Chapter II: Part 2

THURSDAY, JANUARY 9.—A ship is no place for an early riser. A ship bed becomes unbearable to me by 5 A. M., and half an hour later I am on deck. I can’t sit in the music-room or smoking-room, because the stewards are cleaning up, and when I walk the decks I am in the way of sailors who are washing them with hose. In addition, the early riser never has his shoes shined, and gets no early breakfast in bed. On a ship, the servants will not respect you if you do anything for yourself.... The second passenger to appear on deck was a woman; possibly she had a snorer in her room, too. Much to my surprise, the woman calmly proceeded, after seating herself in a deck chair, to put on her stockings. They say women always sit on the floor when they put on their stockings, but this woman didn’t.... Bare legs are quite common here. The fourteen-year-old messenger boy who showed us about in Sydney wore stockings only a few inches long, and above them his legs were bare to his knees. This is the rule with boys and girls, and their legs are sunburned and cracked, and often covered with pimples.... So far as I know, all the passengers on the “Maheno” are Australians or New Zealanders, except ourselves and Mr. Bond, and we expect him to quit speaking to us because I do not enjoy his snoring. At home I have always had members of my family bluffed because of my nervousness, but here everyone seems to think it perfectly absurd that snoring should disturb me.... I hear the passengers talking about “the bush.” In our country we call it the “short-grass country;” both mean the frontier. I have always been interested in Australia because Abel Magwitch made his money there. Charles Dickens created this man out of his fancy, but no character was ever more real to me. There is something about the old fellow that appeals to me as Falstaff or Macbeth never did, and to my mind “Great Expectations” is the greatest book ever written. Abel Magwitch made his money in Australia in sheep, and at the Sydney hotels you see sheep farmers from “the bush” who are timidly spending their money. Australia is an ideal sheep country, and fortunes are easily made, until there is a drouth. Then there is neither water nor grass for the animals, and they die off in great numbers. The last drouth occurred seven years ago, and thousands of sheep sold at a shilling a head. Many of those who bought sheep at that price, lost them all, and became bankrupt. But sheep are prolific, and in two or three years after the drouth they seemed to be as numerous as ever. It is said the Australians make money easily, and are much like Americans. The New Zealanders are much like the Australians, although the distance from Sydney to Auckland is thirteen hundred miles.... Abel Magwitch was sent to Australia as a convict from England, as Australia was formerly a penal colony, but that was many years ago; Australia is now one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and it has been of great use to mankind because it has tried so many experiments in trying to make the common lot easier. Many of the advanced political notions in the United States came from Australia and New Zealand. The per-capita wealth is higher in those countries than in any other; there is more wealth in other countries, but it is not so evenly distributed among the people as in Australia and New Zealand. The government owns most of the public utilities, and no one can help remarking the fine system of street-railway in Sydney. For short distances the fare is two cents, and the fare increases after passing certain limits. I am told that in some lines of business there is a holiday at Christmas here, lasting two weeks. There is no severely cold weather, and the people are not compelled to spend a great deal for fuel. Wages are not as high as with us, but living is cheaper. I had heard so much of the low cost of beef in Australia that I inquired the price at several markets. The best cuts sold at twenty cents per pound: altogether, meat is cheaper than in the United States, but the difference is not so great as I expected it to be.... Everything indicates that the Australians are good people, and hospitable, enterprising, and intelligent; I have only admiration for them, until they begin to talk. Then their pronunciation is a reproach to me. I have always called it Austraylia; they call it Austrylia. “Well, old chap,” I heard a man say to a friend in Sydney, on parting, “tyke care of yourself!”... There is a woman on this ship with three little children. To look at her, she seems like any other worthy woman: devoted, unselfish, kind, polite, and always busy. But when you hear her talk, it is different from anything you ever heard. There are two little girls on board, and they are very kind to the mother with three children. It is very nice to see them caring for the baby, and running errands for the tired mother, but as soon as they begin to talk they do not seem so much like little girls you have known. “I was a bit groggy meself yesterday,” I heard one of them say to the mother. She meant that she was seasick.... The English themselves do not agree on pronunciations; Cambridge University authorizes one pronunciation of many words, and Oxford another. I can understand how dialects originate with people speaking the same language, and who do not associate much with each other except locally, but the English and American see enough of each other to get together in pronunciation.

