never been in a funk at all, but had just stayed behind until his friends had cleared, and then nobbled the pool, after which he quietly walked into the cupboard.

‘You ought to have seen the mess our town was in next morning. All the chimneys were slewed round, tiles were shaken off the houses, plaster was down everywhere. It just looked as if the Russians had been in and bombarded the place. It cost us on an average £100 apiece to put things straight.

‘Up in the churchyard all the gravestones were turned round, but the curious thing was that they had all gone in the same direction. The disturbance gave us conversation for a fortnight.

‘You know, when we go to call at a house in Wellington it is just as common to begin the conversation by--“That was a nasty shock last night,” as to begin by telling people “the weather is getting a little colder.”’

‘Which way do these earthquakes come?’ I asked.

‘Why, some folks say they come one way, and others say they come another. They go by their senses, you see, and half of them lose their senses when an earthquake comes.

‘Our old observatory man says they come from the sea, and that the motion we feel may be in all directions, twisting and squirming about, first one way, then another. Then again, you’re not moved so much if you’re up on high ground, as you are down on the soft stuff.’

To gain as much information as possible, I asked if there were any theories about how these things start.

‘Theories, why, yes, plenty of them. Some say they are volcanic--explosion of steam in fissures--others say they are caused by the rocks suddenly breaking, adjusting themselves to a position of equilibrium, the observatory man calls it. I don’t believe in the theories. I think earthquakes are just electrical phenomena, and kind of subterranean lightning and thunderstorm.

‘Just to show you what I mean, the other day I was out having dinner with Harris up the hill, when one of the hanged phenomena came along and shook the house as if it was going to fetch it down. I knew if it was so bad up there, down below I might expect at least to find my chimneys through the roof.

‘As I knew the state my wife and daughters would be in, I didn’t stop to finish dinner, but went off as hard as my legs could carry me home.

‘When I got in, what do you think I saw? My wife was knitting, with her toes on the fender, and my daughters were playing with a little cat they had.

‘“Good gracious, Tom!” said my wife, “we thought you were dining with Mr. Harris. What’s the matter? You look too frightened to tell us. Is it serious?”

‘“Thank God you’re safe,” said I, holding myself against the door-post, and panting for breath, for I had run the last mile or so.

‘“Safe!” they all said, “of course we’re all safe. What’s the matter?”

‘“Oh, Tom, Tom!” said my wife, rushing up and putting her arms round my neck, “don’t keep us in suspense. Is it something dreadful?”

‘“Why, the earthquake,” said I.

‘“Earthquake!” said they, “there hasn’t been an earthquake.”

‘“You’re crazy, Tom,” said my wife.

‘“Why, Harris’s house has been nearly shaken down, and I came to see how you were getting on.”

‘Then they laughed, and told me I had been dreaming. Well, to be called crazy, to be accused of dreaming, and to miss my dinner, set me thinking.

‘That very afternoon I made inquiries from all my friends in the town about the disturbance, and what do you think I found? One thing I found out was, that it had just gone through the town in a straight line. It had worked just like the subtle fluid works; it had travelled along the shortest distance between two points. It hadn’t gone to the right or the left, but it had gone as electricity goes, in a straight line, and therefore I say that earthquakes are electricity. And what is more, when we get some railroads through the country, the stuff will gradually escape along the metals, and these underground thunderstorms, as I call ’em, will stop. Now what do you think of that for a theory?’ said he.

He finished up by telling me the following story about Soft Sammy.

* * * * *

‘In many countries when an earthquake takes place,’ he began, ‘the land goes down. At Lisbon it went down so suddenly that it buried a whole lot of people. In our country, so far as I can make out, the land appears to have a habit of going up. In ’55 about 4,600 square miles of land rose in some places nine feet, and the breadth of the beach increased more than 100 feet.

‘All this, you know, occurred near Wellington, and it has kept on occurring, off and on, ever since. The trouble and litigation these earth-jerks have cost us have been something terrible.

‘After the first jump-up, people were for a time too scared to know what they ought to do. Most of them, when they recovered a bit, began to scratch about amongst their ruins, trying to root out their property. Most of the things had got so flattened that it was difficult to tell what was yours and what was somebody else’s.

