UC-NRLF $B SbM b3b ^'^^i^^ ^tm^^^ ZEALAND ONY ■tl*i ^lmn mil Ma 3 M >• i ^l^lm•^'^A1ilMMln)i^i^^ />fi THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID sill GEOllGE GREY {From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry.) THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY (V 5ts (Beootapbp ant) fbtstor^ LONDON EDWAKD AKNOLD [All rights reserved] CONTENTS Introductory Chapter PAGE 7 J APT] .R / PAGE I. Beginnings ^ - 12 II. Maori Customs - 18 III. Some Maori Stories - 24 IV. The White Dis COVERERS - - y 30 V-. Contour and Climate 37 VI. Flora and Fauna ^■ VII. The Progress of Civilization - VIII. The New Zealand Company - - - 54 IX. Governor Grey- - 61 X. The Maori King- Maker - - - 66 XI. The Maori War - 70 XII. The Discovery OF Gold 73 XIII. Borrowing and Sor- rowing - - - 78 42 48 CHAPTER XIV. 'The Fish of Maui'- - - 82 XV. 'The Place of Greenstone ' - '^1 I XVI. Imports and Ex- l^^ ! ports - - - 93 I XVII. To AND From New I Zealand - - 97 XVIII. Life in New Zea- land - - - 102 XIX. New Zealand Notables - - 110 XX. Some Experiments IN Law-making - 116 XXI. The Maori of To- day - - - , 121 XXII. The Islanders ^ 126 PAGE MAORILAND - - - 131 THE FOUR QUEENS 133 APPENDIX PAGE Geographical Summary 135 Historical Summary 139 Ivi313758 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH I its (Scxjgniphi) vmb ^jistorj) Crown 8vo., 144 pages. Price Is. LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ' O, my land of the Moa and Maori, Garlanded grand with your forests of kauri. ' Until very recently it was customary to regard the colony of New Zealand as more or less a part of the continent of Australia. The history of New Zealand has certainly been connected with that of the neighbouring continent; their exports to the British Isles are much of the same character ; and, roughly speaking, New Zealand and Australia lie at the same distance from the. Mother Country. Confusion has also been caused by the convenient term Australasia, under which heading New Zealand, and many of the South Sea Islands, have been included with Australia in works on geo- graphy. A closer examination of the circumstances will show that Australia and New Zealand differ in many respects. In climate and contour, in flora and fauna, the differences are very marked. The methods employed in colonizing were quite distinct, the difficulties encountered were equally so. The early New Zealanders had to contend with an intelligent 8 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY and courageous race of natives, who were able to maintain their rights to possession of the soil, and still retain a goodly- share of the land ; whereas the aborigines of Australia were not a force necessary to be considered. It must further be remembered that at its nearest point New Zealand is 1,200 miles distant from Australia, the journey still occupying two- thirds of the time taken to travel from Liverpool to New York. The refusal of the New Zealanders to join with the confederation of the Australian States marks a determining point in the history of the Australasian Colonies. The fact must now be recognised that there exist in the Southern Seas two distinct young nations, the Australians of the continental type, and the New Zealanders, who are insular. For New Zealand includes not only the three main islands, forming a central group, but also a number of outlying groups of smaller islands. The area of the whole is 104,471 square miles, or about one-seventh less than that of Great Britain and Ireland. Compared with that of New Zealand, the area of Western Australia is ten times as great, South Australia nine times, Queensland six and a half times. New South Whales three times, while the area of Victoria and Tas- mania together exceeds that of New Zealand by over 10,000 square miles. The main group of three islands — North Island, South (or Middle) Island, and Stewart Island — lies between the 34th and 47th parallels of South Latitude, and the meridians of 166 and 179 East Longitude. The three main islands may be regarded as forming one strip of land (broken only by two narrow straits), 1,100 miles long, and with an average breadth of about 120 miles. Of the outlying islands the principal are the Chatham Group, east of Middle Island, the Auckland Group, south of Stewart Island, and the smaller groups known as the Campbell, Antipodes, Kermadec, Bounty and Cook Islands. NEW ZEALAND 9 In area the North Island is considerably greater than either Scotland or Ireland, while the South Island is slightly larger than England and Wales together. In extent of coast-line, as compared with area. New Zealand resembles the Mother Country very closely. The main islands have 1 mile of coast-line to every 24 square miles of area. This is in surprising contrast to Australia, which has only 1 mile of coast to every 340 square miles of area, but approxi- mates very nearly to England and Whales, which has 1 mile of coast-line to 32 square miles of area. The shape of the North Island is much more irregular than that of the South, large gulfs and promontories being frequent. A glance at the map of the North Island will show on the east coast the Bay of Islands, the Hauraki Gulf, the Bay of Plenty, and Hawke's Bay ; while on the west coast are Kaipara Harbour and Manukau Harbour. Between the North and South Islands is Cook Strait, 18 miles wide in its narrowest part, and an invaluable channel of communication between the east and west coasts of New Zealand. Tasman Bay is the most considerable indenture in the coast- line of the South Island, but the south-west coast is remark- able for a number of sounds, which" for grandeur of scenery compare with the Norwegian fjords. Banks Peninsula, on the east coast, is the only projection of any size in the South Island, which presents on the whole a very regular outline. Foveaux Strait, about 25 miles wide, separates South Island from Stewart Island. The latter is of small dimensions, and of but little comparative importance. The total population of New Zealand on December 31, 1902, was 851,068 persons, including some 43,000 Maoris and half-castes. Two-thirds of these people are living in the country or in small centres of population containing under 5,000 inhabitants. In all New Zealand there is no really large city, in the European sense of the term, Auckland, the 10 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY most extensive centre of population, containing only 67,000 people at the end of the nineteenth century. The seat of Government is situated at Wellington, in the North Island, and on Cook Strait. In the South Island there are also two flourishing cities — Christchurch, situated near Banks Peninsula, and Dunedin, on the south-east coast. These four cities are all about the same size, and, as we shall afterwards see, each represents a deliberate attempt on the part of Great Britain to plant a colony. AVith the exception of these four cities there is not a town of 20,000 people in New Zealand. It will be noticed that in this respect New Zealand presents another striking contrast to Australia, where more than one- third of the inhabitants are crowded into the large capital cities of the States. In Victoria, where there were, in round numbers, 1,200,000 people in 1900, half a million lived in Melbourne. Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, con- tains as many inhabitants as Melbourne, though the whole population of the State was but 1,362,000 in 1900. But in New Zealand, with its 810,536 inhabitants in 1900, the largest city contained only 67,000 persons. The contrast between the physical contour of Australia and New Zealand is just as remarkable. Australia is a land of endless plains, dotted with sombre trees, all bearing a close family resemblance. The highest point on the continent is a little over 7,000 feet above the sea-level, and few of its summits approach even that altitude. Rivers are as infrequent as mountains, and many of the lakes of Australia bear that title only by courtesy. But New Zealand is a land of mountains, lakes, and lovely diversified landscapes. Its forest land is abundant, and the foliage of its trees presents cheerful and vivid contrasts. Australia is a big round continent, with a very small pro- portional coast-line; New Zealand is a long narrow island, I NEW ZEALAND 11 with a very extensive coast-line. Many Australians born inland have never seen the sea ; in New Zealand it is almost impossible to escape from its influence. The cool breezes that sweep the plains carry the bracing sea air right up to the mountains, and from many of the higher peaks it is possible to see the Pacific Ocean on either side of the island. All the cities of New Zealand are built on the sea-coast, and so are the greater number of the smaller towns. In New Zealand there exists one of the finest coloured races with which the white man has ever come in contact. Intelligent, courageous, athletic, and chivalrous, the Maori has come to be regarded by the New Zealander as in every sense a man and a brother. He possesses the land by right of prior occupation, he votes with his fellow-citizens, and sends his own representatives to Parliament. The Maori shows great aptitude for the sports introduced by the white man, and is welcomed by the latter as a good sportsman and comrade. It is safe to say that in no other part of the world do a white and a coloured race dwell together on a footing so nearly equal. New Zealand diflers, then, from Australia in nearly every leading characteristic. The result is already a difi"erent type of the Anglo-Saxon race. The imagination of the Australian is nurtured upon mystery and change ; it feeds on the immense distances of his continent, the unknown country that always lies behind the inhabited strip of coast, and the quick reverses of fortune wrought by the inconstant climate. The New Zealander dwells in a land of light and beauty, with magical scenery all around him, the sea for ever close at hand. The seasons play no tricks with the fertile soil he tills, and drought has no terror for him, for he knows what the year will bring forth. The prospect for such a colony would seem to be a bright one. Already the islands have been called the 'Fortunate 12 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Isles '; and as long ago as 1885 the historian Froude wrote of them : ' If it lies written in the book of destiny that the English nation has still within it great men who will take a place among the demi-gods, I can well believe that it will be in the unexhausted soil and spiritual capabilities of New Zealand that the great English poets, artists, philosophers, statesmen, and soldiers of the future will be born and nurtured.' CHAPTEE I BEGINNINGS In the Maori tongue New Zealand is called Aotea or Aotearoa — ' the long white cloud.' The Maoris themselves are only recent colonizers of the land ; very recent indeed, as the history of the world goes. In their own legendary history is preserved the story of how they migrated thither from Hawaiki, not many hundred years back — five hundred at the utmost. There have been many speculations by the Maoris as to the position of the place called Hawaiki. Some think it identical with Hawaii, others point to Tahiti, to Raratonga, and to many other islands of the South Seas, giving plausible reasons to support their theories. An interesting article in the Pall Mall Magazine for October, 1902, supplies an entirely new idea on the subject. When Sir George Grey, one of the greatest authorities on Maori traditions and history, was investigating the question of the identity of Hawaiki, the Maoris showed him a peculiar image of red volcanic stone, which they said their ancestors had brought with them from Hawaiki. Of this image Sir George Grey obtained possession, adding it to his collection of Maori curiosities, now in the possession of the New Zealand Government. It is remarkable BEGINNINGS 13 for being quite flat on the back of the head, as also for the fact that the red stone out of which it is hewn can be found nowhere in New Zealand. Recent investigations, however, have shown that upon Easter Island, a solitary patch of land in the Pacific Ocean, there are a number of images possessing the same characteristics as this one referred to, and made of precisely the same volcanic stone. All the scientific evidence goes to show that this island was once of much larger area, the diminution having taken place owing to part of the island sinking into the sea in a volcanic disturbance. For these, and other reasons of less importance, it is conjectured that Easter Island may possibly be the Hawaiki of Maori legend. On the subject of the migration the traditions agree very closely. There was civil war in Hawaiki, says the story, and a chief named Ngahue set off in his canoe to escape from his enemies. In the course of time he returned, bringing accounts of a far-away land where greenstone abounded, and where there were gigantic wingless birds in the forests. The rivers were full of large eels, he said, and the sea teemed with fine fish ; in short, he drew such glowing pictures of the land he had discovered that many of his hearers made up their minds to migrate thither. Accordingly, they felled trees with weapons made of the greenstone Ngahue had brought with him, and fashioned canoes from the fallen trunks. The names of these canoes are carefully preserved, and each Maori tribe traces back its origin to the pilgrims who arrived in a certain canoe. Thus the Waikatos arrived in the Tainui, the Arawas in the Arawa, yet another tribe in the Tokomara, and so on. Storms arose on the voyage and scattered the little fleet, so that each canoe landed at a different place. It was summer-time when they came, for the forests were bright with the flower of the rata and the clematis ; and where they landed, there they settled. 14 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY So, according to the legend, the Maoris came to the land of the Moa. It would, of course, be impossible to say how much truth the story contains. But it is certain that the Maoris are one branch of the great Polynesian family, that, springing originally from India, occupied in turn all the islands of the Asiatic Archipelago and of the South Seas. Their language is one of the purest dialects of the Polynesian tongue, and so closely akin to that of the natives of Tahiti that a Tahitian, who was with Captain Cook on his first visit to New Zealand, was easily able to converse with the Maoris. The land they adopted was, as we shall presently see, strangely bare of animal life. In their diet fish took the place of animal food, and consequently they settled along the sea-beaches, rivers, and lakes. The flesh of the shark was one of their staples, and they displayed great boldness in catching these fish, a very dangerous occupation in their frail canoes. Once caught the sharks were cut into strips and dried for future consumption. They pursued the birds of the New Zealand forest, not with bow and arrow, but with slender bird spears, sometimes 30 feet in length. The handling of these long, fragile shafts in the tangled New Zealand forests must have called for a remarkable exercise of skill and ingenuity. From their island home at Hawaiki they had brought the kumara, or sweet potato, the taro, and the gourd ; and these plants they cultivated with great care, for they formed the greater part of their food. To this fare they added certain wild fruits native to New Zealand and the root of the bracken fern, which grows all over the islands. The preparation of this root for food was an elaborate and tedious process, and the article of diet so produced is filling rather than sustaining. It seems rather remarkable that on such scanty food so powerful and athletic a race should have been reared. For clothing they depended mainly upon the fibre of a BEGINNINGS 15 plant known as New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax), from which their mats and kirtles were woven. The dressing of the flax fibre, like the preparation of the fern root, was an intricate and elaborate process. The fibre had afterwards to be twisted into thread and woven into garments. But the conversion of flax into clothing was a short and simple process compared with the making of a mat fit to adorn a chief. These mats were made of the soft feathers of the wingless kiwi, and the manufacture of one of them would occupy an expert for quite two years. Their houses, though of primitive design, were well built, and sometimes artistically ornamented. They never contained more than one room, only one door led into them, and, if they had a window, it was designed rather for the purpose of letting the smoke out than of admitting air and light, for Maori houses had no chimney. But they were securely roofed in, and formed habitations of a class superior to those of many coloured races. They built canoes better even than they built houses. Some of their war canoes were very large, and were pro- pelled by as many as a hundred paddles. The beautiful carved stems of some of these canoes are among the finest specimens of Maori art that now remain. Their tools were, of course, home-made, and the best material at their disposal was the precious jade, or greenstone. SPECIMEN OF MAORI CARVING 16 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY The supply of this material was not extensive, and was eked out by the use of bone and of hard wood. The spades with which they dug up the plots of ground where they cultivated their taro and sweet potatoes were usually made of wood, and so also were the spears and clubs with which they fought. It can readily be understood that the Maori had to work hard for his living. Tilling the soil with the primitive tools he had at his disposal was no easy task, and the same difficulty existed in all the Maori's occupations. But the Maori was also a born sportsman. Wrestling, racing, dancing, and singing were among his exercises, but war was his favourite sport. The author of ' Old New Zealand ' wrote : ' Sometimes two villages would get up a little war, and the inhabitants, after potting at each other all day, would come out of their pas in the evening and talk over their day's sport in the most friendly manner. " I nearly bagged your brother to-day." — *' Yes, but you should have seen how I made your old father- in-law skip !" And so on.' They preferred their fighting to take place around these pas^ or palisaded strongholds, one side defending and the other attacking. The defenders built platforms in the pa, from which they threw stones at the enemy ; while the others retorted by slinging red-hot stones on the buildings in the ^^^t. For hand-to-hand conflict they used the mere, or axe of green- stone, and the club. The p^aa were rarely supplied with water, but it seems to have been a Maori rule of war to allow the besieged to come out for both food and water. Indeed, they conducted their warfare much as cricket is played, by a set of more or less chivalrous rules. They dwelt in tribes, and at the head of each tribe was the ariki, who was sometimes both chief and priest. Next in importance to the chief were the members of the royal family, and after them came the rangatira, or nobles. The remainder 18 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY of the people were respectively middle class, lower class, and slaves. Their literature, handed down from generation to genera- tion by the tohungas, or wise men, consists of stories of their gods and ancestors, and poems. One legend, for instance, tells of the loves of Hinemoa and Tutanekai, and resembles the Greek story of Hero and Leander very closely. Li this case, however, it was the maiden who swam across the water dividing her from her lover, the scene assigned to the exploit being the Lake of Rotorua. It will be seen from the above short sketch of life in New Zealand before the white man came that the Maori was a very interesting savage indeed, having a code of honour and an unwritten literature entirely his own. He also possessed a number of peculiar customs, which had a great influence upon the future history of the colony, and which it is, therefore, necessary to examine rather more minutely. CHAPTER H MAORI CUSTOMS The Maori race is