Transferring Passengers in a Basket at Sea

The Landing Stage, Beira

The Dock at Pago Pago

Christmas at Sea]

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10.—Last night I laid my case before the chief steward, and he said he would fix me up; that he would take me out of 27, where Mr. Bond devotes the nights to snoring, and put me in No. 7, with Mr. Martin. I went to bed in No. 7, complimenting the chief steward for his disposition to please the passengers, but in ten minutes Mr. Martin began snoring, and I spent the night trying to decide if his snore was not rather more rasping than that of Mr. Bond. At a late hour I dressed and retreated again to a sofa in the music-room. But I have not lost my temper; I am rather disposed, on the contrary, to laugh at myself for spending a large amount of money in an attempt to have a “good time.”... The sea has been smooth today and we are all much more comfortable, although I do not believe anyone is getting his money’s worth. About the only excitement on board is the fact that a flock of albatross are following us. I have always understood that albatross are rather scarce at sea, but certainly twenty are in sight as I write this. They often fly within twenty feet of the ship, and we have opportunity to examine them carefully. They follow the ship for hours without moving a wing; they seem to fly by taking advantage of the wind.... We saw several whales today, and the captain, at whose table we sit, says he once ran into one, and was compelled to back out of it.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 11.—A story one always hears on approaching New Zealand: In a strait near the coast is a fish known as “Pilot Jack,” which escorts every ship through, except one. Some years ago a passenger on a certain ship fired at the fish, and wounded it. The fish disappeared for several months, but finally it appeared again, and resumed its old habits of piloting ships through the strait; but it never shows itself when the ship appears from the deck of which it was fired upon. The shooting incident caused the New Zealand Parliament to pass an act protecting “Pilot Jack.” The fish is about twenty feet long, and photographs showing it swimming ahead of ships are common. These photographs, it seems to me, are faked, and made specially to sell to tourists. Seamen do not know why “Pilot Jack” appears whenever a ship invades his territory, but certain it is that he does appear, and swims ahead of the ship several miles. The captain of the “Maheno” says it is possible “Pilot Jack” likes to rub his back on the bottom of ships, and thus get rid of certain annoying parasites. Another theory is that the fish simply plays about the ships, which is not improbable; I have myself seen dolphins play in the waves thrown up by the prow of a ship, and keep it up several minutes at a time.... Last night I sent a wireless message to the Grand Hotel at Auckland, engaging accommodations on my arrival there. I was compelled to pay $2 for the service, and sign an agreement that I would not ask recovery in case the message was not delivered.... No one seems to know much about the albatross which are following us. A sailor told me that if an albatross should light on the water, it couldn’t get up again. Ten minutes later, I saw twenty of them alight on the water, apparently fight over something thrown from the ship, and then get up again. The sailors once caught an albatross, and concluded to take it to the zoölogical garden at Sydney, but it became seasick, and was such a nuisance that they knocked it in the head and threw it overboard. A passenger once jumped from the “Sonoma,” with a view of committing suicide. A number of albatross were following the ship and they picked the man’s eyes out before a boat could reach him. Although very beautiful and graceful, the bird is said to be a disgusting vulture. Where or how it lives no one seems to know; but it is certain that it will follow a ship night and day from Wellington to Cape Horn, a trip of three weeks. It is not seen when land is in sight; it seems to sail about the lonely ocean as easily as a zephyr, and the stronger the head-wind, the easier it sails against it.... There is a peculiar character on board at whom everyone laughs. For awhile I feared he might be a fool American, but he turned out to be a New Zealand school teacher. He wears a tall hat and clerical clothes, and everyone supposed for a time that he was a missionary. One day he went after his music, and began singing in the ladies’ parlor. He cannot sing, and cannot play the piano, although he attempts both. A crowd soon gathered, and vigorously applauded when he concluded “The Lost Chord.” The howling of a dog, accompanied by a child banging on a piano, would not have been worse, and it was so ridiculous that the man was asked to sing again. He readily consented, and attempted a tenor aria from “The Messiah.” The passengers now call the man “the professor,” and two or three times a day he is asked to sing. He always complies promptly. There are half a dozen excellent musicians on board, and when they sing or play, “the professor” is plainly bored. He seems more like a character from a play or book than a real man, and is mild and inoffensive. I talked awhile with him today, and found him an educated man, and apparently quite intelligent, but he is not able to understand that he cannot sing, or play the piano; he cannot realize that all the passengers are making fun of him. I suppose all of us are made fun of when we do not know it, but the case of “the professor” is more than usually glaring. A concert is being arranged for tonight, as this is the last day of the voyage, and “the professor” has been put on the programme, to avoid hurting his feelings. Last night he was the only man on board who dressed for dinner; he put on a swallow-tailed coat much too long for him, and looked odd in other particulars. And after all the trouble he went to, in dressing for dinner, he was compelled to dine at the second sitting. He is a small man, with smooth, white face, and wears his dark hair quite long. The passengers are learning to like him, for he is evidently a gentleman, but none of us can understand why the man so readily consents to make a fool of himself. Perhaps the other passengers make fools of themselves, too, and are as unconscious of it as “the professor.” When not playing or singing, he carries an algebra about, and works problems. He has two pairs of spectacles, and is constantly changing them, and forgetting in which pocket he placed the pair he wishes to use next.... I am very proud of the men on this ship, they are so modest and well-behaved. I hear no swearing, or rude talk, and there is almost no drinking at table or in the smoking-room. The three men I have roomed with are quiet, and genteel, and I should admire them very much did they not snore. I am certain Mr. Martin was annoyed because I was put in with him, but he is so considerate of me that I can almost forgive his bad habit. I think he knows he snores, and when I hear him threshing about in his bed, I almost conclude he is keeping awake in order that he may not annoy me. He is an elderly man, and frequently gets up in the night, but he does it so quietly that I rarely hear him.... A man I supposed to be an Episcopal rector turns out to be a Presbyterian preacher named Thompson. He is an Englishman, but was educated at Yale, and now has a charge in a small town in New Zealand. I walk the decks with him a good deal. He says he has been taking a vacation, and that, during his idleness, he has been thinking a great deal.

