Chapter XVI: A Cooking Memory 240 (2)

“Be very careful of the dips,” said one of my guests, “for I’ve read of people eating them.”

“I hear the cat mewing under the house,” said another; “we’ll try to get hold of her.”

“I wonder if those are the cows?” asked a third, pointing to three formless heaps high above the stockyard rails, but within them.

By Friday morning the maids, still in bed, were asking tearfully, “And oh! when do you think we’ll be found, mum?” Whereas my anxiety was to find something to feed them with! We shook out a heap of discarded flour-bags and got, to our joy, quite a plateful of flour, and a careful smoothing out of the lead lining of old tea-chests yielded a few leaves, so we had girdle-cakes and tea that day. I was very unhappy about the dogs: the horses were out on the run as usual, so it was no use thinking of them.

On Saturday there was literally nothing at all in the house (which was quite dark, remember), and my three starving men roped themselves together and struggled out, tunnelling through the snow, in the direction where they thought the fowl-house must lie. After a couple of hours’ hard work they hit upon its roof, tore off some of the wooden shingles, and captured a few bundles of feathers, which were what my poor dear hens were reduced to. However, there was a joyful struggle back, and after some hasty preparation the fowls were put into a saucepan with a lump of snow, for there was no water to be got anywhere, and a sort of stew resulted, of which we thankfully partook. This heartened up the gentlemen to make another sally to the stockyard in search of the cows. The clever creatures had kept moving round and round as the snow fell, so as to make a sort of wider tomb for themselves, and they were alive, though mere bundles of skin and bone. They were dragged by ropes to the stable and there fed with oaten hay. It was no question of milking the poor things, for they were quite dry.

Next day the dogs were dug out, but only one young and strong one survived. Two more were alive, but died soon after.

On Sunday it had ceased snowing and the wind showed signs of changing. I struggled a yard or two out of the house, as it was such a blessing to get into daylight again. My view was of course much circumscribed, as I could only see up and down the “flat,” as the valley was called. But it all looked quite different; not a fence or familiar landmark to be seen on any side. If I could have been wafted to the top of the mountain from which we saw the sun rise the summer before, what a white world should I have beheld! And if I could have soared still higher and looked over the whole of the vast Canterbury Plains, I should have been gazing at the smooth winding-sheet of half a million of sheep, for that was found, later, to be the loss in that Province alone.

Yet, as we afterwards came to know, it was not really the fall of snow, tremendous as it had been, which cost the Province nearly all its stock. As I have said, the wind changed to the north-west—the warm quarter—on Sunday night, and it rained heavily as well as blowing half a gale. On Monday morning the snow was off the roof and it was possible to clear some of the windows. An early excursion was also made to the styes and a very thin pig was killed, and, as a bag of Indian meal for fattening poultry had also been found in the stable loft, a sort of cake could be made. So we were no longer starving, and the maids got up!

Twenty-four hours of this warm rain and wind was what did all the mischief to the poor sheep. By Monday night every creek within sight had overflowed its banks, and was running—a dirty yellow stream—over the fast-melting snowfields. The rapid thaw and the flooded creeks made locomotion more difficult than ever, but the three gentlemen set to work at once to try to release the imprisoned sheep. There was but one dog to work with, and he was so weak he could hardly move, but the poor sheep were still weaker. Contrary to their custom they had mostly sought refuge beneath the projecting banks of the creeks, and would have been safe enough there had not the sudden thaw let the water in on them before they could struggle up, so they were nearly all drowned. It was most pathetic to discover how in some places the mothers had tried to save the lambs by standing over them in a leaning attitude so as to make a shelter. The lambing season had just begun, and on our own run, which was but a small one, we lost three thousand lambs. Several were brought in to me to try to save, but I had no cow’s milk to give them, and warm meal and water did not prove enough to keep the poor little starving creatures alive. It was heart-breaking work, and when F. returned it was to find the fences tapestried with the skins of a thousand sheep.

As soon as we could move about on horseback we rode all over the run and found that the sheep had evidently fared better when they had kept on higher ground. It was curious to see the tops of the little Ti-ti palms, some ten or twelve feet high, entirely nibbled off where the sheep had clustered round them, and, as the snow fell, mounted higher and higher until they could reach the green leaves. In those days all the flocks were pure or half-bred merino; active, hardy little black-faced sheep, tasting like Welsh mutton, and delicious eating. On these excursions we often came upon dead wild-pigs, boars cased in hides an inch thick, which had perished through sheer stress of weather. It was wonderful to think that thin-skinned animals, with only a few months’ growth of fine merino wool on their backs, could have survived.