probably the best-developed native race with which the white man has ever come in contact. The men are, on the average, five feet nine inches in height, and are proportionately broad and heavily built. Their skin is a light brown, their hair black and straight, and the cast of their features denotes the possession of physical strength. They have the broad nose and heavy-lipped mouth common to most coloured races ; but a high receding forehead usually redeems the heaviness of the lower part of the face, and betokens the intellectual gifts that are peculiar to the Maori. When the white man first arrived in New Zealand it was the custom of the Maotis to tattoo their faces and bodies in a MAORI CUSTOMS 19 very elaborate manner. This art, they declare, was taught them by their hero and demi-god, Maui, who first practised upon the nose of a dog ; and so, as everyone knows, dogs have black muzzles up to this very day ! The Maori word for tattooing was moko, and the art was exalted among them into a very high place. The tattooer occupied a very important position in Maori society, and the youth who desired a really eflective moko had to pay highly for the privilege, as well as to patiently endure a long agony which lasted for months, and, in special cases, for years. But when once the torture was over, the possessor of a fine moko was a person of great importance. To begin with, he was a walking work of art, upon whom it was a privilege and a pleasure to gaze. Then he had shown himself a man of enthusiasm and courage, to endure patiently so long and painful an ordeal without flinch- ing. Finally, he was distinct from all the rest of his race, as different as one of the world's famous pictures is from the other canvases in the gallery. When the white man began to make bargains with the Maoris, the chiefs could not sign their names to the deeds, but each one drew his own special rnoko, as a mark by which he could be readily identified. When the Maoris began to fight with muskets, they found that they were able to sell well tattooed heads to the white men. These heads were mostly sent to European museums, and at one time there was such a demand for them that a good specimen would bring as much as £20. One incident in this horrible trade is worth telling, because it had much to do with putting a stop to it. Two Maori tribes had been engaged in fierce combat, and an English ship-captain had bought from the conquerors a fine assortment of the tattooed heads they had taken from their slain enemies. Later on, this captain was trading with the beaten tribe, and, by way of a joke, emptied these heads upon the deck of his ship from the sacks in which he had placed them. 20 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Recognising the mokos of their brothers and cousins, the Maoris at once left the ship, and the complaints they made reached as far as Sydney, where Governor Phillip soon after- wards imposed a fine of £iO upon anyone convicted of engaging in this horrible traffic. From the very first the missionaries were opposed to the custom of tattooing, and in course of time they made their influence so strongly felt that it was discontinued. It was a long time, however, before this result was achieved, for the moko was so much associated with dignity and rank that even the missionaries confessed that they had grown to associate an unmarked Maori face with all that was common and mean. The character of the Maoris was for a long time extremely puzzling to the whites with whom they came in contact. In some things they were as simple as children, in others they showed themselves as cunning and artful as it is possible to be. Their undoubted courage was not associated with rash- ness or recklessness, but rather with extreme caution. It had to be excited by long and impassioned speeches by the chiefs and priests, and by the terrifying dances in which they some- times indulged. But, once excited, there was no bolder fighter or more skilful warrior than the Maori brave. Among them the art of oratory occupied a very high place. Their language is naturally very musical and resonant. The Maori orators made good use of it, and helped out their eloquent sentences with impressive and dignified gestures. They delighted in debate, and spent whole days in council, making long-winded speeches, full of quotations, proverbs, and allusions to the well-known Maori legends. To this day the race has retained the gift, and the average Maori, with a good knowledge of English, can make a better speech in that language than most Britons. But in the early days the whites could make little out of the Maori's long and eloquent MAOKI CUSTOMS 21 speeches, just as they failed to understand his extraordinary customs of 7nuru and tapu. Mum means plunder. When a man committed any offence against the laws of muru, he was promptly raided by a whole gang of his neighbours, who stole his effects, and perhaps knocked him on the head as well. He may have offended most unwillingly ; possibly his canoe capsized, or his child was scalded. That did not matter, the raiding party visited him just the same, and he was expected to regard their attentions as a polite compliment, paid him entirely for his own good. The Maori was so constituted mentally that he was able to take this view of the matter ; but when the raiders applied their muru customs to the early white settlers, the latter were far from accepting the visit in the spirit in which it was made — they rather took the view that the raiders were lawless robbers, and acted accordingly; hence endless trouble arose between the early settlers and the Maoris, just from this custom of muru. The custom of tapa is much more difficult to describe. Tapu means sacred, and anything that was tapu could not be even touched. The persons of the chiefs were tapu, and so were their weapons, or anything they might happen to touch. Fields of the humara, or sweet potato, were tapu, and so were the people who were working in them. Dead bodies, burial- places, and the bones of the dead were all tapu^ and so were the grave-diggers and those who performed the last offices for the dead. Priests, of course, were tapu ; when performing certain ceremonies they were so sacred that even to approach them would be an infringement of this mysterious law. The more immediate punishments for breaking tapu were the plundering of the offender's goods and sending him to Coventry ; but the Maori firmly believed that the gods would also exact vengeance from him. Under such circumstances the Maoris, who were brought up to the custom, were most 22 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY careful not to offend. They had to keep a very sharp look- out, because many things were tcqm for the time being only. A chief who saw a Mara tree that would make a good canoe and had not time to cut it down and make use of it would declare it tapu, and put some marks upon it to signify as much. So that it was not easy, even for a Maori, to avoid breaking tapu at times. The early white settlers were always making mistakes on this score. A settler would fish in a tapu river — possibly it had not been tapu when he fished in it a month before — and would thus offend Maori prejudices in the most innocent manner imaginable. Then he would be surprised to find that his Maori friends would not speak to him, and that his cattle and sheep began to disappear in a very mysterious fashion. Naturally the white man thought the Maoris the most treacherous and inconsistent people in the world — friendly neighbours one day, and hostile thieves the next. But the Maori looked upon the white as a sacrilegious and abandoned person, who had offended both gods and men and refused to trouble himself about the matter. But the troubles arising out of muru and tapu were as nothing compared to the trouble that came from the Maori land customs. It has already been said that the Maoris lived in tribes ; each tribe possessed its own tract of land, which was the common property of the whole tribe. No individual member could possibly obtain exclusive possession of any part of it ; and so it was impossible for any single Maori, even a chief, to sell" any part of the tribal land. That could only be done with the full consent of the whole tribe to which the land belonged. This was not at first understood by the whites. They saw that a Maori could cultivate a plot of land, and that the pro- ducts of his toil belonged to him. He could give them away, or even sell them, and it was not unnatural to suppose that he could sell the land also. Some of the Maoris, when asked to MAORI CUSTOMS 23 sell land, refused at once, but there were others who pretended to sell the land which they knew very well belonged to their tribe. In some cases the cunning fellows even offered land for sale which belonged to some other tribe, and the whites unsuspectingly paid the price asked for it. The bargains so made were invariably repudiated by the tribes when the whites came to take possession of the land ; and out of these supposed sales of land arose all the most serious conflicts between white and Maori. Cannibalism was another disagreeable custom of the Maoris, but it was only a custom of war. The Maori ate his slain foes, or the prisoners taken in battle, in order to inflict the last possible indignity upon them. Sometimes an ill-behaved slave was killed and eaten in the same way, and a like fate now and then befell the too venturesome white who wandered unprotected into a Maori village and failed to find favour with the chief. But the habit of cannibalism was not, as Captain Cook supposed, the result of a craving for animal food. It was rather a last punishment inflicted on those whom the cannibal despised, whereby their souls were doomed to the most fearful torments. Of all the bad habits of the Maori, his cannibalism was that which he gave up most readily under the influence of the missionaries. 24 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY CHAPTER HI SOME MAORI STORIES When the first white men came to New Zealand and asked the dusky natives who they were, the latter replied : ' Maori ' — that is, * the people.' The name they gave to their visitors was much the same in meaning as that bestowed by the Red Indians of North America — pakeha — that is, pale-face, or, more literally, ' turnip face.' They had no written language of any kind, not even the pictorial writings sometimes found among races far less culti- vated. But their legends and race-stories were handed down from generation to generation without the alteration of so much as a word. The greatest authorities on such matters were the tohungas, or wizards, who got their instruction at sacred colleges regularly maintained for the purpose. The buildings were constructed by the priests themselves, and were called Whare-Kuni (the Red House). Here the youths of the noblest families were instructed in the history of the people and the stories of the gods, the greatest care being taken that the exact wording of each legend should be learned. The course of instruction lasted as long as five years, and at its close the adept must have committed to heart an immense number of the sacred stories. These he had afterwards to repeat aloud, with all the proper inflexions and gestures ; it is also believed that tricks of ventriloquism were part of the wizard's stock-in-trade. The pupil who retained all he had been taught, and could repeat it in the prescribed manner, became a tohunga and a man of great influence and high prestige. The stories deal with the emigration of the Maori race from Hawaiki, as already related ; with Te Rangi, or Heaven, and Te Reinga, the Infernal Regions ; with Maui, and a number of SOME MAOKI STORIES 25 other demi-gods and mythical heroes ; and, finally, with the wars and love adventures of famous chieftains. For nearly everything in Nature the Maori can account by referring to his store of legends. Rona is the woman in the moon, who went out one dark night with an empty gourd, in order to bring water from the neighbouring stream. But she bruised her foot against a stone in the darkness, and at once began to speak very disrespect- fully of the moon, because it was hiding behind a cloud. When the goddess of the moon heard the insults of Rona, she bent down from the sky, and seizing the woman, lifted her from her feet. Feeling the earth receding from her, Rona grasped at a tree, but that came up roots and all. And now, anyone who cares to look may see Rona in the moon, together with the tree and the gourd — a warning to such as speak angrily against the gods. After death the spirits of the nobly born go to Te Rangi, or heaven, but common folk must go down to Te Reinga. The way to Te Reinga is at the Muri Whenua, or Land's End, the most northern point of New Zealand. Here the shades gather for a farewell dance upon earth, after which they let themselves down the cliffs by the roots of a pohutu-kawa tree, and enter the cavern below. In this cavern ran a river over which they were ferried by a woman called Ruhe, who offered them food on the other side. Those who refused were allowed to return to earth, but those who ate — and they were the majority — must stay on in Te Reinga. Many are the stories of Maui, who was their mythical hero. Maui went to the fire goddess on a visit, and brought back with him, for the use of the Maori, a portion of the fire which oozed from her finger-tips. He made the days longer by lassoing the sun with a rope made of his sister's hair ; and he also taught the Maoris how to tattoo. He went out fishing, and, getting a very fine bite, pulled up the fish -shaped North 26 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Island, which still remains as a trophy of his skill and strength. Maui lost his life owing to the chattering of that noisy little bird the fan-tail. He had set about the task of rendering mankind immortal, which could only be accom- plished by creeping through the body of a certain monster. Just as Maui had begun to crawl down the sleeping monster's throat the fan-tail saw him, and began to laugh and twitter. Of course, the demon woke, and there was an end of poor Maui. There were countless other stories of the same kind about Taniwha, the mighty lizard, and Wiro, a demon who haunted the caves. These two beings played an important part in the punishment of evil-doers, who had a great terror of them both, and especially of the great lizard, whom they believed to be lurking in the most unexpected places, always ready to inflict his torments. The constant exercise of the memory that was called for by the learning and repetition of these legends had one effect upon the Maori race : it gave them quick and tenacious memories. In one of the missionary records there is told the story of a young chief, in whose presence a poem of some fifty lines was repeated. He had never heard a line of it before, but was able at once to repeat it without a single mistake ; and such feats of memory were by no means rare. When Captain Cook landed at Mercury Bay there was present a boy named Hore Ta Te Taniwha, then only eight years of age. More than three-quarters of a century after- wards he was able to give an account of the incident, which showed how marvellous a memory the Maori has for trifles. According to this account, the old men pronounced the ship to be a tufua, or god. When they saw the sailors rowing a boat to the shore they cried : ' Yes, it is so ; these people are goblins ; their eyes are at the back of their heads.' When the goblins landed, the children ran away into the woods, but the 'A CRASH OF THUNDER FOLLOWED' {nee p. 2Sj. 28 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY men stayed behind to greet the strangers. As the goblins did no harm, Taniwha and some of the other children came back and examined them closely. Some of the goblins carried walking-sticks, and one of them pointed his stick at a cormorant which sat upon a tree. A crash of thunder followed, with lightning, and the bird fell dead. Taniwha, who was among the bolder of the children, went aboard the ship, where he saw the leader of the goblins. He was a tino tangata — a man among men — and was grave, reserved, and dignified. He spoke kindly to the children, though, and gave little Taniwha a large nail, which he retained for many years afterwards, using it either as a spearhead or a charm to wear around his neck. But one day he was capsized out of his canoe, 'and,' said Taniwha, 'my god was lost to me, though I dived for it.' In the same simple and quaint language old Taniwha, when ninety years old, could describe the simplest details of an incident he had witnessed when he was only eight. The Maori of the present day can tell a story with the same quaintness, and the same amusing attention to details. When the Australian Commonwealth was proclaimed in Sydney at the beginning of the present century, a Maori chief named Tamahau Mahupuku, head chief of the Wairarapa tribes, journeyed across the ocean to be present at the ceremony. The account he gave of his adventures on his return ftom Sydney has been preserved, and is both interesting and amusing. ' At first the sea was very angry,' he said, ' and a strange feeling came over us. But when I got there all the sickness which I had felt during the voyage disappeared — my body became most peaceful ; no troubles to disturb my inner parts — and I felt I was a new man. ' Then I began to look round. I seemed like one in a mist. Night came on, and it seemed as if the stars of heaven had SOME MAOKI STOKIES 29 been brought down and placed upon the housetops, and on the masts of ships, and in the streets. The whole firmament was ablaze with fire, and lights twinkled in all the waters. Our Maori traditions say that it was the stars of heaven which guided our forefathers across the waters from a far country to this land. In Sydney I found stars brought from heaven to guide the footsteps of the coming nation. I said to myself : " These people are second gods." * In the streets I saw great houses made of rocks towering up into the sky. I saw the tramways — they had no horses. One was something like a train, and was drawn by an engine. Another had hands which grasped a wire, and was drawn along. I never saw the wire, but was told it was in the earth. The third was conveyed by a small wire hung up, and another wire was thrust up from the car, and the two were married, and the car moved. This tram was a wonderful tram. It was the fastest of all — faster than our trains. I said to myself : "I have seen wonderful things to-day." ' No accidents ! Yes, one. I saw with my own eyes an old man who fell just in front of a tram ; then, like a flash, a scoop was let down, and the old man was shovelled up and gently thrown on one side. The tram passed on, and the old man got up and shook the dust off" him, and walked away unharmed. I say this is a great people. I was so amazed, I stood there and looked at the old man. I was amazed. I had no words to say. I could not speak ; and then I walked away astonished. 