“Many times,” he said, “I asked myself the question: ‘In view of modernism, what is the best thing to do for my people?’ and I always came to the conclusion that there is nothing better for any of us than fairness, politeness, temperance, and industry; I could come to no other conclusion than that the oldest and simplest doctrine is the best.”

Another passenger is a little man who rides running horses in races. The Australians are very fond of racing, and the favorite riders are noted and prosperous men. All of them are small; this man has a wife almost twice his size. Some of them become as noted as Nat Goodwin, the actor, and marry as often. A little intelligence and coolness at a critical moment will often win a race, and the noted jockeys are usually men of intelligence. The man showed me a number of scars, the result of accidents. In racing in Australia, the horses jump hurdles, and often fall.... At 3 o’clock this afternoon we passed the “Three Kings,” barren islands without a light, which have caused many shipwrecks. An hour later we sighted the coast of New Zealand, and followed it throughout the night.... This evening we had a concert in the music-room, lasting two hours. This is a great country for amateur singing; every traveler seems to carry music, and on the slightest provocation will go to his room and get it. In addition to singing and piano-playing, we had four recitations; the recitation habit seems respectable here.... A New York traveling-man says the fashions in New Zealand and Australia are always a year or two behind New York, and that goods going out of style in the United States are just coming in here. Goods that are unsalable in New York, because they are out of fashion, may be picked up at low prices, and sold here at a good profit, according to the New York traveling-man, who has been visiting Australia and New Zealand for fifteen years.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12.—At daylight this morning we passed into a land-locked gulf, and continued in it all the way to Auckland. At 8 o’clock, while at breakfast, the suburbs of Auckland began to appear, but we did not get through the custom-house and go ashore until two hours later. We hurried to the Grand Hotel, where we had ordered rooms by wireless, paying two dollars for the service. The manager said he had not received the message, therefore had not reserved the rooms. While he was talking, he excused himself to attend to a telephone call. On his return, he said our wireless message had just been telephoned him from the ship. That is the service you get from the much-advertised wireless. Later I met an officer of the ship on the street, and he said I was entitled to a return of my money, but I will never get it; on paying for the service two days ago, I was compelled to sign an agreement not to ask for my money back in case no service was rendered.... The manager of the Grand recommended the Royal, which is under the same management. At the Royal we found a woman clerk so polite that we liked the place at once. When she called a boy to show us our rooms, she called him “Buttons.” This young man took us up in a primitive elevator, which stuck, and the servants were compelled to pull us out. When we finally reached our rooms, we liked them, and probably we are as well off here as we would have been at the Grand.... All the hotels in Auckland, with five unimportant exceptions, are owned by a Jew named Ernest Davis. He owns hotels in other places, and they are all compelled to sell Hancock beer, as Davis also owns the Hancock brewery. One hears a good deal here about the five free hotels of Auckland. Freedom in this case means freedom to sell any beer the manager chooses to buy. In the United States, breweries own saloons, but I have never before heard of breweries owning hotels.... The Royal is very modest in its charges; we pay ten shillings and sixpence per day each for accommodations. This means $2.62 a day for room, three regular meals, early morning tea, and supper at 10 P. M. And the hotel is really good; I do not care for anything better, although the rooms are old-fashioned, and the elevator does not work half the time. When you want anything, you step into the hall and push a button marked Maid’s Bell. When the maid appears, you order hot water for shaving, or whatever it may be you need. There are four bathrooms near my room, which include needle and douche baths. The New Zealanders are fond of bathing, and there is never a lack of bathrooms in their hotels.... I have before referred to the fact that women out here wear afternoon and evening dresses in the morning; I believe I would have noticed the custom had not Adelaide called my attention to it. When the ship landed this morning, a pretty woman we admired, dressed in white satin and white kid slippers for the occasion.... On our way up-town, we passed a store labeled the Clobbery. The stock seemed to consist of gents’ furnishing goods. Perhaps an English friend can tell you where the word Clobbery comes from; I never heard of it before.... After dinner, we walked about the streets of Auckland. Adelaide wore what is known at home as a “Peter Thompson suit,” and it attracted so much attention that I asked her to return to the hotel and change it. There were great crowds on the streets, and they seemed to think Adelaide was a member of a lady brass band of which I was director. She took off the “Peter Thompson,” and put on a gray suit made by a man tailor in Kansas City, but she still looked funny to the people, for they continued to stare at her. She wore a Panama hat for which I paid $12 (marked down from $20), and I thought she looked pretty well, but she was a sight to many of the people of Auckland.... We heard a brass band, and walked that way. It turned out to be a Salvation Army band of thirty men. The players wore red coats, and played like professionals. The men and women in the procession were much more decent-looking than members of the Salvation Army at home. There were no guitars, and no tambourines; the music was furnished by an excellent band of thirty men. It was a very respectable outfit in every way, and finally disappeared into a theatre. In Auckland, Sunday theatricals are prohibited, and religious services are held in every theatre twice on Sunday. In the early evening, while on the streets, we encountered the big Salvation Army band again; also, the Mission band. I was told that the Mission was much like the Salvation Army, except that it was more modest. The Mission had a good band of twenty-four men, and a little organ, which two men carried. After a selection by the band, there was singing, with organ accompaniment. The song was entitled, “Just the Same Jesus,” and was so simple, and repeated so often, that I was soon able to sing it with the others. The leader asked for people to give their experiences, and a good many stepped into the middle of the ring, and talked briefly and modestly. One old fellow was a particularly good talker, and said he had been a soldier in the Civil War in the United States, and traveled all over the world, but had always found Jesus his friend in time of trouble. As each speaker ceased, the same song was sung, “Just the Same Jesus,” and I joined with the others in the singing. Presently the leader came to me, and said:

“You are evidently a religious man, and a stranger. Won’t you make a few remarks?”

Pool of Bathers, Whakarewarewa

A Galaxy of Maori Beauty

A Maori Girl

Native House, New Zealand]

I excused myself, and he then asked the band to play.... When we walked up the street, in front of every theatre we found men announcing special religious services. In front of the theatres, also, were choirs singing religious songs as the people went in, precisely as at a street fair in America, a party of the performers will come out to the front to assist the ticket-seller in attracting a crowd. The New Zealanders are evidently a very religious people; I have been hearing church bells all day. Everything is closed tight except drug stores and restaurants.... Both bands I have mentioned had only brass instruments; no clarinets. In each one I noticed that there were cornet players who could play an octave higher than the score, and thus get what we used to call “the clarinet tone” when I played in brass bands in country towns. I have never seen as respectable a Salvation Army outfit as I saw in Auckland, and the Mission outfit was still better looking.... As in Australia, January is like July or August in New Zealand; snow is unknown about Auckland. All the vegetables and fruits are at their best here now, and the bathing-beaches are crowded.... On the “Sonoma” I heard the steward say that when anything came from New Zealand, it was always the very best. We have found the butter particularly excellent, and the mutton is better than the turkey.... An American I met today says that in New Zealand it is no uncommon thing to see girls of fourteen with complete sets of false teeth; that something in the water here is very hard on teeth.