During the long bright summer which followed, we used often to ask each other if it could be true that hills had apparently been levelled and valleys filled up by the heaviest snowstorm ever known. But when we looked at the Ti-ti palms with their topmost leaves gnawed to the stump, we realised that the sheep must have been standing on eight or nine feet of snow to reach them. When the survivors came to be shorn, it was plainly to be seen by the sort of “nick” in the fleece, where their three weeks’ imprisonment had evidently checked the growth of the wool. Many of the hardiest wethers must have been without food for that time, as the pasturage was either under snow or flooded.

In looking back on that tragic time, its only bright memory is connected with tobogganing on a rough but giant scale, and I greatly wonder any of us survived that form of amusement. By the time every possible thing had been done for the surviving sheep, the snow had disappeared from all but the steep weather-side of the encircling hills, so our slides had to be arranged on very dangerous slopes.

The sledges on which these perilous journeys were made consisted of a couple of short planks nailed together, with a batten across for one’s feet to rest on, and half a shears for a brake. If the gentlemen would only have made these rapid descents alone! But they insisted on my being a constant passenger. No one who has not gone through it can imagine the sensation of being launched on a bit of board down a mountain side! And yet there must have been a fearful joy in it, because after turning round and round many times as one flew over the hard snow surface, and arriving in a heap, head foremost, in a snowdrift, one was quite ready to try again. Luckily another north-west gale set in, and when it had blown itself out there were too many sharp-pointed rocks sticking up out of the remaining snow to make our mad descents practicable.

III

OLD NEW ZEALAND—_Continued_

I wonder if “swaggers” have been improved off the face of the country districts of New Zealand? Tramps one would perhaps have called them in England, and yet they were hardly tramps so much as men of a roving disposition, who wandered about asking for work, and they really could and did work if wanted. They nearly always appeared, with their “swag” (a roll of red blankets) on their backs, about sunset, and it was etiquette for them to offer to chop wood before shelter was suggested. A good meal of tea, mutton, and bread followed as a matter of course, and a shakedown in some shed. In the early morning, if there was no employment forthcoming, the “swagger” would fetch water, chop more wood, or do anything he was asked, before he got some more food and left. They always seemed very quiet, decent men, and perfectly honest. Indeed, a missing pair of boots (afterwards found to have only been mislaid) raised a great commotion in the whole country-side until they were found, and I suspect the owner had to apologise abjectly to all the “swaggers”!

The invariable custom of the “swagger” only appearing at sunset made it all the more wonderful when I found one crouched in a corner of the verandah at dawn one bitter winter’s morning. Now I was not at all in the habit of getting up at daylight in winter, but it was a glorious morning after nearly a week of wretched wet and cold weather. Some demon of restlessness must have induced me to jump up, huddle on a warm dressing-gown and start on a window-opening expedition, which led me shortly to the little hall-door. This I also opened to let in the fast-coming sunshine, and I nearly tumbled over the most forlorn object it is possible to imagine. At first I thought that a heap of wet and dirty clothes lay at my feet, but a shaggy head uprose and a feeble voice muttered, “I’m fair clemmed.” Such wistful eyes, like a lost, starving dog, glanced at me, and then the head dropped back. I thought the man was dead or dying, and I flew to wake up F. and to fetch my medicine bottle of brandy. But I could not get any down his throat until F. arrived on the scene and turned the poor creature over on his back. By this time I had roused up the “cadet,” and also got my maids hurriedly out of bed. My tale was so pitiful that the warm-hearted Irish cook—in the scantiest toilet—was lighting the kitchen fire by the time F. and Mr. U. brought the poor man in. Water was literally streaming from him, and the first thing to be done was to get him out of his sodden clothes. Contributions from the two gentlemen were soon forthcoming, and after a brief retirement into my store-room, the wretched “swagger” emerged, dry indeed, but the image of exhaustion and starvation. Warm bread and milk every two hours was all we dared give him that day, and he slept and slept as if he never meant to wake again.

I forget how many days passed before he had at all recovered, and by that time my maids had cleaned and mended his clothes in a surprising manner, and he had, himself, cobbled up his boots. A hat had to be provided and a pipe, but we could not spare any blankets for the “swag.” However, though he hardly spoke to any one, he told Mr. U. he felt quite able to start next day, and F. elicited from him with some difficulty—for it was against “swagger” etiquette ever to complain of the treatment of one station-holder to another—that at the very beginning of that bad weather he had found himself at sundown at a station about a dozen miles further back in the hills, and had been refused shelter. The man pointed out that he did not know the track over a difficult saddle, that very bad weather was evidently coming on, and that he had no food, but he was ruthlessly turned off and seemed soon to have lost his way. He wandered some days—he did not know how many—without food or shelter, pelted by the merciless and continuous storm; his pipe and blankets soon got lost in one of the numerous bog-holes, and he really did not know how he found his way to our verandah, or how long before dawn he had been lying there. I must say it was the only instance I heard of brutality to a “swagger” whilst I was in New Zealand.