'What I have just given you are my impressions — the things that have hit me in the head — while I was over at that great land. All these sights we have seen have impressed the whole of our minds and bodies of the vastness of that country and its inhabitants. This is printed in our hearts permanently —ake tonu atu — for ever and ever.' 30 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY CHAPTER IV THE WHITE DISCOVERERS So far as is definitely known, Tasman was the first white man to visit New Zealand. It is true that the French claim that the islands had long before been discovered by a French- man named De Gonneville, and that the Spanish claim the same honour for one Juan Fernandez. There is no proof of these statements, but the voyage of Tasman is well authenti- cated. He was despatched by Antony Van Diemen, Governor of the Dutch East India Company, in search of the Great South Land — that is, Australia. The result of the voyage was the discovery, first of all, of Tasmania, called by the discoverer Van Diemen's Land, after his patron. From that island Tasman sailed east until he sighted the west coast of the Middle Island. He then turned northwards, and rounded Cape Farewell, and cast anchor in the bay which now bears his name. The Maoris put out in their war canoes, and hovered round Tasman's ships for two or three days. They finally attacked a boat which was passing from one ship to the other. Three sailors were killed and another wounded, and Tasman immediately weighed anchor and made all haste to leave so inhospitable a spot. Missing the straits, he sailed along the west coast of the North Island, looking for a passage to the east, and finally came to the two most northerly points of the island, which he named Cape Maria Van Diemen, and North Cape respectively. Then the explorer made the best of his way back to Batavia. Tasman began his voyage in 1642, and on his arrival at Batavia reported that he had visited Staaten Land, the spot THE WHITE DISCOVEREKS 31 discovered and named by an explorer called Schouten. Schouten's discovery was soon afterwards found to be only a small island, whereupon the land described by Tasman was re-christened New Zealand — a name it has ever since retained. From Tasman's voyage in 1642 to the visit paid by Captain Cook in 1769 is a period of 127 years, during which New Zealand was not visited by any white man. Cook's voyage THE SKELETON OF THE MOA IN SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM was the outcome of an expedition despatched by the Eoyal Society of England for a double purpose. The first aim was to observe the transit of Venus from the island of Tahiti ; the second was to investigate the Great South Land (Australia), of which so much was then being heard. Cook's vessel was the Endeavour, a small but stout barque of 370 tons burden. 32 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY When the astronomical observations at Tahiti were concluded, the Endeavour put out in search of the Great South Land, and came first of all upon the east coast of the northern island of New Zealand. Cook landed at Poverty Bay, but quickly came into conflict with the Maoris, and one of them had to be shot before the boat's crew could get away. Cook was always opposed to treating the natives with violence, but all his endeavours to make friends with the tribe at Poverty Bay were useless. So he left this part of the coast in disgust, sailing south- wards to Cape Turnagain, and then retracing his course to Poverty Bay, and so still farther north, where he found a friendly tribe. He was taken through the village, and for the first time beheld a Maori pa. Coasting further north, he landed at Mercury Bay, and took possession of the land for King George. He then completed a voyage round the North Island, finishing the exploit by discovering the passage between the two islands, which is called after him. On January 30, 1770, he landed on South Island, from Queen Charlotte Sound, and took possession of that, too, in the name of the King. He then circumnavigated South Island, going round the south of Stewart Island, which he supposed to be part of the larger piece of land. Wherever he landed he strove to maintain friendly relations with the Maoris, though in this he was not always successful. He was fortunate in having on board a native of Tahiti called Tupia, whose speech was readily understood by the Maoris, and through whom Cook was able to glean many particulars of the Maori life and customs. Cook visited New Zealand three times afterwards, and was long remembered for one priceless benefit he conferred upon the Maoris. The islands contained no animals except rats and dogs, and Cook attri- buted the cannibal customs of the people to want of animal food. He therefore took to them a number of pigs, sheep. THE WHITE DISCOVERERS 33 goats, and fowls, as well as potatoes and cabbages. The sheep and goats died, but the pigs and fowls throve amazingly ; and for these things, and especially for the potato, the Maori was very grateful. Captain Cook was none too soon in taking possession of New Zealand on behalf of England. Before he had departed in quest of Australia, a French captain, named De Surville, arrived with his ship in New Zealand waters. The natives at Mongonui treated him and his men with great friendliness, but he quarrelled with them in the end. The cause of the trouble was a boat belonging to the Frenchman, which was missed after a storm, and which he assumed the Maoris to have stolen. In retaliation he burned the Maori village, after luring the chief on board his vessel and putting him in irons. The poor Maori died of home-sickness, and, strange to say, De Surville was soon afterwards drowned in the surf at Callao. About two years afterwards another French captain, named Marion du Fresne, crossed to New Zealand from Tasmania, and anchored in the Bay of Islands. He and his men un- knowingly violated the law of tapu, it seems, and burned some of the Maori images. The Maoris determined that they should suffer for this, and after maintaining an attitude of the greatest friendship for many days, suddenly set upon Du Fresne and his men, killing and eating him and sixteen of his crew. Crozet, the second in command, took a terrible vengeance for this outrage, turning his ship's guns upon a crowd of Maoris as they stood on the shore, and. killing and burning indiscriminately. The Maoris never forgot this encounter with the French, and sixty years afterwards a petition was made to the English for protection against the ' tribes of Marion.' When Cook visited New Zealand for the second time, a similar misunderstanding arose between one of his ships, 3 34 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY commanded by Captain Furneaux, and the Maoris. It began in a quarrel between a sailor and a native, the former refusing to pay for a hatchet he had offered to buy from the Maori. This quarrel ended in a Maori attack, in which a boat's crew of ten were lost, the bodies being afterwards eaten. Furneaux, however, recognised the fact that there must have been some cause for this sudden attack by the Maoris, and, instead of taking reprisals, contented himself with rescuing and burying what was left of the dead bodies, and sailed away immediately afterwards. This treatment by the English had a great effect on the Maoris, and, though there was a good deal of trouble afterwards, it was always possible for an Englishman to main- tain friendly relations with the Maoris, provided that he respected their religious customs. Nevertheless, the account given by the French and by Cook of the ferocity and cunning of the Maoris, and more particu- larly of their cannibalism, had the effect of scaring traders and settlers away from New Zealand. Ijittle attention was paid to the place, and the few ships that called there came mainly from the new colony of New South Wales. In 1793, Governor King, of New South Wales, paid a visit to the islands, the circumstance arising in a very peculiar fashion. Norfolk Island was one of the first of the new colonies in Australia, and in this spot was found the flax which was the raw material from which the Maori clothing and mats were fashioned. An attempt was made in Norfolk Island to utilize this product, but the result was so inferior to the Maori article that it was resolved to try and get a Maori as instructor in the art. A ship was accordingly sent to New Zealand, and two Maori chiefs were kidnapped and taken to Norfolk Island. There they were kept for six months, protesting all the time that they knew nothing of flax manufacture, which was a woman's occupation, and beneath their dignity as chiefs. In the end, Governor King sent them back home with a present THE WHITE DISCOVERERS 3.5 of pigs, maize, etc., and, as already said, himself paid a visit to New Zealand. He returned to Sydney very much struck with the natural resources of the place, and spoke much of the timber and other things that were obtainable there. Thereafter ships from Sydney began to call at New Zealand, at first chiefly for the kauri pine they found so suitable for masts and spars. They soon found that the coasts abounded in whales, and whaling stations were formed here and there all along the New Zealand coasts. In many places, especially in the South Island, the Maoris were very friendly to the whalers, and proved themselves useful and bold in the pursuit of the great animals. The whalers fraternized with them, and in many cases took Maori wives, and reared families of strong hardy children there. It was a strange and eventful life, that of the New Zealand whaler. During the season, which was the New Zealand winter---from May to September — there was one ceaseless round of toil and adventure. The killing of the whales, the stripping of the blubber from the great carcasses, the tending of the fires, and the management of the mighty boilers in which the oil was extracted — these occupations kept them incessantly busy all day and during many nights. Brown men and white alike worked like giants, toiling to make the most of the busy time of the year. Then came the end of the season, and the ships came from Sydney bringing the goods that formed the pay, and prepared to take away the oil that represented the season's catch. The greater part of the pay was, unfortunately, intoxicating liquor, the favourite brand being a rum of the deadliest kind. Tobacco, stores, and clothing made up the rest, and when the oil was fairly stowed on the ships, there began a time of reck- less dissipation, which only ended when the rum was all con- sumed. Then, sick and sorry, the whalers had to face the 3—2 36 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY dull summer, in which there was no work to do. A few cultivated their plots of land, but most of them loafed about the beach smoking and longing for the time when the whales would again appear. There was another class of white settlers, too, a much more objectionable class than even the whalers. Many of them were escaped convicts from Australia, others were wanderers and adventurers but little better. These made their way to the Maori villages, where some were promptly killed and eaten. Others gained some influence with their hosts, and were promoted to positions of a peculiar importance in the tribe. The duty of the 'pakeha Maori' — for by this name these adventurers were known — was to act as intermediary between Maoris and white traders. The pakeha had to conduct the trade of the tribe, bartering the native products of flax, vegetables, pork, timber, etc., for blankets, tobacco, and other things, too often for rum and firearms. And so New Zealand became a sort of No Man's Land. It was nominally supposed to be under the rule of the Governor of New South Wales ; but that official had all he could do to manage the turbulent community that centred in the settle- ment at Sydney. New Zealand was, therefore, the refuge of the desperate and the lawless, a place where each man was a law unto himself, and where deeds of violence were the common result of unchecked dissipation and riot. In some places the more respectable inhabitants formed themselves into associa- tions to maintain law and order, and inflicted fines on unruly persons. The last and most searching punishment was that of tarring and feathering, the misdemeanant being smeared with tar and then covered with white feathery grass-seed. He was then placed astride a rail, and so ridden out of the settlement, preceded by musicians playing the ' Rogue's March.' The first mitigation of this state of affairs was the coming CONTOUR AND CLIMATE 37 of the missionaries, a step towards the establishment of orderly government. But before tracing the history of the civilizing of New Zealand, it will be well to see what kind of land it was, and what attraction it possessed for the colonist and the settler. CHAPTER V CONTOUR AND CLIMATE A CONTRAST has already been drawn between Australia and New Zealand in respect of the proportion of coast-line to superficial area. Similarly in the matter of physical contour, the advantage is altogether with New Zealand. The highest point in Australia is little more than 7,000 feet above the sea- level. In both the North and South Islands of New Zealand there are peaks far exceeding this height, and the nature of the whole country is mountainous. The North Island is the scene of volcanic action. Active volcanoes are dotted about its surface ; it contains geysers, boiling springs, and fumaroles, and is subject to frequent shocks of earthquake. In the centre of the island is situated Lake Taupo, a large circular lake about twenty miles across. From this lake rises the River Waikato, the largest river in the colony. Leaving the north-eastern corner of the lake, the stream flows in a north-westerly direction towards Manukau Harbour, where it empties itself into the sea. The Waikato is navigable for more than a hundred miles from its mouth. Between Lake Taupo and the west coast is the native reser- vation known as the King Country, to which it will be neces- sary to make frequent reference in subsequent chapters. The lofty mountains of the North Island are either active or extinct volcanoes. The highest point is Mount Ruapehu, a volcano 9,000 feet above sea-level, from which steam is con- 38 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY stantly issuing. The steam arises from a deep lake in the crater of the mountain, which is subject to intermittent volcanic disturbances. The summit of Ruapehu is consider- ably above the snow-line. South of Lake Taupo is another considerable volcano called Tongariro Mountain, which consists of a group of volcanic cones. The highest peak is Ngauruhoe, which constantly emits steam and vapour. Further south, and near New Plymouth, is Mount Egmont, an extinct volcano, which rises in solitary grandeur from the surrounding plains. Mount Egmont is 8,260 feet high, and presents a very noble appearance, its cone being often compared to the Japanese Fusiyama for symmetry of outline. The South Island is intersected by a lofty range of moun- tains, known as the Southern Alps, which run north and south almost through the whole length of the island. They reach their highest point in Mount Cook (12,349 feet), many other peaks being over 10,000 feet in height. Some of these peaks, such as Mount Sefton, Mount Earnshaw, and Mount Aspiring, present a very grand appearance, clad as they are with perpetual snow from their summits half-way down to the base. From the Southern Alps rise countless rivers, flowing east and west to the Pacific Ocean. Their streams are fed by the melting ice of the mountain glaciers, and by the frequent rains of the humid west coast. Those which flow westward have a precipitous and turbulent course to their mouths. The eastern streams, after falling down the mountains, wind their way through fertile plains to the ocean. New Zealand is a land of mountain and stream, of forest and flood. Plains there certainly are, where the eye is met by a flat grassy prairie that rolls onwards unbroken by even a single tree. But the horizon is ever bounded by some moun- tain chain, and the cool breeze that sweeps across the plain is salt with the breath of the sea. ON THE WAIKATO RIVER 40 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Between the most northerly and the most southerly points of New Zealand is a distance of more than a thousand miles. That alone points to a great difference between the climate of the north and that of the south. But, whether in north or south, there is one thing to be noticed which is probably accounted for by the modifying influence of the ocean : extremes of temperature nowhere exist. Even in the North Island, where the winter is pleasantly mild, the summer is never unbearably warm. The winter of the south brings frost and snow, but never any piercing cold or numbing blizzard. At Auckland the olive and the orange ripen in the open, and further north may be found the bamboo and the man- grove-tree. There are vineyards all over the North Island, and as low down in the South Island as Christchurch. In Welling- ton the highest reading of the thermometer during the year 1900 was 79° F., and the lowest 34° F. In Melbourne, only three degrees further north, the temperature in the same year ranged between 101° and 32°. In Auckland, which lies in the same latitude as Melbourne, the lowest reading during 1900 was 40°, and the highest only 78°. New Zealand has a further advantage over Australia in being free from drought. The west coast of the South Island is one of the rainiest spots in the Empire, while the eastern plains receive a sufficient rainfall, and are, in addition, well watered by the streams flowing from the mountains. The rains are usually heavy, but not of long duration ; after a suc- cession of sharp showers the clouds will disappear, and the sun will shine cheerfully. New Zealand enjoys plenty of sunlight. Even in the extreme south the usual winter's day, after beginning with frost and fog, provides six or seven hours of brilliant sun. The air is always sharp, but it is clear and buoyant and full of light. A still day is a rarity in New Zealand ; the air is CONTOUR AND CLIMATE 41 always stirring, and usually there is a good deal of wind. There is a saying in Australia that a New Zealand visitor can usually be distinguished by the fact that he mechanically lifts his hand to his hat whenever he comes to a street corner. But the wind is pure and bracing. The enervating hot wind of Australia is not known, save on rare occasions, when it may be experienced on the Canterbury Plains. The finest testi- mony to the New Zealand climate is the fact that the death- rate of the colony is the lowest in the world. Most of the North Island is, or has been, covered with forest or scrub. Much of this has been cleared and burned off, the land being then sown with grass seed. Except where clogged with pumice-stone and other volcanic matter, nearly all the soil of the North Island is suitable for tillage or pasture lands. It is estimated that 13,000,000 acres of the North Island is suited for agriculture, and another 14,000,000 acres for pasture, while only 300,000 acres are set down as worthless. In the South Island there are many flat plains where no trees grew when the white man first came to New Zealand. Principally owing to the extent of the mountain ranges, the area of useless land in the South Island is much greater than that in the North Island. Geographically, New Zealand is a thousand miles nearer America than the continent of Australia is, and the colony occupies an Lqpportant position with regard to the islands of the South Seas. From time to time a number of these have been added to the territory of New Zealand, and it seems probable that more of them will be added to the colony in the near future. 