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Title: Kaipara; or, experiences of a settler in North New Zealand

Author: P. W. Barlow

Release date: December 22, 2020 [eBook #64112]

Language: English

Credits: Fay Dunn, Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KAIPARA; OR, EXPERIENCES OF A SETTLER IN NORTH NEW ZEALAND ***

Transcriber's Notes

Changes made are noted at the end of the book.




KAIPARA.




    Ballantyne Press
    BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
    EDINBURGH AND LONDON

[Illustration: KAIPARA.]




    KAIPARA

    OR

    _EXPERIENCES OF A SETTLER IN
    NORTH NEW ZEALAND_


    Written and Illustrated
    BY
    P. W. BARLOW


    _SECOND EDITION._


    LONDON
    SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
    _LIMITED_

    St. Dunstan's House
    FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
    1889




    Inscribed

    TO

    _W.H. BARLOW, ESQ., F.R.S._,
    OF HIGH COMBE, OLD CHARLTON,

    AS A TOKEN OF

    DEEP RESPECT, GRATITUDE, AND AFFECTION.

    BY HIS NEPHEW,

    _THE NARRATOR_.




PREFACE.


The fact that nothing has hitherto been published concerning life in
this part of New Zealand from the pen of a _bona-fide_ settler has
induced me to write the following pages.

Before commencing the undertaking, I had been at considerable pains to
satisfy myself of the truth of this fact, and naturally so, for it is
the life-buoy I cling to as I take this, my first dip, in the sea of
literature; it is my one excuse for troubling the public, and in it
consists my hope that they will consent to be troubled.

I do not pretend to literary talent, and my highest ambition is to lay
the true narrative of my experiences in New Zealand before the public
in a readable form. If successful in doing this, I shall be content,
and trust that my readers will be also.

Many books have been written describing colonial life in this and other
parts, in some of which the writers have identified themselves with
the characters in their stories; but these have invariably been the
works of _visitors to the colony_, not _settlers in it_.

There is to my mind as much difference between the two experiences as
there is between the experience of a _volunteer_ and that of a _soldier
of the line_, and it is on this account that I approach the public with
some small degree of confidence, and venture to lay before my readers
the experiences of a settler in North New Zealand.

  THE NARRATOR.

 MATAKOHE, KAIPARA, PROVINCE OF AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND.




CONTENTS.


   CHAP.                                        PAGE

      I. OUR ARRIVAL IN THE NEW COUNTRY            1

      II. AN AUCKLAND TABLE-D'HÔTE                 7

      III. A CHAT ABOUT AUCKLAND                  14

      IV. MORE ABOUT AUCKLAND                     21

      V. MY FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY                 27

      VI. LIVING IN NEW ZEALAND                   33

      VII. A PERILOUS JOURNEY                     40

      VIII. THE "TERROR"                          50

      IX. A SALE BY AUCTION                       60

      X. THE FAITHLESS MARY ANN                   66

      XI. MY INTRODUCTION TO KAIPARA              72

      XII. A WILD PIG HUNT                        80

      XIII. PURCHASING LIVE-STOCK                 88

      XIV. A COLONIAL BALL                       102

      XV. THE FORESTS OF NORTH NEW ZEALAND       107

      XVI. THE LABOURING-MAN SETTLER             118

      XVII. KAIPARA FISH                         125

      XVIII. GODWIT SHOOTING                     135

      XIX. THE KAURI GUMDIGGER                   142

      XX. A STORY OF A BUSHRANGER                159

      XXI. SPORTS                                166

      XXII. SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT IN NEW ZEALAND  176

      XXIII. KAIPARA INSECTS                     183

      XXIV. A MAORI WEDDING                      194

      XXV. SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND    201

      XXVI. A MEETING OF THE COUNTY COUNCIL      206

      XXVII. CONCLUSION                          212




KAIPARA.




CHAPTER I.

_OUR ARRIVAL IN THE NEW COUNTRY._


On the second day of July 1883, in company with my wife, six children,
a servant girl, and a full-rigged sailing ship--captain, mates, doctor,
and crew included--I, the writer of this narrative, arrived at the port
of Auckland.

Our voyage had occupied one hundred and six days, and every one
concerned was mightily sick of it.

Myself and family and the doctor were the only occupants of the
saloon, and as the latter had been ill for a considerable portion of
the voyage, and the captain and myself were at loggerheads, things
had not been quite so cheerful as they might have been. We had had
more than our fair share of bad weather too: seven weeks of continuous
gales, during which the ship had been more or less under water--or,
as the mate put it, "had only come up to blow" occasionally--and
our provisions had near run out, so it will readily be believed the
prospect of once more treading dry land was hailed with delight by all.

I am a civil engineer by profession, and having for some time found
it very difficult to obtain employment in the old country, rejoiced
in the prospect of getting work in New Zealand in connection with a
land company, who were the owners of a large tract of land--500,000
acres--situated as nearly as possible in the centre of the north
island. This company had a board of directors in London, from one
of whom--a friend of an uncle of mine--I had a very kind letter of
introduction to the company's manager in New Zealand. My intention was
to buy a few of the company's acres and build a house at the place
where they were laying out a large town. Being the first in the field,
and having such a good letter of introduction, as well as very fair
testimonials, I felt confident of success.

However, to return to our ship. As soon as she anchored off the
floating magazine to discharge her gunpowder, before coming alongside
the wharf, I looked about for a means of getting ashore, and was lucky
enough to have a passage offered me in the steam launch which had
brought the health officer on board.

My mind was too bent on discovering house-room for my family, to think
much of anything else, though I must confess I was not impressed with
my first view of Auckland. I walked up the main street and opened
negotiations with some of the principal hotels, but these proving too
expensive for my pocket, I wandered about hoping to come across a house
with the familiar card "Apartments to let" displayed in the window.
After a considerable wear of boot leather and temper without any
satisfactory result, I entered a small hotel (by the way, every beer
shop in New Zealand is an hotel) and besought information combined with
a glass of ale and a biscuit.

Having ascertained the whereabouts of what I was assured was a _most_
respectable boarding-house, I set out for the place, and presently
found myself opposite to a wooden structure in H---- Street, which
seemed to my unaccustomed eyes to be a cross between an undersized barn
and a gipsy's caravan.

With hesitating hand I lifted the knocker, and my feeble rat-tap
was after a considerable lapse of time responded to by a female of
doubtful age, and still more doubtful appearance. To this lady--they
are all ladies in New Zealand--I told my wants, and was graciously
informed that she would undertake to accommodate my whole family for
six pounds per week,--which, by the way, was about one half the sum
demanded by the most moderate of the hotels. With a feeling of relief
at the prospect of getting suitable quarters at last, in reply to her
invitation I entered the house.

"This is where they has their meals," said my guide, with evident
pride, as she opened a door on her left and disclosed a room looking
for all the world like a skittle alley of unusually wide dimensions,
with a long table down the middle of it. Not a vestige of carpet was
there on the floor, which was far from clean, and sloped towards one
corner. On both sides of the table were ranged a number of kitchen
chairs, and these, with a sideboard bearing a strong resemblance to a
varnished packing-case on end, completed the furniture.

In a voice feeble with emotion, I requested to be shown the sleeping
apartments, and was conducted to the back yard, down each side of which
stood a long weather-boarded shed with six partitions in it; each
divided portion being supplied with a window and a door, and forming
a bedroom a little larger than a bathing-machine--which it internally
greatly resembled. Three of these were placed at my disposal, and I
hurried away in a cold perspiration, caused probably by the reflection,
"Whatever will the wife say?"

It was getting late, and I was getting tired. "Shall I have another
hunt," I debated, and sacrifice the pound the wily proprietress of the
caravan and bathing-machine had insisted on my leaving as a deposit.

I knew we could not remain in the ship, as the stewards were
discharged, and there was no one to attend to us. With a sigh I
determined to stick to my bargain, and hurrying down to the wharf
in Queen Street, secured the services of a waterman, and was soon
alongside our erst-while floating home. On reaching the deck, my wife
immediately accosted me as follows:--

"Have you succeeded in getting rooms? The children have been _so_
troublesome. They are longing to get on shore, and neither Mary Ann nor
I can keep them quiet!"

I assured her that after an immense expenditure of leg power I had
succeeded in arranging about quarters, and added--as a vision of
the skittle alley and the bathing-machines flitted before me--that I
doubted whether she would find them very comfortable.

"Oh! never fear, dear," she cheerfully rejoined. "After three months
on board ship one ceases to be particular! All I long for is a bedroom
with plenty of room to turn in."

Again a vision of the bathing-boxes arose, and I trembled.




CHAPTER II.

_AN AUCKLAND TABLE D'HÔTE._


The afternoon was closing in, so collecting the luggage required for
immediate use, and locking the rest of our come-at-able belongings
in our cabins, we made haste to get on board the same boat that had
brought me out. My spirits had slightly revived, as it had occurred to
me that very probably the caravan and its appurtenances would show to
better advantage by gaslight.

Queen Street Wharf was soon reached, and having settled the waterman's
claim, I hailed a cab, into which we all bundled, and in a short
time found ourselves at our destination. Summoning the landlady, and
requesting her to show my wife the sleeping apartments, I stayed behind
to see to the luggage, and--I don't mind confessing--to allow her time
to get over the first shock.

Entering our bedroom a little later with the portmanteaus, I was
greatly pleased and surprised to find my wife apparently reconciled
to the surroundings, her only remark on the subject being that it was
a queer-looking place, and not much bigger than our cabin. She was
greatly puzzled as to whether she ought to change her dress for an
evening one before appearing in the public room, but I emphatically
assured her--having the skittle alley in my eye--that it was quite
unnecessary, and we remained chatting until a tinkling bell announced
that tea was served.

A strange scene awaited us on entering the eating shed. Some twelve or
fourteen men--I beg pardon, gentlemen--and five ladies were seated on
as many rough-looking kitchen chairs, busily engaged in attacking the
comestibles placed before them.

A few--a very decided few--contented themselves with making the fork
the medium of communication between their food and their mouths, but
the greater majority used for this purpose both knives and forks with
equal skill and success.

At our entrance they paused momentarily from their labour of love, and
favoured us with grins which seemed to say, "What confounded idiots
you are to come here." One lady of angular aspect, and with hair of the
corkscrew type of architecture, smiled affably, however, and, reassured
by her complacency, we seated ourselves at her end of the table.

The gentlemen, who, with three exceptions, sat in their shirt sleeves,
were too deeply engrossed in the work before them to converse, and the
clatter of knives and forks was for some time the only sound heard.
We sat gazing at the scene, until a husky voice from behind demanded
"Chops or 'am and eggs!" and recalled to our minds the object of our
visit. Having decided in favour of chops, some black cindery looking
bits of meat and bone were placed before us--resembling the delicious
grilled chops of the London chop-house about as nearly as a bushman's
stew resembles a _vol-au-vent â la financière_.

I managed to stay the pangs of hunger with the assistance of some
hunches of stale bread, plates of which were ranged at intervals down
the centre of the table. My poor wife, however, could scarcely eat
anything. As soon as we decently could, for the coatless gentry were
still at work, we retired to our rooms, both wife and self depressed in
spirits, Mary Ann sulky, and the children in a state of subdued mutiny.

"We will get out of this wretched hole to-morrow, so cheer up, dear,"
I exclaimed to my wife after a prolonged silence. "It's past seven
o'clock now, and if you don't want me, I'll take a stroll down the
town, and get something for supper."

Off I went, and soon reached Queen Street, the principal thoroughfare
of the town, which, to my great surprise, I found in semi-darkness, the
only places lighted up being the hotels and tobacconists' shops.

"No chance of getting anything for supper here," I thought, as I turned
up a street which I concluded must lead back to H---- Street. I had not
proceeded more than three hundred yards when I espied to my great joy
a small shop with a blaze of light in the window, above which shone
forth the legend "Oyster Saloon." With quickened step I approached,
and peering in, beheld a remarkably neatly dressed and pretty young
lady standing behind a little counter, and apparently fully occupied
in doing nothing. On the counter stood some pickle bottles filled with
extremely unpleasing-looking objects resembling large white slugs,
while a heap of oysters with curiously corrugated shells were piled in
one corner.

Entering the establishment, I requested in polite terms to be informed
the price of oysters.

"A bob a bottle!" replied the ministering angel behind the counter.

"A bob a bottle!" I repeated. "May I ask if that's colonial for a
shilling a dozen?"

"Oh! I see you're a new chum!" responded the young lady, in tones of
mild contempt. "Well, oysters ain't sold here by the dozen; they are
sold by the bottle! There are about four or five dozen, I reckon,
in one of these!" indicating the bottles on the counter, with their
revolting-looking contents.

"But are those really good to eat?" I stammered.

"Try them!" she replied, spooning from a bottle about a dozen on to a
plate, and pushing it, together with a fork and a pepper-box, before me.

Screwing up my courage, I got one into my mouth, another quickly
followed, and in a remarkably short space of time the plate was emptied.

"Capital! By Jove! I could not have believed they would be so good!" I
exclaimed. "They don't, you must confess, look very tempting in those
bottles?"

"Well, perhaps not," said the fair one; "but, you see, these oysters
grow firm on the rocks, and they are easy to open when fixed there by
tapping the back of the upper shell with a hammer, but are terrors to
tackle when loose like those," pointing to the heap in the corner.
"Besides," she continued, holding up a bottle, "they are so much more
convenient like this. Why, you would want a hand-barrow to carry five
dozen of them in their shells!"

"But how do you keep them fresh?" I demanded.

"Oh!" said my entertainer, "boys pick them fresh for us every day, and
what are not sold are thrown away!"

Oh! ye epicures of London, with Whitstables at three and nine per
dozen, and Colchesters at two and six, think on this--oysters pitched
away daily, probably in hundreds, possibly in thousands! Grind your
teeth with envy; but take my advice, stay where you are. You are not
the sort for the colony, and living _isn't all oysters_.

However, to resume. The oysters were so good that I asked for more, and
invited the young damsel to join me; but she declined, and asked, in
the course of conversation, what hotel I was staying at.

I explained that, having a long family and a short purse, hotels were
too expensive, and that we had that afternoon taken possession of a
portion of a boarding-house in H---- Street, which said portion we had
fully determined upon restoring to its owners on the morrow.

"Why not take apartments?" she rejoined.

"Apartments!" I almost yelled. "Why, I have been prowling about for the
best part of the day trying my utmost to find some, but could not see a
single house with a card in the window!"

"The idea! as if any lady would put a low card in her window," she
sneered. "But if you want apartments, my ma has some to let, and I'll
take you there, and introduce you, if you like."

With much joy I acquiesced in the proposal, and having settled my
account, and procured a bottle of oysters for home consumption, we
proceeded to the maternal residence.




CHAPTER III.

_A CHAT ABOUT AUCKLAND._


The interview with the maternal parent proved thoroughly satisfactory,
as did the maternal parent herself,--an elderly lady, neatly dressed in
black, with silver grey hair, and a face which, before old Father Time
had placed his brand on it, must have been very pretty.

I promised to bring my "better half" in the morning to complete
arrangements, and hurried home with my oysters, which with some
difficulty I succeeded in persuading her to taste. Having once overcome
her repugnance to their appearance, she enjoyed a good supper of them,
with some bread and butter that I persuaded our hostess to let us have.

Supper over, I detailed my adventures of the evening, to my wife's
great delight, and we shortly after retired to bed, but, alas! not to
sleep. Before the drowsy god could exert his influence over us, an
opposing agent stepped in, and we discovered to our horror that New
Zealand numbered among her colonists certain nimble little creatures
well known in the old country under the generic name of "Fleas;"
the Maori name is "Mōrorohū," which, literally translated, means, I
believe, "little stranger." They are supposed by some to represent the
first importation of animal life that the English favoured Maoriland
with.

Since their too successful introduction, an Acclimatisation Society
has been established, and under its auspices many animals and birds of
different kinds have been acclimatised. Rabbits and sparrows are, I
believe, numbered among its earliest ventures. Within the last year a
large number of ferrets, stoats, and weasels have been introduced by
the Government to destroy the rabbits, which have proved too many for
the settlers in the south island; and probably before long we shall
hear of snakes being brought out to kill the sparrows.

What animal will be hit upon to destroy the stoats and weasels when
their turn comes--and farmers in the localities where they have been
set free already complain bitterly of them--I am at a loss to imagine,
though I have no doubt the members of the Society, with the aid of a
Natural History, will be able to solve the problem.

The notion possesses me that if the Society continues to flourish we
shall eventually become a sort of sea-girt Zoological Garden, and
possibly be able to advertise tiger-hunting among the attractions of
the New Zealand of the future.

I trust my kind readers will pardon this digression, for which the
"little strangers" and the sleeplessness accompanying their presence
are responsible.

In the morning we rose ourselves unrefreshed, though the unwilling
refreshers of many. After breakfast, which resembled in every
particular the meal of the previous evening, with the exception that
stale flounders took the place of ham and eggs, a final interview with
our landlady was held, and proved of not so stormy a character as I had
anticipated: it was brought to a successful conclusion--at any rate on
the landlady's part--by the handing over of another golden sovereign.
Her strong point in argument was that we had agreed to stay for a week,
and therefore must pay for a week. This logical conclusion I found it
impossible to shake until I produced the sovereign, which acted like
oil on troubled waters.

All difficulties being thereby overcome, we made haste to depart, and
a cab shortly after deposited us and our luggage at our new quarters,
with which my wife was much pleased.

The clauses in the agreement arrived at concerning them were as
follows:--Entire and exclusive use of a sitting-room and three bedrooms
furnished; attendance on us to devolve on Mary Ann; cooking to devolve
on landlady; housekeeping to devolve on my wife; and lastly, but not
least, the payments for the apartments--three guineas per week--to
devolve on me.

Prior to leaving home I had given instructions to have my letters
addressed to the Northern Club, Auckland, care of ----, Esquire, for
whom I carried a letter of introduction; but anxious though I was to
get home news, I had had hitherto no possible opportunity of going to
look after them. Now the family were fairly housed, however, I hastened
to relieve my anxiety, and found a couple of English letters awaiting
me at the Club, which satisfied me that all was well with those dear to
us in the old country. A good many of my letters, I learnt, had been
forwarded to Cambridge to Mr.----, who was staying there looking after
the interests of the land company to which he was manager. I obtained
his address, and sent him a wire stating our arrival, and requesting
him to forward letters.

Having settled that business, I hastened down to the wharf to see what
progress our ship--which was now alongside the Tee--had made in the
unloading of her cargo.

I found the Tee heaped with cases already hoisted out of her capacious
holds, though nothing of mine had as yet been disgorged. Having the
keys of our cabins in my pocket, I decided to take out the things that
were in them, and with the aid of a man and a hand truck they were
safely conveyed to our rooms.

My time was now my own, and I went for a stroll.

Though not impressed with the appearance of Auckland itself, I thought
the harbour and its natural surroundings remarkably pretty, yet lacking
the grandeur of the Bay of Rio de Janeiro and other harbours I have
seen. The formation of the land is curious, and gave me at first sight
the idea of peaks which at one time had been bold, but which by some
wonderful process had been either melted down into undulating mounds,
or were in course of being melted down.

The peak on the isle of Rangitoto, which shelters the mouth of the
harbour, Mount Eden, and numerous others, come under the latter
description, while the north head and north shore generally come under
the former. It was the north head that particularly attracted my
attention as we first entered the harbour; it is shaped like a huge
inverted basin, and is covered with grass. I can assure my readers that
after one hundred and six days at sea the sight of that grassy mound
was good, very good, and will never be forgotten.

The harbour called the Waitemata, opening on the east coast, is as a
haven perfection; it is admirably sheltered, has sufficient capacity
to hold half a dozen war squadrons, and is deep enough to allow the
largest ship afloat to enter at dead low water and steam or sail right
up to the Queen Street Wharf.

On its southern shore stands Auckland and its suburbs, and on its
northern the town or suburb of Devonport.

Another harbour, the Manukau, opens on the west coast, and extends
inland towards Auckland, leaving only a strip of land, in places not
half a mile wide, between it and the waters of the Waitemata. It has
unfortunately a bar, and is therefore not much used by vessels of
large size. The construction of a canal joining the two harbours has
been proposed, for what purpose is not clear, unless the projectors
have some scheme for doing away with the Manukau bar, thus allowing
ships to come straight through to Auckland from the west coast. It is
not at all improbable, however, that the promoters desire to have the
canal cut simply for _the fun of making the land north of Auckland
an island_. Of course the money expended on the work will have to be
borrowed, so what matters!




CHAPTER IV.

_MORE ABOUT AUCKLAND._


The principal street in the city of Auckland, as my reader has been
already told, is Queen Street, terminating seawards in the Queen Street
Wharf.

It is not an imposing-looking thoroughfare. No indeed! and at the
risk of catching it the next time I am down there, I repeat there is
nothing imposing in it at all; neither the street, the houses, nor the
tradesmen. There is little architectural beauty to be seen, and the
shops have for the most part an unsubstantial appearance, particularly
noticeable in the upper portion of the street. The lower, or wharf end,
possesses some substantial-looking buildings of brick and stone, the
most notable in 1883 being the post-office, the New Zealand Insurance
Company's building, and the Bank of New Zealand.

The pavement on the left hand side for a considerable distance is
sheltered by verandahs built from the upper part of the shop fronts,
and extending as far as the roadway, where they are supported by
cast-iron pillars. They form an agreeable protection from the sun, or
from sudden showers of rain, and are remarkable as evincing an effort
to study the public comfort--an effort very seldom made in New Zealand.

Since I landed in 1883 the town has undergone great improvements. A
good-sized railway terminus now stands at the foot of Queen Street.
Tramways run in all directions. A great many brick buildings, some five
stories high, have been run up. The Auckland Freezing Company have
erected very extensive premises of brick on ground reclaimed from the
bay. An art gallery and public library, contained in a really handsome
building, has been opened. _The Star_ newspaper proprietor has built
large new offices; and an arcade with shops almost rivalling in style
and finish those of its elder brother in London--the Burlington--has
lately been completed. On the north shore a magnificent graving dock is
in course of construction, which will be able, when finished, to take
in the largest ships afloat but two, viz., _The Great Eastern_ and _The
City of Rome_.

With the exception, perhaps, that the majority of the houses are of
timber, Auckland may be said to resemble the ordinary run of colonial
cities: it has an unusually fair share of churches and chapels of
all denominations, and a still fairer share of public-houses--I ask
pardon--hotels.

Of places of public amusement, with the exception of a dingy little
theatre very seldom used, and a so-called opera-house where occasional
performances take place, it has virtually none, and to this fact is
undoubtedly to be ascribed the large amount of drunkenness that exists.

The vast number of places where drink can be obtained show what a brisk
liquor trade is done; but if half these places were abolished, it would
not, I believe, lessen the drunkenness by a single man. Gumdiggers,
farmers, bushmen, fishermen, and all sorts and conditions of men
frequent Auckland town when flush of money, and they _will_ have some
amusement! There are no music-halls, concert-rooms, or other places
where they can go and smoke their pipes and enjoy themselves, therefore
they fall back on the hotels.