Well, by the next morning I had ceased to think about the “swagger,” and when I looked out of my window to enjoy the delicious crisp air and the sunshine, I saw my friend coming round the corner of the house, evidently prepared to start. He looked round, but I had slipped behind the window curtain, so he saw no one. To my deep surprise, the man dropped on his knees upon the little gravel path, took off his hat, and poured forth the most impassioned prayer for all the dwellers beneath the roof which had given him shelter. Not a soul was stirring, so he could not have been doing it for effect, and he certainly had not seen me. I felt as if I had no right to listen, for it was as though he were laying bare his soul. First, there was his deep thankfulness for his own preservation most touchingly expressed, and then he prayed for every blessing on each and all of us, and, finally, as he rose from his knees, he signed the Cross over the little roof-tree which had sheltered him in his hour of need. And we had all thought him a silent and somewhat ungracious man!

I really _cannot_ believe that I often rode fifty miles to a ball, or rather two balls, danced all night for two successive nights, and rode back again the next day! The railway was even then creeping up the plains and saved us the last twenty-five miles of the road. These same balls were almost the only form of society in those days, for dinner-parties were impossible for want of anything but the most elementary service. Certainly there were bazaars sometimes, but I do not remember riding fifty miles for any of them! Such amusing things used to happen at these balls, which, no doubt, were very primitive, but we all enjoyed them too much to be critical.

On one occasion the Governor had come to Christchurch for some political reason, and of course there were balls to welcome him. He had brought down some Maori chieftains with him; rumour said he was afraid to leave them behind in the North Island, where the seat of Government used to be and still is. Now I was very curious to see these chieftains, and it was somewhat of a shock to behold tall, well-built, dark-hued men faultlessly clad in correct evening-dress, but with tattooed faces. Presently one of the stewards of the ball came to me and said:—

“Te Henare wants very much to dance these Lancers; I should be so grateful if you would dance with him.”

“Certainly,” I answered; “but can he dance?”

“Oh, he will soon pick it up, and you’d have an interpreter.”

Te Henare, who had been watching the result of the mission, now approached, made me a beautiful bow, offered his arm most correctly, and we took our places at the side, closely followed by the interpreter. I discovered through this gentleman that my dusky partner had never seen a ball or social gathering of any sort before, and that he had learned his bow and how to claim his partner since he entered the room. Of course, we danced in silence, and indeed I was fully occupied in admiring the extraordinary rapidity with which Te Henare mastered the intricacies of the dance. He never made a single mistake in any part which he had seen the top couples do first, and when I had to guide him he understood directly. It was a wonderful set of Lancers, and when it was over I told the interpreter that I was quite astonished to see how well Te Henare danced. This little compliment was duly repeated, and I could not imagine why the interpreter laughed at the answer. Te Henare seemed very anxious that it should be passed on to me and was most serious about it, so I insisted on being told. It seems the poor chieftain had said with a deep sigh, “Ah, if I might only dance without my clothes! No one could really dance in these horrid things!”

Te Henare apologised through the interpreter for his tattooed face. His cheeks were decorated with spiral dark-blue curves, and his forehead bore an excellent copy of a sea-shell. The poor man was deeply ashamed of his tattoo, and said he would give anything to get rid of the disfiguring marks, and so would the other chieftains, adding pathetically, “Until we came here we were proud of them.”

I must confess I got rather tired of poor Te Henare, and indeed of all the chieftains, for they insisted on coming to call on me next day for the purpose of letting me hear some Maori music. I cannot truthfully say I enjoyed it. Every song seemed to have at least fifty verses as well as a refrain. Fortunately, they did not sing loudly, but there was no tune beyond a bar or two, and the monotony was maddening. The interpreter and I tried in vain to stop them, and at last I went away, leaving them still singing, quite happily, what I was informed was “a love-song.” It seemed more in the nature of a lullaby.

I fear it is an unusual confession for a staid elderly woman to make, but I certainly enjoyed those unconventional—what might almost be called rough—days more than the long years of official routine and luxury which followed them. But then one looks back on those days through the softening haze of time and distance, of youth and health; and one realises that after all “the greatest of these is Love.”

IV

A MODERN NEW ZEALAND

The passage of over a quarter of a century has of course made a great change all over the world in the matter of education, but probably nowhere would that change be more apparent than in New Zealand. Even in less than ten years after I had left the Colony, two thousand schools had been started under a new law, with a roll of two hundred thousand scholars. What must they number now? There are Schools for natives and Schools for the deaf and dumb and for the blind, Schools of Mines and Schools of Science, Technical Schools, and a fine Agricultural College in Canterbury.

But in my day very few of the working men I came across, as our shepherds, shearers, and so forth, could read at all. One can hardly realise it, but so it was, and one of the first things I did was to start a sort of night school for these stalwart Empire-builders, in which, alas! I was the only teacher. The population was so thin and so scattered in those distant days that these men’s lives were necessarily very lonely, and those who could read at all eagerly joined a little lending library, or rather a Book and Magazine Club, which I set going. At first I had only thought of providing literature for our neighbours—any one within fifty miles was a neighbour—but the shepherds begged to join, and of course I was delighted to enrol them.