42 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY CHAPTER VI FLORA AND FAUNA The trees and shrubs of New Zealand, like those of the neighbouring continent of Australia, are entirely evergreen. There, however, the resemblance ceases. Australian forests are composed almost exclusively of trees belonging to the eucalyptus and acacia class ; not one of either species is native to New Zealand. There the trees consist chiefly of pines and birches. These trees, growing closely together and shooting up to a great height before they put out their branches, form a dense canopy of shade above, through which the sun's rays can rarely pierce. The space between their trunks is choked with a growth of tangled scrub, in which ferns, bushes, and shrubs of every kind become so interlaced that it is almost impossible to force a passage through them. The kauri pine is the king of the New Zealand forest. It is estimated that it takes 800 years for one of these trees to attain perfection, but a fully grown kauri pine is one of the finest timber trees in the world. There is no undergrowth in the kauri forests, for the scrub and fern found elsewhere will not grow in the shade of the kauri pine. The kauri forests are rapidly being reduced by the timber-cutters, for the wood sells readily for building purposes. Next to the kauri comes the Mara, from the wood of which the Maoris used to make their long war canoes. Then there is black pine, and cypress, with ijuketea and many varieties of beech, all of them tall forest trees. Up many of them climbs the feathery creeper and a parasite known as the rata. One variety springs from the soil and coils round the trees of the forest, choking them to death; another shoots from seeds deposited by the wind or the birds in some tree forks and lets down its snaky coils until they take root in the ground. NEW ZEALAND FLORA (On the left hand the Kauri Pine and Tree-Fern ; in the centre the Cypress ; to the right the Rata and Tea Tree.) 44 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY There is another species of rata which is a timber tree, and, like the creeper which bears the same name, has blossoms of a beautiful scarlet colour. The tree-trunks are everywhere covered with parasites, lichens, ferns, and orchids. In the north the tree-ferns grow to an immense height ; it is no uncommon thing to see a stem 40 or 50 feet high, crowned with its bunch of graceful, drooping fern-fronds. Another beautiful tree which diver- sifies the forest is the fern-palm (no fern at all, by the way), the foliage of which resembles the ordinary tree-fern very closely. The tea-tree grows everywhere, with its small dark- green leaves and its gnarled, twisted stem, from the wood of which the Maoris make their fences. The early settlers sometimes used the leaves of this tree as a substitute for real tea, and a very unpalatable brew it made. Of wild flowers there is no great variety. One of the most beautiful flowering trees is the jyoJmtu-kawa ('splashed by the spray '), a tree with glossy, dark-green leaves an4 brilliant red flowers. It is always found near the sea, sometimes so near that its branches dip down to the water, whence the poetical name it bears in the Maori tongue. There are many lovely flowering creepers in the forest besides the rata, such as the clematis and a very beautiful variety of white convolvulus. On the plains may be found a species of pampas grass, called the ' toe-toe,' with cream-coloured plumes that wave pleasantly in the breeze, while in the swamps are large areas covered with phormium, or New Zealand flax. The trees and plants of other countries flourish wonderfully in New Zealand. Australia sends the eucalyptus and the mimosa, or wattle, while nearly every known variety of British tree may be found somewhere in the colony. The streams that water the plains of Canterbury are lined with weeping willows, and the lanes are hedged on either side with tall hawthorn. Gorse runs riot on the plains, so that the settlers FLOEA AND FAUNA 45 have had to wage war upon it, and upon the sweet-brier as well. The food-plants of the old world flourish everywhere, especially in the South Island. The Canterbury plains are covered with waving wheat, while further south, in the high- lands of Otago, the finest oats in the world are produced. When the white man first came to New Zealand he found that there was only one native animal, unless a species of bat be counted. New Zealand's only animal was the native rat, which differs but little from the house-rat in appearance, but lives in the woods. Of the habits of these animals strange stories are told. At one time they suddenly made their appearance in vast numbers, all migrating southward as fast as they could travel. This fact was particularly observed upon the west coast of the South Island, where the migration of the rats continued iot some months, when they suddenly disappeared just as mysteriously as they came. These facts are related by Mr. Edward Wakefield, who says that countless numbers -of them were killed during the migration. The native rat is now giving way before the house- rat, introduced by the settlers, and is very rarely seen. Captain Cook, as the reader may remember, introduced the pig at a very early stage in the history of the colony ; the animals have thriven in a wild state, as well as in one of domestication, and pig-hunting is one of the recognised sports in some parts of the island. Other animals introduced in a wild state were the deer (of various species), the hare, the wallaby, and the rabbit. As in Australia, the rabbits have multiplied so rapidly as to become a nuisance, and among other plans devised to keep them down may be mentioned that of introducing stoats and weasels. These latter have naturally found an easier prey in the poultry-yard than in the rabbit-warren, and the farmer has found that he has only added another to his list of adversaries. The possibility of disposing of the rabbits by freezing them and sending them to Great 46 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Britain has had a marked effect in keeping down their numbers. The domestic animals in New Zealand were enumerated in the census of 1900, when there were 266,000 horses, 1,250,000 cattle, and 19,355,000 sheep in the colony. In spite of the fact that New Zealand supplies Great Britain as well as other colonies with large quantities of frozen mutton, the flocks continue to increase at a very satisfactory rate, owing to the excellent pastures of the colony, and its im.munity from drought. The strange birds of New Zealand are famed all over the world. The gigantic moa is now extinct, but there is no reason to doubt that, even when the Maori first landed, this gigantic ostrich was still roaming the plains. Perfect specimens of the moa's egg are occasionally met with, the last one having been found by a gold-miner, who sold it for £80. The bones of the bird are not so rare, and it has been possible to construct a perfect skeleton, showing how tall and how immensely powerful the moa must have been. The kiwi, or apteryx, would soon have been as extinct as the moa, but that the Government took steps to preserve its existence. Several islands have been set aside as a sanctuary for this and other rare native birds. The apteryx has no wings and no tail, and is covered with a sort of soft hair, more like fur than feathers. Another quaint New Zealand bird is the weka, or wood-hen, which is also wingless, although possessing something that might be called a tail. This bird is possessed by an over- powering curiosity, and cannot keep away from miners' tents and other places where it naturally comes to grief. The kea is a less amiable bird. It is a kind of parrot, the natural food of which was formerly berries. Recently, however, the kea has become carnivorous, and is responsible for the death of many sheep. Fixing its strong claws in the woolly coat of NEW ZEALAND FAUNA (The Kea, Tui, Apteryx, Weka, and Tuatara.) 48 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY the sheep, it tears at its victim's back with its powerful beak until the kidney fat is reached. This is the kea's favoured food, a fact which has naturally made the bird very objection- able to farmers and pastoralists. The most musical of the native birds are the tui, or parson- bird, and the bell-bird ; others worthy of notice are the wood- pigeon and various kinds of game-birds, such as wild duck, snipe, etc. The pheasant has been introduced, and may be found in a wild state in many parts of the colony, as may also the black swan, imported from Australia. New Zealand has no snakes of any kind, and very few lizards. Its strangest reptile is the tuatara, a kind of iguana which exists in a sort of comatose state. The rivers and lakes originally contained few fish, save eels, but they are now plentifully stocked with various kinds of trout. The sea contains many good table-fish, on which, up to the present, too little value has been set. CHAPTER Vn THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION The Maoris were an adventurous race, and took naturally to the sea. Very soon after the first whalers came to New Zealand they began to find their way, as sailors, to various foreign ports. Maoris were seen first at Sydney, then as far away as San Francisco, and finally even in London itself. One of these latter, a sailor named Ruatara, had worked his passage to England, in the hope of seeing King George HI. When he arrived in London the captain of the vessel treated him very badly, depriving him of his wages, and putting him on board a convict-ship bound for Sydney. THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION 49 Among the passengers was Samuel Marsden, who was going out to New South Wales as a chaplain. He noticed poor Ruatara sitting shivering in his blanket, saddened by dis- appointment and ill-treatment, and looking as though he were about to die. Marsden's kindness and sympathy stirred the Maori out of the apathy to which he had resigned himself, and made of him a devoted disciple and friend. Ruatara described to the chaplain his native land, and the lawlessness and savagery to which it was abandoned ; and, as he listened, it seemed to Marsden that his life's work was clearly pointed out to him. He would be a missionaryto New Zealand. Having assisted Ruatara to return to his home, Marsden set to work in Sydney to carry out the project he had conceived. For some time he received but little encouragement, but finally, in the year 1814, an advance party, consisting of Messrs. Hall and Kendall, two laymen, was sent to the Bay of Islands. They returned, bringing with them Ruatara and two other Maori chiefs, named Korokoro and Hongi. They had been so hospitably received, and the Maoris were so enthusiastic, that Marsden himself was permitted to go to New Zealand. He was gladly welcomed there, and preached his first sermon at the Bay of Islands on Christmas Day, 1814. Korokoro kept order, the Maoris listened quietly, and when the service was over danced a war dance in honour of their visitor. Marsden soon afterwards bought from one of the chiefs a plot of land as the site for his mission, the price of 200 acres being twelve axes. This is the first recorded land sale in New Zealand, and should be noted, for the extension of the practice afterwards brought great trouble upon the colony. In this way the first mission station was established. Of the missionaries, the most notable were Williams, who had been a naval officer and had fought at Copenhagen ; Kendall, 4 50 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY a schoolmaster ; and King, a master builder, who had abandoned a comfortable home to take up missionary work. Under the guidance of Marsden, these men laboured at first rather to civilize than to Christianize the Maoris. They ceaselessly opposed the senseless fighting that was continually going on, and discouraged the practices of cannibalism and slavery. They taught the Maoris the arts of agriculture and the elements of many useful trades, and gained so much respect among the chiefs that in the story of the first fifty years of mission work in New Zealand there is not one single case of a missionary meeting his death at the hands of the Maoris. Meanwhile, it was work of the most discouraging kind, so far as the chief work of the missionaries was concerned. In the first ten years only one convert was made. Ruatara, Marsden's constant and staunch friend, himself died a heathen, and his wife killed herself at his funeral as a mark of respect. But the missions spread, and in 1822 the Wesleyan^i also sent missionaries to New Zealand, establishing a station at Whangoroa. And so the work went on, until it was estimated that in 1838 one fourth of the Maoris had been baptized. The missionaries also first gave the Maoris a written language. In 1820 they sent Hongi and another chief to England to assist Professor Lee, of Cambridge, in compiling a grammar and dictionary of the Maori tongue. Into this language the Bible was translated by Bishop Williams, and the work was printed by William Colenso, who had a small printing-press at the Bay of Islands. The New Testament was issued in portions, which were eagerly bought up by the Maoris, some of whom sent long distances for the precious pamphlets. This work of putting the Maori language into writing was well done by Professor Lee and his assistants, the spelling of the words being simple and pleasing. But it brought much trouble upon New Zealand, neverthe- THE PKOGKESS OF CIVILIZATION 51 less, in an indirect fashion. One of the Maori chiefs sent to England to assist the Professor was Hongi, the same man who welcomed Marsden when he first landed. This Hongi was an ambitious and bloodthirsty savage, with all the Maori love of fighting, and more than ordinary Maori ability. In the tribal wars that were constantly going on he noticed the effect produced by one or two Maoris armed with old muskets. He saw that great power would be gained by the chief who could arm his whole tribe with muskets ; but these he could not get from. the missionaries. Then came his voyage to England, where he was made much of, and where he received many valuable presents. He was actually presented to King George IV., who gave him a suit of armour. The incident seems to have acted as a spur to his ambitions. ' There is only one King in England,' he said ; ' there shall be but one among the Maoris.' And so Hongi kept his eyes open. When he returned to Sydney he sold all his presents, save only his suit of armour, and with the money so raised bought 300 muskets, with ball and powder. The Sydney G-overn- ment seems to have known of this purchase, and not to have attempted to stop it. So Hongi went off to New Zealand with his muskets, and, having armed his tribe with them, set out on a career of bloodshed. For years he raged through the North Island unchecked, and seemed very likely to attain his ambition and become King of all the Maoris. But rival chiefs also obtained muskets, and the power was once more divided, although the slaughter was terribly heavy when compared with that of the days when the Maoris had fought with slings and with axes. Hongi went out to fight one day without the suit of chain armour which he prized so highly, and was shot in the back, the ball passing through his lung. He lived for fifteen months after this, and, it is said, used to entertain his friends by allowing the wind to whistle 4—2 52 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY through the bullet-hole in his body. When he died he left behind him many fighting chiefs, of whom the most pro- minent were Te Waharoa, Te Whero Whero, and Rauparaha. The chief last named was especially cruel and bloodthirsty, and finally one of his savage deeds caused the Government tc step in and interfere. Rauparaha was the warrior who first sent his canoes across the straits, and carried his evil work into the South Island. His reason for attacking the Maoris there was an insult he fancied one of their chiefs had put upon him. That they never suspected his enmity is proved by the fact that they assembled on the beach to give his canoes a friendly welcome; but when his warriors reached land they leaped out upon the shore and fell upon their hosts. Then he attacked the tribe of Kaiapoi, and in attempting to take their fortified pa by treachery his uncle lost his life. Rauparaha swore that he would inflict dreadful vengeance upon the Kaiapoi tribe, and, as he was not able to take their stronghold by force, he had recourse to treachery. He hired an Englishman named Stewart to take him and his warriors on his ship, which then put in and anchored off Kaiapoi. The chief of the Kaiapoi tribe and his family were then lured on board by the white man, all the Maoris hiding down below. When once they were on board, Rauparaha made his appear- ance, taking them prisoners. Then he attacked the tribe, defeating them with great slaughter, and bringing back the bodies to the vessel. They were cooked in the ship's galley, and the usual cannibal feast followed. The Kaiapoi chief was kept by Stewart until Rauparaha had paid him his pro- mised bribe, but the captain then gave him up to be tortured to death. The fact that a white man had taken part in such a ghastly deed had some result as far as New Zealand was concerned. When Stewart arrived in Sydney he was arrested, and com- mitted for trial, but witnesses were hard to obtain, and he THE PROGEESS OF CIVILIZATION 53 finally escaped punishment. The affair called attention to the lawlessness of New Zealand, however, and to the fact that it was a country where there was practically no Govern- ment at all. The result was that a Resident was sent to govern the place. This was Mr. James Busby, a gentleman whose efforts to restore law and order created a great deal of amusement both then and afterwards. He had practically no powers, and had he wished to take any active steps towards governing the islands, had no force to support him. One of his ideas was to call the chiefs together and form them into a confederation, having the power to make laws. This confederation he called the United Tribes of New Zealand, and he proposed that the King of Great Britain should be called Protector of the con- federation. Mr. Busby's scheme came to nothing, and he was rebuked by the authorities for having even put it forward. He seems to have done so in opposition to a certain Baron de Thierry, a Frenchman who, in 1822, proclaimed himself the King of New Zealand. This adventurer claimed to have bought 40,000 acres of land at Hokianga for thirty axes ; but when he tried to take possession of this property, the Maoris would only allow him 200 acres. He settled himself there, and issued proclamations that entertained both whites and Maoris very much, styling himself King and Defender of New Zealand. About the same time French warships became very frequent visitors to New Zealand, and the coincidence did not escape notice. The French also established lioman Catholic missions in the islands, and quarrels with the Pro- testant missionaries were not infrequent. New Zealanders be came alarmed, and there was much talk of French annexation. Up to this time the missionaries had steadfastly opposed any proposal that New Zealand should be formally annexed by England. They got their way in this matter, for at that time the English Government regarded a new colony as pro- 54 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY ductive of nothing but expense, serious responsibility, and new foreign complications. But the French scare caused the missionaries to change their minds, and made them look for- ward to the time when a strong British Government should be established in New Zealand. Other causes contributed to this change of opinion. Speculators from Sydney were now visiting the island, buying the land from the Maoris in huge blocks. It was no longer possible to keep settlers away, and so the missionaries foresaw that sooner or later annexation was inevitable. Meanwhile in England a clever and gifted man was planning schemes for the colonization of New Zealand. CHAPTER VIII THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY Edward Gibbon Wakefield was a man far in advance of his times, for he was almost alone in foreseeing the possibilities of Britain's oversea possessions. At that time a colony was regarded as a hindrance — something which might possibly cause a ruinous war, and which was only fit to be used as the dumping-place for outcasts and ruffians. Wakefield saw that, properly settled, the British colonies might easily become what they now are, and even what they promise to be. But he insisted on proper settlement. He would have his first settlers orderly citizens, who realized that they were to be the founders of new and great nations. The convict, the refugee, and the social failure had no place in the colonizing schemes of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He won over to his views many men of rank and influence, and formed a New Zealand Company for colonizing purposes. This company sold New Zealand land in London — although THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY 55 they had not yet purchased it from the Maoris — and got together a number of prospective settlers of the class that Wakefield desired. They left England quietly, with Colonel Wakefield, brother of the founder, at their head. This was in 1839. Colonel Wakefield arrived in Port Nicholson, the spot chosen for settlement, about the middle of the year. He immediately began to treat with the Maori chiefs for the purchase of land, employing as his interpreter a pakeha Maori named Barrett. The missionaries, with Mr. Williams at their head, besought the chiefs not to sell, but the goods were set out before them in tempting array, and the Maoris could not resist. By the time he had dealt with all the chiefs, some