‘One man sued another for having been digging in the wrong ruins. The plaintiff deposed that the defendant had not only trespassed, but had stolen his kitchen-clock. The article was produced in court, and the defence held it not to be a clock, but a warming-pan.

‘If it was a clock, the judge remarked that he should give the case in favour of the plaintiff; but if it was a warming-pan, he should be compelled to side with the defendant.

‘Do you know, the thing had been so flattened, that there wasn’t a jury in Wellington could decide whether the thing was a clock or a warming-pan. One man stuck to it that it was a frying-pan, and from the smell of it should say it had last been used to cook beefsteak and onions.

‘While all this was going on in the town, the people who lived along the quay were speculating as to when the water was coming back. There were all the ships lying high and dry, and, as far as you could see, there was a broad beach covered with rocks and seaweed. It wasn’t so many days before the mussels and stuff began to putrefy, and when the breeze set in from outside, the smell was horrible.

‘One day, as we were walking along the new beach, we observed that here and there some pegs had been driven in, just as if somebody had been staking out a claim; and when we came to inquire, we found that somebody had been staking out a claim.

‘The fellow who did it was a man who lives up there,’ and our acquaintance pointed up the hill to one of the biggest houses in the town. ‘At that time he was a new chum, and because we thought he was a bit soft, we called him Soft Sammy.

‘Sammy, however, took the wind out of our sails this time. Instead of pottering round his ruins like the rest of us had been doing, he had quietly staked the new ground which had been lifted up.

‘At first they told him that land between high and low water-mark was the Queen’s property, and he couldn’t hold possession. Billy, however, showed that the judge had a bit of land on which there was a ship stranded. When it came there no one knew, but that it was a long time ago there was no doubt, as there was then a tree growing out of it.

“The tree didn’t walk there,” was Sammy’s argument; “and if that land belongs to you, then the land I’ve pegged out belongs to me.”

‘The judge decided in Sammy’s favour.

‘As soon as Sammy got possession, he sent round notes to the masters of all the ships which were lying on his ground, politely informing them that unless they moved off his patch within the next twenty-four hours, he should be compelled to take action against them for trespass. He wanted to build on the ground, and they were in the way, he said.

‘As there was no moving the ships, they were put up to auction, and Sammy pocketed half the proceeds. This enabled him to undertake the building he talked about, and now the whole of those buildings facing the water are Sammy’s property.

‘It’s not many people that can make money out of earthquakes, but Sammy managed it, you see. Of course everybody was praying for a second jump-up, so that Sammy’s property would be converted into a back street, and they might get a sea frontage. Sammy had successfully jumped some of the Queen’s property, and why shouldn’t they?

‘When the cold weather came on--for that is the time that earthquakes are frequent--the excitement used to be pretty great. Everyone expected to get a prize some day. A lot of them got the old fellow up at the observatory to calculate the chances of an earthquake coming, and on the days he fixed for the jerk-up to come off, you’d see hundreds of people sitting along the beach, with pegs and mallets ready to block off their new possessions.

‘Some of them, to be right there when the phenomenon came along, would stand half the night up to their middles in water, ready to drive in a peg directly they felt the lift.

‘We had all sorts of rules given us to tell when to expect an earthquake. They were pretty plentiful when the moon was near to us, so they said.

‘Then there were lots of rules connecting the frequency of shakes and the position of planets, the height of the barometer, the phase of the tide, or the temperature of the air. Some of us would work on one rule, and some on another; but so far as we could make out there was no rule; anyhow, there was no decided rule which would help us to make money. Applied science didn’t work right.

‘I often read about professors prophesying when there will be an earthquake. Some of them fix a day for the event. Sometimes it comes off, and then they are all cock-a-whoop; but when it doesn’t come off, they just lie close.

‘It stands to reason that they must be right sometimes, because in some countries there are earthquakes every day.’

‘Well, and was there never any more jump-ups after the one when Sammy made his money?’ I inquired.

‘Oh yes, there was one a bit down the bay some years ago.’