Looking back on those days, I fear the comic side of that educational attempt chiefly asserts itself. My pupils—only four or five at a time—were so big and so desperately shy. One gigantic Yorkshireman would only read, or rather attempt to read, with his broad back turned to me. Others almost wept over their difficulties. It really involved far more trouble on their part than on mine, for they had often some distance to ride, and over such trackless hills and swamps. It was found almost impracticable to have any set evening for the lessons, as sometimes weather, and sometimes their duties interfered; so at last it was settled that they should come any evening they could spare, and I would be ready for them by eight o’clock (so primitive was our dinner-hour!) in the little dining-room. Certainly the seeds of knowledge are _very_ difficult to plant in later life, for intelligent as these men evidently were, and most eager to learn to read and write, they made but little progress under my tuition. Perhaps I was a bad teacher, for I had only the experience of my own little boys’ very first lessons to guide me.

Some of the incidental difficulties were very absurd. Two men lived in a hut up a lonely and distant river-gorge, who were among my earliest pupils, and they also came regularly on Sunday to the little afternoon service. But they never came together, and their brand-new suit of shepherd’s plaid had always a strange effect. First they tried my gravity by invariably stepping up to me with their prayer-books to find their places for them, and saying loudly each time, “Thank you kindly, Mum.” I dared not say a word for fear of frightening them away. But one day I ventured to ask why they could not come together, either to the lessons or the service, and was informed that the clothes were the difficulty.

“You see, it’s this way, Mum. We’ve only got one suit, and we got it a between-size on purpose. Joe, he’s too tall, and I’m too short, so I turns it up, and Joe he wears leggin’s and such like, and so we makes it do till after shearin’.”

But I do not want to laugh when I think of the last time I met my bearded pupils. My own face was set towards England then, and I had to say good-bye to the happy valley and to my scholars. They were made shyer than ever by my shaking hands with them, and only one said a farewell word. “To England, home and beauty, of course, Mum, you’d be glad to go, but it’s rough on us.” This cryptic utterance seemed quite to express his and his “mate’s” meaning, though it still remains dark to me.

The Canterbury Plains are now covered with fields of wheat and all kinds of agricultural produce. The rare “English grass” of my day is almost universal. Except in the very back-country stations, the little hardy merino sheep has given way to the more substantial Southdown, whose frozen carcase comes back to us in the shape of excellent mutton. Comfortable homesteads are within hailing distance of each other. Railways, telegraphs, telephones, and all the latest scientific annihilators of time and space are thickly planted everywhere. I used to look down the valley on to certain white cliffs which seemed to bound my view in that direction, and, speaking of it the other day, some one said, “Oh, the terminus of the nearest railway to your old ‘run’ stands there now.” I cannot realise that the whistle of an engine has taken the place of the shrill scream of a huge hawk—more like an eagle than a hawk—which haunted that lonely spot.

But perhaps the greatest difference of all would be found in the sport.

In my day there was absolutely nothing except the wild boars, and the difficulties of introducing game seemed at first insurmountable. Mr. Frank Buckland sent out quantities of salmon ova packed in ice, of which hardly a single specimen survived the long voyage. Then people told me that the New Zealand rivers were impossible to stock, owing to a bad habit they had of constantly changing their beds without warning. It is true that I saw that happen at those very white cliffs I have just spoken of, where, after an unusually violent hot north-west gale which melted the snows in the mountains, the river running beneath those cliffs changed its course entirely during one night, cutting another wide and deep channel for itself over very good grazing ground, and leaving the owner of that particular spot with a vast extent of shingle-covered river-bed in exchange, on which, as he pathetically said, “a grasshopper could not find enough green meat.”

One can easily understand that respectable stay-at-home English fish would not be able to shift their quarters at such short notice, but yet I am now assured that a good basket of trout can be landed from almost any New Zealand stream. They must have become very “mobile”! I wonder if any of these same fish are the descendants of what I always regarded as _my_ trout!