sixty or thereabout, he claimed that he had purchased 20,000,000 acres of the best land in New Zealand. The goods paid for this territory cost the Company less than £9,000. The claim was open to many serious objections. In the first place, the document of sale was not signed by all the chiefs of the tribes inhabiting the land in question. In the second place, it is doubtful if the chiefs were aware of the nature of the document they were signing ; indeed, it is almost certain that many of them were not. But the most serious objection of all was the fact that, by Maori custom, the land belonged to the whole tribe, and the chief had no power whatever to dispose of it. According to Maori notions, there were only two ways by which land could change hands : it could be sold by the solemn sanction of the whole tribe, or it could be lost to a conquering tribe, which had first to drive the original occupiers away. Colonel Wakefield, however, claimed to have bought all this land for the Company, and the claim brought the latter body face to face with the home Government. For in the same year that Colonel Wakefield left England 56 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY a Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand was appointed in the person of Captain Hobson. This step was taken because of the sales of land which had already been made, and because it was feared that Colonel Wakefield would act on behalf of his Company much as he did act. Captain Hobson was especially instructed to see that the Maoris were not overreached in any transactions between them and Europeans. As soon as he arrived at the Bay of Islands, he called together the chiefs, and with the help of the missionaries, a treaty was made. This treaty — the Treaty of Waitangi — contained three provisions. In the first place the chiefs agreed to yield ' all the rights and powers of sovereignty ' to the Queen of England. The second provision gave the chiefs ' full and undisturbed possession of their land,' stipulating that, if they wished to sell land, they should offer it first to the Government. The third clause gave to the natives of New Zealand ' all the rights and privileges of British subjects.' This treaty was signed by over five hundred chiefs, and there was only one chief of any importance who stood out. This was Te Heu Heu, a giant and a warrior of renown, who to his dying day refused to have anything to do with the pakeha. In this way the Maoris got possession of all their lands again, a proceeding which was deemed very unjust by those who considered themselves the owners of New Zealand land by purchase. It is quite clear that many of these persons were very hardly treated by being deprived of land they had paid for, and which they considered their property. But the position was one in which somebody had to be hardly treated, and the only alternative was to deprive the Maoris of nearly the whole of New Zealand. For when the Governor appointed Commissioners to inquire into the land claims, it was found that more than half the colony was claimed by land-specu- lators. Meanwhile the New Zealand Company was pursuing its THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY 57 plans of colonization without taking any notice of the Treaty of Waitangi. Colonel Wakefield removed the colony from Port Nicholson to a place called Te Aro, where he founded the city of Wellington, now the capital of New Zealand. The Company kept sending out settlers by the shipload, and these were planted all over the land which Colonel Wakefield claimed. These settlers, it must be remembered, had actually bought their land from the Company in London, and had paid hard cash for it; and when these arrived they found that their title was disputed, and that the land itself was occupied by its original owners. The settlement of the various land claims was a long and tedious business. Some of the claims were not decided upon for twenty years, but a settlement of the Company's claim was arrived at without any great delay. The claim for 20,000,000 acres was cut down to 1,000,000 ; it had been cut down to far smaller dimensions than this, but political influence was employed to set aside the first decision. In spite of this settlement of their claims, the New Zealand Company continued to give the Governor a great deal of trouble. They disregarded him as far as possible, and formed a kind of rival seat of Government at W^ellington. At this time Captain Hobson had his headquarters at the Bay of Islands, but finding this spot inconvenient, chose another at a spot where two gulfs, one on either side of the island, almost met each other. Here he founded Auckland, where access to either east or west coast was easily possible. He was in bad health, and the difficulties of his situation made him irritable, and inclined to be unjust to the settlers who were constantly arriving. It must be remembered that the latter were in no way to blame for the position of affairs they found upon arrival. They had purchased land from the Company in good faith, and found it claimed by the Maoris, who were supported by 58 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY the Governor. And the Maoris enforced their claims in a quiet but very determined fashion. When the settlers erected buildings upon disputed land, the Maoris promptly destroyed them. But they were most careful to preserve all the property of the white men, and to see that it was handed back to the owners. There was a coal-mine started on some disputed land at Nelson ; but as fast as the coal was taken out by day, the Maoris put it back at night. They were careful, too, to avoid all open quarrel, a fact largely due to the influence of the missionaries. But the settlers thought the reason was attributable to fear, and set the Maoris down as cowards. It was practically impossible to obtain land in New Zealand at this time without dispute. The settlers, by the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi, were not able to purchase from the Maoris, while the Government was without funds for doing so. In this way the colonization of New Zealand was retarded, although the Company continued to send out its settlers. These occupied many disputed holdings, and the quarrel with the Maoris went steadily on. At this juncture Captain Hobson died. He was most un- popular with the settlers, although the missionaries held firmly by him. His task had been a difficult one, since he had been sent out to protect the Maoris, and not to advance the settlement of New Zealand. He will always be remembered as the founder of Auckland, and as an honest and courageous man, who was just to the native race. When he died one Maori chief wrote a letter to the Queen asking for a new Governor. ' Let not the new Governor be a boy,' he wrote, 'or one puffed up. Let not a troubler come amongst us. Let him be a good man, like this Governor who has just died.' The public opinion of to-day has endorsed the verdict of the Maori chief upon Governor Hobson. Hobson died in 1842, and in the following year there A SHOT WAS FIRED BY THE WHITES' (See p. 60). 60 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY occurred the first conflict between white and Maori. The Maori chief concerned was Kauparaha, whom we have already seen as the chief who crossed from the North to the South Island, and made war on his countrymen there. Part of the land on the River Wairau he claimed by right of conquest, and this land, according to Colonel Wakefield, he sold to the Company. But when an attempt was made to plant a colony there, E-auparaha denied the sale, and burnt the huts of the surveyors. Captain Wakefield, a third member of the Wakefield family, determined to teach him a lesson, and set out with a police magistrate and an armed force to arrest the Maori chief. Rauparaha refused to be taken, and, after some talk, a shot was fired by the whites which killed the daughter of Rauparaha. A fight followed, in which the Maoris were victorious, and Captain Wakefield and eight others were taken prisoners. The Maori chief exacted vengeance for his daughter by butchering them all upon the spot. Then he returned to his stronghold in the North Island, and gathered together his tribe for war against the pakeha. When this occurred Captain Hobson's successor had not arrived, and the Colony was being administered by his secre- tary, Mr. Shortland. W^hile waiting for the new Governor, Captain Fitzroy, he did nothing to punish Rauparaha for the massacre at Wairau. This the Maoris set down to want of courage, and the whites at once lost their prestige with them. At this juncture the new Governor arrived, and found the colony in a very bad state in every way. The expenses of administration exceeded the revenue, and New Zealand was drifting into debt. The settlers were dissatisfied, and em- bodied most of their complaints in their addresses of welcome to Captain Fitzroy. A more unpromising state of afiairs could hardly have greeted the new arrival. He, on his side, did nothing to improve matters. He first THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY 61 undertook to settle the Wairau affair, and accordingly visited Eauparaha, who received him surrounded by his armed warriors. After lecturing the chief very sternly, the Governor informed him that the white men were first in the wrong, and that their deaths would not be avenged. This had the effect of making the Maoris everywhere dangerous, and gave the most serious offence to the settlers. Elsewhere Fitzroy con- tinued to make mistakes. He abolished the Government monopoly of land purchase, but imposed a duty of 10s. an acre on all land purchases. When complaints were made as to the heavy burden such a duty was upon the settlers, he reduced it to a penny an acre. He also mismanaged the finances of the colony, and finally resorted to an issue of paper money to set matters straight. In doing this he exceeded his powers, and was consequently recalled by the Home Government. Captain George Grey was sent from South Australia to fill his place, but before he arrived the war with the Maoris had broken out. CHAPTER IX GOVERNOR GREY The war broke out, not with Rauparaha, but with the tribe that lived around the Bay of Islands in the far north. One of the chiefs of this tribe — the Ngapuhi — was a swaggering fellow, called Hone Hek6, who was very proud of being the son-in-law of Hongi. This man began by cutting down the flagstaff at the settlement of Kororareka, and when it was re- erected, he actually cut it down again. Then Governor Fitzroy sent soldiers up to guard the flagstaff, which was again set up, and offered £100 for Hone Heke's head. The Maori chief retaliated by offering £100 for the Governor's head, and 62 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY led his warriors against the settlement. The few soldiers there were overpowered, Kororareka was plundered, and the flagstaff was cut down for the third time. This was a greater blow to the white man's prestige than even the Wairau massacre, and terror of the Maori was universal throughout the colony. Fortunately there was a section of the Ngapuhis who, under the chief Waka Nene, remained loyal to the whites, and this fact alone prevented Heke from following up his success. Instead of doing so he strengthened his pas and awaited the British attack. The first attack made on one of these pan, in which 400 soldiers, aided by as many friendly Maoris, were concerned, showed how strong they were, and how little the British understood Maori methods of warfare. No impression whatever was made, and after losing fifty men killed and wounded, the attempt to take the place was abandoned, and artillery was sent for. When the guns came Hone Heke was besieged in his strongest pa, called Ohaeawae. The attacking force far out- numbered the besieged, and the place would probably have been taken, but Colonel Despard, who commanded the British, ordered an attack before the artillery had made a sufficient breach in the palisading. The result was a terrible reverse, forty men being killed and over sixty wounded. Having inflicted this blow, the Maoris quietly retired from the j?ft by night, leaving to the British the poor satisfaction of gaining the position. It was at this juncture that Governor Grey arrived, and he immediately took active measures to quell the rising. He announced that every chief must declare himself either friend or enemy, and called upon Heke to give himself up. The Maori naturally refused, and the Governor collected all available forces to employ against him. Once more Hone Heke was driven into one of his strongholds, which the GOVEENOK GREY 63 Maoris considered impregnable. The Governor battered at the palisades with his heavy guns without producing much eftect, and seemed as far from taking it as when he began. But when Sunday came the Maoris within suspended fighting, and held church service in the pa. Some of the friendly natives, noticing that the palisades were undefended, crept up and made their way into the stronghold. There was a fierce fight, but the followers of Heke were driven out with heavy slaughter. This victory restored prestige to the British at once. Hone Heke made all haste to submit, and was leniently treated by the Governor. The friendly Maoris were rewarded for their loyalty, and a pension was granted to their chief, Waka Nen6. Then the Governor turned his attention to the tribes around Wellington, who were giving trouble to the settlers in a stealthy, disorganized fashion. He soon found that they were egged on by old E-auparaha, who, although to all appearances peaceful, was really the originator of the mischief. A force was sent to seize the wily old chief, who was thereafter kept under the Governor's eye, and the trouble ceased immediately. For his rapid and successful effort to finish the war the Governor was knighted, and gave immediate proof of his knowledge of the best manner in which to deal with the Maoris by choosing two of them to act as his esquires when he was invested with his order of knighthood. These were Waka Nene, the loyal friend of the British, and Te Whero Whero, a Waikato chief of great influence. So peace was restored t0 New Zealand, and Sir George Grey at once set to work to make the very best use of it. In order to properly understand the Maoris, he at once learnt their language, and from the very outset was a close student of their manners and customs. The understanding he thus gained of his native subjects he turned to the best possible advantage, both for them and for the new colony. 64 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Constantly assuring them that the Treaty of Waitangi would be respected, and that their lands would not be taken from them, he set them to work on making roads which would unite the scattered settlements. One powerful chief objected to a road being made through his country. The Governor received his objection in silence, and shortly afterwards sent the chief's sister a present of a carriage. With a carriage to ride in, the chief's objection to roads vanished. Sir George Grey showed the same tact everywhere in dealing with the Maoris ; he impressed them by his courage, his firmness, and his graciousness. And they loved him as they never loved a white man before or since. He had more trouble with the white settlers than with the Maoris. The interminable land claims were still to be decided, a tedious and vexatious piece of work. In the midst of it the Home Government granted constitutional government to New Zealand, although the Governor, the Chief Justice, and Bishop Selwyn considered the colony was not sufficiently advanced to govern itself. Sir George therefore held the Constitution so granted in abeyance, and wrote home to England urging that it should be suspended. His protest was supported by Bishop Selwyn, and many of the Maori chiefs also wrote to the Queen supporting the Governor. These representations had their effect, and the Constitution was suspended. Meanwhile the New Zealand Company had been compen- sated for their treatment in the North Island by being allowed to acquire large tracts of land in the South Island. Here the Maoris were comparatively few, and it would have been much easier to have planted colonies there in the first instance. Two successful settlements were made by the Company in the South Island, and both were of a very characteristic nature. The first was a settlement of Scotsmen, who were planted in the south-east corner of the South GOVEENOR GREY 65 Island, in the province of Otago. In their new home they found a climate somewhat similar to that of their native land, and there they established the city of Dunedin. Their leader was Captain Cargill, and their pastor the Rev. Thomas Burns, a nephew of the poet. Dunedin is now a fine city of over 50,000 inhabitants, and the community is the most distinctly Scottish to be found in the whole of Australasia. The other settlement was on the east coast of the South Island, just above Banks Peninsula, where some English people founded their city of Christchurch. The settle- ment itself was called Canterbury. Their land was all open, fertile plains, watered by many rapid rivers, and the settlement throve wonderfully from the very first. Like their neighbours at Otago, they were free from Maori troubles, and held land that was eminently suitable for grazing stock. So the South Island became a land of flocks and herds, and the earnest, law-abiding settlers prospered, and gave little trouble to the administrators of government. Otago was founded in the year 1848 and Canterbury in 1850. When Governor Grey landed, in 1845, the colony was at its lowest ebb; when he left, in 1853, the natives were paci- fied, the vexed land question was practically settled, and there were five flourishing settlements in the North Island and three in the South. The improved state of affairs was mainly due to his courage and skill as an administrator, and he was well supported by several men of his day. Of these the greatest were Bishop Selwyn, who supported him so firmly in the matter of the premature Constitution, and Mr. Swainson, who, as Attorney-General, drew up the laws of the colony. Before Sir George Grey left the time came when self- government could be granted to New Zealand, and it was he who formulated the Constitution. In addition to a central Parliament, consisting of an elective assembly and a nominated 5 66 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Senate, each province has a separate Council to deal with local affairs. For this purpose New Zealand was divided into six pro- vinces — Auckland, Wellington, and Taranaki (North Island), and Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago (South Island). At the head of the Government was a Viceroy, appointed by the Crown, who was also to be Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in the colony. CHAPTER X THE MAORI KING-MAKER The growing prosperity of the young colony opened the eyes of the more thoughtful Maoris to the fact that they were being pushed out of their land by the white man. They wanted to keep their land, and to grow, just as they saw the pakehas growing; but they found the land passing out of their possession and the importance of their race diminishing. The greatest of these Maoris was a chief called Wiremu Tamihana, who was son of the great Te Waharoa, a mighty warrior. The prestige of his father had descended upon him, so that he possessed great influence with his race ; and he was, moreover, a man of education and of the very best intention. To him it seemed that the decay of the Maori race could only be arrested if the Maoris refused to part with any more of their land, and if they chose from among their chiefs one who should dominate the whole race. To this end he initiated the King movement, which he explained to the Governor of New Zealand in a long and carefully-written letter : ' The reason why I set up Potatau as a King for me was because he was a man of extended influence, and a man THE MAOEI KING-MAKEE 67 who was revered by the people of this island. That, my friend, was why I set him up. To put down my trouble, to hold the land of the slaves, and to judge the offences of the chiefs, the King was set up. . . . The works