MONDAY, JANUARY 13.—The meals and rooms at the Hotel Royal are so good that we are almost ashamed to accept them at $2.62 per day each. The taxi system here is also very agreeable. In most cities, taxis are disreputable-looking vehicles you are almost ashamed to ride in. Here they are new automobiles of different makes, and they cannot be distinguished from private vehicles. Today we rode about in a Cadillac of 1913 model that had been in service only three weeks. The charge was $3.12 per hour. At home the Cadillac costs about $2,000; here it costs a third more. The driver told us he paid forty cents a gallon for gasoline (known as petrol here); we pay about eighteen cents a gallon. An exposition will be opened here in nine or ten months, and the buildings are being erected in a park adjoining the city. We went out in the Cadillac to see them, and it was very pleasant to hear the sound of the open muffler again, for Auckland is a very hilly city. One park we visited consists of four hundred acres, and it was given to the city by Sir John Logan Campbell. Before he died, citizens of Auckland erected a statue in his honor, and he was present at the unveiling, which seemed to me rather unusual. From the top of a mountain in this park, we could see across New Zealand. The country is nearly a thousand miles long, and has an average width of one hundred and fifty miles, but at Auckland the width is only seven miles. The city will soon extend across the isthmus, and there is already talk of digging a canal.... Auckland is accustomed to giving. One of the handsomest and largest structures here is a Y. M. C. A. building, and near it is a Y. W. C. A. building. The campaign in which the money was raised for these two buildings must have been a strenuous one.... Workingmen’s clubs are common here. I have often wondered that we do not see them in the United States.... A few days ago, the New Zealand Press Association, which answers to our Associated Press, sent out a telegram which offended labor-union men. Thereupon the firemen in an Auckland ferry service went on strike, and greatly inconvenienced the public. The firemen had no quarrel with their employers, but quit work because their dignity had been offended by the newspapers. The newspapers of Australia and New Zealand criticise the labor unions much more freely than do the newspapers of the United States. Here business houses are compelled by law to close on certain days, and the workingmen have become so powerful that they have divided into two parties, and are fighting each other. Many New Zealanders have told me that the big fight is yet to come, and that this fight will be between the people and the labor unions.... I went into a meat market today, and inquired prices. A rib roast of beef costs twelve cents a pound; a sirloin roast, fourteen cents. Round steak costs thirteen cents a pound; the butcher told me he rarely sold a sirloin steak, but when he does, he gets twenty cents a pound for it. Leg of mutton sells for twelve cents a pound, and mutton chops, thirteen. Pork chops are sixteen cents a pound, and ham and bacon twenty-four cents. The butcher makes a difference in price when a customer has meat delivered and charged. Butchers at home do not make this distinction; the man who pays cash, and carries his purchase home, is charged as much as the patron who runs an account, and has everything delivered. The beef here is inferior to ours; there is no such thing in New Zealand as corn-fed cattle.... We also visited a dry-goods store, and, so far as Adelaide was able to judge, prices were not much lower than at home. Besides, everything seemed out of style.... In Atchison, market gardeners sell tomato and cabbage plants growing in boxes. Today we saw plants grown in exactly the same way in front of Auckland grocery stores, as this is the season for making garden here.... I have never seen better-looking horses anywhere than I see in Auckland. They are usually of the Clydesdale strain. All sorts of live-stock seem well fed and well bred.... This is a poor trip, compared with the trip through Japan, China, India, etc. There the people dress and look different; here the people are so much like those at home that we do not seem to have been away, if we can forget the pronunciations.... In the poorer quarters of Auckland, we saw a meal advertised for twelve cents. It consisted of tea, bread and butter, and fish.... Anything that sells for a nickel at home, is six cents here. I had my shoes shined at a street stand today, and the price was six cents. There is no five-cent piece in English currency, but there is a six-cent silver piece. There is nothing here answering to our ten-cent piece except the sixpence, which is worth twelve cents. There are five and ten-cent stores here, but their prices are six and twelve cents.... When we want a guide, we get a boy from the hotel, who is known as “Buttons.” At meal-times, his business is to go through the dining-room, and take orders for liquor. He also sings in the vested choir in the largest Episcopal church in town. We passed his church yesterday, and he offered to take us in and introduce us to the pastor, but we were compelled to decline the honor, owing to lack of time. Wherever I go, I employ boy guides. They know the interesting places, and point them out, but have no problems to discuss as men have.... A sign we see here frequently is “Private Bar.” What is a private bar? Does it mean a bar operated by a man who has a saloon for his own private use, and a bartender who waits on no one else?... In the bar connected with the Hotel Royal are two girl bartenders, and they are good-looking, stylish girls.... A big store near our hotel is operated by “John Court, Limited.” That word Limited is frequently seen abroad, and