‘And was there a scramble for it?’ I said.

‘My word there was!’ he answered; ‘if you had seen the cartloads of pegs, and people and buggies all crowding along, each trying to get ahead of his neighbour, you would have thought Wellington was mad. When they got there, what do you think they found? Well, they found it had all been pegged out by Sammy.’

‘What, Sammy again?’ I said.

‘Yes, it was Sammy again, and as far as we could make out he had pegged out the ground before the earthquake came, and as his pegs were below water we could not see them. We don’t call him Soft Sammy any more. We call him Seismic Sammy now.’

* * * * *

Amongst the many sights of Wellington we visited the Museum.

Mac kicked against this, and said he didn’t want any _moa_ moas. The compliment I paid him on his pun caused him to go.

The collections, although by no means so extensive as at Christchurch, are certainly worth a visit. There were the usual assortment of minerals and fossils, a rusty-looking moa, a freshly-imported mummy, and at the doorway a diagram showing the districts where an approaching eclipse might be seen.

One afternoon was spent at an exhibition of New Zealand productions, which was then being held. Amongst other things we saw many pictures and photos by local artists, tons of woollen goods, a number of agricultural implements, and a telpher line made by Mr. Fletcher, of Dunedin.

The remainder of our time was spent in interviewing the shops and streets, which were well worthy of inspection.

On one jeweller’s shop I read, as well as I can remember, words like these:

‘_Hiki piki waki saki,_
_Hoki poki rapi taki._’

I suppose it was Maori, and meant to inform the natives that watches and jewellery would be repaired on the shortest notice.

Mac said I might safely offer £50 to the Maori who could translate it properly. We felt we were getting near to Maori-land at last, and we saw several of them in the street.

The Governor of New Zealand lives at Wellington, this being considered a tolerably central position for carrying on the public affairs of the Colony. At the time of our visit Parliament was sitting, but as we were not distinguished strangers we were not invited to a debate. We were very sorry about this, for it would have been interesting, especially if some of the Maori members had spoken.

Maori speeches are, I am told, characterized by their terseness. Once there was a great meeting of the Maoris, which had been called to discuss an important action to be taken in their relations with the white man. All the chieftains spoke except their greatest orator--the Maori Disraeli. M. D. remained silent, and sat with his eyes cast upon the ground until the third day, when at last he rose. There was a death-like stillness, and everyone was anxious not to lose a single syllable of the great chieftain’s wisdom.

Had not Solomon pondered for three days and heard the opinions of his brothers?

The burning points at issue were to be defined, and the action to be taken for everlasting Maori happiness would be declared.

For a moment the monarch of the woods gazed round the assemblage of his brothers, then, stretching forth his hand solemnly, he slowly said:

‘My brothers, the potato is boiled.’

After this he drew his cloak around him, and sank back into his original position.

For many days even the Maoris pondered over the chieftain’s words. That they must be the embodiment of great wisdom was universally admitted, but who could unravel the enigma?

To me and to all who read these lines the solution of the monarch’s wisdom is so clear that I fear it could only be regarded as trifling with intelligence were I to offer an explanation.

Another speech which I saw reported in one of the New Zealand papers occurred while I was in the country. This took place in the Legislative Assembly at Wellington. I may here remark that the Maoris are all tall, well-built men, and although many of them have their faces tattooed in curly blue lines, they have a commanding appearance. Members of the Legislative Assembly, as well as many others, appear in European clothes, and some of them even sport chimney-pots. The cannibal rose--I assume him to be a cannibal because it is quite possible that a few years ago he may have been one. Then with deliberation he addressed his white brothers:

‘The English are a great people. The Maoris are a great people. The Queen of England is endowed with wisdom. The Maori chieftain has wisdom. The Maori wants his rights.’

I do not pretend to give the speeches I have quoted _literatim_--my only endeavour is to give their general character.