This was the way of it. Not long before we left New Zealand, one of our squatter neighbours, who was anxious to stock a fine stream running through his property, offered to give a home and a chance to some of the newly-imported trout ova. I happened to meet him on one of my rare visits to Christchurch, and inquired as to the progress of his trout plans. I suppose that put the idea into his head, for he first asked when we were returning to our station, and then earnestly entreated to be allowed to drive me back in a sort of buggy or gig he possessed. I greatly preferred riding, and told him so, but he seemed most anxious for my company, and finally said he would speak to F. about it. I felt quite willing to abide by _his_ decision, which I flattered myself would be that I must certainly ride back with him. But to my dismay F. said, “I think you had better drive with ——.” So there was no help for it, and at the appointed early hour Mr. —— drove up, I was packed into the buggy, and then the whole villainous scheme revealed itself! I was wanted to carry a small pail full of trout ova, carefully, so that it should not be jolted or spill. My whole attention and my every thought were to be devoted to that sole object. I must not move or talk; I must think of nothing but that pail. Mr. —— assured me later that his mind would be entirely fixed on avoiding every stone or even inequality on the road, so that the precious freight might not be jeopardised. And I had seventy-five miles before me! If we came to a really rough bit of road, I had to hold that pail out, on the principle of a swinging cot at sea. Fortunately, there was a halt in the middle of the day, but only for the benefit of the ova; however, my aching arms got just a little rest. To make my sense of hardship more acute, F. rode near us most of the way, and constantly added his entreaties to me to “be very careful.” Later, I arrived at feeling a certain sense of pride in having conveyed those ova so carefully that they all survived the journey, but at the time I well remember my suppressed indignation and burning sense of injury at having been entrapped as a trout-carrier. But that only lasted so long as did the fatigue of my cramped position.

There has always been very good sea-fishing almost everywhere on the coast, but we lived too far off to enjoy it. When, however, we went to Christchurch it was always a great treat to have at every meal the whitebait the Maoris sold in pretty little baskets of woven flax-leaves.

I see in the latest accounts that our own familiar “Selwyn” is quite a favourite trout stream, but in the more distant big lakes, where the fish attain quite a large size, the water is so clear that a rod is useless, and netting is the only chance.

Some means must have been found of keeping down the “weeka,” tamest and most impudent of apteryx. Very like a stout hen pheasant itself, only without the tail feathers, it used to be the sworn foe of pheasants in my day. It ate their eggs or killed the young birds. Many and doleful were the tales told of the wholesale massacre of the pioneer pheasant broods by the weekas, who seemed numerous as the sands of the sea-shore. Dogs hunted them, men shot them, but in both cases they were as elusive as the Boers, gliding from tussock to tussock, and when forced into the open, running almost faster than the eye could follow. To all my “bush” picnics the weekas invited themselves and cleared up every crumb. It would have needed a pack of terriers to keep them off, and although “Nettle” did his best he made no impression on the marauders. They were not good to eat, but the shepherds extracted an oil from the fat, which they declared made boots and leggings waterproof. Still, weekas had it very much their own way at that date. I see that hares and also Californian quail and plover flourish nowadays, and I know the wild-duck were always plentiful and delicious eating.

There was a talk of importing deer even thirty-five years ago, but the idea did not find favour in the eyes of the run-holders. The fences were only three or four wires high, and would of course be no protection to the sheep, whose feed would be at the mercy of the new-comer. It was known that two hinds and a stag had been turned out in some well-grassed and forested low ranges in the North Island as early as 1862, but one did not hear anything of them as either a danger or a pleasure. They were the only survivors of a batch sent from Windsor Forest by the late Prince Consort. The conditions must have been ideally favourable, for they have now spread all over the place, and afford excellent sport. Red deer seem to do well in our island (the Middle), though I do not fancy they have come at all near the part I knew. A few moose have been turned out on the West Coast of the same Island, and there is even a talk of importing wapiti and cariboo. But any one who wishes to know all about New Zealand—fur, fin, and feathers—cannot do better than study, as I have done with the greatest pleasure and profit, a delightful booklet by Mr. R. A. Loughman, of the Lands and Survey Department in Wellington, which no doubt can be procured at the Agent General for New Zealand’s Office. It makes one wish to set off directly for that favoured though distant shore, and Mr. Loughman asserts that numbers of sportsmen arrive there every year.

I heard a great deal of modern New Zealand when the Imperial Representative Corps came back from their wonderful tour round Australia and New Zealand three years ago. It was most interesting and delightful to listen to the accounts of the progress everywhere; but as I had been so very much longer away from New Zealand, the marvellous changes there took more hold of my imagination, and I was delighted to be told by all that it was still the most English place they visited.

There was much to occupy the public mind at home just then, and I have often felt that we rather missed the value and significance of that tour, especially as it was somewhat overshadowed and crowded out by the rapture and magnificence of the welcome extended to their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York almost directly afterwards.

We were still in the midst of the war in South Africa, and then, just after the Imperial Contingent left Sydney, to which it first went to take part in the ceremonies marking the Inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth, the Empire had to mourn the loss of its beloved Queen, and nowhere was the grief more personal and profound than on those distant shores. As the Commandant[6] told me, although the sad news spoiled in a way the gaiety and _éclat_ of the greeting provided for the troops, still it was far more impressive to see the genuine grief and regret which the width of the world could not weaken. Memorial services everywhere took the place of balls, and the “Soldiers of the Queen” shared, with the splendid Colonial forces who were just then springing to arms at the Empire’s call, in honouring her dear memory.