seems to mean the same thing as “Incorporated” with us.... At home, we have a saying that oysters are good only in the months which have an “r” in them. Here, oysters are at their best in April, May, June, July and August, and out of season in the months which have an “r” in them.... In an early walk this morning, I saw a man riding a horse, and driving a big bunch of sheep and cattle through the streets. He was assisted by three of the cleverest shepherd dogs I have ever seen, and it was a sight well worth seeing. During the same walk I ran across a man who was selling rabbits from a cart. He told me the rabbits had been trapped the day before, and shipped to Auckland by rail. He sold two young rabbits for a shilling, or twelve cents each, and called out as he drove along: “Wild rabbits; wild rabbits.” In Australia, rabbits have become so numerous that they are a menace and a danger, but this Auckland rabbit-seller told me that in New Zealand the supply of rabbits is not equal to the demand.... New Zealand is not an old country; its history really dates from about 1840. Although Captain Cook, in 1769, discovered and explored the two islands composing New Zealand, its real history did not begin until almost a century later, when the native Maoris, after a war lasting eleven years, concluded a treaty with the English. Australia and New Zealand, although nominally English colonies, are as free and independent as any countries in the world.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 14.—We have devoted this day to a railroad journey from Auckland to Rotorua, the center of the Lake district. Here are located the geysers which are said to rival those in Yellowstone Park. Here are located, also, famous baths, and Rotorua is probably the most noted watering-place in Australasia.... The railway station in Auckland is located next to the postoffice, and very properly, since the government owns the railway as well as the postoffice. No trains are run at night, as a rule, and none on Sunday, except an important mail train between Auckland and Wellington. The railway is a narrow-gauge, and we traveled on it very comfortably from 10 A. M. until 6 P. M. At noon, luncheon was served in a dining-car, and at 3:30 P. M. the dining-car servants announced afternoon tea. When we gave our tickets to the conductor, he said “Thank you;” over here, when a hotel waiter shows you the bill of fare, and you say you will take soup, he always says “Thank you.”... For miles and miles we saw nothing but pasture land, and cattle and sheep; a hundred sheep, probably, to ten cattle. In a railroad journey of eight hours, we saw only half a dozen cultivated fields. These were devoted to oats and turnips. Oats were in the shock, and we saw several orchards containing ripe fruit. But mainly we saw pastures. The country is beautiful, and it is prosperous, but its prosperity comes mainly from sheep. At several places we saw this sign: “Poison laid for dogs.”... All the stations are named for the original Maori settlers, as many of our towns have Indian names. At many stations we saw the Maoris in considerable numbers.... I do not believe there is a shingle roof in New Zealand; the roofs of the cheaper houses are of corrugated iron while the roofs of the better class houses are of red tile. Nearly all the houses in the country have fireplaces, and most of them are built of sheet-iron. The winters here are very mild, and a little fire in a grate is all that is needed. New Zealand is a wonderful stock-raising country, because of its mild winters.... In the smoking-car of the train, the spittoons were holes in the floor, with a brass top of the regulation spittoon pattern.... In Australia and New Zealand you see the sign “No smoking” very much oftener than anywhere else in the world.... There is no prairie land in New Zealand. There is a bush to be cleared off all the farm land; I don’t know what it is, but it looks like scrub cedar. All along the route we saw this burning; that seems to be one method of clearing land here. And after the land is cleared, it must be heavily manured; at one country town I saw a store sign which announced dry goods, artificial manures, iron mongery, etc. There is as much evidence of prosperity here as in the best sections of the Middle West, and you wonder where it comes from, since you see almost nothing but sheep. I didn’t see a poverty-stricken looking house all day, nor at any of the dozens of stopping-places did I see anyone who seemed to be poor.. .. About 2 P. M. we approached the mountains, and traveled in them until we reached the summit, and ran rapidly down the other side. Near the top we encountered several sawmills, but they were rather small affairs. At 5 P. M. we began seeing, in the distance, steam ascending from geysers. At 6 P. M. we steamed into Rotorua. The railroad stops here, and all the passengers left the crowded train. There are dozens of boarding-houses and hotels; excellent accommodations may be had for $10.50 a week, and the Grand, the best hotel, charges only $3.12 a day for board and room. The baths rival the best in the most famous watering-places of the Old World, and many spouting geysers may be seen in an hour’s walk. In addition, Rotorua has a beautiful lake, and anyone can catch fish in it; so, little wonder that the town is growing rapidly.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15.