It may be wrong and wicked, but it's human nature. As Dickens' immortal
Squeers says, "Natur's a rum un;" and all the head shakings and
turning up of the eyes on the part of the pious won't alter the fact.

I was wrong, however, to say there are no places of amusement except
the theatre and opera-house. There is one. It is called the "Sailor's
Rest." Suppose (to use a colonialism) we put in an hour or two there.

After ascending a steep break-neck sort of stair-ladder erected in the
back part of a shop, we stand in a large room hung about with flags. At
one end is a stage, and scattered about are small tables, seated round
which we see marines and blue-jackets from Her Majesty's ship lying in
the harbour, fishermen, shop assistants, and working men of all sorts.
They are chatting and playing at dominoes, draughts, and other games.
Presently "order" is called from the stage, a lady takes her seat at
the piano, which occupies one corner, and a gentleman comes forward,
makes his bow, and sings a very good song to her accompaniment.

Another song follows, then a duet, inspired by which a marine and a
blue-jacket volunteer a second duet, ascend the stage, and sing it
capitally; another sailor follows with a comic song, a gumdigger gives
a recitation, and so the evening wears away. The room is crammed, and
in the back part near the stairs smoking is allowed, so the smoker is
not deprived of half his evening's enjoyment.

Ladies, _real_ Christian ladies--not "eye rollers" and "head
shakers"--flit about ministering to the wants of their visitors. Coffee
is served, and the proceedings close with a hymn, which I must confess
sounds out of place after the comic songs, and I think would have been
better omitted. By the time the audience have dispersed the hotels are
closed.

How those hotel-keepers must _abominate_ that flag-draped room up the
back stairs! If there were a few more such places in Auckland it would
mean _death to them_.

While on the subject of Auckland, let me say a few words about the
shops and the shop-keepers. First the shops. One very noticeable
feature in the majority of them is the absence of taste in the display
of their contents; there is nothing to attract the eye, and however
good the articles may be in themselves, they are seldom shown to
advantage, but are huddled together in the window anyhow.

With regard to their attendants. In the larger shops you always find
civility, but never any approach to servility: the shopman does not
press you to purchase, but if you elect to do so, you may. It is a
_quid pro quo_ transaction, with no obligation on either side. In the
inferior shops you too often miss the civility, and the proprietor
appears to consider he is conferring a favour by allowing you to buy.
No attempt, at any rate, is ever made to push a trade.

The same feeling which pervades the manly tradesman's breast appears
also to influence the lodging-house and boarding-house owners. "_If
you want any article you must come and ask if we've got it_," and "_if
you want apartments you must find out our address--we are not going
to bother_," are the sentiments which I fancy form the basis of the
trading principles of the aristocratic tradesmen and lodging-house
keepers of Auckland. The reader will perhaps recollect the trouble
I had in trying to find rooms when we first arrived, and the awful
place where I eventually deposited my family. Now that I am well
acquainted with the town, I find there are plenty of nice apartments
and boarding-houses, though it would be impossible for a stranger to
discover them: if I were an Irishman, I'd say--he would require to be
in Auckland a month before he arrived in order to do so.




CHAPTER V.

_MY FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY._


I omitted in the last chapter to state that Auckland possesses a
hospital (perfect for its size), and some grand butchers' shops.

The hospital I have been all over, thanks to the courtesy of the
resident physician, and I do not believe that for brightness,
ventilation, and all other essentials, its wards are to be surpassed by
those of any hospital in London. I trust my readers will not imagine by
my speaking of the butchers' shops and the hospital in the same breath
that I desire to indicate that these institutions have anything in
common or are sympathetic.

With this explanation I will proceed to the butchers' shops. Meat
is the principal feather in New Zealand's cap: it is the one really
substantial cheap necessary of life, and New Zealanders have not
forgotten to make the most of it. It is the bait that has been found
most attractive in the immigrant fishery, and by the use of which the
agent-general has landed the majority of the immigrants in this colony.
The shops where it is sold are quite a feature in the town, and must
on no account be neglected. They are very large--larger, I think, than
any in London, with the exception perhaps of one belonging to Messrs.
Spiers & Pond near Blackfriars Bridge. They are also very bright and
clean looking, being lined throughout, ceiling and all, with white
glazed tiles. On horizontal bars of bright steel suspended from the
ceiling are hung the carcasses of sheep and bullocks in vast numbers,
while legs and shoulders of mutton, sirloins of beef and other joints
are disposed on tables projecting from the walls. They are without
doubt the most killing-looking shops in Auckland.

The auction marts form another prominent feature in the town, and of
these I will have something to say by-and-by; for the present I think I
had better return to my own affairs.

The letters which had taken a trip to Cambridge (Waikato) had now
returned, in company with one from Mr.----, who informed me he would be
in town in a day or two, and would call. We therefore had nothing to do
till then but amuse ourselves.

A trip to Remuera, the prettiest suburb of Auckland, in an
uncomfortable omnibus, occupied one day. On the next, as my wife wished
to do shopping, I decided to find out what shooting was to be obtained
in the neighbourhood, and in furtherance of that object entered the
shop of one of the two gunsmiths in Queen Street and accosted its
proprietor, from whom I learned that there was some grand curlew
shooting to be had at Onehunga, a place about eight miles off, on the
Manukau Harbour. I immediately determined to go there, and see if I
could not make a bag. As I found Onehunga was to be reached by rail as
well as omnibus, I decided to try the former, with a view principally
to the saving of time; so taking my gun, cartridge belt, and game bag,
I made, in colonial parlance, "tracks" for the station, and took ticket
for Onehunga and back, the high charge made--half-a-crown--astonishing
me considerably. I was fortunate in just catching a train, but not so
lucky in my choice of compartments, for I discovered, after the train
had given its preliminary jerk--a mode of progression peculiar to New
Zealand railway trains--that the gentleman by my side was suffering
from an injudicious application of alcohol.

The seats in New Zealand railway carriages run "fore and aft"--that
is, lengthways--and when the first jerk came the afflicted gentleman
toppled over against me, and I had some trouble in getting him fixed up
perpendicularly again; the next jerk, however, found me prepared, and I
met him half way, with a force that sent him over against his neighbour
on the other side. This evidently did not meet with approbation, for
he was shot back to me promptly, and we kept him going between us like
an inverted pendulum. The "overcharged" individual operated upon took
it perfectly quietly, evidently considering his oscillations quite
the correct thing when travelling on a New Zealand railway. Playing
battledore and shuttlecock with a drunken man is tiring work, however,
and I was glad to change my seat at the first station we stopped at.

After three quarters of an hour of the roughest railway travelling I
had ever experienced--progress being attained by a series of violent
jerks--Onehunga was reached, and I descended and strolled away from the
station, fully convinced that the railway authorities charged by time,
not mileage; and this conviction I have since seen no reason to alter.

Onehunga is not an interesting port, and I have no intention of
describing it; suffice it to say that it is decidedly straggling.
Going into an hotel near the station, I procured some lunch, and was
directed to the most likely place for curlew. I laid up for them in
some all swamp grass, and waited patiently, but never saw a curlew all
the afternoon, and what is more, have never seen one since I have been
in New Zealand. I am positive there is not such a bird to be found in
the colony, or, at any rate, in the province of Auckland; what are
called curlew here are really godwit--the feathering of the two birds
is almost identical, and both have long beaks, but the curlew's curve
downwards and the godwit's upwards. The latter is a splendid bird for
the table, while the curlew is scarcely worth the picking. I have shot
dozens of them in the old country, and hundreds of godwits out here, so
I ought to know.

I would not have wearied the reader with the above remarks had I not so
often read in books, and more than once in newspapers out here, of the
curlew in New Zealand.

When I reached the railway station, homeward bound, I had a long time
to wait for a train, and walking up and down the dreary platform,
I did not, no! I greatly fear I did not, bless that Queen Street
gunsmith. The train arriving at last, I was jerked back to Auckland in
an unenviable frame of mind.

The bag I made that day at Onehunga consisted of one king-fisher, which
I looked on at the time as a great curiosity. I am wiser now, for they
are the commonest bird we have in this part of the colony--commoner
even than sparrows; but that Onehunga king-fisher I skinned and got
stuffed, and that Onehunga king-fisher I still value highly. He is the
first bird I ever shot in New Zealand, and he is the last bird I ever
intend shooting at Onehunga.




CHAPTER VI.

_LIVING IN NEW ZEALAND._


Sunday had now arrived--our first Sunday in Auckland. It is kept, as in
England, as a day of rest, except by those unhappy individuals who are
unfortunate enough to reside near a Salvation Army barracks! There is
no rest or peace for them.

Early in the morning we heard the distant sound of martial music, and
imagined that some volunteer corps was going to hold church parade; but
as the sounds came nearer we were undeceived--no volunteer corps that
ever existed would consent to march behind such ear-torturing noises.
I hurried out and found that the disturbing sounds proceeded from the
Salvation Army band. I am told that these Salvationists do a good deal
of good: if they really help people to heaven with the awful apology
for a band they at present possess, surely they would do a vast deal
more good if they had better instruments and more practised bandsmen.
The big drum, cornet, trombone, flute, and other instruments take a
leading position in their ceremonial, and should therefore be put on
a thoroughly efficient footing. If this were done, many persons who
now rush away holding their ears when the Salvation Army band is heard
approaching would stay, if only to listen to the music.

We attended service at St. Paul's Church, and had scarcely returned
when Mr. ---- called. We found him very gentlemanly and agreeable. He
dined with us, spent the afternoon, and gave us a good deal of valuable
advice. He said the roads were far too bad for my wife to think of
going up country yet, and recommended my securing a house in Auckland
for three or four months, and after seeing my family settled, that I
myself should take a trip to the new township in order to see what I
thought of it, and then make my final arrangements.

This advice appeared so sound that I determined to follow it
implicitly. On Monday morning, therefore, I started out on a house
hunt, and with little trouble succeeded in finding a suitable verandah
cottage in the suburb of Parnell. My goods by this time were landed
and stored in a warehouse near the wharf, so before our week was up at
the lodgings I had them removed to our new home, in which we were soon
comfortably installed.

Parnell is undoubtedly the aristocratic suburb of Auckland. It is
as pretty as aristocratic, and I trust we sufficiently appreciated
the honour of being the temporary possessors of a cottage within its
precincts.

Several retired naval and military officers, and gentlemen from other
of the recognised professions with small private incomes, reside there
with their families, and form a society, agreeable, enjoyable, and
exclusive. There is not the least doubt that New Zealand is a grand
country for English people with certain tastes and private incomes of,
say five or six hundred a year. I don't refer to those who are fond of
theatre-going and such like vanities, or those who place cookery among
the fine arts, for, as I have already hinted, New Zealand is no place
for them. The persons I mean are the lovers of outdoor amusements,
such as riding, sailing, fishing, and shooting, and those who like
their rubber of whist, their chat and game of billiards at the Club,
and their social, unceremonious evenings with their friends. The happy
possessor of an income such as I have indicated could own a house in
town and a place also in the country, where he might with his family
pass the summer months; his country property need cost him nothing
to keep up, for he would have no difficulty in finding a respectable
working-man tenant, who, if allowed to live rent free and work the
land, would not only look after the place and keep fences, &c., in
repair, but would willingly keep his (the owner of the property's)
horses in horse feed all the year.

If he selected the north Kaipara district, his property would be
bordered by the inland sea, and he could keep his five-ton cutter
sailing-boat, and enjoy the most delightful water excursions up the
numberless beautiful creeks. A two-roomed shanty, costing about £30,
would be ample accommodation for the working-man tenant.

But I can imagine my reader exclaiming, "Living must be much cheaper
than in England to enable people with moderate competencies to thus
have within their reach almost all the enjoyments which fall to the lot
of rich county families?"

It is not so, however: the necessities of life, with a few exceptions,
are on the contrary dearer in New Zealand than at home, but the
out-of-door pleasures of life are _infinitely cheaper_. Small
properties of twenty or thirty acres planted, fenced, and laid out in
paddocks, orchards, &c., with a good six or seven roomed house, and
outbuildings, can be bought for four or five hundred pounds; decent
hacks to ride at from seven to ten pounds a piece; and a good second
hand five-ton sailing-boat for between twenty and thirty pounds.

Children can be fairly well educated in the private schools of Auckland
at far less cost than they can be in England.

In New Zealand it is not necessary to keep up the same style as in the
old country--a man is not supposed to keep a wine cellar: he eschews
top hats, kid gloves, &c.: his dress suit is more likely to deteriorate
by moths than by wear: he lives plainly, and dresses so: his clothes
which are too shabby for town he can wear out in the country--no one
will think him one whit less a gentleman if he appears in trousers
patched at the knees. Set dinner parties are not fashionable, though
pot luck invitations are. To gentlemen and ladies who cannot enjoy
their meal unless it is served _à la Russe_, I say--Stay where you
are!--but to those who can enjoy a good plain dinner plainly put on
the table, and are contented to drink with it a glass of ale or a
cup of tea, the usual colonial beverage, and who are fond of outdoor
amusements, I emphatically cry--Come! this is the country for you. You
can have your own and country house--your horses and your sailing-boat,
your fishing and shooting--and can save money. Ay! and invest it
profitably too, if you keep your eyes open.

I trust the kind reader will excuse the foregoing outburst, and accept
my assurance that I am not a tout for a land company. I am anything but
in love with land companies now. But to resume.

My family being now in comfortable quarters, I started on my journey to
"the town that was to be," in which all my hopes were centred.

The railway jerked me as far as the village of Hamilton, some
eighty-six miles from Auckland, in a little over five hours and
three-quarters, I having travelled _by the fast train_. From thence I
was conveyed to Cambridge by coach, and was soon settled _pro tem_ in a
comfortable hotel. I had still thirty odd miles to travel, and had been
puzzling my head all day long how to manage it, as I feared I should
never find my way riding by myself; but here luck befriended me, for
to my great delight I found a party of surveyors, four in number,
staying at the hotel _en route_ for the very place. I speedily made
their acquaintance, and was informed they had hired for the journey a
four-wheeled trap, called a buggy, and would be very glad to have me
for a travelling companion, as they had a spare seat. I need scarcely
say I joyfully accepted their kind offer, and we were soon on the most
friendly terms.




CHAPTER VII.

_A PERILOUS JOURNEY._


The news that greeted my ears the following morning on entering the
breakfast room was that the all important buggy had arrived, and that
we were to start as soon as possible in order to accomplish the journey
by daylight. I made a hasty meal therefore, and was soon out inspecting
the vehicle, in which, for the next seven or eight hours, we were to
have so close an interest. It was a curious-looking affair, very like
an overgrown goat chaise, with a sort of roof or covering supported on
iron rods, and containing two seats, each capable of accommodating with
moderate comfort three persons, while there was room for another beside
the driver. To this arrangement on wheels two strong rough-looking
horses were attached, and standing by their heads was the driver, a
stout man with a short neck, a weather-beaten face, and a red nose of
goodly proportions.

There was a good deal of luggage to stow away, consisting of
portmanteaus, theodolites, chains, tents, &c., but at last everything
was ready, and we started.

For the first three or four miles all went well, except the dust
which went down our throats and up our noses, till we could scarcely
breathe. This was not likely to last long, however, for black clouds
had been rolling up since early morning, and hanging in the sky like
regiments taking position on a parade ground before a review. A
break up of the weather was evidently imminent, and we thought with
satisfaction of our roof, and bade defiance to the elements. Soon
the aspect of the country, which had hitherto been flat, began to
change, and the character of the road began to change with it, the
former becoming undulating and the latter uneven. As we advanced the
country became more broken, and the road problematical, and at last
we found ourselves travelling along a sideling cut in the face of a
range of high precipitous hills, in the valley at the foot of which
the river Waikato was rushing, roaring, and tumbling in its rocky
bed. The road, if it could be dignified with the name, was scarcely
twelve feet wide, and sloped in places considerably towards the outer
edge, while two hundred feet below us rushed the river. In some places
landslips had occurred, and it was barely wide enough for the wheels
of our conveyance; and, to make matters worse, the threatened rain had
commenced to fall in torrents, rendering the clayey soil as slippery as
possible.

To say that the whole of the occupants of that buggy were not terribly
nervous, would be to state a deliberate untruth. We all pretended to be
quite at our ease, and I even tried to smoke a pipe, but our assumed
composure was an utter fraud--indeed it was quite sufficient to see how
we with one accord leant towards the hill, whenever the buggy wheel
approached more nearly to the outer edge of the road, to be able to
state positively that we were in a highly nervous condition. Old Jack,
the driver, appeared to take things coolly enough; but he certainly had
the best of it, for had the trap capsized he could have thrown himself
off, while we, boxed up like sardines, must have gone over with it. He
kept the horses going at a trot, wherever he could, and as they slid
and stumbled onward, the blood-curdling thought would creep through my
mind, that if one fell and slipped over the edge, he must drag us down
with him. It was like a fearful nightmare, and the only reassuring
feature--or features--in it was old Jack's imperturbable countenance,
as he sucked at his short clay and "klucked" at his horses.

At last the agony was over; we were again on level ground; that awful
rushing, roaring torrent had left us, and we breathed more freely.
Old Jack now called a halt near a little brook to bait and water his
horses, and we availed ourselves of the opportunity to dispose of the
lunch--brought with us from the hotel--and began to converse again, a
thing we had not thought of attempting to do for the last two hours or
more.

I inquired of Jack whether accidents often occurred on the part of the
road we had lately left, and he replied that he only knew of one waggon
going over the edge--the two horses were killed and the waggon dashed
to pieces, but the driver, by throwing himself off, escaped with a
broken arm. He, however, believed there had been another bit of a smash
or two, but did not know particulars.

Pushing forward again, we came to some extremely broken country, and
old Jack's method of doing this portion, though it evinced a certain
amount of knowledge of the laws of mechanics, was simply agonising.
Whenever we came to a steep incline with a corresponding rise, he
would whip up the horses in order to try and obtain sufficient impetus
to take us up the other side, and down the incline we would go at a
fearful pace, jolting, bumping, and hanging on like grim death. How
the springs stood it is a marvel to me. We very nearly came to grief
once, for the wheels on one side of our conveyance suddenly sunk in a
soft bog, and it almost overturned. With our united efforts, however,
we succeeded in extricating the machine, and resumed our journey, which
at last came to an end, as we pulled up considerably after dark before
the door of a little hotel--almost the only building to be seen in this
future Chicago. Although our arrival appeared to be quite unexpected,
the landlord and his wife seemed perfectly equal to the occasion. The
buggy was expeditiously emptied of its contents, and bedrooms were
promptly shown us. While we were engaged in removing the signs of the
late fearful expedition, the sounds of frizzling and spluttering,
and the delightful odours that reached our olfactory nerves from the
culinary department, conveyed to our minds the satisfactory assurance
that provision for our exhausted frames of no mean order was under way,
and served to confirm my opinion that our host and hostess were _quite_
equal to the occasion.

A hearty meal, followed by a pleasant chat, in a snug little
sitting-room, with a bright coal fire burning in the grate, formed
a most delightful close to what had been, to say the least of it,
anything but a pleasant day's travelling.

I was up betimes in the morning, and was woefully disappointed with the
look of the country. Stretching in all directions was a vast undulating
plain covered with stunted brown fern--not a blade of grass, not a
green tree nor shrub was to be seen--nothing but brown fern. The hotel,
the manager's house, a wooden shanty, some surveyors' tents, and a
small hut alone broke the monotony of the view. In the extreme distance
could be discerned ranges of high hills, but whether covered with trees
or vegetation of any kind they were too far off to determine. Nothing
seemed to be stirring either; no busy workmen were there laying out the
streets of the future city or erecting houses for the future citizens;
no sign of anything going on. Nothing but brown fern. I had evidently
arrived a quarter of a century too soon.

I will not say anything of the quality of the land. It may have been
first rate--in fact, I am inclined to think it must have been--for on
inquiry I found the company demanded eight pounds per acre for suburban
allotments two miles from the centre of the township.

[Illustration: Nothing but brown fern.]

To build the smallest house before a railway was made would cost seven
hundred and fifty pounds, timber being twenty-five shillings per
hundred feet. There was no wood for firing, and coals were eight pounds
per ton. It was evidently no place for me, and the only thing left to
determine was how to get back again. The landlord of the hotel, whom
I consulted, told me that a waggon with stores and coal was expected
in a day or two, and thought I would have no difficulty in arranging
with the driver to go back in it. "To wait for the waggon," as the old
refrain recommends, was therefore evidently the best way out of the
difficulty, and I determined to do so. I called on the manager, and
told him it would be impossible for me to settle there at present. He
fully agreed with me, and advised my renting a small house in Cambridge
until matters had become more advanced, when he promised to do all he
could. He feared, however, it might be some time before he could be of
any use to me, and I must say I feared so too. However, I thought it
would be better to follow his advice, and determined on another house
hunt when I reached Cambridge. I spent the rest of the day with him,
and in the evening strolled back to the hotel, which was about three
quarters of a mile off, being solely guided to it by its light, as
there was no road or track of any kind.

On my way I was startled by hearing the most hideous noises at some
distance from me, but gradually growing nearer. They evidently
proceeded from human throats: what could it mean? Louder and louder
grew the fearful sounds, until at last I could make out a party of men
on horseback, who, on their nearer approach, I found to be Maoris. They
passed me without notice, still keeping up the horrible din, and I came
to the conclusion that they must have been imbibing too freely at the
hotel. On arriving there, I mentioned the matter to the landlord, and
he told me that they were natives from the King country who had come
over to buy some stores, and that they were making the noises I heard
to drive away "the Taipo," a sort of devil who devotes his attention
exclusively to Maoris, over whom, however, he only possesses power at
night. The Maoris, I learnt, would never go out singly after dark, and
when they ventured in company, gave utterance to the unearthly cries I
have described to keep him away; and it strikes me that if "the Taipo"
has anything like a correct ear, the method adopted ought to be most
effectual.

Two days passed, and on the afternoon of the third the waggon appeared.
It had been detained on the road through a breakdown, and the driver
had been obliged to spend a night in the open air, which, as the
weather was now extremely cold, must have been anything but pleasant.
He had succeeded in repairing damages in the morning, for, with a
cautiousness begotten probably by previous catastrophes, he had with
him the necessary tools, and was enabled to complete his journey.
My proposal to accompany him on his return was favourably received,
particularly as I agreed to pay a pound for the privilege, and on the
following morning we started.

After over nine hours of torture, mental and bodily, for the waggon
was innocent of springs, Cambridge was reached; and I was once more
installed in the comfortable hotel there.




CHAPTER VIII.

_THE "TERROR."_


House hunting is not usually exciting sport, no matter how plentiful
the game may be, and Cambridge I found very badly stocked. I travelled,
I believe, over every inch of the scattered town, which has a
population of about sixteen hundred, saw some places for sale, the
prices asked being far beyond my purse, and inquired in almost every
shop for houses to let, but without success.

I had almost given up in despair, when I struck what I thought was a
good scent, which landed me in a shoemaker's shop, where I found the
proprietor, a mild-looking, bald-headed little man, spectacled, and
leather aproned, hammering away at a boot.

"I believe you have a small house to let?" I commenced.