But by the time Invercargill, the most southern point of New Zealand, had been reached, the first dark days of sorrow had passed, and the people could better give free scope to their hospitable instincts, and they greeted the Contingent with the heartiest welcome. The last time British troops had touched New Zealand shores it was to fight the Maoris, who now stood first and foremost in the cheering crowd, and delivered addresses of welcome with the best.

The straight run down from the extreme south of Middle Island brought them in due time, through those great Canterbury Plains where harvesting was in full swing, down to Christchurch, and so on to Lyttelton. But there was always time, apparently, for delightful little picturesque episodes, such as stopping the train to let the detachment of Seaforth Highlanders march, with pipes playing, to visit one of the most prominent Scotch settlers, a man who had given his life’s work to the beautiful new land. Fancy what a dramatic moment! To hear the war-pipes skirl, and the old tunes played, all in one’s own honour and in recognition of splendid service!

Then the thousand troops were taken on by sea to Wellington and shown everything in the length and breadth of all the fair land; up to the wonderful hot springs at Rotarua, down to the deer-stocked islands off Auckland. Everywhere, not only did they receive a rapturous welcome from the cheering crowds, but there were many historic and picturesque moments in which the Maoris formed the central figures. I should like to have seen the old Maori chieftain, after the “haka” or native dance, fling his tasselled spear at the Commandant’s feet, saying, “For four hundred years this taiaha has been handed down from father to son, from son to grandson. But you and I alike are sons of our King, who rules in the place of the Queen we have lost. Take it, and let it descend to your children’s children.”

Thrilling also must have been the sight of the veterans of former wars, now peaceful citizens, ending their days in comfort in these distant lands, yet, like the war-horse of Bible story, pricking up their ears and joining their new comrades. At all the reviews there the veteran sailors and soldiers were, marshalled in the old form and given prominent places; they themselves, with their medal-covered breasts, being objects of honour to the gorgeous visitors. And quite as thrilling must have been the ranks of cadets who lined the streets here and there. My own heart has often gone out to these chubby boy-soldiers when I have seen them—first at Adelaide in 1883, later in Western Australia, where the youthful corps bore my name, and was known as my “Own”—so it was with a peculiar interest that I read part of a speech of the Commandant’s when he was leaving Brisbane, but it applies equally well to the cadet corps of all the large New Zealand towns.

“What pleased me most in the march through your streets to-day, more than even the enthusiastic greetings of the Queenslanders, was nearly a mile of boys lining the road by the railway station. Hundreds of sturdy youngsters, every one of them devouring our men with his eyes and doing his best to look like a soldier himself. I thought as I looked at their bright, keen young faces, ‘_there_ are our future Australian contingents.’”

At Auckland there was one newly-raised detachment which had not yet got its uniform, but turned out in white shirts with black arm-bands and Panama hats. These sinewy, workmanlike “bushmen” had ridden in from the country district on their own horses—as workmanlike as themselves—not to take part in the big parade which every one was talking about, and which would be remembered for years, but in order to lend the Contingent their horses. Such stories—stories which I know to be true—show me that after all the lapse of years New Zealand still remains in heart the Old New Zealand of my day.

But, speaking of medals, I was much amused at hearing that the youthful volunteers turned out sometimes quite covered with medals, extending as far back as the first Cape war and going on to the Crimea and the Mutiny. On its being remarked that they looked very young to have taken part in such distant campaigns, they admitted that the medals had belonged to their grandfathers and fathers, but that they conceived themselves entitled—as did many others who were not even volunteers—to wear them, and could see nothing at all laughable in doing so. It seemed to me a very wise concession on the part of the Colonial authorities to permit this, as a recognition of the natural pride of the sons of such men in their ancestors having fought for the Empire in bygone days, for they evidently regarded the medals as a link binding them to the dear old Mother-land. However, the present generation will proudly wear medals of their own winning, even if they do so side by side with those gained by their forefathers. Yes, those thousand picked men of that fine Imperial Contingent will have been so many Peace missionaries bringing back news of the loyalty as well as of the wealth and beauty of that fair England beyond the sea.

Not less emphatically will these tidings be endorsed by the welcome extended to their King’s son and his gracious young wife when they too landed on those smiling shores a few months later. The message their Royal Highnesses brought was to the same effect, and received in the same spirit of love and gratitude. At all events it will not be our fault if our kinsmen beyond the sea, especially in the Islands of New Zealand, do not understand how we valued the splendid help they gave the Empire in its hour of need, and how grateful we are for it. I was reading a little while ago some of the evidence taken before the War Commission last year, and saw that one of the Generals was asked if he had, at any time, any of the many New Zealand Contingents under his command. “I am sorry to say I had not,” was the reply, and I felt just as personally proud of the answer as though I were a New Zealander myself, and all for the sake of those dear distant days and the good friends who helped to make them so happy.