The Maoris yet retain about half the Northern Island, their country being known as the King Country. Here they live partly in a state of civilization, and partly in their original primitive Maori manner. They are fine intelligent people, but from what I heard and what I saw, are extremely lazy. Many of them are wealthy, their wealth being chiefly derived from ground-rents paid to them by the white adventurer who wishes to occupy portions of their territory. Thus it comes that there are Maoris worth from £20,000 to £200,000. When papa dies, the property goes to the daughters. No wonder that Maori maidens secure Caucasian mates.

From Wellington we had considerable variety in our fellow-passengers. There were examples of a new-born aristocracy, the democracy, and the Maori.

Amongst the former, there was an elderly gentleman who had a dislike to plurals.

His wife and daughter spoke of him as ‘Poo’ papa.’

‘Was you sick then, Mary?’ said poo’ papa to his daughter Mary.

‘Yes, pa,’ said the daughter.

‘Now, was you then?’ said he.

‘Poo’ mamma’ was stout, covered with black satin and lace, and scintillating with diamonds and precious stones--four rings on every finger. ‘Poo’ papa would have had a poor time of it with poo’ mamma, had she used her knuckle-dusters on him. The daughter seemed to be a little ashamed of poo’ papa and poo’ mamma.

The funniest people on board were a group of five who hung together like a bunch of grapes. Three of them were men and two of them ladies. They were all exceedingly short and thick, and had fat flattish round faces. I never learnt how to distinguish one of the men or one of the ladies from another. Each of the men had a bushy, dirty, unkempt beard, and a huge Tam o’Shanter blue bonnet. Their clothes were coarse, dirty, and ill-fitting. On their feet they had long boots. The two ladies had each an imitation sealskin jacket and a round pork-pie hat, and when they went ashore they each carried a small cotton umbrella made of a gaudy chintz. This peculiar group were peculiar enough to attract general attention and they were a puzzle to all of us.

One day Mac announced that he had discovered their occupation. The men, he declared, were carpenters--he had seen them all carefully examining a carpenter’s shop.

‘I was just about to say,’ said our old friend the Yank, ‘that they were butchers--when I was going down the street, I saw them at the butcher’s shop examining a leg of mutton.’

The Maoris were, I believe, members of the Legislative Assembly returning to their homes. They were all fine, big men, with grey beards. But for the tattooing they might have been called handsome. They were certainly by no means the burlesque of a European.

That afternoon the Yank found that these three Maori legislators had been stowed in his cabin.

‘Look here, Cap,’ said he, addressing our brass-buttoned commander, ‘I ain’t going to be bunked in with your native Injins. S’pose I see that tattooed-face looking down at me to-night, I’ll think the devil’s got me. Tell you now, you can just get Buffalo Bill and Texas Jim cleared out of that. Just now I went into my cabin, and there I saw that consumptive-looking one, him with the sulphury-green face, lying on his back staring straight up--heaving and sobbing--taking a plan of the roof.

‘“Suppose your digestion ain’t good?” says I to him, while wiping myself.

‘“No,” says he; “the sea tries me.”

‘“Sorry to hear it,” says I; “excuse me leaving you, but I want a little fresh air.”

‘Now, Cap, I’m not going to bunk in with your native Injins, don’t you believe it. That’s straight, isn’t it?’ said he, appealing to the company.

Whether it was straight or not, the Maoris retained the cabin; and our Yank, I am sorry to say, had to camp on a sofa in the saloon. These little facts may be of value to future travellers by the monopolist line of steamers.

At the next port our American friend saw some sheep coming on board, and at once asked the ‘Cap’ whether they also were to have berths in the saloon.

‘I guess everything counts here,’ he remarked.

This was at Napier. Napier is situated on a peninsula, at the end of which there are high whitish-grey bluffs.

Many of our passengers went ashore in a little steamer called the _Boojum_, and of course landed on the opposite side of the peninsula to where the town is built.

The passengers now became thicker and thicker. In every cabin there were at least four, and all of them, at least those in my cabin, through their habits, were disgusting. For some days I was unable to open a portmanteau, and had to continue without a change of clothes.

The next port was Gisborne, where we again anchored several miles from the shore. Here I was told there were a great number of Maoris, the remainder of the population being chiefly composed of lawyers, who get considerable practice by advocating the rights of their tattooed-faced clients.