"Well, I has and I hasn't!" the old man responded. "You see, I has a
place, but it's got a tenant, and she's a queer 'un to deal with!"

"Well, you can't let your house twice over," I interrupted rather
shortly, thinking the old fellow was making fun of me; "so there is an
end to the matter!"

"Hold on a bit!" returned the patriarch. "I've given this here widder
notice to quit, for I can't get no rent out of her, but lor! she don't
care no more for notices than nothing at all!"

"But has she a lease?" I demanded.

"Lease indeed!" quoth the ancient one indignantly. "Cock _her_ up with
a lease! Why, she's only a weekly tenant, but, my word, she's a terror!"

"If she won't pay, there should be no difficulty in getting rid of
her," I remarked.

"May be not! may be not!" he answered slowly, and in unconvinced tones;
"but you don't know her. She's a terror! my word! she _is_ a terror!
But I tell you what," he continued, brightening up; "you go and say you
heard she was going away, and you would like to see the place. I'll
show you the way."

"Don't you think it would be better for you to see her yourself and
arrange matters?" I queried.

"Me see her!--me arrange matters with her!" he screamed; "catch me at
it. Me and the widder don't hit it at all, and she's a regler terror,
she is. But you're all right though; she will be civil enough to you."

"Very well then," I reluctantly consented; and off we set for the abode
of the formidable widow, and soon arrived before a little cottage with
a piece of waste ground in front, shut off from the road by a hedge and
a gate.

The shoemaker concealed himself behind the hedge, while I entered
the gate and knocked at the cottage door, which was opened almost
instantaneously by a tall, hard-featured, middle-aged female in a
widow's cap. The door opened direct into the sitting-room, without the
intervention of a hall or passage, and I was undoubtedly face to face
with "the terror" herself. Fully sensible of my position, I raised my
hat, and addressed her as follows:--

"I must ask pardon for my intrusion, but hearing that you were about to
change your residence, I"----

"Change my ressidence! And may I make so bold as to hask who informed
you I was going to change my res-si-dence?" she interrupted, tossing
her head, and scornfully eyeing me.

"I understood so from your landlord this morning," I meekly responded.

"Oh! you did, did yer! Well, you can tell that bald-headed, goggling,
mean little humbug of a cobbler that he's labouring under a
miscomprehension!" With that the awful female banged the door in my
face, and thus brought to an end my house-hunting in Cambridge. No sign
of the cobbler could I see--he had evidently overheard "the terror's"
concluding words and bolted.

I went back to my hotel dejected and out of spirits. On entering the
reading-room, I found two gentlemen installed there--evidently new
arrivals--who were smoking cigarettes and perusing newspapers. The
younger one, a man of about thirty-five years of age, with a full beard
and moustache, shortly after my entrance handed me the paper he had
been studying, saying, "Perhaps you would like to see the _Auckland
Star_, just arrived by the evening train."

I thanked him, and ran my eye over its columns. I did not take much
interest in the New Zealand papers at that time, so was easily
satisfied, and passed the paper on to the other occupant of the room,
an elderly gentleman with a jovial countenance, whom the younger
addressed as Doctor.

Acquaintances are soon made in New Zealand hotels, and in a very short
time we were all three chatting as though we had known one another for
months.

"Not long out from home?" questioned the bearded gentleman.

"Only landed in Auckland on the third of July," I responded.

"What do you think of the colony?" was the next question.

"Well, I hardly like to express an opinion yet, but I certainly am not
favourably impressed with the part I have just come from," I rejoined,
naming the locality, "and feel half inclined to go back to the old
country."

"Your disappointment does not surprise me," returned my companion.
"By Jove, sir, the way land companies and the banks have caused this
part of the colony to be puffed up, has done more harm to New Zealand
than anything else. I would not live here if they _gave_ me a house.
You can't go out without being choked with dust when the weather's
dry, and there is positively nothing attractive in the whole place.
Now, where I live, it is altogether different. Beautiful country!
virgin forests! an inland sea alive with fish--nice society--fishing,
shooting, pig hunting, sailing--everything a man can wish for. It's a
grand country--a _grand_ country, sir. Ah! that is a place worth living
in; but this--bah!" Here he paused to relight his cigarette, which in
his enthusiasm he had allowed to go out.

Seizing the opportunity, I exclaimed--"I have no doubt it is all you
describe, but I am a civil engineer, possessing very limited means, and
anxious to get work, so fear it would never do or me."

"Never do for you--why not?" resumed my hairy interlocutor. "Far better
chance of getting occupation there than you'll ever have here. Just
where your chance lies. County Council got no proper engineer--you on
the spot--make your application--produce your testimonials, and the
thing's done. Tell you what--I am going up here in about a fortnight;
you come up with me. I'll put you up and show you the country. Know a
property that will just suit you--lovely place--dirt cheap, sir! Good
house--orchards--beautiful views--grand, sir--grand!"

"What is the district called, and how far is it from Auckland?" I
questioned.

"The Kaipara--the Eden of the north island, sir! and not more than
ninety miles from Auckland--thirty by rail and sixty by steamer,"
replied my new acquaintance. "Delightful trip the water part. Don't
think much of the railway part--never did like the railway--have too
much of it perhaps--wretched accommodation--jerked and bumped nearly
to death. Give me the water!" he proceeded enthusiastically. "Ah! when
you've seen the Kaipara, you'll say it's lovely; I know you will. Take
my advice, and come up with me!"

I thanked him for his kind offer, which I promised to take into serious
consideration, and writing my Auckland address on my card, I asked him
to call when he reached town, and I would then be prepared with an
answer. He promised to do so, and at that moment the first bell ringing
from the dining-room, warned us to get ready for the evening meal.

Having no further business to transact in Cambridge, I took the first
train on the following morning for Auckland, which I reached in due
course, and spent the evening detailing my adventures to my wife, and
in consultation with her as to the best course for us to pursue. It
seemed evident we must give up, at any rate for a time, the idea with
which we left England, and it was equally clear that in order to live
within my income I must buy a place with the few loose hundreds I had
brought out, where I could keep a cow or two, and save rent, milk, and
butter. I decided, therefore, to look at places that were for sale
about Auckland so as to help me to come to a decision before my friend
of the Cambridge hotel put in an appearance.

I had looked over one property at Cambridge, which comprised a
six-roomed house, and eight acres of land. The house was in very bad
condition--quite uninhabitable indeed; and for it and the eight acres I
was asked one thousand pounds.

I saw several about Auckland, but could find nothing to suit me. My
wife and I took a good many excursions together in this pursuit, but
without avail. We also made some pleasure trips, one of which was to
Mount Eden, lying directly behind the city. An easy ascent of between
three and four hundred feet brought us to the lip of the crater, from
which a magnificent view of the isthmus of Auckland and the surrounding
country is to be obtained, the great number of volcanic cones visible
forming a very remarkable feature in the landscape. They are, I
believe, over sixty in number, and range in height from three hundred
to nine hundred feet. No tradition exists among the Maoris of any
eruption in the neighbourhood, though the fact that the Maori name for
the highest peak, Rangitoto, means sky of blood, seems to imply that it
has been active within their time.

The inside of the crater of Mount Eden resembles a funnel or inverted
cone covered with grass and plentifully strewn with lumps of scoria.
It is very symmetrical in shape, and one would almost fancy it an
artificial creation. There is indeed plenty of evidence of the
work of human hands on Mount Eden in the shape of remains of Maori
fortifications, though the natural and the artificial are so blended
together and softened by time that it is difficult to say where the one
ends and the other begins.

When we had satisfied our appetites for landscape scenery, we descended
the Mount, and spent some time examining the neighbourhood in the vain
hope of tumbling across a place to be sold that would suit us. We were
much struck with the elegant timber villa residences, surrounded by
spacious verandahs, about which flowering creeping plants of various
kinds, such as the yellow Banksian rose and the passion fruit with
its splendid scarlet flower, climbed and hung in luxurious festoons.
Some of the villas possessed gardens filled with beautiful flowers,
including camelias, azaleas, spirœas, and many others only to be found
in conservatories in England. Everywhere in the province of Auckland
flowers of all kinds not only grow but flower most luxuriantly, and the
lover of floriculture can indulge his hobby to the full.




CHAPTER IX.

_A SALE BY AUCTION._


It does not often fall to my lot to do shopping--one reason being
that my wife is fond of doing it herself, and another that I detest
the occupation. It happened, however, a few mornings after our Mount
Eden trip, that some mutton chops were required, and as I was going
into the town, my wife asked me to purchase three or four. To avoid
the possibility of forgetting my commission, I headed straight for the
flashiest-looking butcher's shop in Queen Street, gave my order, and
on receiving the chops handed half-a-crown to the shopman, who to my
intense surprise returned me a two-shilling piece.

Four fine mutton chops for sixpence! Digest this information, my
home readers, and then come out here if you like, and digest the
three-halfpenny chops--they are every bit as good as English ones, and
one-fifth of the money.

Strolling down Queen Street with my purchases done up in a neat
parcel, I was nearly knocked over by a man who suddenly rushed out
of a doorway with a gigantic bell in his hand, which he commenced
ringing violently. "What is the matter now?" thought I. "Can this be an
opposition form of religion to the Salvation Army, in which the bell
takes the place of the drum?" Determining to fathom the mystery of
the man with the bell, I stationed myself as near to him as possible
without running a risk of being rendered deaf for life, and watched
events. Nobody appeared to take much notice of the performance, but
I saw people from time to time entering the doorway from which the
bellringer had emerged. "No doubt," I thought, "some kind of service is
about to be held;" and I determined when the bell stopped to form one
of the congregation. People were now flocking in pretty fast, and the
bellman showed symptoms of fatigue, though he stuck to his work with
all the ardour of a religious fanatic. At last the bell conquered the
man, and entering the doorway I found myself in a large and rather dark
room, along one side of which all sorts of articles of furniture were
arranged. On a small raised platform with a rail in front, to which a
desk was attached, stood a gentleman whom I immediately saw was not
a parson, but an auctioneer, for in his hand he carried his baton of
office--a small ivory hammer. Round him were crowded about one hundred
shabbily dressed persons, a large proportion of whom were Jews. Just as
I entered the auctioneer rapped sharply with his mallet on the desk in
front of him and spoke as follows:--

"Gentlemen, I have to-day to offer you some of the choicest articles
of furniture that have ever come under my hammer, and I will but
express the hope that you have brought with you plenty of money to
buy with, and plenty of pluck to bid with, and proceed to business.
Jim, move that chest of drawers forward, so that the gentlemen
can see it. There, gentlemen, what do you say to that? a piece of
furniture that would give a distinguished appearance to the meanest
bedchamber--best cabinetmaker's work too. Shall we say five pounds for
the chest of drawers? What, no bidders? Well, start it at what you
like--say ten shillings for this magnificent piece of furniture--twelve
shillings--fourteen shillings--one pound bid in two places--this
remarkably handsome specimen of cabinetmaker's work going for one
pound--twenty-five shillings bid," &c. &c., until it was finally
knocked down for fifty shillings. The next thing disposed of was a
clock, and then a sewing-machine was put up, which was just the thing I
knew my wife wanted.

"Gentlemen," said the auctioneer, "the sewing-machine I now have
to offer to you is the property of a widow lady in distressed
circumstances. I will with your permission read a letter I received
from her at the time the machine was forwarded to me, and I am
confident that you will sympathise with this poor bereaved lady, who
has not only had the misfortune to lose her husband, but is now,
alas! about to lose her sewing-machine!" He then read the letter, the
contents of which I have forgotten, though I recollect it stated that
the machine was a "Wheeler and Wilson" in good order.

"Gentlemen," continued the auctioneer, "I am sure the letter I have
just read must have excited feelings of compassion in each manly
breast. Show it by bidding freely for the widow--or rather, I mean
for the widow's sewing-machine. Shall we start it at a pound? What!
no bid at a pound? Where are your bowels of compassion, gentlemen?
Well, say ten shillings--ten shillings for a 'Wheeler and Wilson'
sewing-machine--fifteen shillings for this splendid piece of
mechanism--sixteen shillings offered--sixteen shillings for a beautiful
widow's sewing-machine--seventeen shillings offered--eighteen shillings
in two places for the widow--nineteen shillings--in perfect working
order--one pound offered for this beautiful machine of a lone widow in
good working order one pound two and six offered--any advance on one
pound two and six?"

"One pound five!" I shouted; and the second after down came the hammer,
and the machine as my property. It was moved away by Jim into a little
sideroom, and the auctioneer took down my name.

I went to inspect my purchase, and to my disgust found it would not
move, and also discovered it was not a "Wheeler and Wilson" at all.
Catching sight of Jim, who was no other than the performer on the bell,
I said--"Look here, my man, this is not a 'Wheeler and Wilson' machine
at all, and it is all rusty and won't work!"

"Can't help it, sir," replied Jim. "When you buys at auctions, you buys
for weal or woe!"

"Oh! the wheel's right enough, and there is no question about the
whoa," I sarcastically remarked, "for it won't move an inch; but I
will not pay for it; it's not a 'Wheeler and Wilson,' as the auctioneer
stated!" and in a state of righteous indignation I strode out of the
place, leaving my chops unwittingly behind me.

There are eight or nine of these rooms, or marts, in Queen Street, and
the system of selling all sorts of things daily by auction gives a
sort of Cheap Jack air to the thoroughfare. Surely, if this method of
disposing of goods of all descriptions is necessary to the happiness of
the good citizens of Auckland, some side street might be selected in
which the business could be carried on, and the peace and dignity of
the principal thoroughfare in the city left undisturbed.




CHAPTER X.

_THE FAITHLESS MARY ANN._


One evening, shortly after my adventures in the auction room, the
servant girl we had brought from England with us asked my wife's
permission to go out for an hour or two. This was readily granted, and
no more was thought of the matter until ten o'clock came, and with
it no sign of Mary Ann. She had promised to return by nine, and was
usually fairly punctual. We sat up waiting until eleven, wondering what
could have happened, and then, deciding to give her up for the night,
retired to bed.

On the following morning there was still no sign of the girl, so I
hurried down to the police station to ascertain if the inspector could
assist me to obtain tidings of her. An interview with the sergeant in
charge proved to me conclusively that Mary Ann as a speculation in
servant girls was an utter failure, resulting in a dead loss to me
of £50. He told me the police could do nothing unless a charge of a
criminal nature was entered. I produced a document stamped a Somerset
House, in which the girl agreed to remain in my service for three years
at a specified rate of wages, on condition of my paying for her outfit
and passage, and assured the sergeant that I had fulfilled my part of
the agreement in every particular, giving her a most complete outfit
and paying for a saloon passage. He, however, immediately floored my
hopes in the document by telling me that no agreement of the kind
signed in England was binding in the colony, and that to have made it
so it should have been again signed before witnesses on reaching New
Zealand.

"No doubt," he said, "your servant acquainted herself with this fact,
and has run away in order to secure the high wages to be obtained in
the colony, though possibly there may be a sweetheart in the case."

I assured him I did not think the latter at all likely, as one reason
for her selection was her excessive plainness, which we considered
sufficient to keep every man in New Zealand at a safe distance.

He remarked that she must indeed be a "rum 'un" to look at, if
she could not find a chap in New Zealand, for they weren't very
particular; and regretting that he could not assist me, the interview
came to an end, and I returned home in the hopes of learning some
tidings there of the truant.

Nothing, however, had been heard of her, though my wife had made a
discovery in connection with her box, which at first sight appeared
full of clothes, a waterproof cloak lying at the top. On removing this
cloak, however, pieces of sacking and old rags were disclosed, and
proved its sole contents.

Mary Ann had evidently been taking away her things by degrees, carrying
something away, probably, whenever she had had an evening out; and
in case her box might be inspected, had kept it apparently full of
things by stuffing in old rags under cover of the waterproof cloak. Oh!
faithless Mary Ann. Your artfulness exceeded your ugliness, and our
credulity exceeded both!

I trust the experience narrated above may be of use to persons bringing
servant girls out from the old country, and will show the necessity of
getting an agreement signed as soon as the colony is reached.

My readers will probably agree with me that the New Zealand law as
expounded by the police sergeant is a most absurd and one-sided one,
placing the master altogether in the servant's hands, as he has to find
the money for her passage, and probably, as in my case, for her outfit
as well, while he has only her word to rely on in return. It is not,
however, the only law in New Zealand that requires alteration.

We were now servantless, and until we could arrange about extraneous
help it became necessary to investigate and to undertake those
operations which comprise the duties of a general servant. My wife
assumed of course the lead, and I seconded her to the best of my
abilities--cooking, bed making, floor sweeping, chair dusting, fire
lighting, potato peeling, and many other accomplishments of which up to
that date we had had only a sort of vague conception, were now brought
prominently under our notice, and became to us terrible realities.

I advertised in the _Herald_ and _Star_ newspapers for a servant
girl, and several responded, but none proved suitable, the wages
asked averaging from twelve to sixteen shillings per week. Two, but
lately arrived in New Zealand, called together one morning. My wife
interrogated them. Neither knew anything of cookery, could not wash,
and had very dim notions of a housemaid's duties.

"Why, you could not have been getting more than eighteenpence a week
each in England?" my wife exclaimed.

"Perhaps not," one of them returned impudently; "but we ain't come
all this way across the sea for sich wages as them. We wants twelve
shillings a week, and a hevening hout when we likes, and neither on us
won't go nowhere for no less."

Further questioning after the delivery of this ultimatum was
superfluous, and my wife hastened their departure.

Servant girls, or "helps," as they prefer to be called, have a nice
time of it at present in New Zealand. They demand extortionate wages,
and dictate almost entirely their own terms. No character is ever
demanded when application for a situation is made; to ask for one would
probably bring the interview to an abrupt end. Latterly, Lady Jervois,
the wife of his Excellency the Governor, has shown a great interest in
a capital institution called the "Girls' Friendly Society," with which
none but girls of good character are connected; and if ladies would
make up their minds only to take girls through this Society, a very
different class of servants would eventually become established in New
Zealand. We at last succeeded in securing the services of a married
woman for the daytime only, and were again fairly comfortable.




CHAPTER XI.

_MY INTRODUCTION TO KAIPARA._


One evening, about three weeks after my return from Cambridge, a hansom
cab drew up at our door, and from it descended my bearded friend of
the Cambridge hotel. I introduced him to my wife, to whom, when he was
comfortably seated, with a refreshing beverage before him, he gave a
glowing description of the Kaipara district.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, with fervour, "when the time comes, as come it
surely will, when people will exercise their own judgments, and not be
led away by flaming puffs in the newspapers, or by extravagant reports
made in the interest of land companies, then the North Kaipara will
assume its proper position in New Zealand, and be known throughout the
length and breadth of the land as the Eden of the North! You think me
over enthusiastic, no doubt; but wait until your husband has returned
from his visit, and he will be just as enthusiastic as I am."

"But do you think he will be able to get work to do there?" questioned
my wife.

"Could not have a better chance. Sure to drop into the county
engineership. Just the man they want. Any amount of work to be
done--bridges, roads, and that sort of thing to be made; and, by
the by, I am going to start a fish-preserving industry--a grand
scheme--thousands of pounds to be made at it; got hold of a German
preparation that will preserve anything. Have a partner in the Waikato
district who has arranged sale for any amount of fish down there. I'm
taking up a lot of tubs and German preparation to the Kaipara with me.
If you settle up there, I'll make your husband manager until county
engineership turns up."

And so it was determined that I should spend a visit of a week's
duration in the Northern Kaipara, and examine the property that was for
sale. My portmanteau was therefore once more brought into requisition,
and on the following Monday afternoon we took our seats in the train
for Helensville, the terminus of the Northern line, from whence a
steamer would convey us to our destination.

The railway journey was decidedly uninteresting, the line passing
through some most dreary looking country, which became more
uninviting as we neared Helensville, a township only impressive by
its unsightliness. It stands on a river whose discoloured waters run
between two banks of mud.

"Surely my bearded friend has been indulging in unlimited quantities
of the colonial amusement known as 'gassing,'" I thought; and feeling
very much tempted to return to Auckland, I expressed my opinion to my
companion pretty freely.

"I fully expected some remarks of the kind--fully expected them," he
replied. "That wretched journey to Helensville is in a great measure
responsible for so little being known of the North Kaipara. People come
up as far as here, and are so disgusted that they turn back. Wait,
however, till we have crossed the Kaipara Harbour, and then give me
your opinion. I fancy it will have undergone a change, sir. Yes; I
_rather_ fancy so. All I ask you is to wait."

We slept that night at an hotel near the railway station, and were
aroused from our slumbers about three o'clock in the morning, and told
to "hurry up," as the boat was ready to start. After hasty ablutions,
therefore, we struggled into our clothes, and speedily transferred
ourselves to the deck of the _Kina_, a screw steamboat of fifty-three
tons register, which was making noise enough with her horrible whistle
and horn for a two thousand tonner.

We steamed away between the mud banks, which gradually widened out, and
at last disappeared altogether as the Kaipara Harbour was reached. This
we crossed in about two hours, and steered for one of the many armlets
of this inland sea, which intersect the Kaipara district in so peculiar
a manner.

The formation of the Northern Kaipara is indeed remarkable, and looks
as though the land at some distant period had cracked and opened from
the harbour in different directions, allowing the sea to rush in and
form the beautiful creeks which everywhere abound. While crossing the
harbour, my opinion, as prophesied by my companion and guide, began
to undergo a change. The scenery there was very pretty; but when we
were fairly in the armlet, which leads with many windings and turns to
Pahi and Matakohe, I became thoroughly charmed. The virgin forests
were there true enough--the native trees reaching to the very water's
edge, with their hanging branches kissing its placid surface. Ferns in
numberless variety--ranging from the gigantic tree fern with stem of
twenty feet down to the dainty maiden hair, together with Nikau and
cabbage palms--fringed the banks, and mingled with the darker green of
the pohutukawa and other trees: at times bold grass-crowned bluffs of
sand or lime stone met our view, giving place again to lovely little
bays with bright shelly beaches and grassy slopes: ever and anon on
either shore one caught glimpses of neat wooden houses, peeping out
of nests of pine and gum trees, and surrounded by green fields of
waving manuka--a background of high forest-covered hills completing the
picture.

I was enraptured. After my recent experience of New Zealand scenery
it appeared to me perfection, and I was prepared fully to indorse my
companion's remark that the North Kaipara was a place worth living in.

The water teemed with fish, which were jumping in every direction,
while birds of various kinds, including duck, teal, shags, eel-hawks,
and flocks of godwit and red-shanked plover, added further life to the
scene.

At last the township of Pahi--where my friend resided--was reached, and
on the steamer mooring to the wharf we landed.

I was most hospitably entertained for a couple of days, and introduced
to many of the settlers residing in the locality; and on the third day
a visit to the gentleman with whom my companion had arranged I should
spend a short time was undertaken. We left Pahi in a flat-bottomed
punt, about fifteen feet long, painted black, and possessing an
uncomfortable resemblance to a coffin with the lid off. The forward
thwart, in which I noticed a split, was pierced for a mast; there was
a seat about the centre of the boat for the rower, and another in the
stern. Two large tubs and a package containing the German preserving
preparation occupied the fore part of the cranky concern, while our
portmanteaus were placed in the stern, and with a pair of sculls
and a broken oar, to which a small sail was attached, completed the
equipment. With some misgiving I stepped in, and we pushed off.