of my ancestors have ceased ; they are diminishing at the present time. What I say is, the blood of the Maori has ceased.' His great object was to reclaim his people from the evil state into which he saw them falling, and to that end he encouraged education and farming, and tried to keep intoxi- cating drink out of the Maori country. He lived at a place called Peria, where was a model Maori settlement. A church, a flax-mill, a post-office, and a school, in which the chief him- self taught, were some of the leading features of the place. The best of the Maoris gathered around him, the chiefs met in solemn conclave, and the ancient Te Whero Whero, now known as Potatau, was chosen as King. Wi Tamihana had no idea of war or rebellion. The whites had a place of Government, and it seemed to him that to keep pace with them the natives must have one also. Many of the Maoris did not go all the way with him in this argu- ment, but they were quite agreed on the subject of the land ; that, they felt, ought not to be sold. And so Maori and white quarrelled once more about the land. One of the most important chiefs in the Taranaki district was Wiremu Kingi (VViremu is a Maori name, rendered into English as William). Wiremu Kingi was a good friend to the whites, and refused to join the King movement ; but he was also a strong opponent of the sale of land. Now, when the Taranaki settlers wished to buy more land, the Government, instead of treating with Wiremu Kingi, dealt with a less important chief named Teira. There is no doubt that Wiremu Kingi had the power to prevent this land being sold, but the Government ignored him and made a bargain 5—2 68 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY with Teira for the purchase of the land. Officials were sent to survey it, and were met by the ugliest old women of Kingi's tribe, who caressed them tenderly, at the same time appro- priating their chains and instruments. Failing to see the point of this joke, the Governor proclaimed martial law in Taranaki, and this proclamation the Maoris took as an invita- tion to a fight. Thus began war between the whites and Wiremu Kingi. In this war the King-maker had no part. There is no doubt that many of the most restless among his followers joined the war party, but Wiremu Tamihana was a man of peace, and hoped to further the welfare of his people in a peaceful fashion. Old King Potatau died, and in his place Tawhiao, his son, was chosen. Potatau himself had never relished the position to which he had been elevated, but he had ability and influence. Tawhiao had only his father's prestige, and possessed not one jot of his ability ; also he was a drunkard. So that Wi Tamihana received little help from his figurehead. But he kept peace as well as he could, and laboured steadfastly on. One of his notions was the establishment of a newspaper in the interest of the King movement. He obtained a press and type, and with Tawhiao's cousin, Te Patara, as editor, the Maori paper Te Hokioi (the Phoenix) began to appear at irregular intervals. This is probably the only known instance of an editor who had also been a cannibal; but his man-eating ex- periences were gained at a time long prior to his taking charge of Te Hokioi. The paper was produced under great difficulties. His Maori compositors were neither experienced nor reliable, and the supply of printing paper sometimes ran short. But he published some scathing articles on the land question, and produced so great an effect that it was thought advisable to start an opposition sheet in the Government interest. THE MAOKI KING-MAKEK 69 This task was entrusted to Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Gorst, who named his publication Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke (the Lonely Lark). In the newspaper argument which ensued Sir John Gorst appears to have had rather the better of his contem- porary, although journalistic etiquette was preserved on both sides. But Te Patara was not able to control the wrath of some of his adherents, and with the fighting Rewi at their head, they raided the office of the Lonely Lark The printing- press was sent back to Auckland, and the type was melted up and cast into bullets. An attempt to build a military road into their country further annoyed the King faction, and they at last began to plan war, with Tamihana among their leaders. Sir George Grey, who had been sent back to New Zealand in the hope of smoothing over the trouble, had an interview with the King- maker, but they could not agree. Wi Tamihana cast his vote for war. ' I shall spare neither unarmed people nor property,' he wrote. ' If the Maoris prove the strongest, this is how it will be. The unarmed will not be left.' The course of the war which followed will be traced in the succeeding chapter ; but Wiremu Tamihana took little part in it. He was quick to recognise the fruitlessness and the wicked folly of the struggle, and made peace with the whites after the first few engagements. He was well treated, as indeed he deserved to be, for his actions were inspired by the noblest and most patriotic motives. Under the name of William Thompson he lived for a short time after his submission, treated as an honoured friend by Sir George Grey. His death was the cause of the sincerest grief to all who knew him, for in him the Maori character was seen at its very best. The King movement long survived him, though it did not take the shape that he had intended it should. But his plans and aspirations for the benefit of his people have never died ; they exist to-day 70 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY among the best and most enlightened of the Maoris, and in them is centred the whole hope that exists for the future of this manly race. CHAPTER XI THE MAORI WAR The purchase of Teira's land, in spite of the objections of Wiremu Kingi, was a subject of long discussion among the whites themselves. Many, among whom were Bishop Selwyn and Chief Justice Martin, contended that the Grovernor acted illegally in making the purchase, but it is certain that no wrong was intended. The purchase was made, martial law was pro- claimed, and an attack was made upon Kingi's pa. In reply, the Maoris swept through Taranaki, burning down the dwell- ings and driving the settlers into the town of New Plymouth. As many of the women and children as would go were removed to the South Island, and all the men took up arms to defend themselves. Soldiers were sent from Australia to the help of the colony, and in a few months' time there were 3,000 whites under arms in Taranaki. The details of the skirmishes that followed are neither important nor very interesting. The Maoris kept to the forest lands, into which the leaders of the whites were not willing to go. The Maoris were used to fighting in their pas, and when they had made one of these strongholds which they considered more than usually satisfactory, they would send a challenge to the British General : ' Friend, come and fight me. Make haste ; don't prolong it— make haste !' Then General Pratt would approach cautiously, and start sapping the foundations. When his undermining operations were nearly completed, the Maoris would quietly slip out of the THE MAOKI WAE 71 stronghold, and fortify themselves in a fresh place elsewhere. So the war dragged on, and the settlers became impatient with military methods, and urged that the war should be prosecuted with more vigour. The Maoris offered to lay down their arms if the land purchased from Teira were restored to them, but to this Governor Browne would not consent. Matters were in this stage when Governor Browne was recalled, and Sir George Grey was once more sent to New Zealand. His first step was to see the King-maker, in order to try to stop the fighting. He promised that the question of Teira's land would be reconsidered ; he offered to make the chiefs magistrates in their own territories, and to give the Maoris representation on the provincial councils. One thing that stood in the way of peace was the King movement, which he wished to end. At the same time he pushed on with a military road into the Waikato district, which was the head- quarters of the King movement, and the decision about Teira's land was delayed. Finally the land was returned to the Maoris, but it was too late then: the Waikato tribe had broken out and the whole North Island was ablaze. The Governor organized an expedition into the Waikato country, which was commanded by General Cameron. The first success was gained at a strong pa called Rangiriri, which was taken by assault. The Maoris were driven back, and forced out of their defences, until finally 300 of them, under the fighting chief Rewi, were surrounded in a place called Orakau. This fa was assaulted five times without success, and then General Cameron sent a message calling upon the defenders to surrender. Outnumbered as they were, and cut off from food and water, they sent back the answer, ' Heoi ano ! Ka whawai tonu, ak6, ake, ake !' (' Enough ! We fight on, for ever, for ever, for ever !') Then the General offered to allow the women to come out, but they replied, ' The women will fight too.' Suddenly they charged their besiegers in a 72 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY compact body, 300 strong, and broke through their lines. They were cut off, and continued to fight their way to escape. Quite half of them fell, but the rest, with the indomitable Rewi at their head, got clean away. ' The earthworks and the victory remained with us,' says Mr. Reeves in the 'Long White Cloud,' 'but the glory of the engagement lay with those whose message of " Ak6, ake, ake " will never be forgotten in New Zealand.' The engagement was decisive, however, and the Waikato were scattered and driven into the mountains. Then General Cameron turned his attention to the Tauranga on the east coast, and here the whites suffered the worst reverse experi- enced during the war. Entrenched in a stronghold known as the Gate Pa, the Maoris drove the British off with heavy slaughter. 111 being killed. Six weeks later the Tauranga Maoris were caught by Colonel Green, and defeated with such heavy slaughter that they submitted. The war seemed over ; the King-maker made his peace, and there was a total stoppage of fighting. Then it broke out afresh in a religious movement, the followers of which were known as Hau-Haus. They believed themselves invulnerable when they advanced with one hand held above the head, palm outwards, shouting ' Hau ! Hau !' Their methods were very different from those of the manly Waikato. Missionaries were murdered, bodies were mutilated, and white women and children atrociously slaughtered. The stamping out of the Hau-Haus was a matter of some years, and was largely due to the efforts of friendly Maoris, of whom the leading men were rewarded with a grant of land and a sword of honour from Queen Victoria herself. The war began in 1860, and could not be said to be fairly over until 1870. Eight hundred of the British had been killed, and quite 1,800 of the natives. The settlers had been driven from their holdings, the colony had been plunged into THE MAOEI WAK 78 a war debt of nearly £4,000,000, and settlement had been terribly retarded. The Government confiscated some 3, 000, 000 acres of native lands as an offset to this, depriving the tribes which had caused most trouble. Part was given as a reward to the loyal Maoris, part was eventually returned to the original owners, but the greater portion was offered for sale to the settlers. Meanwhile Tawhiao, the King, had proclaimed a boundary- line across which no white man or loyal Maori might step under penalty of death. The land within this line was known as the 'King Country,' and there Tawhiao and his followers remained undisturbed for many years. The rest of the Maoris were speedily placated by the newly -appointed Native Minister, Sir Donald McLean, in whose hands all dealings with the natives were left. He understood the Maoris almost as well as Sir George Grey himself, and effected purchases of land for the Government without offending any of their prejudices. The people in the King Country were allowed to carry on their own affairs without interference, and the Maoris else- where gave but little trouble after the year 1870. CHAPTER XII THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD While the North Island was engaged in this prolonged struggle with the native race, the South Island was being overrun by colonists of an entirely new class. The first heat of the Australian gold discoveries was dying away, and thousands of the Australian diggers were attracted to New Zealand by the news that large deposits of the precious metal existed there. Gold had been discovered in the North Island 74 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY as far back as 1852, but it was in Maori country, and the chiefs of the local tribes were not willing to permit the miners to dig for it. But the first really rich deposits were dis- covered in the province of Otago, the southern portion of the South Island. It will be remembered that this portion of the colony had been settled by Scotsmen. Remembering the wild and adventurous nature of the population attracted to Australia by the goldfields, they were not inclined to regard the first discovery as an unmixed blessing. The first-known find was made by an Asiatic known as Black Pete in the year 1858. But it was not till 1861 that a really valuable field was opened up. The discoverer was Gabriel Read, who unearthed <£25 worth of gold with a butcher's knife at Tuapeka. He reported his find to Mr. Richardson, the superintendent of the province, and received a reward of .£1,000. The discovery proved a very rich one, and nearly all the male population of Dunedin flocked to Gabriel Gully. The news soon reached Australia, and thou- sands of miners poured into the South Island, deserting the Australian fields where most of the shallow workings were exhausted. They found Tuapeka a very difl*erent field to Bendigo or Ballarat. The country was bleak and cold, without trees to afford shelter from the wind and fuel for their camp fires. Roads were bad, the hills were steep, and provisions were at famine prices. Cartage from Dunedincost £150 a ton, flour was sold at half a crown a pannikin, and timber was almost unattainable. The diggings were valuable, nevertheless, and two million pounds' worth of gold was taken from Otago in the year 1863. A story which comes down to us from those times illustrates the patchy nature of the deposits, as well as the practical value of kindness to animals. When a party of diggers was crossing a swollen river, the dog belonging to one of them was washed THE DISCOVEKY OF GOLD 75 away, and landed upon a rocky island in mid-stream. The owner swam out to rescue his favourite, and found on the point a deposit of alluvial sand from which he took over .£1,000 worth of gold. The Otago discoveries were followed by even more valuable finds on the west coast of the South Island. This coast was separated from the settled districts by the almost impassable A LOG HUT ranges of the New Zealand Alps, nevertheless explorers and prospectors penetrated thither. Gold was found in the bed of every mountain stream, and in the sand on the sea- beach. A rush to the spot was the result ; some of the miners crossed the Alps, but most went around by sea. In a few months there were over 30,000 diggers on the field, and there sprang up the township of Hokitika, a mushroom growth of canvas and wood. It was a wild and difficult country, where roads and tracks are kept inches deep in mud by a rainfall that is one of the 76 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY heaviest in any part of the Empire. The navigation of the coast is still dangerous, owing to the bars at the mouth of every river and the absence of sheltered harbours. But good prices were paid to the ship-owners who transported the miners and their goods there, and for a time the settlement flourished wonderfully. Prices were extravagantly high, but earnings were in proportion, and the miners lived the merry and exciting life that characterized rich goldfields elsewhere. Hokitika expanded into a typical goldfield centre, where there w^as much hard drinking and rowdiness. But the New Zealand miners were a comparatively quiet and well-behaved class, and there was little or no bloodshed. Only one attempt was made by lawless men to emulate the bushranging exploits that were common in Australia and Tasmania, and the four ruffians who composed the gang were soon captured and punished. On the west coast law and order of a rough sort prevailed from the very first ; there were no serious riots, and revolvers were not a necessary part of the miner's equipment. In course of time the easily-got gold was exhausted, but the miners settled in the country. In the ten years from 1860 to 1870 the population of the colony increased from 75,000 to 300,000, and most of the new-comers were colonists of just as much value as the original land-settlers. As an example of this, it may be pointed out that Mr. Seddon, afterwards Premier of New Zealand, was one of the miners attracted to the goldfields of the west coast. It was there that he earned his nick-name of Digger Dick, a name he retained ever afterwards. When the cream of the alluvial gold had been taken from the South Island, it became possible to open up the quartz- mines in the North Island. They have proved exceedingly^ valuable, and many of them continue to yield a large amount of metal. The gold is now extracted from the ore by the very newest scientific processes, and each successive year sees THE DISCOVEEY OF GOLD 77 an increase in the value of the metal produced. Up to the end of the year 1900 the total value of the gold found in New Zealand was estimated at £57,406,000, the output for 1900 being about 1^ millions sterling. One method of gold-seeking adopted in New Zealand is so interesting as to be worthy of description. It was found that the sand-beds of many of the rivers were very rich in alluvial gold, but the problem of obtaining it from beneath the ice- cold waters was at first a very difficult one. The difficulty was finally overcome by building a number of very ingenious dredges, by means of which the gold-bearing sand is sucked up from the bottom of the river. Each rainy season washes down fresh quantities of this sand, so that the supply of material is renewed every year. In addition to its gold, New Zealand possesses a valuable natural resource in the shape of deposits of kauri gum. This substance is the resin of the kauri pine, and has a high market value, being employed as a substitute for amber in the manufacture of pipe-stems and other articles. A far wider use for it is found in the preparation of fine varnishes, in the composition of which it forms one of the leading in- gredients. In its natural state it is sometimes found in the forks of the pine-trees, hardened by exposure to the atmo- sphere. But the greater portion exists in the soil, whence it is taken in a fossil state by the gum-diggers. Gum-digging is about the last employment to which a Briton or a New Zealander would turn if he were given his choice. The work is very hard, and the result is nothing more than a bare living. From five to eight thousand men are usually so employed, however, a large number of them con- sisting of Maoris, half-castes, and aliens. Under the last heading are included some 1,500 Austrians, whose average earnings are estimated at from 20s. to 25s. a week. Up to the end of the year 1900 the kauri gum exported from 78 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY New Zealand was estimated to be worth £10,330,000 — a very considerable sum for such an article. Most of it was taken from the province of Auckland. New Zealand has also very extensive and valuable coal- fields, and yearly raises more than a million tons of this product. The most valuable deposits occur in the South Island, where there is found a bituminous coal, which has been pronounced by engineers superior to any in existence. The colony easily supplies its own requirements, and experts declare that patient search will yet reveal new fields of the greatest value. CHAPTER XIII BORROWING AND