—At 10 o’clock this morning we left for a trip on the lake. There were about a dozen other passengers in the motor boat, and in half an hour most of them were seasick, as the wind was blowing a gale. Our destination was a famous spring eight miles away. This spring heads a river so large that we sailed in it in a boat. The water gushes up from a great hole, and with such force that a coin will not sink in it. The flow is twelve million gallons in twenty-four hours, and the water as cold as ice. From the wonderful spring, we went through a wonderful river to a wonderful fall. Three other boats accompanied us; tourists are as common here as they are in Egypt. At the wonderful fall, we ate lunch. The Grand Hotel sent a hamper along, and we ate while sitting on a cliff overlooking the mighty rush of water. At the fall we left the boat, and took a stage back to Rotorua, stopping on the way at a thermal center of great interest: Tikitere. An Irishman married a Maori woman who owns the place, and he insists upon charging fifty cents admission. This is the only sight in the district for which a charge is made; the Irishman is smarter than the New Zealand government, and every visitor is compelled to pay two shillings, or miss one of the best sights in the district. Tikitere covers several acres, and is mainly devoted to boiling mud springs. There are thousands of these springs, some of them not much larger than your hand, and some of them big enough to float a ship. Imagine a loblolly of mud boiling violently, and you have the main idea. At one place there are cold and hot springs within five feet of each other. Near them is a fall of hot water from two boiling lakes. Then we drove to Blue Lake, an extinct crater filled with water of a perfect blue, and returned to the hotel at 6 P. M., badly sunburned as a result of our trip on the lake and in the stage-coach.... When I tell people I had no sleep on the “Maheno” because of snoring gentlemen, they say, “Let me tell you what they did to me.” And then they relate inconveniences suffered on different ships. But in spite of these uncomfortable incidents of travel, nothing can keep the people at home.... The stage in which we traveled today was pulled by five horses: two wheelers, and three hitched side by side ahead of them. The roads were so dusty that the driver was frequently compelled to stop, and wait until he could see his way.... Speaking of differences in the English language at home and abroad: opposite my room at the Grand Hotel is a livery and bait stable. Rotorua is a great place for livery and bait stables, owing to the tourist trade. From my window early in the morning, I see men and women coming from the different bath-houses, with towels over their arms. Frequently stages drive up in front of the hotel, and passengers depart for sights quite distant from the town. There are a good many automobiles, also, and we shall travel in these quite extensively when we leave Rotorua to see the other sights in the district. On an average, there are fifteen hundred visitors in Rotorua, and a resident population of 2,500. The great watering-places in Europe are insignificant compared with this place, because of the variety of natural baths procurable here. The government has spent $200,000 on a bathhouse, and surrounded it with a very beautiful garden in which sweet peas are now in bloom. This is also the home of the gladioli; I see these flowers everywhere in splendid profusion. In the park surrounding the government bathhouse are several spouting geysers, steam whistlers, sulphur springs, etc. Outside the park grounds may be seen many sanitariums, with invalids on the porches. There is nothing as effective in restoring health as natural hot springs, and the variety is so great here that I wonder the visiting population is not much larger than fifteen hundred.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 16.—The Maoris, or native inhabitants of New Zealand, look very much like our Indians, and have most of their characteristics. They are lazy and shiftless, but good fighters, which will be generally recognized as a trait of the North-American Indians. At the photograph galleries we see pictures of beautiful Maori girls, but none are to be seen in the native villages, two of which are located near Rotorua. In both of these are hot springs, and the natives use them for cooking, heating their houses, and for bathing. In the hot springs are placed pots containing meat and vegetables, and the springs are then covered over with old gunny-sacks until the cooking is complete. The women also do their washing in the same way; the clothes are boiled in a hot spring, and then soaped and rubbed in a stream of cooler water. While the women are washing, their children are bathing in warm pools near by. The houses are built over hot springs, and in cool weather the warmth is found very agreeable. A few feet away from the hot springs may be found a geyser in constant eruption, or which erupts every ten minutes, every hour, every day, or every month. Yesterday all the geysers were going, but most of them were quiet today. The district where I saw the native village covers many acres, in a depression between mountains, and is marked by white patches which look like old lime-kilns. These white patches were made by the geysers; the water is strongly impregnated with lime, and the steam and spray give everything touched a coating of white. We saw great holes in the earth filled with blue water, and the bottom as white as snow. Not far away would be found another geyser; a great loblolly of mud, boiling lazily. Beside a rushing stream of cold water we saw a hot spring, and heard the old story that a man might stand in one spot, catch a trout, and boil it. A Maori woman was our guide, and we greatly admired her beautiful voice. She was elderly, and ugly, but her voice was soft and musical. She took us to a native Maori fort, and pointed out a sort of bird-box situated on top of a pole. This was a Spirit House; a spirit lived in it, and, when danger threatened, the spirit would speak in a loud voice, and tell the people what the danger was, and when it would appear.