"Are you going to row?" I asked.

"Oh no, we'll sail--rowing is a waste of labour when you've got any
wind," replied my companion, as he adjusted the stump of the oar in the
hole in the damaged thwart. "You sit on the weather gunwale to keep her
trim, and we shall be across in no time," he continued, seating himself
in the stern, and steering by means of a scull.

We found a pretty strong breeze blowing when we got well off the land,
but the punt sat stiff enough with my weight on the weather gunwale,
and we were going along at a grand rate, when an ominous crack was
heard, and over went mast and sail on our lee-side as the damaged
thwart gave way, whilst down went the weather gunwale with me on it. We
did not upset, but we took in a good deal of water, and the bottom of
my coat and a portion of my trousers were saturated. My friend, after
an ineffectual attempt to reinstate the mast, applied himself to the
oars, with the remark that "it was confounded bad luck," and in a short
time we landed in a remarkably pretty bay with a white shelly beach.

My friend's friend, Mr. M----, was there to meet us, and received me
most kindly, saying he was extremely happy to make my acquaintance, and
hoped I would stay with him as long as I could. He promised to give me
some fishing, flat fish spearing, and pig hunting, and to take me to
see the property to be sold, which, it appeared, belonged to my bearded
friend's brother-in-law. I thanked him heartily, and at the same time
expressed my fear that I had been guilty of considerable coolness in
thus taking his house by storm, adding, "My friend here, however, must
share the blame with me."

"Oh! you don't know us up here, or you would never trouble your head
about the matter: we're only too delighted to see you, and will do our
utmost to make your visit an enjoyable one," returned my host; and
thus commenced an agreeable acquaintance, which, I am happy to say,
continues to the present time.

Following him up a steep path winding in and out among high bushes of
New Zealand flax, cabbage palms, fir, acacia, peach, and loquat trees,
the house was reached, at an elevation of some sixty feet above sea
level, and I was speedily placed on a friendly footing with my host's
family, which consisted of his wife, five children, and a governess.

In pleasant conversation the evening slipped away, and before we
retired to rest, a programme, embracing a visit to the property for
sale, a wild pig hunt, and a day's fishing, was drawn up.




CHAPTER XII.

_A WILD PIG HUNT._


Next morning, after an ample, and, I may say, luxurious breakfast,
pipes were lighted and a start made for the property to be
inspected--distant about three quarters of a mile--to reach which
another trip on the water had to be undertaken. A punt belonging to my
host was got under weigh, and with two good men at the oars the journey
was quickly accomplished, the latter part of our row being along a bank
shaded by willow and other trees.

We landed on a limestone beach, and a sloping ascent covered with tall
grass brought us to the house. It possessed six rooms, and a passage
running the entire depth, terminating a each end with a door. The
sitting-room and but one bedroom were lined and papered, and the rest
of the house was only in a half finished state. A verandah ran round
three sides of it, but part of the flooring was wanting: to make the
house comfortable a considerable outlay was required. The outdoor
portion of the property consisted of two orchards, containing together
three hundred and sixty fruit trees. In one of them were a number of
well-grown peach trees covered with blossom, together with some orange,
lemon, and other sub-tropical trees. The second orchard--about two
acres in extent--was filled with apple and plum trees three or four
years old. A grass paddock of fifteen acres enclosed by a wire fence, a
stockyard and pigsties, three or four acres of very pretty bush fenced
in and bordered on one side by the water, and an acre or two of grass
land about the house planted with ornamental trees and flowering shrubs
of various kinds, completed the property, for which four hundred pounds
was asked.

The view of the Kaipara from the verandah was lovely, and altogether I
was extremely pleased with the place, though it was evident that the
aid of a carpenter and painter would be required to make the house
habitable. I determined, therefore, to think the matter over well and
to ascertain the cost of completing the house before making any offer.

The inspection over, we returned in the punt, and after lunch strolled
over part of my host's farm of between four and five hundred acres. On
the next day a pig hunt in the bush was arranged, in which Mr. C----,
a sporting bachelor residing in the neighbourhood, was invited to
participate. My bearded friend did not accompany us. We started about
eleven in the morning, my host carrying a gun, Mr. C---- an axe and
a butcher's knife, and myself a tomahawk. Three pig dogs--a breed, I
think, between the bull and the collie--followed at our heels, and
after walking about three quarters of a mile we entered the bush.

How comes it, I wonder, that the magnificent New Zealand forests are
stigmatised with the name of "bush." If we turn to the dictionary
we find that bush means a thick shrub. The forests here, however,
are composed principally of gigantic trees, not thick shrubs, and to
give them such an unworthy name is only misleading. No scenery of the
kind in any part of the world can excel in beauty the forests of New
Zealand, and it is much to be deplored that they are not dignified with
a more befitting title.

The ground where we stood was clothed with ferns and mosses in
endless variety. Immense trees stood here and there, whose moss and
fern-covered trunks rose to a height of sixty or seventy feet, and
then broke into a crown of branches which met and interlaced overhead,
forming a canopy through which the light of day but dimly penetrated.

[Illustration: Heavy Bush, Matakohe.]

Nikau palms, tree ferns, and small native flowering trees grew
between these giants, and from their branches hung clusters of lovely
white clematis, bush lawyers, supplejacks, and other climbing plants.
Although it was blowing freshly when we entered, not a breath of wind
could now be felt, nor a sound heard, except the glorious deep note
of the Tui--or parson bird--the harsh cry of the New Zealand parrot,
and the gentle cooing of the pigeon. About us fluttered numbers of the
bushman's little feathered friends--the fantails--spreading their large
white fan-shaped tails as they darted hither and thither, and flew
fearlessly within two feet of us. It seemed almost sacrilege to disturb
the beautiful solemnity, but we had come to hunt wild pigs, and hunt
them we must. My new sporting acquaintance was impatient, so away we
went, the dogs heading us, and disappearing out of sight. We wandered
on for some time in silence, listening for the dogs. At last one gave
tongue, and we hastened in its direction; again the sound faintly
rose, and shortly afterwards, further to our right, a distant noise of
yelping, barking, and grunting reached our ears.

"Come along! they have got a pig bailed up!" cried Mr. C----
excitedly, as he plunged out of sight in the thick undergrowth, quickly
followed by my host and myself.

I found rapid bush travelling by no mean easy of accomplishment. At
one moment my legs were caught in a supplejack, from which I would get
clear, only to find myself firmly hooked by the claw-shaped thorns of
the bush lawyer; then after a desperate struggle and many scratches
would escape from its clutches, to become entangled the next minute in
a bunch of Mangi-mangi, a fine wiry-stemmed creeper, which hangs in
clusters from the trees.

I ascertained afterwards that my companions carried pocket knives, and
cut away the obstacles as they presented themselves. Being heavily
handicapped by my inexperience, I arrived at the scene of action a bad
third, though in time to see the _coup-de-grâce_ given by my host to a
small pig which one of the dogs had seized by the ear while the other
two were barking a chorus of approval.

The animal being pronounced a good subject for discussion at the dinner
table, was dressed on the spot by my two companions, and hung up in a
tree with a piece of flax--a capital substitute for a rope--to await
our return. A fresh start was then made, and the raid against the pigs
prosecuted with vigour. The dogs seemed delighted with their success,
and anxious to secure fresh laurels. In a short time a more open part
of the forest was reached, and here the dogs started three large boars,
which came tearing through the trees with bristles erect. A bullet from
my host's gun slightly wounded one of them, and he turned and charged
towards us, grinding his tusks in his rage. To reach us he had to cross
a small gully with steep banks, and this he was no sooner in than a dog
had him by each ear. He succeeded in ripping one, but the other held on
bravely, and a crack on the head with the tomahawk finished the boar's
career. He was too big and coarse for eating, so we left his body where
it fell, and satisfied with our sport, turned for home, carrying to
the edge of the bush the carcass of our first victim, which we tied on
a fence, and our host on reaching the house sent his man back with a
horse to bring it on.

The last day of my visit was devoted to fishing. My bearded friend
assumed command, and under his direction a fire was lit early in the
morning beneath a large copper boiler; a certain proportion of the
preserving powder was introduced in the water with which the copper
was filled, and the mixture allowed to boil, while we sallied forth to
catch the fish.

A net about one hundred yards long was produced by my host, and laid
in the punt, together with two stakes to fasten the ends in the mud.
We put off, and in a couple of hours had captured over a hundred fine
mullet, and as these were sufficient to fill the two tubs, the net was
hauled up, and we returned to the shore. The fish were then packed in
the tubs, the heads fitted on, and the preserving preparation poured
over them through holes afterwards plugged with corks.

The success of the day's fishing decided me to make an offer for the
property I had inspected, and I finally agreed to purchase--a reduction
being made on account of the unfinished state of the house.

Having arranged with a local carpenter to do the necessary work, I
returned to Auckland quite satisfied with my investment.




CHAPTER XIII.

_PURCHASING LIVE-STOCK._


I will not weary the reader with an account of our journey from
Auckland to our new property. As soon as I heard that the house was
ready for occupation, we bade adieu to Parnell, and after a somewhat
tedious journey arrived at the Matakohe Wharf, where a large barge with
two men in it awaited us. Into it all our goods and chattels, together
with ourselves, some fowls, and a retriever pup, were stowed, and after
half an hour's pull we disembarked on the limestone beach in front of
our new dwelling.

The carpenter who had been doing up the house had secured for us
the services of a country girl, who, among other accomplishments,
understood the arts of milking and butter making.

My first care was to purchase a couple of quiet cows.

One I bought from a sanctimonious individual, who assured me the animal
was perfectly docile, stating as a proof that his little daughter was
accustomed to milk her. Having sold me the cow, he expressed himself
anxious as to my spiritual welfare, and preached me a short sermon in
atrocious English on the subject of his own righteousness.

Although the man was leaving the neighbourhood, I felt no hesitation
in taking his word about the amiability of the cow--he seemed so
oppressively pious. She was turned into my paddock, and in a few days
one of my little boys came running breathlessly to me to say that she
had a calf.

I had been advised, when this event took place, to immediately take
the calf away, and I accordingly proceeded to the paddock to do so,
never anticipating any difficulty in the matter. To my surprise and
alarm, however, when I got within about fifty yards of the animal,
she suddenly lowered her head, and came straight for me, her rapid
movements necessitating on my part a most ignominious and hasty
retreat. On reaching safely the other side of the fence, I considered
the matter over, and coming to the conclusion that my new "chumminess"
in the matter of cows and calves must be to blame, sent to request the
assistance of a settler living near. He was unfortunately out at the
time, but a lad who was lodging with him said he would come down.

On his arrival he inquired in supremely contemptuous tones, "What!
can't yer take a calf away?"

[Illustration: The Pious Man's Cow.]

I replied that the mother had protested in so very forcible a manner
against my interfering with her infant that I thought I must have
gone the wrong way to work, and asked him if _he_ could undertake the
business.

To this he briefly responded, "Rather!" and marched off with a
confident air to the scene of action, while I secured a vantage
place outside the fence. No sooner, however, did the pious man's
late cow catch sight of the would-be abductor, than she charged
like a streak of lightning, and I don't believe that that--alas!
no-longer-confident--youth ever before made such good use of his legs.
When he was in safety, and had recovered breath enough to speak, he
gasped out, "If that there cow belonged to me, I'd shoot her!" and
strode off without another word, leaving me in the depths of despair.

Later in the day, the labouring man I had first sent for--a
solemn-looking individual, with a long beard--came down, and when I
related what had occurred, said with a placid and reassuring smile that
he would soon settle matters satisfactorily. Procuring a tea-tree stake
about five feet long, he requested me to follow him into the paddock,
and on the way laid down a plan of attack.

"When I see's a propitchus oppertunity," said he, "I'll con-fūs-cate
the calf; and if the parent animȳle precipices herself on me, as in all
probableness she will, you must fetch her a right down preponderating
blow atween the horns with this here tea-tree stake!"

I did not like my allotted portion of this elegantly worded programme
at all, and suggested that I should do the abduction part, while he
"preponderated" the cow. This being agreed to, we cautiously entered
the arena, and seizing my opportunity--and the calf at the same time--I
retired at a speed that would have completely shamed a New Zealand
express train. I never attempted to look round, but I heard a blow and
a dull thud close behind, and knew something had happened.

When outside the post and rail fence with my burden I breathed once
more, and was delighted to see the settler standing triumphant, stake
in hand, and the cow struggling on the ground. He had "preponderated"
her in the most approved style, and the business was satisfactorily
accomplished.

I thanked him warmly; and foreseeing that a difficulty would probably
arise in the milking of the brute, arranged with him to perform that
office for a time. It was well I did so, for she proved a perfect
"terror."

To milk her it was not only necessary to put her in the bail--an
arrangement which secures the head of the cow in somewhat the same
manner as some of the old-fashioned instruments of punishment used to
secure the head of a man--but it was also necessary to rope both her
hind legs to prevent her from kicking. These operations had to be gone
through night and morning, and caused a great deal of trouble and waste
of time.

No more pious men's cows for me.

The vendor of the other animal did not pretend to possess any excessive
amount of spirituality, and the cow turned out a splendid animal.

I next directed my attention to horseflesh, as I found it impossible
to get about on foot to see the country. I tried several animals, but
could find none in the neighbourhood to suit my fancy.

One evening a man rode in who was anxious to sell the quadruped he
bestrode--a weedy-looking, weak-necked animal, standing about fourteen
hands, decidedly shaky about the knees, and with a swelling on the
off-stifle joint.

"There's a 'oss for you," he began, "choke full of spirits. Just the
animal to suit yer. A regler gentleman's 'oss he is, and no mistake."

I remarked that I feared he would hardly be up to my weight.

"Not up to your weight! Lor' bless you, he'd carry you like a
bird--'e's all 'art, 'e is. My word, you should see 'im junk--'e'd junk
a brick wall down, 'e would."

I had never before come across the word "junk" in connection with
equine accomplishments, but presumed it to be synonymous with "buck,"
and expressed a wish to see the performance.

"Ketch hold of these 'ere eggs then," said he, handing me a basket.
He next proceeded to cut a switch, armed with which he remounted the
"junker," and pulling hard at the reins with one hand, punished the
unfortunate animal with the switch, at the same time digging the spurs
well home.

After pursuing these tactics for a short time, he looked over his
shoulder at me and questioned, "Ain't 'e junking yet?"

"No," I replied, not liking to confess ignorance of the term; "he does
not seem to be 'junking' much."

Another and a heavier dose of whip and spur torture was then
administered, and at last the unhappy quadruped gave a feeble shake
with one hind leg.

"He's junking now a bit, I think," I cried, anxious to stop the
exhibition.

"Oh! that ain't nothink," replied the owner. "Lor' bless you, you
should see 'im junk sometimes; he'd junk a brick wall, 'e would; but 'e
ain't in spirits now."

The latter fact I was fully prepared to corroborate, and may add that
I did _not_ purchase the "junker."

I eventually succeeded in getting suited, and was able to look about
the country.

The tremendously steep grades on the so-called roads astonished me very
much, but the horses bred out here think nothing of them. In the winter
time these roads are veritable bogs in some places, and travelling is
then anything but pleasant. When they become slippery, the horses have
a fashion of putting their feet together, throwing themselves well back
on their haunches, and sliding down the steep inclines. They never
come to grief, and all the rider has to do is to lean well back in the
saddle.

The main road through the county is supposed to be constructed by the
local governing body, called the County Council, which is composed
of representatives from the several ridings or districts forming the
county, each riding electing a councillor every three years.

Too often the sole aim of a councillor is to get as much done as
possible for the road near his own house, and to secure as much
compensation as he can for himself and his friends, therefore almost
useless roads are frequently promoted, and the money frittered away
in their construction and in compensation to the owners of the land
through which they pass.

The main county road here is not yet formed in places, and though
large sums have been expended, there was very little in the way of
solid, substantial work to be seen until the last few months. Matakohe
belonged to the Hobson County Council, which has existed for over ten
years; it now forms part of a new county called the Otamatea.

County Councils have power to levy rates and taxes, and to borrow money
from the Government under certain conditions, and they take care to
exercise all their privileges in these respects.

When the chairman of a County Council is a large employer of labour
and a man of influence, his part of the county generally shows the
best graded and best metalled roads. Besides the County Councils, many
of the ridings--of which Matakohe is one--possess Road Boards, also
empowered to levy rates, and with the money carry out works on branch
roads.

It is very commonly believed that the country would progress far more
rapidly if County Councils were abolished and the different districts
represented solely by Road Boards, which would determine the works
considered most desirable, and draw up half yearly reports to be laid
before a Government engineer, who, after examining into the merits of
the schemes proposed, would finally decide on those most likely to be
beneficial to the county, and which could be undertaken with the funds
in hand.

Enough, however, for the present of County Councils. The Matakoheans
can certainly have no wish to uphold the system, as very little indeed
has been done for their district by the county to which it, until quite
lately, belonged. Its misfortune in this respect may have been due to
its _situation_; it certainly was not due to its size, for Matakohe
formed one of the largest ridings in the county.

It boasts of between forty and fifty private houses scattered over
a somewhat large area; a good-sized public hall where concerts, tea
and prayer meetings, dances and theatrical performances are held from
time to time; a chapel used on alternate Sundays by the Wesleyans and
Church of England people; a cemetery, a Government school-house, a
public library, &c. &c.; three general stores (or shops, as they would
be called in England); a saw-mill, a tremendously long wharf in a
tremendously inconvenient place, and a capital racecourse, here the
Matakohe Racing Club holds an annual meeting.

Horse-racing is one of the great national amusements of New Zealanders,
and there are very few settlements in the Northern Kaipara which do not
number owners of racehorses among their inhabitants.

In England racing is associated with betting, blacklegs, welshers,
suicides, and other disagreeable things: out here, as far as small
country meetings are concerned, it means genuine, honest, legitimate
sport, and should be encouraged, as calculated to improve the breed of
horses in the colony, and to do a great amount of good to the districts
in which the meetings are held.

A sort of betting-machine called the "Totalisator" has indeed been
legalised by the New Zealand Government, but may only be used at race
meetings where prizes of thirty pounds and upwards are given. It
therefore does not affect in any way small meetings like ours, and the
Matakohe Racing Club have no desire that it should.

For the benefit of my readers who are unacquainted with the
betting-machine, I will endeavour to describe the manner in which it
is worked. The intending speculator enters small office and buys his
ticket, or tickets, according to his rashness, and then proceeds to
examine a board on one of the walls of an inner chamber, where are
displayed certain variable numbers arranged in the following manner:--

[Illustration]

The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, represent the starting horses in the
order shown on the Racing Club's card. They may therefore be taken to
stand instead of the horses' names.

In the illustration above seven horses are supposed to be going to run.
The numerals underneath in the squares indicate the number of tickets
invested on each horse, and the top square records the total tickets
sold.

When the investor has consulted his "correct card," and decided on
what horse to place his ticket, he gets it stamped with its number,
and the figure or figures on the board under the selected horse and
those representing the total tickets sold are each moved on one. A few
minutes before the race a bell is rung, and the totalisator closed,
and after the event is decided the total proceeds--less ten per
cent.--are divided among those who have placed their tickets on the
winning horse. Thus in the illustration, supposing No. 6 won, and the
tickets a pound each, the wily individual who placed his money there
would receive ninety pounds; if No. 3 won, each of the five investors
would receive a dividend of eighteen pounds; if No. 1, a dividend of
one pound eighteen shillings and three-pence, and so on. The ten per
cent. deducted from the receipts is divided between the proprietors of
the machine and the Jockey Club; and inasmuch as fourteen or fifteen
thousand pounds generally passes through it at one of the large Racing
Club Meetings, the totalisator will be seen to be a paying concern.
The advisability of taxing it was mooted in Parliament last year; and
as our sage administrators of the law have deemed it right to make the
betting-machine legal, surely they cannot be wrong in taxing it heavily
as a luxury.




CHAPTER XIV.

_A COLONIAL BALL._


We had not been long settled in Matakohe when an invitation to a ball
at Mr. M----'s was received, asking us to go early in the day, as
the tide then suited best, to bring our evening clothes with us, and
to dress there. We accomplished the journey in my punt, for I had by
this time one of my own, and on our arrival at Mr. M----'s found the
household very busy with preparations.

One half the spacious verandah had been closed in with canvas, and
formed a supper room. It was decorated with flags, Nikau palms, ferns,
and flowers with very pretty effect. The other half was to be utilised
as a promenade, and was hung with Chinese lanterns.

As the afternoon advanced, guests began to arrive--some on horseback,
and some by boat. They all brought their evening clothes with them,
not in portmanteaus, but in _flour bags_. It is most surprising to a
new chum to see the manifold uses to which flour bags are put to here.
Besides usually taking the place of portmanteaus, they are made into
aprons, kitchen cloths, dusters, and sometimes even into trousers for
boys. Not long ago I met a lad with a pair on. On one leg, printed in
large red letters, was "Wood silk dressed;" and on the other "Lamb's
Superfine." Almost every one bakes at home in the country, so flour
bags are very plentiful.

Rather late in the afternoon a gentleman arrived in a punt with his
wife. It was nearly low water, and he got stranded in the mud fully a
quarter of a mile from the beach. Finding he could not get the punt
any further, he jumped overboard--sinking immediately nearly up to his
waist--and pushed the punt with his wife in it to the shore. Changing
his clothes in a boat-house on the beach, he shortly after appeared at
the house as though nothing unusual had occurred, and I don't think
considered his adventure worthy of mention to any one.

I have had several mud-larking experiences myself since then, but
have not yet learned to behave with the _sang froid_ displayed by the
gentleman on this occasion.

When the time arrived for donning our dress clothes, I was ushered into
a huge barn standing close to the house, where several washing basins,
brushes and combs, looking-glasses and other toilet necessaries had
been placed in position on tables and boxes. Between thirty and forty
gentlemen, in various stages of dressing, were there, and jokes and
repartee were being bandied about freely. Several of the gentlemen
caricatured in that amusing book, "Brighter Britain,"--written after a
visit of the author to this part of the colony,--were present, and most
of them had already called and made my acquaintance.

The feat of dressing accomplished, and having succeeded in arranging my
tie in some sort of fashion by the aid of a hand-glass and flickering
candle, I proceeded to the drawing-room, from whence already issued the
enlivening strains of one of Godfrey's valses.

The settlers up here, and in the province of Auckland generally, are
most enthusiastic about dancing. Young and old, married and single,
all delight in it, and no opportunity of indulging in a dance is ever
neglected.

Flirtation I have never seen attempted, and conversation indeed is only
sparsely carried on. It is in the dancing itself that the enjoyment is
centred, and to it the attention of both ladies and gentlemen is almost
wholly directed. An anxious expression is ofttimes observable on the
face of a male performer, as though his whole mind was concentrated in
the effort to acquit himself well in the task before him; but though is
countenance depicts no pleasurable emotion, he doubtless enjoys himself
immensely.