SORROWING When the Maori War was quite finished, the New Zealanders settled down to a policy of developing the country. At the beginning of this period of development there were only 46 miles of railway in the country, and nearly all the travel- ling was done by water. The public debt was only £7,000,000, and would not have been more than half so great but for the Maori War. The six original provinces of Sir George Grey's Constitution had been increased to nine, each with a separate Legislature, and each province managed its local affairs apart from its neighbours. It was at this stage that there came forward a statesman who, in ten years, completely altered everything. This was Sir Julius Vogel, a man of great ability, to whose imagina- tion the undeveloped resources of the colony appealed most keenly. He proposed that money should be borrowed to build railways, to encourage immigration, to make roads and harbours, and generally to expand the colony. The personal BOKEOWING AND SOEBOWING 79 influence of Sir Julius Vogel was very great ; he was one of the most popular men in the colony. In addition to that, his schemes commended themselves to the New Zealanders, who considered that their public lands, and the railways they intended to build with the borrowed money, would be excel- lent security to the investor. That was apparently the view taken by those who had money to lend, for Sir Julius Vogel had little trouble in obtaining a loan of £10,000,000 to carry out his policy of development. When the railways were being constructed New Zealand experienced a period of unequalled prosperity. New arrivals kept pouring into the country, and there was plenty of work for them all. The seasons were good, and the price of living was by no means extravagant. As the new railways opened up fresh country, there arose a demand for land, and then began a period of land-buying and land-selling, during which absurd prices were demanded and paid. Afterwards there came a sudden fall in prices, which brought financial ruin to many speculators. It cannot be denied that the railways built by Sir Julius Vogel's Government had much to do with the prosperity New Zealand subsequently enjoyed. But at the time they were pushed forward with too much haste, and a few of them were not carefully planned, so that some of the work had to be done twice over. The contracts were not always economically let, and, in those cases, the people of New Zealand did not get full value for their borrowed money. In six years the public debt mounted from seven millions to twenty millions, and nearly a thousand miles of railroads were built. A considerable sum was also spent in assisting immigrants out to the colony. Some were induced to come by cheap passages and free grants of land, while others were attracted to the colony by the widely-spread reports of its marvellous prosperity. Between 1870 and 1880 the population of New 80 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Zealand increased from a quarter of a million to over half a million, more than doubling itself in ten years. Prices ruled high for both wool and wheat, money was plentiful, and those who had none were easily able to borrow. Of course, interest had to be paid on the money that was borrowed by the Government to build railways, and, as the railways were at first worked at a loss, some of this had to be raised by taxes. We must remember that the provincial Governments had control of all the land, the value of which was greatly increased by the new railways and roads. It seemed very unfair that the central Government should be at the cost of making these improvements, and that the pro- vincial Government should reap all the ad^^antage. Moreover, the absurdity of having nine separate Parliaments, as well as the central one, in a small colony like New Zealand, appealed very keenly to the new colonists who were constantly arriving, as well as to many of those who had lived a long time in New Zealand. Accordingly Sir Julius Vogel proposed to abolish the pro- vincial Councils, and to give the control of the land to the central Government. The proposal was violently opposed, but there was a strong majority in its favour, and it was finally carried in 1875. In 1876 the provincial Councils ceased to exist, the control of the land passed into the hands of the central Government, and the local duties formerly carried out by the provincial Councils were taken over by various Boards created for the purpose. Shortly afterwards the prices of wool and wheat began to fall. The first effect was felt by those settlers who had bought land with borrowed money at extravagant prices ; they could not pay their interest and the instalments of their principal. This reacted through the whole colony, and a period of great depression followed. Prices continued to fall year after year, and each year the struggle with bankruptcy BOEKOWING AND SOEEOWING 81 grew keener. It culminated in the year 1894, when the Government had to step in to prevent the Bank of New Zealand from closing its doors. But by that time a new and better state of affairs had been inaugurated. In 1876 Sir Julius Yogel had been appointed Agent- General for New Zealand in Great Britain, and accordingly took up his residence in London. The colony continued to borrow money and to spend it on public works until 1879, when the depression of trade already mentioned began to be felt. The next ten years of New Zealand history represent the brave and gallant struggle of the colony to pay its way. The revenue was not sufficient for the many calls upon it, the interest on borrowed money being a heavy drain. New taxes were imposed, the salaries of public servants were cut down, borrowing was checked as far as possible, and year by year the colony reaped more and more of the benefits accruing from the money that had been spent. New industries were established; the improvements in the arrangements for the cold storage and the transport of perishable goods in cold chambers opened up new markets for New Zealand meat and butter. And so, slowly and by imperceptible degrees, the colony won its way back to prosperity. The ten lean years experienced by the colony (1880-1890) have left their mark upon the New Zealanders. With admirable courage they stuck to their guns, refusing to believe that a land so favoured by Nature would not recover from the depression under which they were suffering. In the neigh- bouring continent prosperity was at its height. The temptations to leave New Zealand for Australia were many and great, and a certain proportion of unmarried men and of artisans yielded to it. But the producers — the farmers and the graziers — stood by the colony of their choice, and were rewarded by eventually seeing the clouds of depression cleared away, and a fresh era of prosperity begin. That they love the land 6 82 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY where they have struggled so hard is not surprising, and so we find the New Zealanders among the most patriotic races in the world. CHAPTER XIV THE FISH OF MAUI According to Maori legend, as the reader may remember, the North Island was drawn up out of the water by the legendary hero, Maui, who brought from the fire goddess the gift of fire for man's use. And so, in the poetical diction of the Maori, the North Island was called Te iha a Maui — ' the fish of Maui.' Forest -clad from mountain-crest down to the very seashore, and enjoying a climate free from extremes, and comparable only to that of Southern France, it has always been the home of the greater part of the Maori race. The warmth and shelter were better suited to a race accustomed to the tropical calm of the South Seas than were the colder and more open plains of the South Island. It was to the North Island, too, that Europeans were first attracted. There they were able to procure the kauri stems for masts and spars, and there were the whaling stations established in the days when New Zealand was literally a No Man's Land. We have seen that the headquarters of the New Zealand Company were fixed at Wellington, on Cook Strait, and that Governor Hobson, finding his original situation in the Bay of Islands inconvenient, established a rival settle- ment on Hauraki Gulf. There has grown up the city of Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Auckland is built upon a neck of land seven miles wide, with Hauraki Gulf on the east side and Manukau Harbour on the west. The mouth of the latter is blocked by a bar. ' THE FISH OF MAUI ' 83 over which only vessels of light draught can pass, but Hauraki Gulf leads to one of the best natural harbours in the world. Protected by a number of islands dotted about the gulf, Waitemata Harbour is thus sheltered by a natural breakwater, and in it the largest ocean-going vessels can lie in safety. Auckland is further endowed as a seaport by having water communication with the inland districts. Two rivers, the Kaipara and Wairoa, run far into the northern peninsula, while the Waikato and the Thames penetrate into the heart of the Island. Endowed with these natural facilities, Auckland has become the first port of New Zealand. The city itself is beautifully laid out, and the view from Mount Eden, a volcanic hill on which Auckland's chief suburb is built, is especially charming. Looking southward the city spreads out for some miles, each pleasant villa surrounded by its garden of beautiful shrubs. Across the harbour lies the north shore, a pleasant vista of white houses nestling at the foot of green hills, while out to sea stretches the Hauraki Gulf dotted with its innumerable islets. Tramways run along all the principal streets, and the city is provided with open spaces and recreation-grounds in the usual lavish fashion that marks most colonial cities. Among other fine public build- ings, Auckland possesses a museum containing the best col- lection of Maori curiosities in existence. From Auckland railways run north to Helensville, and south through the Waikato country as far as Eotorua, the centre of the hot-lakes district. In the course of a few years Auckland will also be connected by rail with Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, situated on Port Nicholson in Cook Strait. This city contains the New Zealand Houses of Parliament, the Governor's residence, and the Public Offices, the latter said to be the largest wooden building in the Southern Hemisphere. Owing to the frequent recurrence of earthquakes, the greater portion of Wellington is composed of 6—2 84 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY wooden buildings. The city itself is built on the lower part of a range of hills, and appeals to the visitor on account of the steepness of its streets and the violence of its breezes. Wellington is a busy port, maintaining the bulk of New Zealand's trade with Victoria and Tasmania, as well as an adequate proportion of the European trade. Other flourishing towns on the North Island are Napier, the port of the Hawke's Bay district. New Plymouth, the principal town in the Taranaki district, Wanganui, a rising place at the mouth of the river of the same name, and connected with AVellington by rail, and several other centres of population affording outlets for the products of thriving farming districts. A special interest attaches itself to the North Island of New Zealand on account of the presence there of that centre of volcanic action known as the ' hot-lakes district ' — the wonder- land of New Zealand. The visitor proceeds thither by rail from Auckland, or by rail and coach from W^ellington, making the village of Eotorua the first halting-place. Here the Government has established a sanatorium, where invalids drink of warm mineral waters and bathe in still warmer mineral baths, the properties of which are said to remove rheumatism as if by magic. All round Eotorua the evidences of volcanic action are frequent and startling. A hot stream, that flows through quagmires of steaming mud, points the way to AVhaka rewa-rewa, where may be seen geysers and pools of seething, boiling mud- Everywhere the ground gapes and quivers, and quick jets of steam spurt out, smelling most vilely. Among the many geysers may be mentioned the Waiwanghi Geyser, which spouts hot water, mud, and stones to a height of 700 feet, and is therefore the greatest geyser in the world. It cannot always be seen in action, but there are many of the geysers at Whaka-rewa-rewa that can be stimulated to perform by feeding them with a bar of soap. 86 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY So encouraged, the water heaves and bubbles, the earth trembles, and suddenly a column of foaming water and steam shoots up into the sky. Not far away is Lake Tarawera and the volcano of the same name. On the shores of the lake were formerly situated the pink and white terraces, formed by the silica deposited from streams of mineral water. These terraces were once among the most interesting sights of New Zealand, but an eruption of Mount Tarawera, in 1886, completely effaced them and laid all the surrounding country desolate. Lake Tikitapu, formerly a lovely lake of sapphire blue, is now a sheet of dirty-white water ; and although the streams of mineral water are again flowing, it will be very many years before their deposits will again form a sight so curious and beautiful as the terraces formerly afforded. Another interesting spot in the wonderland is the valley of Tikitere. Here the subterranean furnaces are so close to the surface that in places the ground is so hot as to scorch the soles of one's boots. The ground continually trembles, and every pool gives off" dense clouds of sulphurous vapour. A more repellent looking spot could hardly be imagined ; but it contains mud baths of great curative value. In the valley are the boiling lakes where the Maoris cook their food, and close at hand are large deposits of sulphur, an article of con- siderable commercial value. Tikitere, Tarawera, and Whaka-rewa-rewa are only three among very many spots of interest in the thermal district. The lake of Kotorua, for instance, contains the island of Mokoia, famous in Maori legend as the scene of the love- story of Hinemoa. These places are continually being visited by tourists, from whom the Maoris, who own the surrounding country, reap no little profit. The resources of the North Island are many and varied. The forests that were once spread over it are gradually being ' THE PLACE OF GREENSTONE ' 87 cleared away, but there is still good material for a timber- cutter. The gum-digger also confines his operations to the North Island, and when he has completely turned over the clay -lands in which the gum is found, they are planted with fruit-trees, for which this class of soil has been found to be especially adapted. Gold-mining flourishes in the Thames and Coromandel dis- tricts, and coal is found to the north of Auckland. Taranaki is the headquarters of the dairying industry, while the dis- tricts of Hawkes Bay and Wellington are rather pastoral and maintain large flocks of sheep. CHAPTER XV ' THE PLACE OF GREENSTONE ' Until the white man came, all the cutting tools and weapons of the Maori were fashioned from the greenstone, or jade, which he found in the South Island only. This greenstone, therefore, played a very important part in the Maori's daily life, so important, indeed, that he gave its name to the place where it was found. In the Maori tongue the South Island is known as 7e wai Founamu — the place of greenstone. Open, breezy plains, with the snow-capped line of the Southern Alps in the distance, such are the features of the eastern coast. On the rainy western coast there are dense forests, and mountain glens down which roaring torrents rush to the sea. The mountain chain divides the two districts, and the contrast between the country on each side of the range is a most striking one. Of the cities of South Island, Christchurch was the second to be settled. The English settlers who first came there 88 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY strove to transplant to the Southern Hemisphere a bit of their well-loved England, and succeeded in an astonishing fashion. Christchurch is like no other city in New Zealand, or in all Australasia, but it is very like more than one cathedral town in England. Built on a level plain, through which a placid stream called the Avon flows, the city is laid out in rectangular CANTERBURY COLLEGE form. It contains many open spaces, the finest of which is the Cathedral Square, and the cathedral itself is a very beauti- ful one. All around stretch the fertile Canterbury plains, through which run English lanes, shut in by tall English hedges. The houses of Christchurch are built on English rather than colonial lines, and the inhabitants are proud of the resemblance of their city to those of the ' old country.' 'THE PLACE OF GREENSTONE' 89 Christchurch, in addition to its cathedral, possesses a number of fine public buildings, an excellent museum, and Canterbury College, an educational centre unsurpassed in all New Zealand. It is connected with its port of Lyttelton by a railway line, to build which it was necessary to tunnel for more than a mile through a hill. The parks and recreation grounds of Christ- church are very extensive, and include very fine gardens and cricket fields. Dunedin is 230 miles further south, in the province of Otago. It is situated at the very head of Otago Harbour, with the business portion of the city on the level land near the water, and the residential area on the higher ground behind. Like Christchurch, Dunedin has a belt of reserved land marking the city limits. It is one-fifth of a mile wide, and through it runs a carriage-road, known as the Queen's Drive, which commands some lovely views of Dunedin and its harbour. Just as Christchurch retains the mark of its Englisji origin, Dunedin shows the traces of the Scottish exiles who founded it in the middle of the nineteenth century. The First Church and the Knox Church are prominent among the public buildings, and no visitor walking down George Street could fail to be struck by the many Scottish names displayed on the shop-fronts. Dunedin contains the Otago University College, where there is a medical school, which provides the full course for the medical degree of the New Zealand University. In the extreme south of the South Island is Invercargill, the fifth largest town in New Zealand. Its port, 'The Bluflf',' is the first and last port of call for steamers trading with Victoria and Tasmania, and is a busy, thriving place. The principal port on the west coast of the South Island is Grey- mouth, where a costly artificial harbour has been made. From Greymouth large quantities of coal are shipped every year, and other exports of the district are principally gold and 90 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY timber. Other towns of importance in the South Island are Timaru, a rising port on the east coast, midway between Christchurch and Dunedin, and Nelson, at the head of Blind Bay, in the north. If the North Island has it wonderland, the South Island presents even greater attractions to the tourist and the sight- seer. It has a district of lakes and mountains, with scenery that has been compared with that of Switzerland. Among the most beautiful of the lakes is Wakatipu, the surface of w^hich is more than a thousand feet above sea-level, while the bottom is far beneath sea-level, so deep is the lake. The water is of a deep-blue tint, and reflects scenery of the grandest and most inspiring character. Lake Wanaka is curious as well as beautiful, for it contains an island that rises 500 feet above its surface, in the crown of which is set a wonderful little lake. Lake Te Anau is the largest of the New Zealand lakes, and, though the scenery around it cannot compare for rugged grandeur with the mountains in which Lake Wakatipu is set, it is nevertheless of great beauty. Like Wakatipu, Te Anau is more than a thousand feet deep, and the water is of the very darkest blue. The snow-capped Southern Alps always dominate the landscape of the South Island. Mount Cook, or Aorangi, as the Maoris called it, is 12,400 feet high, and is the highest point, but it has many tall rivals along the chain. Much of the range has yet to be explored, but the exploration that has already been made has revealed countless scenic marvels. The known glaciers of New Zealand surpass in size and number those of Switzerland. Tasman Glacier is eighteen miles long and two miles wide, and is fed by another glacier, which falls 4,000 feet sheer down the mountain-side. This fall of ice is known as the Hochstetter Fall, and the crash of its splintering masses of falling ice from time to time echoes through the still valleys for many miles around. THE PLACE OF GREENSTONE 01 Further south has been discovered the tallest waterfall in the world, the Sutherland Falls, of 1,904 feet. It is only a SCENE NEAR J.AKE WAKATIPU few years ago that this fall was discovered by Mr. Sutherland, of Milford Sound, and it now adds a further attraction to the south-west corner of the island, long-famed for the beauties of 92 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY its sounds. These sounds, like the fiords of Norway, are narrow passages of water running far inland. Many of them are surprisingly deep — Milford Sound is over 1,100 feet in depth at its entrance — and the land rises to even greater heights around them. Majestic cliffs and tree-clad heights are reflected in the unruffled waters of the sound. The whole scene is one of unrivalled beauty. Eeverting to more practical matters, it must be remembered that Otago, the district that contains these lakes and moun- tains, is one of the chief manufacturing districts of New Zealand. The colony does not export many manufactured articles, but yearly makes for its own use some .