I was told that Gisborne boasted of forty full-fledged practitioners, and a number of fledgelings; and from one or two specimens who came on board our vessel, they must be exceedingly good talkers.

I have seen a lawyer’s signboard. It gave the gentleman’s name, followed by barrister and solicitor. After this there was a translation of what was above in Maori. It finished up with ‘Roia,’ which I suppose is their way of writing ‘lawyer.’

Mac and I had the intention of getting out at Gisborne, and going thence, viâ the Hot Lakes, overland to Auckland.

When we heard that this was the place where the intelligent Maoris murdered all the whites on one occasion, that the stages by the coach averaged about fifty miles each, and finally that we might possibly fall into the hands of the Roias, we thought we would continue on where we were, and approach the Hot Lakes from the other side.

While lying at Gisborne, we saw a sight to which colonials are probably accustomed. This was the shipment of about 400 sheep. They came alongside in barges. At first the sheep were put in iron cages six or seven together, and then, by means of a steam-winch, hoisted up to the deck. This, however, was not quick enough, so a number of thin pieces of cord, very like log-line, were arranged with slip-knots. Each sheep to be lifted was secured by fastening the slip-knot round its stomach. Six or seven cords, each with its sheep, were then taken and fastened to the hook which before had raised the cages. As the chain with its hook tightened by the lifting of the winch, the six or seven sheep were dragged sprawling across the deck until they were suspended--when up they went, heads and tails, a living, swinging, twirling mass, bumping against the side of the ship until they reached the deck. Here they were released, and kicked and thumped until they moved to their proper quarters.

The whole performance was sickening, and all of us, who were not accustomed to see the handling of sheep, regarded it as brutal. Several of them died after this.

The Yank, who was always straightforward with his opinions, ‘guessed that these fellows’ (meaning those who were doing the torturing) ‘would figure in the _Police News_ in his country.’

Maybe we were tender-hearted and our sympathies for the sheep arose from ignorance. Anyhow, its effect on me was sufficient to disturb my night’s rest. I dreamt I was in a big ship (it wasn’t in New Zealand), and all the officers on board were sheep. There were the little sailor sheep with blue shirts, and officer sheep with gilt buttons.

Presently a load of stout old gentlemen, some of whom seemed as if they enjoyed a glass of port wine and an easy-chair after their dinner, came alongside. These were directors of the steamship company.

When the sheep saw them, they were delighted, and skipped about on their hind-legs; for you must remember they were walking about and looking just like little men. After looking through his glasses at the cargo, the sheep-captain said:

‘Here are some directors. Get out the thin rope, boys. Thin rope, mind. Yes, that will do. Put it round their stomachs. Now hoist away--head and tail.’

Then all the sheep laughed and grinned, whilst the directors, who were coming up swinging against the side of the ship, shrieked for mercy. Then they were dumped down on the deck like a heap of big ripe grapes, unhooked, and kicked into pens. One or two of them died.

These proceedings, which caused a great deal of merriment amongst the crew, were hardly over, when there was a fearful squealing and cawing heard at the back of the ship, and all the sheep ran aft to see what was the matter.

‘Why, it’s only a lot of molly-hawks and albatrosses crying,’ said the captain.

To mop up their tears some of them held little bits of seaweed and bladder-wrack in their claws.

‘That’s funny,’ said the commander, looking at the birds through his telescope.

‘Very funny,’ said the first mate, who liked to keep in with his chief.

‘Very, very funny,’ said the second officer.

Then everybody laughed.

‘Let us ask them why they are so sad. Where is my speaking-trumpet?’ said the captain.

The trumpet was brought, and a big sheep, holding it up to his face, after several preliminary ‘Baas,’ shouted out, ‘Ahoy, my feathered friends! why these drippings?’

‘You’ve killed our friends, our best friends, our very dear friends!’ replied the sobbing molly-hawks; ‘we can never fly after your ships any more.’

At this point the tears came pattering down like rain, as if there had been a thunderstorm.

‘Be more explicit, companions of the pastures,’ yelled the big sheep through the trumpet. ‘We do not wish to lose your pleasant company.’