On the present occasion dancing was carried on with unrelaxed vigour
until past midnight, when a move was made to the supper room. The inner
man refreshed, dancing was resumed, and day began to dawn before the
party broke up.

The greater part of the ladies slept at the house, though some rode
straight away after donning their riding-habits. The gentlemen, about
forty in number, were accommodated in the barn with beds of soft hay
and rugs.

The ease with which the ladies out here do without the paraphernalia,
considered in England as necessary in preparing for a ball, struck
me greatly at this, my first colonial one. The dressing of a young
lady at home is a big affair, embracing an elaborate costume, an
equally elaborate toilette, hair-dressing, and goodness knows what
all, and concluding generally with an elaborate bill. Out here a
light dress of muslin or some similar material, relieved with a little
ribbon, and hair ornamented with a flower or two, constitutes the
full evening costume of a young lady. She looks quite as nice as her
semi-manufactured rival in England, and there is no prospect of a big
bill for papa in the immediate future to mar her evening's amusement.

The gentlemen are equally negligent. If they have dress clothes, they
put them on; but if they have not, they appear in whatever cut of black
coat they happen to be the proprietors of, and enjoy themselves every
bit as much as their swallow-tailed companions.

Before I left Mr. M----'s residence, he informed me that the
fish-preserving scheme had turned out a failure, and that my bearded
acquaintance had received a letter from his partner in the Waikato,
in which he stated that the fish forwarded in the two tubs had sold
readily at one shilling each, but had made all who partook of them very
ill. "He presumed," he wrote, "that there must be something wrong with
the German preserving preparation," and concluded by stating that as he
had no wish to be apprehended for manslaughter, he must decline to have
anything more to do with the business.




CHAPTER XV.

_THE FORESTS OF NORTH NEW ZEALAND._


With the failure of the German preparation, my hopes of being made
manager to the Fish Preserving Company vanished. I cannot say I had
built much on it, so did not take the matter very deeply to heart.
If the industry had been fairly started, the post of coroner in the
Waikato might have been worth looking after. The ultimatum of the
Waikato partner, however, nipped the business in the bud, and probably
saved some lives.

No prospect of getting professional work had yet shown itself; and the
only post I had succeeded in obtaining was that of correspondent to the
Auckland weekly paper, an appointment of not a very lucrative nature.

Time, however, by no means hung heavily on my hands. There was plenty
to do about my place, which had been much neglected. The weeds were
disputing possession with the fruit trees, and had they been left
undisturbed much longer I think would have gained the day. A peculiar
kind of thistle, called the "cow thistle," grew everywhere luxuriantly,
and docks with roots as thick as a man's arm were abundant.

I became familiarised with hoeing, digging, pruning fruit trees, and
the use of the axe. The latter is a most necessary accomplishment in
this part of the colony, as to the axe every one trusts for his supply
of fuel. When I first attempted to wield it, each blow struck jarred
my hands and arms tremendously, and at the same time made little
impression on the wood; but at last I caught the trick, and am now a
fairly good axeman.

Small tea-tree, or "Manuka," to use the native name, is principally
used for firing. The wood is hard and close-grained, and gives out
a great amount of heat. It grows in large and dense patches called
"scrub." The trees in the scrub generally stand about a foot apart, run
up straight for some twelve feet, and then break into a small bunch of
branches. If tea-tree happens to be isolated, it becomes a spreading
tree of fair dimensions, though it never grows sufficiently large to be
employed much in carpentering. It is always more or less in flower--a
beautiful small white flower--with which at some seasons of the year
it is completely covered. Not only is tea-tree universally used for
firewood, but it supplies the material of which most of the fences up
here are composed, and is preferred to any other wood for wheel-spokes.
It is, therefore, one of the most useful natural productions of the
colony.

North New Zealand boasts of a great variety of splendid timber, of
which the Kauri pine (_Dammara australis_) takes the lead. These giants
of the forest attain a girth sometimes of between forty and fifty
feet, and grow up perfectly straight for sixty or seventy feet before
throwing out branches. They reminded me when I first saw them of the
toy trees with little round stands that used to be sold with boxes
containing wooden animals. If the reader can imagine one of these toy
trees magnified some six or seven hundred times, he will have a fair
idea of what a Kauri looks like. Its foliage resembles somewhat that
of the ornamental shrub known as the "Monkey plant," the leaves being
stiff and glossy.

The Kauri is used more extensively than any other New Zealand wood
for building purposes. It is a magnificent timber, and if properly
seasoned, neither shrinks nor warps. Very few of the bush owners,
however, can afford to let timber lie idle for any length of time, and
therefore the majority of the Kauri used is not seasoned, and shrinks
very much both ways. So much is this the case, and so unreliable is
the timber considered through insufficient seasoning, that a clause
has been inserted in the specification for the New Auckland Custom
House, now about to be erected, which states that Baltic timber, and
not Kauri, is to be used for sashes, architraves, mouldings, &c. As
Kauri is very easily worked, and admits of a splendid polish, it is
greatly to be regretted that with such timber in the province the
architect should have deemed it necessary to specify Baltic timber. It
is nevertheless true, however; and the cause may be summed up in six
words, "High wages and want of capital," the great bane of New Zealand,
felt not only in the timber trade, but in all other industries that
have been established.

In getting out the Kauri, an immense and at times reckless destruction
of young trees takes place, and for this reason the time is not far
distant when the Kauri pine will be a tree of the past.

From an official report of Mr. T. Kirk, F.L.S., Chief Conservator of
State Forests--for a copy of which I am indebted to the courtesy of
Mr. S. P. Smith, Assistant Surveyor-General--it appears that the total
extent of available Kauri forest now existing does not exceed two
hundred thousand acres, and placing the average yield at the high rate
of fifteen thousand superficial feet per acre, the Kauri at the present
demand will be exhausted in twenty-six years. If, however, the demand
increases in the same ratio as it has shown during the last ten years,
it will be worked out in fifteen years. When we consider that the Kauri
timber trade is one of the mainstays of the North Auckland district,
this is a most alarming statement. The export trade amounted last year
to the value of £136,000--more than five times as much as the timber
trade of all the rest of the colony put together; and it is difficult
to see what is to take its place when the last Kauri has been felled.
In Mr. Kirk's report no allowance is made for probable loss by bush
fires, which in the dry weather are constantly breaking out, and which
are generally ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to the carelessness of
gumdiggers or to vindictiveness. Fires in the heavy Kauri bush last a
long time when they once get hold, and do an immense amount of damage.
There is a Kauri bush at the present time on fire in this riding of
Matakohe which has been alight for the last five or six months. A large
quantity of timber must be destroyed in this way, and the contingency
of fire further lessens the probable duration of the Kauri forests of
North New Zealand.

The task of felling and getting the timber out of the bushes is a
difficult and dangerous one. The country north of Auckland, where Kauri
abounds, is usually very broken, and seldom admits of a tramway being
laid down to carry the logs on. When the timber is on high ground, the
usual method adopted is to cut the logs into suitable lengths with
cross-cut saws, move them by means of timber jacks and immense teams of
bullocks to the brow of a convenient incline, and let them slide down
a well-greased shoot composed of young Kauri trees, a great number of
which are thus annually destroyed.

If the bush happens to be on the borders of the Kaipara, the logs are
placed behind booms until enough are collected to make a raft. If,
however, it is situated some little distance from deep water, the logs
are laid in the bed of an adjacent creek, higher up in which a dam is
formed and the water stored. When sufficient logs are collected, and
sufficient water stored behind the dam, the sluices are opened, and
the logs washed down to the Kaipara, where they are gathered, chained
together, and towed to their destination.

Ordinary Kauri timber presents, when polished or varnished, a
wavy appearance, and is darker in some places than in others; but
occasionally Kauri is mottled, and when this is the case it is very
valuable for veneering purposes, being worth from £3 to £5 per hundred
superficial feet, while the average price of ordinary Kauri is only ten
shillings per hundred feet.

The mottling is sometimes caused by the tree throwing out an excessive
number of branchlets, and at others by a sort of disease in which the
too rapid development of cellular tissue prevents the proper expansion
of the bark, and small portions become enclosed in the sap wood, and
form the dark mottlings. Mottled Kauri trees are usually found in rocky
situations.

The total area covered by forest in the North Auckland provincial
district--of which the Kaipara forms a part--is estimated by the
chief surveyor to be seven million two hundred thousand acres, about
one million six hundred and seven thousand acres being held by the
Crown. One peculiar feature in these forests is that while they possess
several trees--among others the Kauri--not to be met with in any other
part of New Zealand, they still contain all the trees found elsewhere
in the colony.

The Puriri (_Vitex littoralis_), sometimes called the New Zealand oak,
is perhaps next in importance to the Kauri, on account of its great
durability. It is principally used for railway sleepers, house blocks,
framings of carriages, and fencing posts. It makes excellent furniture,
and is said to equal the English oak in strength and durability.
Sometimes the tree grows to a height of twenty feet in the trunk, and
Puriri logs have been cut nine feet in diameter.

The Kahikatea (_Podocarpus dacrydioides_), a white pine, is a
magnificent-looking tree, often reaching a total height of one hundred
and fifty feet, with a barrel clear of branches seventy-five feet long.
Its timber is highly valued for the inside lining of houses.

The Totara (_Podocarpus totara_) is employed in making wharf piles,
telegraph posts, sleepers, and in the construction of houses and
furniture. It occasionally grows to a height of seventy feet or so,
perfectly straight, without a knot or branch, and is used by the
natives for making canoes, some of which, seventy feet in length, have
been hollowed out of Totara logs. It is the only wood that successfully
withstands the ravages of the _Teredo navalis_.

The Pohutukawa (_Metrosideros tomentosa_) is a very handsome tree,
usually to be found growing near the water's edge. At Christmas time it
is covered with beautiful red blossoms, and on that account is called
New Zealand holly. The trunk is very hard, and is invaluable for knees
and timbers of ships and boats.

The Rata (_Metrosideros robusta_) has until lately been considered by
most people to be altogether a parasite, but it has now been proved
beyond doubt that its seed is deposited by birds, or the wind, in the
fork of a tree, where it germinates and sends forth two or three roots
which creep down the trunk to the ground. These roots, as they grow,
press on the supporting tree, until they cause its death, and the Rata
then stands alone. The wood is very hard, and when not too twisted, may
be split into very good fencing rails.

The Rimu (_Dacrydium cupressinum_) is a very stately pine, with
drooping branches like the weeping willow. It grows up straight for
about sixty feet, with a slightly tapering barrel some two or three
feet in diameter at the ground. The grain of this wood is red, streaked
with black, and it makes splendid furniture, balustrades and railings
for staircases, panels for doors, &c.

There are a great many other varieties of trees in the North Kaipara
forests, which, however, I will content myself with stating are most
of them exceedingly beautiful in grain, and should find places of
honour in cabinet and furniture makers' work. In spite, however, of the
beautiful woods at command, the furniture-making trade has made but
little progress in Auckland, and I presume the high price of labour and
want of capital prevent it from being pushed.

The bushman who fells the timber and rolls out the logs receives an
average wage of thirty shillings a week, as well as his food, or,
as it is called here, his "tucker;" the towing charges are high,
and the railway rates from Helensville to Auckland exorbitant; and
so by the time the timber has passed through the mills and left the
furniture-maker's hands, the excessive payments for labour, railway and
towing charges, have made the articles into which it has been converted
so expensive, that the trade is killed.

The annual output of timber in the Auckland district is estimated at
about one hundred million superficial feet, and the larger proportion
is employed in the construction of houses, bridges, &c., in the colony.

Timber houses are a great deal more durable than many people would
imagine: there are some still standing in Auckland--in fairly good
condition--built nearly forty years ago. The mode of erection usually
adopted is briefly as follows. Puriri blocks, sunk in the ground deep
enough to insure a good foundation, and of sufficient length to project
above the surface two or three feet, are set up in rows four or five
feet apart. On these blocks--the tops of which are sawn off perfectly
level with one another--is laid a frame of timber, marking out the
rooms and passage, and on this the superstructure is raised. Instead
of slates or tiles, thin strips of wood, called shingles, split off
small blocks of Kauri, are most commonly used for the roofing, though
corrugated iron sometimes takes their place. In the better class of
house a brick chimney runs through the structure, but in the smaller
and cheaper ones a wide wooden chimney is erected at one end.




CHAPTER XVI.

_THE LABOURING-MAN SETTLER._


I trust the kind reader will excuse the somewhat sudden departure from
my narrative to the forests of North New Zealand, which characterised
the last chapter, and will now also pardon an equally abrupt return to
my humble doings.

When in Auckland I had bought three or four books on colonial fruit
culture, all of which I found, on investigating their contents,
advocated thorough drainage. I therefore made up my mind to attempt
to drain my smaller orchard, and in order to do so successfully,
carefully took the levels, and planned out the drains. I tried digging
them myself, but the work progressed so slowly, and my hands became
so uncomfortably blistered, that I was obliged to call in extraneous
aid, and applied to a labouring man, a settler in the district, for his
assistance. His terms were seven shillings a day, which I with much
reluctance agreed to give. He arrived at the scene of his labour at
eight o'clock on the morning following my interview with him, took a
full hour in the middle of the day for his dinner, and left off work at
five P.M. with a punctuality worthy of a better cause. At the end of
three days he had opened one drain to the required depth; it would take
ten of them to drain the orchard, and they would require, in order to
keep them open, filling up with tea-tree, the cutting and carrying of
which would probably equal the cost of the digging. I therefore came
to the conclusion that draining my orchard would go a good way towards
draining my purse, and determined to abandon the project.

The labouring man, when I informed him of my resolution, said, with a
melancholy air of superior wisdom, "I guessed you'd soon get tired of
it," and appeared quite resigned to his dismissal.

Among the labouring-men settlers (by which expression I mean those
who go out to work at so much a day) there is to be found a type of
humanity quite distinct from any other I have ever met with. Specimens
of this class are sometimes just sufficiently educated to be able to
read and write, and sometimes have no education at all, but still
they believe themselves--truly and earnestly believe themselves--to
be gentlemen. They are to be distinguished by solemn-looking faces,
to which beards are generally attached. They very seldom smile, never
laugh, and always speak slowly and deliberately, often using long words
in wrong places.

This variety of the labouring-man settler delights in being called
by the prefix Mr.----, and it would give him unspeakable joy to
receive a letter addressed Mr.----, Esq. Imported probably into New
Zealand in its early days, he knows little more than the Maori about
the doings of the great world. Yet he is very self-opinionated, and
considers Auckland the finest city in the universe. He does a good deal
of "gassing" in a solemn manner, which inclines a stranger to give
credence to his romances, until their dimensions become too large to
be swallowed. In spite of these little failings, he is steady, honest,
temperate, and his chief fault lies in his believing himself to be what
he is not, and what he never can be. He is a square man continually
trying to fit himself into a round hole, a task impossible for him to
accomplish, while the effort to do so sours is disposition and renders
him melancholy. He either possesses extreme religious views, and is
very bigoted and narrow-minded, or he has no religion of any kind. Of
course he owns land, given him by the Government that brought him out.
He works fairly hard on his own property--harder, I am inclined to
think, than he does when engaged on any one else's; and the fact of his
being a landed proprietor, probably gives him the impression that he
_must_ be a gentleman, and is the cause of all his futile strivings and
unhappiness.

I do not mean for one moment to assert that all the labouring-men
settlers are like the above. There are many who have been soldiers,
sailors, or have followed some occupation, before they settled in New
Zealand, which has given them opportunities of seeing life. Their views
are therefore larger and wider, and they have learnt how to laugh.
Still, in most of the settlements I am acquainted with, are to be found
some examples of the class of settler I have described.

Having abandoned the drainage scheme, I turned my attention to
effecting other improvements, and amongst them built a small pier or
wharf of limestone rock, at the sea end of which I kept my punt, and so
could get away in it as soon as the tide came in, instead of having to
push it over the rough limestone beach.

One day a young Matakohe settler called, and asked me if I would care
to join a small party, to ride out on the following morning to the
Wairoa swamp, to try and destroy a dangerous wild bull that was roaming
about there, and which a few days previously had gored the speaker's
horse, when he was cattle-hunting, he himself only escaping by jumping
into a creek. He also told me there were great numbers of Pūkĕkŏ or
swamp-hens there, and that after despatching the bull, we might be able
to have some Pūkĕkŏ shooting. I at once agreed to join the party, and
that night visions of roaring bulls with distended nostrils, lowered
heads, and erected tails attended my slumbers.

I awoke next morning with a sort of Gordon Cumming feeling about me,
and made preparation for my first day's big game shooting. Armed with
a rifle and fowling-piece, I mounted my horse, and sallied forth to
the place of rendezvous, where our party, four in number, had already
assembled, and after a ride of about nine miles, we reached the edge of
the swamp. Two of the party who had not brought guns, then proceeded on
horseback, to discover the whereabouts of the game, and one of them
dismounted to examine a clump of tea-tree, growing on a high mound
about four hundred yards out on the swamp.

There the animal was, sure enough, and the rash disturber of his peace
had only time to climb a friendly cabbage-tree when he charged.

We could see the man in the tree, but no sight of any animal, and
wondered what he could be doing up there, until he shouted out that he
was bailed up by the bull. Upon receiving this intelligence we sallied
forth to endeavour to persuade the beast to raise the siege, and the
mounted settler, by cracking the stock whip which he carried in the
vicinity of the scrub, at last succeeded in getting the bull to come
out on to the open swamp, when I immediately fired and put a rifle
ball through his stomach. Another bullet from a fowling-piece brought
him to the ground, and thus ended my first and only bull hunt--a very
tame affair. If the animal had seen and charged us when we were on foot
on the open swamp, before I handicapped him with a bullet, it would
probably have been quite exciting enough for some of us, but as it
turned out, the bull did not give half the sport the pious man's cow
afforded, when her calf was taken away.

There are great numbers of wild cattle in the back country of this
district, and I am told that most exciting adventures at times take
place with them, though I cannot speak from experience.

The two settlers who had not brought their guns, skinned the carcass
of the animal we had shot, and cut off some of the choicest pieces of
its flesh; and while they were so employed, the rest of us went on
the swamp to shoot Pūkĕkŏ, which were there in great numbers. Every
minute or two, as we pushed our way through the tall Raupo grass,
Pūkĕkŏ would rise about thirty yards ahead, and we had some very pretty
shooting, and made a heavy bag. The Pūkĕkŏ belongs undoubtedly to the
same family as the familiar moorhen of the old country. It is, however,
much larger, and is a very handsome bird. The neck, breast, and body
are bright blue, the wings black, and the underneath part of the tail
white. It has a flat red sort of comb or crown on the top of the head,
and red feet. Its flesh is very good to eat in the New Zealand autumn,
but only at that time of year.




CHAPTER XVII.

_KAIPARA FISH._


Although I had been defeated in my scheme of draining my orchards,
I did not on that account give them up in despair, but endeavoured
to improve the condition of each tree by lightly digging round it,
and mulching it with the weeds I had taken off the land. They seemed
all to be growing nicely, and the peaches the first season yielded a
tremendous crop of most delicious fruit; so many indeed had we, that
besides almost living on them ourselves, we fed the pigs with them.
It was a great season everywhere in North New Zealand for peaches,
but since then some sort of blight has universally attacked the older
trees. The why or the wherefore of the disease remains a mystery,
and the matter is greatly exercising the minds of the most eminent
authorities in the colony. All sorts of theories have been put forward,
but no satisfactory solution has been arrived at. One might almost
fancy that some personage possessing mysterious power, and suffering
from too free indulgence in the delicious fruit, had cursed them, as
the Abbot in the Ingoldsby Legends cursed the Jackdaw of Rheims.

Other fruit-trees, both English and sub-tropical, grow and fruit
remarkably well in the North Kaipara, in spite of the fact that not a
single orchard anywhere is drained. If every advantage were given the
trees, what would they not produce!

The climate is eminently suitable to fruit-tree culture, and the slopes
of the undulating hills present everywhere opportunities for planting
snugly sheltered orchards. Fruit-growing ought to become one of the
standard industries of the district; but before that can happen, the
railway charges must be lowered very considerably. The first apple
season after I was settled in Matakohe, I sent a case of splendid
apples down to Auckland to be sold, and the sale just covered the
freight.

The excessive and prohibitive railway charges tend to stop all
enterprise. The railways are supposed to have been constructed to open
up the country, develop its resources, and induce settlement; but as
they are at present managed, it would be absurd to think of starting
any industry, in which they would have to play an important part as
carriers. Cheap railway freights and fares would naturally have a
tendency to enhance the value of the land in the country which came
within their influence, bringing it as it were in closer contact with
the centres of population, and it may therefore be inferred that owners
of suburban estates--which must suffer by country properties being
rendered more marketable--are by no means anxious for any alteration in
the railway tariff, and suburban landowners are a power in the colony.
The time must come, however, when in spite of all opposition, the
freights will be lowered, and the sooner the better for the prosperity
of New Zealand, and for the fruit-growing industry of the Kaipara.
Enough, however, of railway mismanagement.

A settler who understood netting had made me a small fishing-net, and
fish now formed a prominent feature at our table. Fishing wasted a
good deal of time, however, as most of the fish are caught in narrow
channels when the tide is running out, and the punt almost invariably
was left high and dry, and had to remain until the tide flowed. I
always in a day's fishing caught a great many more fish than we
required for our own use, and it occurred to me to enclose a portion of
the beach below high-water mark with a wall, so as to form a miniature
fish-pond to keep the surplus fish in. As the tide flowed a self-acting
valve let the water in, but prevented it from flowing out again when it
ebbed. A lever connected with this valve, allowed me to empty the pond
at pleasure.

[Illustration: My Fish Pond.]

The piscatorial residence--forty-six feet long, twenty-three feet
wide, and five and a half feet deep--being ready for occupation, the
next question to determine, was how to keep the fish alive after
they were caught, until they could be transferred to the pond. To
accomplish this, I made a sort of basket of wire-netting to hang over
the side of the boat and keep the fish in, but it proved a failure, and
I eventually purchased a little punt about six feet long, which had
been built for a boy, but was too cranky to be used with any degree
of safety. In this punt, fitted with a removable canvas cover, and
filled with water, the captured fish were deposited, towed home, and
transferred to the pond, where they soon appeared to be perfectly at
home.

About this time I obtained the services of an able-bodied lad of some
seventeen years, who understood farm work and a little carpentering.
He used to fish for me at times, and caught so many fish that I tried
sending fresh fish down to Auckland for sale there. The journey
occupied, however, the greater part of two days, though the distance
is under a hundred miles, and the fish did not arrive in town in good
condition. If packed in ice, they would of course have kept perfectly
fresh, as they were alive when sent from Matakohe; but I had no
ice-making machine, and therefore was obliged to give the matter up.

I feel confident, however, that the fishery here only wants capital to
develop it, to become one of the great industries of the North Kaipara.
Its land-locked waters swarm with the finny tribe, and can be fished
with impunity in any weather. Fish is by no means a cheap commodity in
Auckland; but the population being small, the market there would soon
be glutted. Sydney, Melbourne, and the other Australian ports, however,
present a grand field for the disposal of the fisherman's spoils,
and were fish sent away alive from here packed in ice, frozen by the
Freezing Company in Auckland, and transported from there to Australia
in ships provided with freezing chambers, I cannot help believing an
immense trade would be done.