V

NATAL MEMORIES

As I sit, sad and alone in my empty home, dreading the cries of the newspaper-boys in the streets, my thoughts often fly back to the “Fair Natal” I knew long ago. More than twenty-eight years have passed since I last saw it. Then, as now, it was early summer-time. The wide, well-watered stretches of veldt were brilliantly green and covered with blossom, chiefly lilies and cinerarias; the spruits were running like Scotch burns, and the dreadful red dust of the winter months no longer obscured everything. I have often, between April and November, not known what was within an approaching bank of solid red cloud, until the shouts of the unseen little “Voor-looper” warned me that a huge waggon and its span of perhaps twenty or thirty oxen had to be avoided.

But after November, dust gives place to mud on the roads—mud of a singularly tenacious quality, formed from the fertile red clay soil. I don’t believe it rains anywhere so hard as it does in Natal, and during the summer months it is never safe to part for a single hour from the very best waterproof cloak which you can procure, or from a substantial umbrella. Round Maritzburg a thunderstorm raged nearly every summer afternoon, coming up about three o’clock. But when, by any chance, that thunderstorm passed us by, we regretted it bitterly, for the oppressive, suffocating heat was then ever so much worse. Even the poor fowls used to go about with their beaks open and their wings held well away from their sides, literally gasping for breath. One was prepared for thunderstorms, even on the largest scale, when they came up with the usual accompaniments of massed clouds, rumbling or crashing thunder, and were followed by a deluge of rain; but I could not get used to what I have never seen anywhere else, and which could only be described as a “bolt from the blue.”

A very few days after my arrival at Maritzburg at the end of 1875, I was standing one afternoon in the shade of my little house on a hill, anxiously watching the picturesque arrival of an ox-waggon laden with my boxes. It was in the very early summer, and the exigencies of settling in left me no time to worry about the thunderstorms, of which, of course, I had often heard. A more serene and brilliant afternoon could not be imagined, and it was not even hot—at all events, out of the sun. My two small boys, as usual, trotted after me like dogs, and clamoured to assist at the arrival of the waggon; so I lifted the little one up in my arms and stood there, with an elder boy clinging to my skirts. Suddenly, out of the blue unclouded sky, out of the blaze of golden sunshine, came a flash and a crash which seemed as if it must be the crack of doom. No words at my command can give any idea of the intolerable blinding glare of the light which seemed to wrap us round, or of the rending sound, as if the universe were being torn asunder. I suppose I flung myself on the ground, because I was crouching there, holding the little boys beneath me with some sort of protective instinct, when in a second or two of time it had all passed, for I heard only a slight and distant rumble. I do not believe the sun had ceased shining for an instant, though its light had seemed to be extinguished by that blaze of fire. Never can I forget my amazement, an amazement which even preceded my deep thankfulness at finding we were absolutely unhurt, the fearless little boys only inquiring, “What was that, Mummy?” There had been no time for their rosy cheeks even to pale. I wonder what colour _I_ was. I looked at the little stone house with astonishment to find it still there, for I had expected to see nothing but a heap of ruins. Nay, it seemed miraculous that the hills all round should still be standing.

I only saw one more flash equally bad during my two summers in Natal, and that was whilst a thunderstorm was raging, accompanied by terrific hail. Of course, I was then in a house and trying to distract my thoughts from the weather, which I knew must be annihilating my lovely garden, by dispensing afternoon tea. I am certain _that_ flash came down upon the tea-tray, for when I lifted up my head (I defy any one not to cower before a stream of electricity which seems poured upon you out of a jug), I felt the same surprise at seeing my cups and saucers unshattered. I am sure they had jumped about, for I heard them, but they had recovered their equanimity by the time I had. Almost every day one saw in the newspapers an account of some death by lightning, and I know of one only too true story, in which our Kaffir washerman was the victim. He had left our house one fine Monday morning with a huge bag of clothes on his back, which he intended to wash in the river at the foot of the hill, when he observed one of these thunderstorms coming up unusually early, and so took shelter in the verandah of a small cottage by the roadside. After the worst of the storm had passed he was preparing to step outside, when a violent flash and a deafening thunderclap passed over the little house. The lightning must have been attracted by a nail carelessly sticking up in its shingled roof. The poor Kaffir chanced to be standing exactly beneath this nail and was struck down dead at once. I was told that he was in the act of speaking, promising some one that he would return the same way that very afternoon.

The streets of Maritzburg used, in my day, to be mended or hardened with a sort of ironstone which abounds in the district, and in one of these daily thunderstorms it was not uncommon to see the electricity rising up as it were from the ground to meet the descending fluid. Of course, the rivers soon become impassable, and I have a vivid recollection of four guests, who had ridden out rather earlier than usual one afternoon to have tea with me, being kept in our tiny house all night. More than one attempt was made before dark to find and use the little wooden bridge over the stream, which could hardly be called a river, but its whereabouts could not even be perceived, and the horses steadily refused to go out of their depth. So there was nothing for it except to return, drenched to the skin, and bivouac under our very small roof for the night.