“Most ladies and gentlemen do not believe it,” the Maori woman said.

I asked her if she believed it, and she replied in her broken English: “I used to did.” She said that when she was a child, her people always put food in the spirit house for the spirit, but that lately the custom is going out of fashion. In the village are Catholic and Episcopal churches; the Catholic priest is a native Maori, and the church is heated in cool weather from a hot spring beneath it.... The Maoris were originally cannibals, but the guide said they ate each other, and did not bother the whites much. In one place we visited here, we saw forks made of human bones.... We called at the guide’s home, and saw one of the tin fireplaces which are seen in seven-tenths of the poorer houses. They cost about $8 put up, and are used for cooking purposes, as well as for heating. They burn out, after a time, but a tinner will rivet in a patch for a small charge. They are certainly very much cheaper than the stone and brick fireplaces we have. A native Maori village looks much like a negro suburb in an American town, but the Maoris are not black; they look like Indians and have straight hair. Some of the women have their lips tattooed, to indicate submission to their husbands, but there is a Suffragette movement on here, as elsewhere, and the Maori woman who showed us about laughed scornfully at the notion that woman is inferior to man.... Just then we came to a place called the Frog Pond: a mud lake, and there is just enough steam below to cause particles of mud to jump like frogs. Near by, in a hole in the earth, the escaping steam made a sound like the croaking of frogs. The Maori woman described these things, and then walked on in silence, with a mean look in her eyes; she was evidently still thinking of the foolish women of her race who tattoo their lips to indicate submission to their husbands. I didn’t have a very good time after the woman suffrage question came up, and was glad that we soon after reached the last sight on the list. When women look at me in that funny way indicating that I impose on them, I am thoroughly uncomfortable. So we walked back to the entrance to the geyser field, and took a carriage to Rotorua. On the way, we met dozens of other carriages containing visitors; here people are always departing for a trip, or returning from one, and when the sights are exhausted they go on to Wairakei, where there is another collection of geysers, hot springs, etc. Between trips, they take baths, and there is a great variety to choose from; no other place in the world has as many different baths as Rotorua, but the town is not easily reached, and it doesn’t attract as many people as Hot Springs, Arkansas, which has only simple hot springs; no chain of lakes, no wonderful fishing, no oil baths, no geysers, and no mud baths, as has Rotorua.... There are only two geyser fields in the world; the other is in Yellowstone Park, in the United States. So far as I am able to judge, the geysers in Yellowstone Park are much finer. There are no terraces here, as in the Yellowstone, and in every way the Yellowstone district seems superior. But in a way, they are much alike. The geysers here are undoubtedly losing their force; citizens tell me they can see a difference from year to year. I have not seen a geyser so far more than ten or twelve feet high, but I saw many big ones in the Yellowstone. All the geysers were going yesterday, and it is said some of them shot steam and hot water into the air to a height of forty feet, but I was on the lake trip yesterday, and did not see the big geyser display which everyone is talking about today. But in the Yellowstone you can see a big geyser display any day; indeed, Old Faithful goes off every hour, and shoots steam and hot water 150 to 200 feet into the air. Here soap is frequently put into the geysers, to make them show off for visitors, but this is not necessary in the Yellowstone. This district had terraces until a few years ago, when they blew up, and now there are no others like those in Yellowstone Park. Besides, the Yellowstone district is much wilder and grander than the Hot Lake district of New Zealand. This is a wonderful place, but the Yellowstone is much more wonderful, it seems to me.... We are the only Americans at the hotel, and, except that a St. Paul man was here two months ago, we are the only Americans who have been here in a long time, the manager says.... In the fine park surrounding the government bathhouse, this afternoon, we saw dozens of games going. There was bowling, tennis, archery, cricket, and croquet, but principally bowling. In this game a good many elderly men participated; it is an old man’s game, but lately young men are playing it. The lawn was as smooth as a floor, and the game seemed to be to roll wooden balls to a goal. The men over here carry the wooden balls, when traveling, and engage in the game at different places. I had never seen the game before, and watched it for an hour. The players were very polite and genteel, but all had the pronunciation which seems so queer to us. I have seen no golf here, but I am rarely out of sight of a tennis court; that seems to be the universal game.... The New Zealand government has been so successful in business that it is now branching out; it is operating a tourist agency in opposition to Thos. Cook & Son, who have offices all over the world. People living off the main lines of travel cannot realize how valuable travelers are. In Europe, many cities devote millions of dollars to securing tourist travel, and find that it pays. Paris spends millions annually in this way, and rival cities are lately doing a good deal in the same direction; it is generally said that Berlin is now a rival of Paris in attractions for travelers. At this little town of Rotorua, a train-load of tourists arrives every day, and without them the town would not amount to much.