[Illustration:

Sketch of Schnapper.

Skull of Schnapper.]

I have seen in the newspaper the price of fish called schnapper, quoted
in the Sydney market at from thirty-six shillings to eighty-four
shillings per dozen. These fish can be caught line-fishing in the
Kaipara, at the rate of sixty or seventy an hour per line of two hooks,
and of an average weight of about 9 lbs. each. The schnapper fisherman
files the barbs off his hooks, that they may readily be extracted
from the fishes' mouths; he also ties the bait securely on; and thus
prepared, can haul the fish in as fast as he likes. The schnapper
has most powerful teeth and jaws, and lives principally on cockles
and mussels, the shells of which it crushes in its mouth without
difficulty. It will, however, take almost any sort of bait, and is by
no means a fastidious eater. The Kaipara waters swarm also with several
other varieties of fish.

[Illustration: Sketch of Lower Jaw of Schnapper, showing double row of
teeth. (About half size.)]

_Mullet_, resembling in appearance the grey mullet of the old country,
but far richer and superior in flavour, are very plentiful during the
summer months. These fish and schnapper are most delicious when salted
and smoked, and may be said to fill the place of the English herring
and haddock. Mullet average about 2 lbs. each in weight, and I have
known one hundred and twenty dozen of them to be netted by two men in a
day up here.

_Patiki_, a fish shaped exactly as the English flounder, but resembling
more nearly in flavour the sole, are here in great numbers, and can be
caught with a net in boat loads.

The _Kahawai_, weighing on the average 5 or 6 lbs., and modelled very
much like the salmon, though finer in the tail, and with spotted sides.
The resemblance unfortunately ends with the shape, for its flesh is dry
and not over palatable. It lives principally on young mullet and Patiki.

The _yellow tail_, a sort of sea bream; a fish called locally the _king
fish_, closely resembling in shape, fins, colour, and scales the fresh
water tench; the _dog fish_, _eels_, and a small fish with a long snout
called the _pipe fish_, complete the list, with the exception of the
_shark_, and a fish called the _Stingarie_, doubtless a corruption of
Stinging Ray. This fish--in form somewhat like the skate, with the
exception that it has a long tail--attains a weight, at times, of about
a quarter of a ton, and possesses a most formidable sting, armed with
sharp-pointed barbs, and from six to eight inches in length, and about
half an inch in width. This sting is situated at the root of the tail,
and lies flat along it. When the fish makes an attack, it elevates its
sting, and runs backwards with great speed at the object of its wrath.
The Stingarie is of a discreet nature, however, and will never make
an attack, unless driven to it. Its principal food, like the Kahawai,
consists of mullet and Patiki.

Oysters and other bivalves, including Pipis (cockles) and escalops,
also abound in the Kaipara. The rough corrugated shelled rock oyster,
spoken of in my second chapter, are very abundant in places; and there
is another kind, a smooth shelled oyster, very like the English native,
which locates itself in deep water, and therefore is seldom met with.

Escalops, I think, must be plentiful, if one may judge by the number
of escalop shells thrown up on the beaches near deep water. To procure
these delicacies a dredge would be necessary, and dredges for shell
fish are as yet unknown in the Kaipara, neither has the trawl net
ever been tried, so it is impossible to say what unknown piscatorial
treasures may yet lie hidden in the unexplored depths of the waters of
our inland sea.




CHAPTER XVIII.

_GODWIT SHOOTING._


Whatever accusations of remissness and lack of zeal and energy may be
brought against the New Zealand Government, no one can assert with
any degree of truth, that the surveys of this part of the country are
neglected by them. Before one surveyor's pegs have had time to commence
to decay, and the lines cut, become grown up with tea-tree scrub, a new
survey is ordered, new pegs are put in, and lines fresh cut. I am told
that the cost of these repeated surveys sometimes exceeds the value of
the land surveyed, and without for a moment supposing that they are
unnecessary or useless, one cannot help thinking that the money spent
in resurveying outlying and comparatively uninhabited districts, would
be more judiciously expended in making good roads in those places that
are already settled.

There have been two surveys at Matakohe over the same ground--or at
any rate in a great measure over the same ground--during the four
years I have lived there. One of the most efficient surveyors on the
Government staff, Mr. J----, was with his party, at this time encamped
on the outskirts of Matakohe, and he and his assistant, Mr. de C----,
called on me, and an acquaintance sprang up which greatly helped to
lessen the dulness of our country life.

Mr. J---- was fond of shooting, and whenever a day could be spared,
we went out together with our guns. When I first became friendly with
him--in April--pheasant shooting had not commenced, so we confined our
attention to the wild fowl, the season for which had already opened,
in consequence of the breeding time having been unusually early. The
Acclimatisation Society has the power to alter the shooting season as
it deems advisable, but the season for both native and imported game,
usually extends from the 1st of May to the end of July. We enjoyed two
or three good days' sport together, but the best I have ever had up
here, was towards the end of April.

On this particular day, Mr. J---- rode in by appointment to have some
godwit shooting, and as soon as the incoming tide reached my landing
wharf, we embarked in my punt with our dogs, guns, luncheon, &c., in
order to have some shooting before the flats became covered. I took
with us one of my boys, a capital hand with the sculls, and his duty
was to paddle the punt as quietly as possible, when we were coming up
to birds, while my friend and myself placed ourselves as well as we
could out of sight.

We first steered for a point about a quarter of a mile off, on which
we could distinguish birds of some description. Mangrove grew in the
shallow water off this point, and these I was careful to make use
of, as a screen, as long as possible. As we neared the last one, I
handed my boy the sculls, and crouched down in the stem, while Mr.
J---- followed my example in the stern. Presently the last shelter was
passed, and we came in full sight and range of a large flock of godwit.
Up they rose to seek safety in flight, but the music of our guns rang
out, feathers flew in all directions, and the dogs had their work cut
out for some time. We dropped fifteen and a half brace with the three
shots we got in; and when they were all bagged, we hoisted the sail, as
a nice breeze was blowing, and shaped our course for a point called the
Tent Rock, where I knew godwit, red-shanked plover, and other birds
loved to congregate.

When within about a quarter of a mile, the sail was lowered, my boy
again took the sculls, and Mr. J---- and myself laid up in the punt.
In spite, however, of all our precautions, we only secured there a
brace of red-shanked plover, a black duck, and a couple of New Zealand
sandpipers. We now sailed away with a leading breeze for an island
lying about three miles distant, which is only covered at high water,
adding a couple of duck and a brace and a half of red-shanked plover to
our bag on the way. On the island we had some grand sport, as the tide
was by this time over all the flats, and the birds did not like leaving
the only feeding place remaining to them.

After bagging nine or ten brace of godwit and plover we turned for
home, quite satisfied with our day's shooting, and anxious to fetch my
place before the tide had receded from the beach. This we succeeded
in doing, and had barely reached the house with our load of birds
when rain began to fall, and was soon descending in torrents. As the
next day was Sunday, and of course a day of rest for the surveyors,
we easily persuaded Mr. J---- to sleep at our house. All the evening
and through the night the downpour continued, and on Sunday morning,
when it was still raining hard, Mr. J---- told me he felt rather
anxious about his men, as they were encamped close to a stream in a
valley, with high hills on either side. His anxiety turned out to
be well founded, for on that Saturday night, as Mr. de C----, the
assistant-surveyor, and the three men were fast asleep, the stream
overflowed its bank, and the water gradually rising at last washed
their tents away, and they awoke to find the flood level with their
beds, and a bitterly cold rain pelting down on them.

A surveyor's camp bed is constructed usually as follows:--

Four tea-tree stakes for legs are driven well in the ground, and cut
off at a convenient height above it. A couple of sacks with holes cut
in each corner of the bottom are then stretched on two six foot stakes
passed through the holes, and these stakes are nailed securely on the
top of those driven in the ground, thus forming the bed, on which is
laid either dried ferns or Mongi-mongi as a mattress. The tents that
were washed away were recovered uninjured, and beyond the loss of a tin
pot or two, and the wetting of some boots and clothes, no great damage
was done, as Mr. J---- had luckily planted his tent, containing the
instruments, maps, &c., on high ground beyond the reach of flood.

Being flooded out, I am told, is by no means an uncommon occurrence
in the lives of Zealand Government surveyors. Compelled to camp near
running water, as of course they cannot spare the time to sink wells,
and have no water tanks, sudden floods often overtake even the most
wary. Indeed, being flooded out, working up to the knees in mud
and water, swimming rivers, climbing almost impossible mountains,
subsisting on the pith of the Nikau palm when provisions run out and
cannot be renewed, rheumatic pains, fevers and agues, may be all said
to fall within the usual experience of the New Zealand Government
surveyor, and to become qualified to enjoy these experiences a special
training is required, and a stiff examination has to be passed. There
is no guarantee of the permanency of the appointment, and no retiring
pensions are granted.

A young man may waste several of the best years of his life studying
for the post of Government surveyor, which he may obtain only to be
dispossessed of on the plea of retrenchment. The colony being so
young, presents few openings for educated men to make a start in life.
I sincerely trust, however, it will have something more promising to
offer the rising generation when their time comes to go forth into the
world.




CHAPTER XIX.

_THE KAURI GUMDIGGER._


I am going to commence this chapter by confessing that I find myself
in a difficulty. All my endeavours to secure an appointment had proved
abortive. I am anxious to stick to fact, and at the same time to
interest my reader, but how can it be done, if I simply relate the
details of my humdrum life as a country settler!

Three or four chapters back, I rushed off from my narrative into the
New Zealand forests, and then apologised, but I can't keep perpetually
apologising, and to prevent the reader from closing my book in disgust,
I must ask him to hold me excused if I frequently bolt off the even
course of my clodhoppery existence into subjects which are more
interesting.

I have already briefly described one of North Auckland's greatest
industries--the Kauri timber trade--an industry, alas! of destruction,
and one whose days are numbered. There is another great industry
which also owes its existence to the Kauri, both of the present and of
bygones times. I mean the Kauri gum trade. This being the land of the
glorious Kauri pine for all ages, of course forms the "Tom Tiddler's"
ground of the happy-go-lucky gumdiggers, of whom there are at the
present time over ten thousand in the North Auckland district. About
£350,000 worth of Kauri gum was exported last year from the province
of Auckland, principally to London and America. It is used largely in
the manufacture of varnish and lacquers, and as there are no varnish
manufactories of any importance in New Zealand, all the gum is sent
away.

The three principal exports of the province of Auckland are Kauri
gum, gold, and timber, and the export value of the former is greater
than the combined values of the gold and timber. The gumdigger
therefore plays a most important part in the province of Auckland, as
without his assistance its export trade would look very shady, yet
he is universally looked down upon by the sober-sided settler, who
hardly ever has a good word for him. "He's only a gumdigger," is an
expression I have commonly heard used, to imply that the individual
indicated was a person of no importance.

The title "Gumdigger" itself may have something to do with the matter.
It is not a nice word, and looks too much like "Gravedigger" at first
sight. Possibly, too, the sedate settler may not think digging gum
so intellectual and high-toned an employment as digging potatoes,
fattening pigs, and the other duties which fall to his lot; again,
the gumdigger proper is not a landowner; and yet again, he is often
addicted to what he terms "going on the spree," and when he has changed
his gum into money, to changing the money into strong waters. All these
causes, I think, conspire together to lower him in the eyes of the
extremely respectable, but ofttimes narrow-minded settler.

I have not the slightest wish to endeavour to defend the gumdigger
for the intemperance and careless waste of money that too generally
characterises him, but I will say, and say it without fear of
contradiction, that he is exposed to far greater temptations than ever
beset the settler. He lives an entirely isolated and a fearfully hard
life out on the gum-field, and when he comes into a township, which he
probably does every two or three months, and converts his gum into
money, the temptation "to go on the spree" is great. He is unmarried,
and has no particular use for the surplus money after his "tucker" bill
is paid, and he spends it recklessly. There are savings-banks, it is
true, but no one calls his attention to the fact that by depositing his
surplus cash in them it will be making money for him while he is out on
the gum-field, and the probability is that he does not know of their
existence. The settler has a hundred improvements to make on his land,
and has plenty of ways of employing his spare cash. Besides, he is
generally surrounded by his family, and has not to endure the horrible
isolation in which most of the gumdiggers' time is spent.

Not all gumdiggers, however, waste their substance. Many when they
indulge in a holiday, enjoy themselves in a moderate and becoming
manner. Not long since I was rowing by the Matakohe Wharf, and saw a
stout, thick-set man, whom I knew to be a gumdigger, fishing off its
seaward end. His legs were dangling over the edge, his back was resting
against one of the mooring posts, in his mouth was a short clay, and by
his side stood a bottle of beer and a tumbler. His face wore a look of
placid contentment, and he was evidently enjoying himself thoroughly.

[Illustration: A Gumdigger's Holiday.]

Gumdigging is exceptionally hard work, and only a man accustomed to
manual labour can hope to be successful at it. Some intelligence too
and power of observation is required, in order that the digger may not
waste time working in unlikely places. When an old Kauri tree dies and
falls, its huge roots throw up a mound of earth, and the shape of these
mounds indicate to an observing digger the direction in which the trees
have fallen, although all signs of the trees themselves have entirely
decayed away and disappeared, perhaps thousands of years ago. As the
gum generally exudes freely from the Kauri, and collects in the forks
where the trunk commences to throw out branches, by stepping sixty or
seventy feet from the mound in the right direction, and digging there,
gum will probably be found. The mounds themselves also offer good
chances, and these are generally first attacked.

A gumdigger's outfit is not an expensive one. It consists of a spade, a
gum spear, and a piece of sacking made into a bag and strapped on his
back with pieces of flax.

The gum spear is a four-sided rod of steel, about four feet long,
and pointed at one end. It looks very like a fencing foil, with a
handle like a spade stuck in the end of it, instead of a hilt. If the
field is a new one, or has been but little worked, this instrument
is brought into use, and with it the gumdigger probes the ground in
different directions, until he strikes a piece of gum, which, if at
all experienced, he can tell at once from a stone, root, or other
substance. He then digs it up, puts it in the bag, and recommences
spearing. An old observing hand generally does a good deal less
spearing than a new chum, but a good deal more putting in the bag. When
a field has been dug over two or three times, as most of them have been
now, the big lumps have nearly all been removed, and the method then
adopted is to dig in the most likely places, on the chance of turning
up gum with the earth. Here the observing digger again gets the pull,
for instead of digging a patch right out as many do, he digs a spitful
here and a spitful there, and generally manages to turn up gum.

My theory is, that by minutely examining the places where gum is turned
up, and comparing it with the surrounding ground, the wide-awake
ones have discovered something or other--I don't in the least know
what--which indicates to them the most likely places to dig. Anyway, it
is a fact that some gumdiggers earn their two and three pounds a week,
while others working equally hard, if not harder, in the field, can
scarcely pay their "tucker" bill.

[Illustration: Group of Tree-Gummers under Kauri.]

[Illustration: Gum Scraping.]

After the gum has been dug up, it has to be scraped, and this is
generally done by the gumdigger before he offers it for sale. If an
industrious man, his evenings are usually spent at this tedious work;
and the more successful his day's digging, the more scraping lies
before him in the evening, and it is considered a good ten hours' work
to scrape a hundredweight of gum. When it is thoroughly scraped, it is
easy to see the quality, and it is then sorted into boxes. The rarest
kind is quite transparent and resembles lumps of glass; the next in
order, is cloudy in places, yellowish looking, and very like amber,
though much more brittle; some again is all cloudy, and the commonest
sort of all is almost opaque. The clearer it is the higher its value,
and the price for the first class, which is used in the manufacture of
copal varnishes, ranges from about £70 to £80 a ton, according as the
market is over or under stocked.

[Illustration: Gum Scraper's Knife, constructed so that blade can be
replaced when worn out.]

Very pretty ornaments can be cut with a pen-knife out of Kauri gum,
the surface of which may be afterwards easily polished by being
rubbed with a piece of flannel soaked in kerosine oil. In most of the
gumdiggers' huts (or whares, as they are called), and in settlers'
houses in gumdigging districts, are to be found specimens of amateur
gum-carving, among which, hearts are by far the most popular subject.
I have seen flat hearts with sharp edges, rounded hearts, lob-sided
hearts, elongated hearts, and many other varieties of Kauri gum hearts,
which, though doubtless greatly admired by the personal friends of
the carvers, could not be said to possess any commercial value. The
material is too fragile for elaborate and artistic designs to be
attempted, and no trade of any extent in Kauri gum carvings is pushed
in the colony.

All the gum dug out of the gum-fields of course belonged to Kauri trees
of bygone ages, and is sometimes called fossil gum. From the living
Kauri, however, gum is constantly exuding, and forming in large lumps
in the forks of the branches. To secure this it is necessary to climb
the tree; but the barrel being of such huge dimensions, and rising
like a pillar for sixty or seventy feet, it cannot be climbed in the
ordinary manner. The plan generally adopted, therefore, is to tie a
small weight to a long piece of strong twine or fishing-line, and throw
the weight over the branches; the end of the thread held below is then
slacked out until the weight is lowered within reach, when a rope is
tied to the line, and hauled up over the branch and down again the
other side. Climbing this rope, the gum-seeker gains a footing on the
branch, and with a tomahawk, hacks out the gum and lets it fall to the
ground. I have heard of another method of climbing by means of steps
cut with a tomahawk in the barrel of a Kauri, but have never seen it
done, and should think it an exceedingly dangerous operation. Climbing
for gum in the ordinary way with a rope is dangerous work enough, and
very often men meet their death when engaged in the occupation. Only a
few weeks back the dead body of a native was found in the bush about
four miles from here, lying at the foot of a Kauri, the rope dangling
from a branch overhead, clearly indicating the manner of his death.
Tree gum is not so valuable as the ordinary gum found in the ground,
but it can be obtained in much larger lumps, and a good tree climber
can make on the average between three and four pounds a week.

[Illustration: Climbing Kauri for Gum.]

The Kauri gum industry cannot be considered as an unmixed blessing to
the province of Auckland, inasmuch as it materially helps to keep up
the price of labour. If a man cannot get the wages he wants, away he
goes to the gum-fields, and although he probably only makes enough to
just keep himself alive, still he is his own master, and is always
looking forward to doing better. The life he leads when gumdigging is a
fearfully lonely one, and he would really be far happier and far better
off, if he were working regularly for moderate wages at some factory,
with mates around him, and a comfortable cottage to spend his evenings
in, when his day's work is over.

The North New Zealand working-man cannot see this at present, however,
and until he is forced to see it, the natural industries of the
province of Auckland can never be developed.

Take, for instance, the varnish-making industry. Although New Zealand
is the only country in the whole world which produces Kauri gum--one of
the most important ingredients in varnish--yet it is all sent away in
its crude state, for other countries to derive the benefits and profits
consequent on its manufacture into varnish.

Before closing the chapter, I must say a word concerning the honesty
of gumdiggers. Within a radius of twenty miles from here, there are
several hundred men engaged in the occupation, and within that same
radius we only possess two rural policemen. In spite of this feeble
protection, however, I have never during my residence in the district,
heard of a robbery being committed by a gumdigger, although many
scarcely earn enough to keep themselves alive.




CHAPTER XX.

_A STORY OF A BUSHRANGER._


We are indeed very seldom troubled in the North Kaipara district with
thieves or burglars. No one ever thinks of bolting a door, nor do
people hesitate to vacate their habitations for two or three days,
leaving them entirely tenantless and unguarded. There are no wolves
among us; we are all lambs (I was going to say sheep, but I won't).

This was the state of things, until a sort of amateur bushranger
started business in the district, about eighteen months ago, and
upset all our feelings of security. He was not a gumdigger, however,
but a labourer employed by a gentleman sheep farming in Matakohe. As
correspondent for the _Auckland Weekly News_, I sent the Editor the
following account concerning his little enterprise:--

 "A NORTH KAIPARA BUSHRANGER.

 "An individual has for some time past been wandering about the
 different settlements here, whose doings do not at all meet with the
 approval of the inhabitants. He has contracted an unpleasant habit
 of visiting houses at the witching hour of midnight, and extracting
 from the larders whatever comestibles he finds to his taste. His
 penchant for sweetmeats of all kinds is remarkable. He would risk
 his liberty for a bottle of lollies, while the sight of a jam tart
 would draw him through a plate-glass window. This gentleman rejoices
 in many names, Sullivan being the one he at present patronises. Last
 week he visited Paparoa and Maungaturoto, and regaled himself at
 several establishments. On Saturday he called at Mr. D.'s. store,
 Maungaturoto, the owner being engaged elsewhere. Sullivan, unwilling
 to disturb him, broke open the door, and captured a bottle of prime
 bulls'-eyes and some other articles. He next made a short stay at the
 Doctor's, but what he secured there I have not heard. Some time last
 week he honoured Mr. B. of Paparoa with a visit, took all the loose
 cash he could find, a jar full of sweet jelly, and a batch of bread,
 leaving a stale loaf in its place. Finding that creeping through
 windows, hiding in holes, and sleeping in the tea-tree scrub had had
 a very deteriorating effect on his clothes, he applied to Mr. H.'s
 store, Pahi, during the proprietor's absence, and selecting a suit to
 his satisfaction, left without a word. Last Sunday he was reported to
 have reached Matakohe, and probably his presence will be felt by some
 of the settlers before long. Naturally, his movements have excited,
 and still excite, a good deal of notice and criticism, and a few
 weeks back some settlers, taking an unfavourable view of his peculiar
 free-and-easy mode of existence, applied to a local constable to come
 and put a stop to his little game. In due course this functionary
 arrived, and a sigh of relief went through the several settlements--an
 arm of the law was with us, and confidence was restored.

 "The energy displayed by this officer was indeed most reassuring.
 No sooner did he hear of a settler's house having been entered the
 previous night, than he was off at once to the place. No sooner did
 the news reach him of another depredation being committed elsewhere,
 than away he went again, and at last succeeded in capturing--not the
 man--but some mementoes of his travels. The story goes, that he very
 nearly captured the man himself, and would have done so, if the man,
 who is very powerfully built, had not unfortunately captured him
 instead. It was in this way. Having sighted his proposed captive, our
 energetic and plucky local official immediately gave chase, and was
 evidently gaining ground, when the pursued suddenly crouched down in
 some tea-tree scrub. 'Now I have him,' thought the exulting rural
 representative of the law, and in another instant he was on the back,
 and his hand was on the collar, of the larder-breaking Sullivan,
 while in a voice of thunder he shouted, 'I arrest you in the name
 of the law.' Had the midnight prowler any sense of decency and the
 fitness of things, now was the time to show it by resigning himself
 quietly to his fate and the majesty of the law. But no! the bump of
 reverence must indeed be wanting in the cranium of this sweet-toothed
 bushranger, for instead of thus comporting himself, he actually (so
 runs the tale) passed his hand over the constable's shoulder, grasped
 his coat collar, and raising himself from is stooping posture, marched
 off with the highly indignant officer kicking and struggling on his
 back. On arriving at a creek, he shot the representative of the law
 over his shoulder into the water like a sack of coals, and retired
 into the bush to suck lollipops. After this episode our rural
 official returned to his home (eighteen miles away) to consider what
 was best to be done, leaving word, however, at Paparoa that should
 the knight of the jam tarts and bulls'-eyes be seen anywhere, he was
 to be detained until our rural official could come over to arrest
 him. Mr. Sullivan has made his presence felt several times since, but
 there always seems to be a difficulty about inducing him to remain in
 any one place sufficiently long to call in the services of our rural
 officer. Another rural officer from the Wairoa has now come forward,
 and is at present at Maungaturoto, while Sullivan is here. By the
 time the rural officer arrives here, the wily Sullivan will probably
 be at Pahi. If he could only be induced to partake of some carefully
 doctored jam tart, I think the rural officer would be more evenly
 handicapped. As it is, unless our volatile visitor gets a sunstroke,
 or accidentally chokes himself with a bull's eye, I fear a good many
 more larders will be emptied and a good many more jam tarts reported
 missing before he is safely placed under lock and key in Mount Eden
 Jail."