‘Why,’ said the molly-hawks, ‘the gentlemen you have been stringing up practised economy. They allowed the cooks to buy bad butter, so that the passengers would not eat the beefsteak-pies and pastry they made, which were therefore all thrown overboard to us. All the birds in the South Pacific knew this, and it can’t happen any more.’

Then they wept until the sheep had to put on their oilskin coats for fear of spoiling their uniforms.

The day after we left Gisborne, we steamed into Auckland. Auckland harbour is decidedly pretty, and well sheltered. On one side of it there is an island-like promontory, covered with volcanic cones and villas, and at one end are several batteries. Now that the batteries have been made, the Aucklanders feel that cruisers cannot lie off the town and dictate terms.

On the opposite side, where the steamers lie against the wharf, is the town. The ground on which it is built is irregular. Behind it rises Mount Eden, another old volcano. There are volcanic cones even in the town itself.

When you walk along a street in Auckland, you are as likely to find yourself climbing up an old volcanic slope as not. People live in volcanoes, sometimes even in their craters. You can hear people discussing the price of certain volcanoes.

‘You know, £4,000 is what I could give for little Pluto,’ says one man.

‘Well, I only wanted the crater,’ says another.

There is certainly a novelty in buying and selling these slumbering giants. Of course the buyers and sellers trade in them on the understanding that they are dead. We hope they are.

There has been great competition for some of these phenomena on the north shore, a moderate-sized one selling for £5,000. The price, however, varies with the size and the shape. If it has a good crater, it may be very expensive. Of course, when buying a volcano, it is well to see that it is in a good position, for they are very difficult to move.

At night-time the streets of Auckland are dull and badly lighted, but during the day they are lively, and there is much to engage the attention of a stranger. Amongst the shops I was particularly struck with one of the book-stores, where the free-reading custom was licensed. To add a charm to the book you were studying, a piano discoursed lively music.

Auction-rooms were a great feature in the Auckland streets. At one of them I saw a man trying to sell a counterpane. His face was red, and his voice was hoarse. It was always ‘going, going!’--then he would pause, and appeal to his audience, which was one man and a boy:

‘Really, gentlemen, this fine counterpane for one and sixpence.’ Then persuasively: ‘Make it two bob.’

‘Well, two bob,’ says the man, and it was promptly knocked down as a cheap bargain.

There were many hoardings and advertisements in the street.

‘It will pay you to cross the street and look over our stock,’ was hung over one shop; but right before me, on my side of the street, there was a counter-blast:

‘It will pay you to walk twenty yards farther on, and look at our stock.’

The stocks in many of the shops were large and expensive.

Most of the shops were faced with verandas, extending quite across the sidewalk. These verandas were all different in design, helping to make the buildings appear very unsymmetrical.

A great problem for the stranger in Auckland is to discover why so many baggage-carts, which are called ‘expresses,’ stand the whole day long in certain parts of the town.

In Victoria Street, which commences as a long hill, you see these carts standing, one behind the other, in a line too long for the eye to carry you to the end of it. I discovered that the secret lay in their charges, for if you engage one of them, the driver will make enough money to keep him for the next week.

The meat-shops were pointed out to me as a speciality, but, as I have said before, I dislike exhibitions of dead bodies. Certainly one of the shops was beautifully decorated, and all the lambs and other creatures, which were hung up by their hind-legs, were ornamented with rosettes and bouquets. These additions possibly toned down the appearance of the shambles, but they looked as much out of place as a blue ribbon does round the neck of a statue.

To me a butcher’s shop is as pleasing as a dissecting-room or a morgue.

With a little training we shall have public windows in which to exhibit the operations of the slaughterhouse. Butchers’ shops ought to have screens before them.

Besides the shops there were the theatres, public gardens, an embryonic University, and a Museum to be seen. At the Museum there was the usual collection of Maori productions, implements, and weapons, mineralogical and geological specimens, a good collection of pictures, and, not to do the place an injustice, a little moa.

‘A little moa what?’ said Mac.

This was the second time he made his moa joke, so I remained silent.