And yet one is glad of these same rains after the long dry winter, when all vegetation seems to disappear off the baked earth and the cattle become so thin that it is a wonder the gaunt skeletons of the poor trek-oxen can support the weight of their enormous spreading horns. The changes of temperature in winter were certainly very trying. The day began fresh and cold and bracing, but the brilliant sunshine soon changed that into what might be called a very hot English summer’s day. About four o’clock, when the sun sloped towards the western hills, it began to grow cold again, and no wrap or greatcoat seemed too warm to put on then. By night one was only too glad of as big a fire on the open hearth as could be provided, for fuel was scarce and very expensive in those days. Doubtless, the railway has improved all those conditions; but Natal, as far as I saw it, is not a well-wooded country, except on the Native Reserves, and the only forest—“bush,” as they call it in Australia—which I saw, cost me a fifty-mile ride to get to it!

Our poor Kaffir servants used to get violent and prostrating colds in winter, in spite of each being supplied with an old greatcoat which had once belonged to a soldier. This the master provides; but if the man himself can raise an aged and dilapidated tunic besides, he is supremely happy. Anything so grotesque as this attire cannot well be imagined, for the red garment (it was almost unrecognisable as ever having been a tunic by that time) is worn with perfectly bare legs, a feather or two stuck jauntily on the head or with a crownless hat, and the true dandy adds a cartridge-case passed through a wide hole in the lobe of his ear and filled with snuff! Nor will any Kaffir stir out of doors without a long stick, on account of the snakes: but only the police used to be allowed to carry the knobkerry, which is a sort of South African shillelagh and a very formidable weapon.

It always seemed strange to me that a climate which was, on the whole, so healthy for human beings should not be favourable to animal life. Dogs do not thrive there at all, and soon become infested with ticks. One heard constantly of the native cattle being decimated by strange and weird diseases, and horses, especially imported horses, certainly require the greatest care. They must never be turned out whilst the dew is on the grass, unless with a sort of muzzling nosebag on, and the snakes are a perpetual danger to them, though the bite is not always fatal, for there are many varieties of snakes which are not venomous. Still, a native horse is always on the look-out for snakes and dreads them exceedingly. One night I was cantering down the main street of Maritzburg on a quiet old pony on my way to the Legislative Council, where I wanted to hear a very interesting debate on the native question (which was the burning one of that day), and my pony suddenly leaped off the ground like an antelope and then shied right across the road. This panic arose from his having stepped on a thin strip of zinc cut from a packing-case which must have been opened, as usual, outside the store or large shop which we were passing. As soon as the pony put his foot on one end of the long curled-up shaving, it must have risen up and struck him sharply, waking unpleasant memories of former encounters with snakes.

Railways were but a dream of the near future in my day. Indeed, the first sod of the first railway—that between Durban and Pietermaritzburg—was only turned on January 1, 1876, amid great enthusiasm. A mail-cart made a tri-weekly trip between the two towns—fifty-two miles apart—and that was horsed, but on anything like a journey either oxen or mules were used.

I have seen an ox-wagon arriving at a ball, with pretty young ladies inside its sheltering hood, who had been seated there all day long, having started in their ball-dresses directly after breakfast! Mules were in great request for draught purposes, and up to a point they answered admirably, jogging along without distress over bad roads which would soon have knocked up even the staunchest horses. But a mule is such an unreliable animal, and his character for obstinacy is thoroughly well deserved. When a mule, or a team of mules, stops on a particularly sticky bit of road, no power on earth will move him, and there is nothing for it but to await his good pleasure. I have, two or three times, journeyed behind a team of sixteen mules, and I always suffered great anxiety lest they should cease to respond to the incessant cries of their “Cape-boy” driver, or the still more persuasive arguments of his assistant, who bore quite a collection of whips of different lengths for emergencies. Happily the roads were then in fairly good order, and beyond a tendency to drop into a slow walk at the slightest hill the mules behaved irreproachably.

Locomotion was the great difficulty in those days, and we island-dwellers cannot easily realise the vast and trackless spaces which lie between the specks of townships on a huge continent. Natal is magnificently watered and grassed in the summer, but the big rivers are not only a hindrance to journeying, but from a sanitary point of view they are as undrinkable as the Nile, and probably for the same reasons. Still, they are there, and future generations will doubtless use them for irrigation and canals and all the needs of advancing civilisation.

In my day the Boer was quite an unconsidered factor, and we felt we were performing a Quixotically generous action when, at his own earnest entreaty, we took him and his debts and his native troubles on our own shoulders in 1876. He was always extremely dirty, and about a thousand years behind the rest of the civilised world in his ideas. His religion was a superstition worthy of the Middle Ages, and his notions of morality went a good deal further back than even those primitive times.