This lollipop-sucking bushranger for several weeks completely baffled
all efforts to arrest him, and pursued with impunity his meteoric
course, leaving behind him a well-defined train composed of jam tins,
lolly bottles, pie dishes, infuriated settlers, and rural policemen.
He was finally captured near Helensville, about sixty miles from here,
and in due course brought before the magistrates at Pahi, who committed
him for trial. I rode over to be present at the hearing of the case,
and in returning after dark, my horse shied, the saddle, too loosely
girthed, slipped round, and I was thrown, the result being concussion
of the brain. An acquaintance, a Paparoa settler, got me home somehow
or other, and for three days my mind was wandering, during which time
my poor wife had to attend to me entirely unaided, as on the very day
of my accident she had dismissed our servant girl for dishonesty. The
principal storekeeper in Matakohe kindly came at once, offered his
services, and telegraphed for the doctor, who unfortunately was engaged
attending a serious case at a distance. When he did arrive he said my
wife had done everything he could have done, and that I was going on
all right. It was months, however, before I could get about again,
and neither my wife nor myself are likely to easily forget the North
Kaipara bushranger, now safely installed in Mount Eden Jail, and about
half way through the term of three years' imprisonment with hard labour
to which he was sentenced.




CHAPTER XXI.

_SPORTS._


A grand opportunity for an energetic bushranger might be found on the
Pahi regatta and sports day, generally held in January. Then every
one, masters, mistresses, children, and servants turn out, and leave
houses and their contents to look after themselves. It is one of the
chief events we look forward to in our uneventful lives up here, and a
most sociable and enjoyable day is always spent, for every one seems
light-hearted and happy on a Pahi sports day. Luncheon parties are
given on board cutters, owned by neighbouring settlers, and moored so
as to command a good view of the races; picnic parties are held on the
bright shelly beach, while the settlers who live in the township itself
keep open house.

Our punt usually conveys us to the scene of gaiety, distant about four
miles by water, though over twelve by land. It was on our first visit
on a regatta day that I became acquainted with a singular colonial
institution known by the name of "planting." My introduction came about
in this way. I had not long disembarked my wife and children at the
township, after a somewhat boisterous trip, when a gentleman whose
acquaintance I had lately made came up, and after shaking hands with
us all, whispered mysteriously in my ear that he had a plant near,
and wished me to come with him. Having secured seats for my party,
I followed, wondering what sort of plant it could possibly be that
required mentioning in such strangely subdued tones. My conductor soon
came to a clump of tea tree, where, stooping down, he commenced groping
about among the undergrowth, and at last produced a bottle containing
some liquid, which I shortly after discovered to be brandy and water.
What a curious plant! and in what a curious position to find it! The
tea tree (symbolical of blue ribbonism) protecting and sheltering the
deadly brandy and water plant. Here is food for reflection indeed,
but let it pass! There were plants (of the class alcoholic) in all
directions that day, from the humble beer to the haughty three star
brandy plant.

An hotel has since been opened in Pahi, and there is now no necessity
for planting, though the system--which will doubtless strike with
horror some of my readers--is still in vogue in most country districts
on the occasion of any public gathering. In common justice, I am bound
to say that I saw no one on that day at Pahi the slightest degree the
worse for the peculiar gardening operations; in fact, unless like a
bee gathering honey from flower to flower, some thirsty soul had made
a round of the plants, which he could only do on receiving a general
invitation from the proprietors, they were harmless enough, and the
system must be regarded simply as a method adopted by colonials to show
good fellowship.

To return to the regatta. Three or four hundred persons were by
this time assembled. My wife had joined, by invitation, a party of
ladies--the wives of some of Mr. Hay's heroes in "Brighter Britain"--on
board one of the moored yachts, and I leave her deeply engaged in that
enjoyment so dear to most ladies--a good gossip--and stroll on to the
wharf to see the cutter race started. After some little delay, and a
good deal of shouting, the seven boats entered for the contest are
in position, the gun is fired from the umpire's boat for the start,
and they all become suddenly covered with canvas, and are off. It is
blowing half a gale--but what care they. Up go their gaff topsails, and
the boats careen over until you can almost see their keels. Most of
them carry extra hands for ballast, and this live ballast hangs itself
over the windward rail. Away they go, till they look like toy yachts
in the distance. Now they round the buoy, and beat up for home. One
boat misses stays and goes ashore, another carries away her topmast,
and a third springs her bowsprit and gives in. But nobody seems to
mind--every one appears happy--owners of the damaged crafts and all.
On the wharf, which is crowded, a little mild betting goes on, and a
gentleman (an old Etonian) gets up a shilling sweepstake in his hat.
Bang goes the gun, as the first boat passes the winning post. Bang
again, and the second boat is in. Then a voice whispers in my ear,
"Come along, I've got a plant;" and I retire with the whisperer, and
have a glass of ale.

While the cutter race is progressing a rowing match is started, and
then a punt race is rowed, followed by another sailing race for open
boats, a Maori race, and a model yacht race. After all the boat events
have been run off, walking a greasy boom fixed out from the end of
the wharf is indulged in; and after that the landsmen have a turn, and
a move is made for the greensward, which reaches down to the beach.
Here are erected hurdles for horse-jumping, in which several Maoris
(who are great at sports) are competitors; next comes pole leaping,
long jumping, foot races, &c.; and the sports conclude with an obstacle
race, in which the competitors have to crawl through bottomless tubs,
and overcome all sorts of carefully devised impediments to their
passage. A concert and dance in the public hall conclude a most
enjoyable day's amusement. At its conclusion, horses are saddled, boats
and punts got ready, and the assembly melts away, leaving the pretty
township of Pahi bathed in the glorious light of the full moon, which
here and there shines brightly on the sapless remains of the now no
longer regarded colonial alcoholic plants.

Another great break in our monotony up here is the Matakohe Annual
Race Meeting, in connection with which I at present hold the position
of Hon. Secretary and Treasurer. At our last meeting, held in March,
about four hundred persons assembled on the racecourse, and a capital
day's sport was enjoyed. We had a grand stand capable of seating three
hundred, refreshment booths, saddling paddock, weighing room, a tent
for the Secretary, and a Judge's box. The jockeys all rode in colours,
and the scene was altogether a very brilliant and enlivening one. The
following events were run off during the day:--

The Maiden Plate, over a mile and a half course. Nine horses started,
and winner received seven pounds.

Settlers' Race Handicap. Two miles course. Six started, and winner
received seven pounds.

Handicap Hurdle Race. Two miles course, with eight sets of three feet
six inch hurdles. Four started, and winner received eight pounds ten
shillings, and second horse one pound five shillings.

Hack Hurdles, over a mile and a half course and six flights of hurdles.
Five started, and winner received five pounds.

Maori Race, over a mile and a half course. Only three horses started,
and winner received five pounds.

_Matakohe Cup Handicap._ Two miles. Seven started. Winner received
thirteen pounds ten shillings, and second horse one pound ten
shillings.

A Trotting Race, Pony Race, and Consolation Handicap, the winners
carrying off between them twelve pounds, completed the events of the
day.

Order was sustained by half the police force in the whole district,
consisting of one constable of portly dimensions, backed by an
imposing uniform and a shako. The money for the prizes was supplied
by the takings at the gates, the nomination and acceptance fees, and
the subscriptions of the members of the Club. There was no betting
beyond a few shilling sweepstakes got up in the old Etonian's hat. No
drunkenness disturbed the harmony of the day, or the equanimity of
our stalwart protector. Legitimate sport, and nothing else, called us
together, and legitimate sport we enjoyed to our hearts' content.

I am confident that great good results from such gatherings as the
two I have described--the Pahi Regatta and the Matakohe Races. In the
former, several of the competing cutters and boats, and all the punts,
are locally built, and wholesome rivalry is excited among the builders,
tending to improve the class of boat turned out by them. In the case of
the races, the tendency is to improve the breed of horses, and to study
more closely the most important animal in the colony.

These social gatherings also do good in another way, by bringing
about a general hand-shaking and wiping out for a time of the petty
jealousies and the miserable little bickerings and quarrels that too
often exist among a certain class in these little settlements. Among
such people the slightest thing is sufficient to cause a break in
friendship. If Jones does not vote the same way as Brown, smash goes
their acquaintance; if Robinson afterwards asks the discarded Jones to
spend the evening, he is cut dead by Brown immediately; and if Mrs.
Robinson appears in chapel with a more gaudy bonnet than Mrs. Jones
possesses, the demon jealousy is at once aroused, and a coolness takes
place between the two families.

The most active agent, however, in producing discord among the settlers
is the law relating to straying cattle. As it at present stands, no
compensation can be obtained for damage done by straying cattle unless
the land trespassed on is enclosed by what is termed "a legal fence,"
which must be of a certain height and of certain forms of construction.
A summons may certainly be taken out for trespass, and the owner of
the cattle fined one shilling per head, but to do this involves a great
loss of time, and is very little satisfaction.

The result of this law is that the man who has good feed on his land
has to erect fences unnecessarily strong for the restraint of his own
cattle, in order to keep out his neighbour's wandering animals. It
certainly causes cattle to be very cheap, but at the same time does
great injury to the legitimate farmer, who will not take advantage of
this miserable piece of legislation, and who keeps his paddocks in good
grass, and his beasts in proper restraint. Many settlers systematically
breed calves, which, when about three months old, they brand with their
initials, and turn out on the roads to get their living as best they
may, knowing that if they do break into a neighbour's paddock, the
chances are that they can show he has not a legal fence.

Surely it would be more just if the law made it compulsory for a man
to fence sufficiently to keep his own cattle in, and not oblige him
to fence to keep other people's out. Suppose twelve men take up land
near together, only one of whom owns cattle, while the others crop and
grow fruit trees, does it not seem grossly unjust that, in order to
place themselves in a position to obtain damages, the eleven should
be obliged to erect legal fences round their properties to keep out
the twelfth man's cattle? Yet this is the law as it stands at present
in New Zealand, and any change in it would probably meet with a great
amount of opposition. We pay dearly enough for our laws out here,
however, and the motto of all law-makers should be _Fiat justitia ruat
cœlum_.




CHAPTER XXII.

_SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT IN NEW ZEALAND._


At the end of my last chapter I remarked that we pay dearly enough for
our laws out here, and I will now try and explain my reasons for so
thinking. In my humble opinion, we are altogether over-governed, and
that this is one of the reasons why so many of our enterprises turn
out commercially unsuccessful, and also why we do not make our own
varnish, our own furniture, and do not push many other industries, for
the prosecution of which the colony possesses exceptional advantages.
We seem to be playing at being a big nation--a second Great Britain in
fact--while our entire population does not reach the population of one
of England's first-class towns.

Besides His Excellency the Governor, we have a Premier, styled
an "Honourable," with a salary of £1750 a year, a ministerial
residence, travelling and other allowances; six Cabinet ministers
holding portfolios, receiving each a salary of £1250 a year, a
ministerial residence, travelling and other allowances, and each
styled an Honourable; one minister without portfolio, receiving a
salary of £800 a year; a host of clerks belonging to the different
ministerial departments, with salaries from £800 a year downwards;
an attorney-general, solicitor-general, and several law officers;
a Legislative Council, consisting at present, I believe, of a
Speaker, a Chairman of Committee, Clerk to the Council, and forty-six
members--each member being appointed _for life_, and receiving 200
guineas every Parliamentary session, a free pass on the railways, and
the title "Hon." tacked on before his name.[A]

[Footnote A: The Legislative Council is supposed to correspond with the
House of Lords at home, but is called out here by the irreverent, the
Old Man's Refuge.]

Then we have the House of Representatives, consisting of a Speaker,
Chairman of Committees, Clerk of Committees, Clerk of the House,
Sergeant-at-arms, Clerk of Writs, and ninety members. The M.H.R.'s are
elected for three years, and each receives an honorarium of 200 guineas
a session, a free pass on the railways, and has M.H.R. tacked on after
his name.

It is doubtless a very proud and pleasant thing to be able to say we
have a House of Lords, a Sergeant-at-arms, and all that sort of thing,
but we are paying too dearly for the gratification.

In England, with an army and navy to support, and a National Debt of
about seven hundred millions, the general government costs rather under
fifty shillings per head. Out here, with a public debt of thirty-two
millions, it costs double, though all we possess in the way of army and
navy consists of one general, a few volunteers, and a small steamboat
called the _Hinamoe_ (_i.e._, the sleepy), which, I believe, looks
after the lighthouses, and carries the "Hons." and the "M.H.R.'s" about
when they require change of air.

With regard to New Zealand's debt, it may be remarked that the money
borrowed has not been thrown away on profitless wars, as is often the
case with Government loans,--and that although I fear a good deal of
money has been wasted, still there is something better to show than
soldier's graves and tattered standards. There are telegraph lines,
harbours, lighthouses, and about sixteen hundred and twenty miles of
railway, which return at present a net profit of nearly three per
cent. on their entire cost--over twelve and a half millions--and would
probably return considerably more were the charges reduced so that
farmers, orchardists, and others could profitably utilise them as
carriers. Last year over four millions were expended in governing the
colony, of which about one million was derived from the gross revenue
of the railways, and three millions squeezed somehow or other out
of the colonists. About half this sum of three millions went to pay
interest on the public debt, and half the cost of government. It is
with the latter item that our chance of retrenchment at present lies.

The population of the colony last year numbered about 620,000,
comprised, as nearly as I can ascertain, of 120,000 unmarried men,
women, widows, and widowers, 100,000 married men, 100,000 married
women, and 300,000 children. It is clear that the 120,000 unmarried,
and the 100,000 married men, have between them to pay, directly and
indirectly, the whole sum necessary for the interest on the loans
and the cost of government. The married man, with wife and average
allowance of three children, has of course to contribute a very much
larger share than the single individual, who has only himself or
herself to support, and I will assume that the married man pays three
quarters, and the unmarried one quarter. The former has therefore
(without counting local rates) to contribute about £22, 10s. annually,
half of which sum goes to sustain our expensive game of pretending to
be a big nation.

How can labour be cheap when the above is the case! If the cost of
government were reduced to one half, the married labouring man (and
it is he that fixes the rate of wages) could afford to work for
appreciably less than he now can, the cost of working the railways
would be diminished, and the revenue from them proportionately
increased. A sensible reduction in the price of labour would doubtless
also most beneficially affect the commercial prospects of the colony,
and probably cause the successful development of its many suitable
industries.

Mr. Froude, in his book "Oceana," talks about the possibility of New
Zealand repudiating her debt, and I trust he will not be angry if I say
that the information given him on this point is about as accurate as
the information he received concerning Kauri gum, to the effect that it
was valuable because it made pretty ornaments. There is little fear of
New Zealand repudiating her debt--as I think the figures I have given
show--but I trust before long she will repudiate all the unnecessary
paraphernalia of government that is weighing her down.

The colony may at present, I think, be likened to a goodly fruit tree
full of bud and promise, but suffering from the ravages of host of
caterpillars, which are destroying its blossoms, and with them the
chance of fruit.

A new Government pledged to retrenchment has lately been formed, and I
trust the promises made on the platform will be fulfilled later on in
Parliament.

Since writing the above, the following paragraph _referring to the
late ministry_ appeared among the items of Parliamentary news in the
_Auckland Evening Star_ of December 6, 1887.

 "MINISTERIAL RESIDENCES.

 "The following rather questionable items appear in the return of
 expenditure during the last six months on ministerial residences, and
 have created some comment:--

 "Tinakori Road House (Sir J. Vogel's): Overhauling lift, £11, 16s.
 8d.; gas-fittings for theatrical stages, £2, 9s. 11d.; hire of piano,
 tuning and repairing, £10, 4s.; 12 dining-room chairs, at 60s., £36;
 pink and gold breakfast set, £3; one spring lounge, £10; hire of
 piano, £7, 10s.

 "Molesworth Street (Hon. E. Richardson's): Re-covering suite in plush,
 £35; knife-cleaning machine, £4, 10s.; hire of piano, £8, 0s. 6d.;
 hire of piano repairing, £3, 5s.; three gas fires, £9; one dinner
 service, £14, 18s.; garden hose and fitting, £4, 1s. 4d.

 "Tinakori Road (east) (Hon. J. A. Tole's): One walnut card table,
 £5; two spirit seltzogenes, £5, 2s. 6d.; flower-pots, £1; set best
 hangings, £9; one mangle, £8, 10s.; three pairs curtains, £5, 12s.
 6d.; one child's bath, £1; packing piano from Christchurch to
 Wellington, £1, 10s.; freight, 9s. 8d."




CHAPTER XXIII.

_KAIPARA INSECTS._


This part of New Zealand, as well as suffering in common with the rest
of the colony from the ravages of the political caterpillar, is a good
deal troubled with other insects, and an entomologist would find in
the Kaipara rare opportunities of prosecuting his studies. Some of the
specimens are so strange that they cannot fail to strike with their
peculiarities the most unobserving, and I will venture to describe two
or three of them.

[Illustration: The Kauri Bug (life size).]

[Illustration: Aweto or Bulrush Caterpillar (two-thirds life size).]

The Kauri bug (called by the Maoris the Kekereru), with its power
of emitting a terrible and unbearable smell when alarmed, has been
so often and so fully dealt with by writers, that I shall content
myself with simply making a sketch of the insect, leaving its smell
to the imagination of my readers, and will proceed to describe the
most curious of the New Zealand native insects I have seen, called
the bulrush caterpillar (_Sphœria Robertsia_)--native name, Aweto.
This caterpillar becomes changed into a white vegetable substance
while still retaining its caterpillar shape. It is from three to three
and a half inches in length, and when about to assume the chrysalis
form buries itself in the ground, and it is supposed that in doing
so, some of the minute seeds of a fungus become inserted between the
scales of its neck; these the insect, being in a sickly condition,
is unable to rid itself of, and they vegetate and spread through the
whole of the body, completely filling and changing it entirely into a
vegetable substance, though retaining exactly the caterpillar form,
even to the legs, head, mandibles, and claws. From the nape of the
neck shoots one single stem, which grows to a height of eight or ten
inches, its apex resembling very closely the club-headed bulrush in
miniature. This insect plant is generally found growing at the root
of the Rata tree. It has no leaves, and if the stem by chance becomes
broken off, another arises in its place, though two stems are never
found growing simultaneously from one caterpillar. When fresh, the
vegetable substance of which it is composed is soft, and has a strong
nutty flavour, and the natives are fond of eating it; they also use it
burnt and ground to powder as colouring matter for tattooing purposes.
In every instance the caterpillar is found perfect in shape and size,
without any sign of contraction or decomposition, and it is therefore
presumed that the vegetating process takes place during the insect's
life. A section of the insect vegetable shows distinctly the intestine
passage.

[Illustration: The Mantis (life size).]

Another curious insect found here is the "Mantis," commonly called,
on account of its shape, "the ridge-pole rafter." This insect has the
power of changing its colour like the chameleon. It favours tea-tree
more than any other plant, and if resting on a withered portion,
assumes a corresponding brown colour, though when found on the young
leaves it is a bright green. Its shape is most peculiar, and very
suggestive of the name given it.

[Illustration: The Weta, Male (two-thirds life size).]

[Illustration: The Weta, Female (two-thirds life size).]

Another insect very commonly found in soft wood tree is called by the
natives the "Weta," but by vulgar little boys "The Jimmy Nipper." It is
a most repulsive and formidable-looking insect, with a body sometimes
two and a half inches long, and is capable of biting hard enough to
make blood flow freely. The male and female differ considerably in
shape, the male being provided with an immense pair of jaws. They have
no wings, and their bodies are covered with a kind of horny shell.

I was engaged felling some dead trees in my bush when I first made the
acquaintance of these uncanny looking insects, and I then discovered
two specimens in a hollow tree. A settler, an old soldier, hailing from
the Emerald Isle, was assisting me, and I asked him what they were
called.

"Jimmy Nippers to be shure, sur!" he responded; "and by the same token,
one's a male, and t'other's a faimale."

I inquired if he knew which was which, and he replied--

"Bedad, sur, shure that's aisy to see; look at the power of jaw in that
one--that's the faimale, sur."

I found out afterwards, however, that he was wrong, and his mode of
reasoning defective, and, I fear, hardly complimentary to the fair sex.

One of the insects most dreaded by our orchardists is an insect called
the "Leech," about a third of an inch long, and very like a small slug.
It sometimes attacks plum and pear trees in thousands, and completely
denudes them of leaves. Shaking wood ashes over the trees is a very
effective method of getting rid of these pests.

During some summers a kind of cricket also appears in immense numbers
and eats the grass, and the bark off the fruit trees. The best remedy
for these is to keep poultry, which relish them immensely, though the
crickets in no sense return the compliment, as they give the flesh of
the fowls a disagreeable bitter taste, and render them for the time
unfit for the table. The eggs are not affected, however, and corn is
saved, which is one point gained. Where crickets are undisturbed, they
destroy all the grass in their neighbourhood, and then turn cannibals
and eat one another.

We have not, I am happy to say, the dreaded Codlin moth up here,
although it exists, I believe, in some parts of New Zealand.

Another destructive insect is a little brown beetle, shaped exactly as
the lady bird. This insect confines its attention to the stalk end of
the apple, round which it nibbles, until the apple withers and drops
off. Last year the orchards in the neighbourhood were free from this
pest, and I hope they have either moved to pastures new, or have been
exterminated by some of our insect-eating birds.

The spider tribe is very fully represented, some specimens being of
enormous size. One kind is said to be so dangerous that a bite from it
endangers life. I have never, however, heard of any one in the Kaipara
having been bitten.

One other insect, called the Mason bee, I must mention. This fly
builds a nest of a kind of white mortar, stocks it with small spiders,
and lives in solitary state. It lays its eggs in the nest, and the
stored spiders, which are not dead, but appear to have been rendered
insensible, are for the consumption of its offspring when they hatch
out. The Mason bee has a very venomous sting, and is altogether an
undesirable visitor, as it builds its habitation in all sorts of
untoward places, sometimes even in the locks of doors.