I gazed at the rusty-looking little animal for some time, for I knew it might be years before I should again have the opportunity of interviewing this extinct giant of the feathered world.

In and about volcanic Auckland a common sign is, ‘Ash, lapilli, scoria, lava, bombs, etc., on sale.’ When you order a load the vendor asks how you like it--vesicular, amygdaloidal, pumiceous, crypto-crystalline, or how?

Walking about Auckland made me very tired. Coming down a hill you have your toes jammed in the end of your boots, while going up a hill you have your body hanging over your toes. Boots with elevating toes and heels would be a valuable boon to those who live in Auckland.

One climb we made was up Mount Eden. It was a pleasant walk, and the view of the crater filled with browsing cattle, and then of the town and the surrounding country, well repaid the trouble. When on the top we could easily count some twenty other volcanic cones, many of which were accompanied by streams of lava. At one time the district of Auckland must have been bubbling like a porridge-pot.

‘Pretty hot business in Auckland some years ago,’ said Mac, as he wiped his forehead after the climb, and looked down on the twenty extinct porridge-pots.

When returning, we took a look at the Cemetery. From the ages indicated on the tombstones it would appear that the climate of New Zealand is good for the human species. One noticeable thing was the number of people who had been killed by falls from horses. Is there more riding in New Zealand than in other places, or are the horses more frisky, or are the people more clumsy? No doubt there is a reason, if it could be discovered.

One afternoon I went to see a review of the various rifle corps which have been raised in Auckland. There were six companies, all in different uniforms, with a grizzly old general commanding the lot. For a long time they stood in rows doing nothing. The old general, however, kept capering up and down, while two aides-de-camp struggled to keep behind him. Now and then a man would gallop across the field with his sword up and his horse’s tail whirling round and round, as if it was the motive power that made it go.

I thought he was going to have a sham fight with the general; but when he reached him he suddenly put his sword up to his nose, then stuck it in his sheath, whirled round, and went scampering away to where he had come from.

It was a nice warm afternoon, and as I had nothing to do, I did not object to these military manœuvres.

By-and-by they began to move. The idea was to make the six companies march in oblique lines until at certain points they stopped and wheeled to form one long line. They tried it a lot of times, but the line they made had always big gaps left in it.

The crowd said it was the fault of the sergeants, who had to run ahead and mark out the wheeling-points.

The number of Volunteers is about 300, and as that is a number which history tells us can get back safely from the jaws of death, we hope they may do well. The Aucklanders are proud of their Volunteers, and they may well be so.

After this I took a cruise in the domain, where I saw a lovely cricket ground, where eighteen cricket-matches can be played simultaneously. Outside the cricket ground two or three football-matches were going on. I sat down upon the side of a volcano to watch them. The place where the play was going on was in the hollows between several small volcanoes, or, at least, volcanic slopes. It was all fresh and green, and round the sides of the grounds were clumps of oaks and other trees bursting into summer costume. Beyond this arcadian scene came islands, islets, more volcanoes, and then the ocean.

With Italian scenery and warm sunshine I felt as comfortable as a tom-cat sunning itself on a red-tile roof.

On the most distant island, away out in the blue ocean, Sir George Grey lives. Sir George is a great man in New Zealand, a lover of the Maori, and generally original in his conceptions. Anyone would be original if they lived the Robinson-Crusoe-like life that Sir George endures. They say that he does not get many callers.

Everything in Auckland was very nice, excepting my hotel. I was told that it was the best in the place, but the statement made it no better. The bedrooms were like boxes, and everything was untidy and badly managed. The arrival of some passengers by the American mail quite demoralized the establishment. The waiters were bewildered with the orders, and to get anything to eat you had to forage for yourself. I remember that I contented myself with a salt-spoon to stir my coffee.

I spent one afternoon on the north shore, where there is a race-course and some pretty walks. I was rather struck with one house, called Rangitoto View. Rangitoto is a volcanic island lying off Auckland, the view of which is exceedingly striking. Any house that faces Rangitoto has before it a picture. Now, this house faced a stone quarry on the side of a hill, Rangitoto being out of sight.

_TRIP TO THE HOT LAKES._