We have numerous other kinds of insects, including a small sort of
mosquito, a vicious little biting fly called the sandfly, and a locust,
which, though differing altogether in shape from the ordinary locust of
the East of Europe, makes exactly the same noise when settled on a tree.

My readers will probably think, from the foregoing alarming list, that
we are an insect-ridden district altogether, but nature has provided
us with plenty of help to keep down our pests. We have a beautiful
little bird called the Blight bird, as small as some humming birds,
which lives principally on flies and insects, though rather partial
at times to grapes and figs; we have a bright brown vulture hocked
bird--about the size of a lark, barred with brown and white on the
breast, and with a beautiful metallic lustre on its feathers--which
comes in flocks, and destroys great quantities of the Leech; and we
have the imported Chinese Pheasant, which helps us greatly in the
matter of slugs and crickets, though sadly given to rooting up crops
of maize and potatoes, in consequence of which unfortunate habit it is
looked upon as a deadly enemy by most of the farmers.

I asked my Hibernian naturalist friend one day how his potatoes were
getting on. "Bedad, sur," he replied, "Oi niver had a crop come up so
quickly; sure Oi'd only planted thim one day, and ivery mother's son of
thim was up the next!"

His field, he afterwards explained, had received a visit from the
pheasants in force.

In spite, however, of all the wrong-doing laid at the pheasant's door,
I cannot help thinking it does a great deal more good than harm by
keeping down slugs, crickets, and other destructive insects. I took
126 slugs out of the crop of one pheasant, and I have shot many others
quite as well supplied. They also give us many a day's pleasure, and
help to keep the larder stocked. With a couple of good dogs and a
"white man" (as a good fellow is called out here) for a companion, what
more enjoyable than a day after the long tails. You have to do a good
deal of tramping for your sport certainly, and you don't generally make
a big bag, but you never come home empty handed, and feel when your day
is over that you have thoroughly earned the three or four--or perhaps
five or six--brace of birds that are hanging up in your safe.

Heavier bags than these are often made, though it has not fallen to my
lot to make them. Last season a young fellow here grassed fourteen and
a half brace between sunrise and midday, and bigger bags than that are
even sometimes recorded, but they involve to my thinking too great an
expenditure of labour in the way of walking for pleasure.

The full grown cock pheasant in New Zealand weighs from three to three
and a half pounds, and the hen from two to two and three-quarter
pounds.

There is one kind of shooting (native pigeon shooting) that may be
indulged in, without any walking beyond that necessary to reach the
shooting ground. All you have to do is to seat yourself in the bush
under a clump of Taraire trees when the berries they bear are ripe, and
wait for the pigeons to come and feed on them. As soon as the birds are
settled on the trees, and are busy with the berries, you can blaze away
as hard as you like, for they won't fly away or move until you bring
them down. It is unadulterated pot-shooting, and there is not a single
iota of sport to be got out of it with powder and shot, though with a
rook rifle there might be some little fun. The Maoris, who are, as a
rule, bad shots, are very fond of pigeon shooting--they being about the
only birds they can hit--and I have seen them returning after a day's
shooting with two or three horse loads of pigeons. The New Zealand
bird, although looking larger than the English wood quest, rarely
exceeds a pound and a half in weight.




CHAPTER XXIV.

_A MAORI WEDDING._


Bad shots as the Maoris are generally considered, they are nevertheless
very fond of sport, and are great fellows at horse leaping, running
matches, and athletic amusements of all kinds. They are a fine,
intelligent race of people, with plenty of fun and spirit in them, and
are justly renowned for their hospitality.

About two years ago, the marriage of a daughter of one of the chief
men belonging to a native village a few miles off took place; and I,
in common with all the settlers in the neighbourhood, received an
invitation to be present at the ceremony, and to partake afterwards
of the wedding breakfast. My wife told me it would be the right thing
to take some little bridal gift, and gave me a fan to present which
had a good deal of gold and colour about it. I wrapped it carefully
in some nice tissue paper, and thus accredited, rode off to the
festive gathering. During the journey, the paper in which the fan
was enveloped unfortunately became torn, and finally disappeared, and
conceiving the impression that a horseman in knee breeches, spurs, and
fan looked somewhat ridiculous, I was anxious to get rid of my present
as soon as possible. On drawing near to the village, therefore, great
was my delight to perceive the bride's father stationed at the entrance
to receive his guests as they arrived, and I at once made up my mind to
hand the fan over to him, but to my disappointment found his knowledge
of English was as limited as mine of Maori, which consisted of one
word, "Kapai," meaning, It is good.

I endeavoured to illustrate the action of the fan, and held it towards
him, saying at the same time, "Kapai." He evidently viewed it with
distrust, and appeared to think it something unholy, or a disguised
infernal machine. Whenever I held it near him he backed, and every time
I opened it he jumped. The more I cried "Kapai," the more he shied, and
we were gradually working our way into the village, my host backing at
every movement of the fan, and I leading my horse with one hand, and
with the other manipulating the wretched bridal gift. At last, just
as I had made up my mind to pitch it away, a Matakohe settler came up
who could speak Maori, and who soon altered the aspect of affairs. The
fan was accepted most graciously, and was taken the round of the Maori
belles, each one of whom, when its action was explained, had a trial of
it.

[Illustration: He evidently viewed it with distrust.]

This helped to fill up the time, until our Church of England
clergyman--who was to perform the ceremony--arrived, and we all
repaired to a structure erected by the Maoris for the occasion,
and made of Nikau palm leaves plaited together. The inside was very
tastefully decorated with ferns and cabbage palms, and really did great
credit to their artistic taste.

An "Ancient and Modern" hymn, in which the natives heartily joined,
having been sung, the ceremony was performed in Maori, and a second
hymn closed the service.

The bride and bridegroom then led the way to another construction of
Nikau leaves, where the wedding breakfast was prepared. The happy
couple took the head of the table, and the "Pakehas" (_i.e._, the
white men, literally "strangers"), were invited to first sit down, the
Maoris waiting on them. The feast was ample, and consisted of wild
pig, beef, vegetables, and plum pudding. When the Pakeha visitors had
eaten their fill of the good things, the Maoris had their innings, and
then the health of the bride and bridegroom, who still retained their
position at the head of the table, was drunk in Gilbey's Castle A
Claret, the toast being proposed by our local J.P., and translated by
an interpreter to the Maoris. The bride's father returned thanks, and
every one present shook hands with the loving pair and retired. Some
horse-jumping competitions among the natives brought the afternoon to a
close, and I returned home very pleased with my day with the Maoris.

Giving place to their Pakeha guests, and seeing them duly satisfied
before partaking of anything themselves, struck me as showing a very
keen sense of true hospitality and politeness. They have also, I
believe, a true appreciation of justice--at least I have often heard
so, and in the only case which has come under my personal observation,
the Maori concerned showed it in a marked degree. It occurred in
connection with the race for horses owned by Maoris, run at our last
meeting. The jockey of the leading horse--an Englishman--in coming up
the straight for the post, deliberately pulled right across the second
horse, thereby nearly causing an accident. A protest was entered by the
owner of the second horse, and the evidence having been heard by the
committee, it was unanimously decided to disqualify the leading horse,
the second was declared winner, and the jockey censured. The leading
horse could easily have won, and much sympathy was felt for its owner,
who had lost the race through the bedevilment of his jockey.

When I handed the money to the Maori whose horse was pronounced the
winner, I explained to him, through an interpreter, that he had won it
simply through the misbehaviour of the leading jockey, and expressed
my opinion that it would be fair to divide the sum with the Maori who
had been so badly treated. He seemed to see the justice of the case at
once, and without the least hesitation paid over half the money.

Civilisation has done, and is doing, great things for the Maoris.
Among others it has taught many to drink, to swear in English, and
to wear English slop clothes, which are quite unsuited to them and
their habits, and to the use of which, many medical men attribute the
pulmonary complaints so rife in their midst. They are constantly wading
through streams, and getting wet through by rain, and they let their
clothes dry on them (as they were accustomed to do when their skin
formed the principal part of their garb), and thus sow the germs of
disease, and hasten the inevitable day when the Maori will have been
improved off the face of the earth.

No cannibalism exists, I believe, among them at the present time,
though there are natives living who have indulged in it, and smack
their lips at the thought. They say white men are too salt to be much
good for the table, though young Pakeha children they pronounce to be
"Kapai."




CHAPTER XXV.

_SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND._


I must not lay down my pen without saying something about the New
Zealand educational system, one of the best features in our colonial
government, though possessing undoubtedly its faults.

The educational course is divided into three grades, viz., the
elementary or public schools, the secondary or high schools, and
finally the university. For the two latter, fees have to be paid,
unless the scholar is clever and lucky enough to obtain a scholarship,
in which case he or she can go through the whole course without any
expense to the parents.

In regard to securing a scholarship, however, besides ability
being necessary on the part of the pupil, a good deal depends on
the capability of the teacher at the elementary school. This is an
uncertain element, and constitutes, to my thinking, a flaw in the
educational system. Teachers at the elementary schools are supposed to
pass examinations, and receive certificates of competency, but in the
small up-country districts, teachers are often placed in charge who are
not certificated, but are what are termed probationers. It is true that
in each school-district, a committee is elected by the inhabitants,
whose duty it is to attend to matters connected with the school and
the teacher, and to report all irregularities to the head school board
in Auckland. Very often, however, the members of these committees are
uneducated men, sometimes even being unable to read or write, and it
may be imagined that they are not held in much awe by the teacher, who
does in such cases pretty well as he or she likes. Also, as the salary
of the teacher is regulated by the average number of children attending
the school, a good competent man naturally objects to a small district,
and the consequence is, that the children in the country are not so
well educated as the children in large towns.

This is a serious flaw in the working of the education scheme, but it
is one that might possibly be overcome by the institution of Government
boarding-houses in towns like Auckland, where the children of country
people who cannot afford to pay for private tuition, but who wish their
little ones to be as well educated as possible, might be lodged at cost
price by the Government. Another flaw, to my mind, in the system, is
not allowing the Bible to be read in the schools, the result being that
many children are allowed to grow up without any knowledge of their
God or their Saviour, their parents naturally inferring that if it is
considered unnecessary and unwise to teach Bible truths in the schools,
there can be no necessity to teach them at home, even if they are able
to, which in many cases they are not. Freethought and Deism has taken
strong root in the province of Auckland, and I think the cause may
probably be traced to the expulsion of the Bible from the New Zealand
Government schools.

To counteract the evil effects of this blot in our educational system,
we have our Church of England parsons, our Roman Catholic priests, and
Wesleyan and Dissenting ministers of various denominations. In this
district we are very fortunate in our Church of England parson, who
is not only a gentleman, but is a conscientious and energetic man, as
well as an agreeable and amusing companion. He has an immense deal
of riding to get through, as his district is a very extensive one,
containing about 800 square miles, and in the winter, when some of the
roads are knee-deep in mud, his experiences must be at times terrible.
He wears the orthodox dog collar, a clerical cut coat, riding trousers,
and top-boots with the tops off, and thus accoutred, he travels
about regardless of the weather, and unremitting in his endeavour to
counteract evil, in whatever shape or form he meets it. He does not
always spare himself time even to get his hair cut properly, for not
long ago I saw him seated on a gentleman's verandah with a sack over
his shoulders, while his friend, the owner of the house, was shearing
him with a pair of sheep shears.

While we are thus happily provided with regard to our souls, our bodily
welfare is not neglected, and our local doctor--a genial son of Erin,
and a great favourite on all sides--rivals the parson in tending to our
wants connected with his department. He also has an immense amount of
riding to do, and is as much at home in the pigskin as some men are in
their easy chairs. A forty-mile ride to see a patient he regards as a
little holiday, and pulls up smiling at the finish. He is married, and
in that respect scores against our parson. He is fond of sport, keeps
his own hacks, a couple of racers, his double-barrelled central fire,
and a brace of setters. He sings a good song (hunting ones are his
favourites), is clever at his profession and attentive to his patients,
and, in short, is what is known as a good all round man. I think I am
therefore entitled to say that the North Kaipara settler, both body and
soul, is in good hands.

The parson and the doctor are the two busiest professional men in
this part of the world, although the doctor's practice is principally
confined to accidents and additions to families. The Auckland lawyers
perhaps have a fairish share of work at times, in connection with North
Kaiparians, but engineers, to use a colonialism, have not a "show" at
all--particularly now that the borrowing policy has been partially
given up.




CHAPTER XXVI.

_A MEETING OF THE COUNTY COUNCIL._


About a year ago the Government decided to create a new county, which
was to be formed of the riding in which I reside, together with seven
others. With this object eight councillors were elected for the eight
different ridings. A meeting of these gentlemen took place to carry out
the intentions of the Government, and to appoint certain officers. This
was the first meeting of the Council, and I rode over in order to be
present.

A large hall--at one end of which was a kind of stage--was hired for
the occasion, and on the stage stood a good-sized table, supplied with
pens, ink, and paper, and surrounded by eight stout chairs--one for
each councillor. By one o'clock "the trusted of the people" had all
arrived and taken their seats with countenances carefully arranged, to
suit the solemnity of the occasion which had called them together.
Some interested ratepayers occupied the body of the hall, and watched
the proceedings of the "trusted ones" with awe and admiration.

The first business to be transacted was the appointment of a chairman.
Two councillors were proposed for the office, and there were four votes
for each. Here was a dilemma--a deadlock. What was to be done? A gruff
voice from among the audience was heard to exclaim, "Toss up for it!"
a proposition rightly met by a volley of indignant and withering looks
from the councillors.

After a short pause, a remarkably solemn looking councillor moved that
the "County Council Act" be consulted, with a view to finding a way out
of the difficulty. This motion being duly carried, the County's Act was
produced, and a clause eventually discovered bearing on the matter, and
which stated that lots were to be drawn by some totally disinterested
individual. It was naturally felt that it would be extremely
undignified on the part of a councillor to go and hunt up a suitable
party. Still somebody must undertake the duty--the two embryo chairmen
and their supporters could not sit staring blankly at one another all
day--the county work would never be got through in that fashion, nor
the county roads ever graded and metalled. At this crisis a gentleman
among the audience--all honour to him--volunteered to find an eligible
person, and on his offer being graciously accepted, rushed from the
hall. He first encountered a workman halfway up a ladder, standing
against a building in course of erection, and called out to him to
come and draw lots for the chairmanship of the county. The man on the
ladder, owing probably to the hammering that was going on, evidently
only imperfectly heard, for instead of replying, he hailed his mate on
the roof with a "Hi, Bill! here is a go. They wants me to go and be
chairman of the county." Bill leant over the parapet, and delivered
himself as follows--"You take my tip, Jack, and have nothing to do
with 'em!" and this advice Jack concluded to follow, and refused to be
beguiled from his ladder. Nothing daunted, however, the public-spirited
volunteer proceeded with his search, and after a considerable lapse of
time, returned with a small boy in charge, whom he triumphantly marched
up the hall, amid murmurs of applause.

In the meantime the only "bell-topper" to be found among the head-gear
of the assembled sages had been called into requisition, placed in
position on the table, and the names of the proposed chairmen written
on pieces of paper and laid in it.

The boy was now commanded to approach the hat and draw. At this
supreme moment the scene was most impressive. Round about, in various
attitudes, betokening the deep interest they felt in the proceedings,
were the eight councillors, and on tiptoes in front of the table was
the small boy, endeavouring amid profound silence to fathom the depths
of the bell-topper. Never before had that small boy in the course of
his brief life been such an object of interest outside his own family.
The eyes of the leading men in the county were on him, and the election
of chairman of the County Council was in his hands. It ought to have
been a proud moment for that lad, but I regret to record he hardly
seemed duly impressed.

At last his not too nimble fingers secured one of the pieces of paper,
the boy became once more an insignificant atom of humanity in flour-bag
pants, and the selected chairman was duly announced. He assumed the
position with a calm dignity and solemnity, which seemed to proclaim
him as not being unaccustomed to such honours, and the County Council
proceeded to business.

[Illustration: The Supreme Moment.[A]]

[Footnote A: In order to avoid the possibility of giving offence, I
have taken care not to caricature any actual members of the Council.]

The practical working of this system is not at present very
satisfactory, and the last half-yearly statement of accounts shows
that the roads of the district were not so economically managed as
when they were under the former Road Boards, which did not involve the
keeping up of this august body, the County Council.




CHAPTER XXVII.

_CONCLUSION._


At the commencement of this narrative, I expressed my opinion that
persons fond of outdoor amusements, and with moderate incomes, would
get on very well in New Zealand. Four or five hundred a year is thought
little of at home, but a gentleman out here with such an income, would
be deemed a man of very considerable importance, and if he felt an
inclination for politics, would have little difficulty in securing a
seat in the House of Representatives.

These are the kind of men the colony wants--men who would take up
politics for the good of their adopted country, and not for the sake of
an honorarium which the country cannot afford to pay.

New Zealand has now passed the pioneer stage, and, like a newly built
and furnished hotel, is prepared to receive any amount of visitors,
but they must bring their cheque books with them. She has all the
necessaries of ordinary civilised life, plenty of labour, cities lit
with gas and the electric light, churches, houses furnished with
bath-rooms and hot and cold water pipes, clubs, hotels, railways,
telephones, roads, carriages, tramways, steamships, yachts, billiard
rooms, and her big dock in Auckland, which Mr. Froude laughs at in
"Oceana."

Now I cannot resist saying a word or two about this part of his book.

Mr. Froude seems annoyed with the citizens of Auckland for the
improvements they are carrying out, particularly with the dock, and
predicts that New Zealand will never grow into a new nation thus.

I don't for a moment presume to dispute Mr. Froude's judgment with
regard to the baneful effect likely to be produced by a big dock on
a young colony; it is a subject I have never studied, and I have no
intention of pitting my opinion against his. Still, _humanum est
errare_, and Mr. Froude, though an historian, is human, and in this
particular instance, most colonials in the province of Auckland think
mistaken as well, as he certainly is with regard to the harbour and
the dimensions of the dock. Referring to them, he says: "Public works
form the excuse for the borrowing, and there are works enough and to
spare in progress. They are laying out a harbour, cutting down half
a hillside in the process, suited for the ambitious Auckland that is
to be, but ten times larger than there is present need of. They are
excavating the biggest graving dock in the world (the _Great Eastern_
would float in it with ease), preparing for the fleets, which are to
make Auckland their headquarters."

I am utterly at a loss to know what Mr. Froude means by saying they
are laying out a harbour, as Auckland harbour has been laid out by
nature, and man has had no hand in it. A part of the foreshore has
certainly been reclaimed within the last three or four years, and
on the reclaimed land now stands the Auckland railway terminus, the
Auckland Freezing Company's premises, some large flour mills, an
hotel, and some other buildings. To fill in this reclamation, they
utilised a precipitous hill, over-shadowing the main road from Parnell
to Auckland, which was slipping, and in a highly dangerous condition;
but how can that be called "laying out a harbour"? The hill had to be
removed, as part actually slipped one morning, carried away a building,
and fell across the road, nearly burying an omnibus and its contents.

Does Mr. Froude blame the Harbour Board for converting this dangerous
hillside into valuable building land?

With regard to dimensions, the new Auckland dock, "The Calliope" (which
Mr. Froude calls the biggest in the world), is 500 feet long. There
are two docks, I believe, at Birkenhead, each 750 feet long; two at
Plymouth, each 644 feet long; one now in course of construction in
Sydney, N.S.W., 630 feet long; one at Carleton, N.B., 630 feet long;
and one at Liverpool, 501 feet long. The _Great Eastern_ steamship is
one of the two vessels afloat that will _not fit_ in the Calliope dock.

So much for Mr. Froude's facts about the dimensions of the dock. Now a
word about the wisdom of having made it.

Auckland harbour is, without question, one of the best natural
harbours in the universe. Its depth is so great that ships can enter
at any state of the tide. A channel a mile wide, and so perfectly
clear of obstacles that the services of the pilot are often dispensed
with, leads to its entrance, which is snugly sheltered by outlying
islands. Its coaling facilities are magnificent, the supply of coal
inexhaustible, and its position with regard to the groups of islands
forming the eastern portion of the continent of Australasia, must
render it, I should think, a desirable point for a naval station. All
it required to make it perfect was a dock of sufficient dimensions to
take in any of Her Majesty's ships of war, and hence the big dock. If
Auckland is ever utilised as a naval station, immense benefit must
accrue to the town. A man of war or two, with six or seven hundred
hands apiece, means a good many hundred pounds' worth of business a
week to the tradesmen of Auckland. But Mr. Froude says this sort of
thing will never make New Zealand a nation. He thinks the people should
go and live in the country, raise crops, breed sheep and cattle, and
not bother about towns and big docks. Surely he forgets that the farmer
must have a market, and that his prosperity depends on the demand for
his produce, and therefore in a great measure on the prosperity of the
towns.

A few more words, and I will have said my say. I trust the reader
will pardon all my shortcomings, and will bear in mind that I have
only endeavoured to describe my own experiences in the colony, my
own impression concerning matters that have come under my notice,
and some opinions I have gathered from old colonials. I know nothing
of agricultural pursuits, but believe that the kind of farming most
suitable to this part of the colony is sheep-farming, my principal
reasons for so thinking being that many of the Kaiparians appear to
do well at it, and that a Matakohe resident, our local J.P., carries
off nearly every year two or three prizes for sheep at the Annual
Show held in Auckland, and last year the first prize for Shropshires.
Grapes do splendidly in this district, and I think wine-making will one
day become a leading industry. The olive also grows remarkably well,
and I fancy I see another industry sticking out in that direction.
Our mineral resources have never been tapped, hough there are many
indications of hidden wealth.

The colony is undoubtedly passing through a period of depression (in
which it is by no means singular), and is suffering as well from too
much government, both local and general. It however still possesses
plenty of vitality, and only wants time, and men earnest for its good,
at the head of affairs, to nurse it into a vigorous and flourishing
condition.

At the present, indeed, it offers little inducement to professional
men, to endeavour to pursue their callings, but what better time, when
land is so cheap, could be selected by gentlemen with small fixed
incomes to come out, and purchase properties. I should strongly advise
family men to bring if possible their own servants with them, and to
get an agreement signed immediately on reaching Auckland, binding them,
on consideration of the passage money, to remain a certain time in
their service at certain wages. I cannot help thinking that there are
many at home with moderate incomes who would do far better out here,
and who could become important personages in New Zealand if they chose
to take up public matters. They must, however, as I mentioned before,
be people who like a free and easy life, untrammelled by stiff rules of
society. The climate of the North Island is said to be all that can be
desired for those whom a tropical life has unsuited to endure the harsh
winds, the fogs, and the cold of England; and although I have not
travelled the colony sufficiently to feel competent to pass an opinion
as to which are the most desirable localities, still I do not think I
can be wrong in mentioning as a summer or autumn retreat the Northern
Kaipara.


THE END.


  PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
  EDINBURGH AND LONDON.


Transcriber's Notes

 Page 19: Page 20: Page 29: changed, Manakan to Manukau
 Page 76: Page 83: Page 102: Page 140: Page 197: changed, Nikan to Nikau
 Page 112: changed, lessons to lessens



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