£17,000,000 worth of goods. Otago has woollen factories, a match factory, and a number of other industries in which more than 7,000 people are employed. It produces about one-third of the total quantity of gold exported from New Zealand, and possesses building stone of a quality unsurpassed throughout Austral- asia. Its crops of oats are remarkable, even for New Zealand, and it takes its place in the export industry of meat and butter, for there are no less than nine freezing establishments in the district. Canterbury is another great manufacturing district. As it is the chief farming and meat-freezing district in the colony, it is not surprising to find it manufactures agricultural machinery. Woollen - mills, flour - mills, flax -mills, and numerous factories for tanning, soap-making, etc., show the prosperity of the district and the nature of its products. The Canterbury plains are peculiarly suited for growing food- supplies and for maintaining vast flocks of sheep, and to these uses they have been applied. The coal-mines of the west coast are yearly increasing in value and importance. From the two ports of Grey mouth and Westport nearly 600,000 tons were shipped in the year 1900, and of this coal the late Sir John Coode reported : ' The IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 93 bituminous coal found on the west coast of the Middle (South) Island is declared by engineers to be fully equal, if not superior, to the best description from any part of the world.' CHAPTER XVI IMPORTS AND EXPORTS One of the most striking proofs of the material prosperity of New Zealand is the volume of her trade with other countries. The figures for the year 1900 show that at the end of the century the annual exports were of the value of 13J millions, while the imports for the same year were worth 10 J millions. The bulk of this trade is within the Empire, for of the 24 millions which represented the trade of New Zealand for 1900, 16f millions, or more than 70 per cent., was directly with the United Kingdom. Of the remainder, trade worth 3^ millions was done with the Commonwealth of Australia, and nearly another million with Fiji, India, and the islands of the Pacific. The most important articles of export are, of course, pastoral products. First on the list comes wool, the value of which was 4f millions in 1900. The whole of this went to the United Kingdom. The next article is frozen meat, in which the colony does a large and rapidly expanding trade. The value of the frozen meat exported in 1900 was more than double that of 1890. There were then twenty-one establish- ments for freezing meat in New Zealand, all worked on the most economical principles. Near them were established tallow works, oil and manure factories, fellmongeries, and other places of industry for utilizing all the waste products. Nothing was thrown away, the whole trade being conducted in the most sanitary and up-to-date fashion. 94 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY An important step taken by the Government in connection with the freezing industry was the opening up of trade with South Africa, where a wide market exists. The result of this enterprise on the part of the New Zealand Government was a still further expansion of the trade in frozen meat, and a greater measure of prosperity for New Zealand's pastoral industry. Third in value on the list of exports is gold, which is exported to Melbourne, Sydney, and London in the shape of bullion. From time to time New Zealand has asked for the establishment of a Mint there, in order that the gold produced may be coined into sovereigns on the spot. The value of the output — about IJ millions sterling in 1900 — is not great enough to warrant this step, and therefore the Imperial Government has not been able to grant the request. Conse- quently New Zealand will continue to export gold bullion and to receive a certain proportion of it again in the shape of coin. The export of grains in 1900 was valued at 1;^ millions. Nearly half of this was oats, for which New Zealand has a well-deserved reputation all over the world. Another export from the farm which showed a wonderful increase was butter. Nearly the whole of this was sent in cool chambers to the United Kingdom, where it commanded a good price because of the evenness of its quality and the excellent condition in which it was landed. Not content with the British trade, however, the New Zealand Government is finding openings for its butter and cheese in India and South Africa. Kauri gum, which was referred to in the chapter dealing with the diggers, was worth £622,000 to New Zealand in 1900. More than half the quantity exported went to the United States of America. Another interesting product of New Zealand is the phor- mium, or New Zealand flax, which is the fibre of a plant that IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 95 grows in the swampy ground. From this material, as we know, the Maoris used to make their mats, nets, fish-lines, and a variety of articles of apparel. Mills exist for treating the leaves and stems of this plant, freeing the fibre from the other vegetable matter and the natural gum it contains. It is afterwards bleached, and is then employed for a variety of purposes. Other articles exported in very considerable quanti- ties are tallow, preserved meats, sheep and rabbit skins, leather, and hides. In the kauri pine New Zealand possesses a timber tree more valuable than any existing in Australia. A good tree may be from 8 to 16 feet in diameter, and shoots up 100 feet or more without a branch. It is believed, from the rate of growth of young trees, that it takes 800 years for a kauri pine to attain to its full growth. The timber is smooth, of even grain, and most attractive appearance, and very easy for the carpenter to work. The forests are being cut down at a great rate, and much of this beautiful timber has been sadly wasted in the past. The time is approaching when it will be found exceed- ingly difficult to procure, but in the meantime it forms one of New Zealand's leading articles of export. In a smaller w^ay, New Zealand exports some interesting and uncommon things. One merchant farms the penguins of the Auckland Islands, and yearly kills off a certain number of them for the sake of the oil he extracts from their bodies, which has a special value in tanning delicate leathers. From Stewart Island are exported to Australia large quantities of oysters, fine in size and quality. Fish, both dried and frozen, are also exported to Australia, and every year sees some new resource added to the productive capacity of the colony. It would be impossible to enumerate in detail the many and varied articles which New Zealand imports from the United Kingdom. Wearing apparel of all sorts heads the list, and hardware and machinery is also a very prominent item. Of 96 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY the total value, the United Kingdom in 1900 sent more than half, and a large part of the remainder was supplied by British colonies and possessions. Among foreign nations, the United States of America does by far the biggest trade with New Zealand. This trade with America is largely in agricultural machinery, bicycles, and other goods of a like nature, and American firms are constantly busy in New Zealand encouraging its development. Lately, how- ever, the New Zealand Government has shown signs of a desire to confine the import trade of the colony as far as possible to the Empire. The efforts made by the Government to find new openings for the products of the colony are very energetic, and seem likely to meet the success they deserve. Trade agents were first appointed, who visited not only Great Britain, but India, Japan, South Africa, and the Continent of Europe. It was their business to find out where New Zealand's goods would find a ready market, and in what form they were likely to prove most acceptable to buyers. The first result of this step was the establishment of a line of steamers between New Zealand and South Africa, and it should not be many years before New Zealand is also supplying frozen mutton to Japan, where there is a ready sale for it. The possibilities of the colony in this direction are very great, and with a greater demand, the supply will also be increased. The prospect of an annually increasing trade is a very bright one for New Zealand, for not only are the natural resources of the country very great, but the people and their rulers are alive to the importance of striving energetically to capture and maintain as large a share of the world's markets as possible. I TO AND FROM NEW ZEALAND 97 CHAPTER XVII TO AND FROM NEW ZEALAND The traveller who proposes to journey to New Zealand has no cause to complain that his choice of routes is limited. He may, if he wishes, travel twice to and from New Zealand by a fresh and novel route each time ; and having done so, he will still have another route left to him, the greater part of which is entirely new. Let us suppose that the traveller wishes, first of all, to see something of the great Dominion of Canada as he passes across the world to New Zealand. He will then take ship at Liverpool, and steam almost due west until the fogs of New- foundland are encountered. His ship must steal between the island of Newfoundland and the cold mainland into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, past the island of Anticosti, and into the mouth of the River St. Lawrence itself. He will land at the town of Quebec, and there take the train for a journey of 4,000 miles across the Dominion of Canada, from east to west. But first Quebec is worth spending a day or two to see, for it is one of the quaintest and most picturesque towns of our Colonial Empire. Half English and half French, with its mighty citadel and its many beautiful spires and towers, it affords a picture which will long be remembered. Distant four hours' journey by rail from Quebec is Montreal, the largest city in the Dominion, and its commercial centre. It is built upon the junction of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers, and has a population of nearly half a million. The next place of interest is, of course, Ottawa, capital of the Dominion. Here the Canadian Parliament meets, and the Parliament House, with the fine block of Government Offices attached to it, is one of the finest buildings in the whole 7 98 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY continent of America. Ottawa is built at the juncture of the two rivers, Eideau and Ottawa, and the ground upon which it is built slopes upward from the banks of the river to the height on which the public buildings stand, whence a fine view of the surrounding country may be obtained. Ottawa is also the centre of a great timber industry, and the banks of the river are lined with sawmills, while the suburb of Hull, on the opposite side of the river, is largely composed of the wooden houses of the lumbermen. From Ottawa to Vancouver, the railway terminus in British Columbia, is a railway journey of more than 3,000 miles. The first 1,000 miles is through country covered by forest and dotted with beautiful lakes ; then comes another 1,000 miles of open prairie, after which the train enters the great chain of the Eocky Mountains, which separates the Atlantic and Pacific slopes. Among the cities at which the train stops is Winnipeg, the centre of the great wheat-growing province of Manitoba, where plenty and prosperity reign, a new city that is expanding and growing richer every year, like the fertile province in which it is situated. From these fertile prairies the train has to climb ever onward and upward, to the summit of the Great Divide, more than 5,000 feet above the sea-level. From that point the descent begins, and only ends when the train reaches Van- couver, upon the western coast. The scenery throughout this passage of the Eocky Mountains is marked by wild grandeur, the railway-line sometimes winding along the side of moun- tains so precipitous that the passenger, looking out of his carriage window, can glance sheer downwards for many hundred feet to where a stream runs along the gorge below. Boat is taken at Vancouver, the western terminus of the railway -line, and the first port of call is Honolulu, the capital of the Sandwich Islands. This place, as may be seen by a glance at the map, is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and TO AND FROM NEW ZEALAND 99 it enjoys a climate that has been described as ' eternal spring.' Honolulu is a very interesting place, with many beautiful spots in its vicinity, all well worth a visit. The time during which the boat stays there is all too short, and the traveller has to be satisfied with only a tantalizing glimpse of the beauties of the island of Hawaii. The journey from Honolulu to Wellington is a long one, and is sometimes broken by the boat calling at one of the Fiji Islands. Unlike the Sandwich Islands these are part of the Empire, being administered by a British Governor, with the aid of councillors, as a Crown Colony. When the boat finally reaches Wellington, the long journey is over, and from Wel- lington it is possible to travel to any part of New Zealand by rail or coasting steamer. In the old days one of the favourite ways of returning from New Zealand to Great Britain was round Cape Horn, the most southerly point of the continent of South America. The trade winds are favourable from New Zealand to Cape Horn, and it is mainly for that reason that this route was chosen for the return journey. It is still possible to travel by boat from New Zealand to Great Britain by this route, but whereas the sailing-vessels had to round Cape Horn, the steamers of to- day are able to navigate the Straits of Magellan, which separate the island of Tierra del Fuego from the mainland. It is a long and tedious voyage, the only things of interest until the first port of call is reached being the icebergs which are sometimes encountered in those southern seas. The passage of Magellan Straits is very fine in places, and then there is a long run up the coast of South America to Rio Janeiro, the first port of call. Rio Janeiro has a very beautiful harbour ; indeed, opinions are divided on the point whether the harbour at Rio or at Sydney is the more beautiful. The climate of the place, however, is unhealthy, especially for those who have not experienced it long enough to become accustomed 7—2 100 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY to it. Most of the residents live on the high ground above the harbour, where they have some chance of escaping the tropical fever. The next stopping-place after Eio Janeiro is the group known as Cape Verde Islands ; the next Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, and after that there is no stoppage until the shores of England are reached. Another route to New Zealand is that by the Suez Canal. By most people this would be considered the best of all, since there are so many places of interest where the vessel calls. The Kock of Gibraltar, the great French port of Marseilles, and the beautiful Bay of Naples, are all visited before the boat leaves the Mediterranean Sea. Then there is Port Said, a wonderful city at the head of the Suez Canal, where ships of all nations stop for coal, and men of every colour and race may be seen in the streets. The passage through the canal is in itself a most interesting experience, and from the deck of his ship the traveller can catch glimpses of long caravans of camels crossing the sandy desert through which the canal has been cut. From the Suez Canal the boat emerges into the Red Sea, where the weather is usually so unpleasantly hot that every- one is glad when that portion of the journey is over. The boat will call at Colombo in Ceylon for coal, and no one can ever see Colombo once without longing to visit it again. It is a glimpse of the East, with funny little bullocks drawing ramshackle waggons about the streets, and everybody polite and pleasant, and anxious to sell something. A jaunt around the streets of Colombo in a ' rick-shaw ' is one of the most pleasant memories of the journey to New Zealand. Leaving Colombo, the boat goes south-east, making for Australia, and does not stop until it reaches Fremantle. This is the port of Perth, the capital of Western Australia. After- wards three of the other Australian capitals are visited in TO AND FROM NEW ZEALAND 101 turn — Adelaide, Melbourne, and then Sydney. From Sydney it is necessary to take a smaller steamer, which runs between New Zealand and the continent of Australia. In order to return once more to Great Britain, the traveller can embark at Invercargill, the most southerly port of New Zealand. Travelling west, he will call at Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, a beautiful little town built on the shores of a very fine harbour. From Hobart his course is due west to the Cape of Good Hope. He will see Capetown and the remarkable Table Mountain ; and then, having rounded the Cape, will find no other port of call until Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, is reached. From that point his route i^ identical with the second one described — that via the Straits of Magellan. There is yet another way to New Zealand which leads across the North American continent. Instead of shipping to Quebec and taking the Canadian Pacific Kailway, the traveller can go to New York, and thence by train across the United States to San Francisco. From San Francisco boats steam to New Zealand, calling at the Sandwich Islands, as in the case of the route first laid out. This way to New Zealand, via San Francisco, is really the shortest of all the routes between Great Britain and New Zealand, and is therefore employed very often by those with whom the saving of time is an object. Telegraphic communication between New Zealand and the United Kingdom is maintained by means of the Pacific cable, also known as the all-British cable. The laying of this cable, which was opened for transmission of messages in 1902, was largely due to the desire of the colonies that one, at least, of the cables linking them to the Motherland should have all its stations within the Empire. The impor- tance of having the sole control of our telegraphic communi- cation in time of war was felt to be so great that Australia, 102 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Canada, and New Zealand all contributed largely to the cost of laying and maintaining tliis line. The first section runs from Ireland to Cape Canso, the most easterly point on the mainland of Canada. Thence the wire goes overland, by the same route as the great transcontinental railway, to Vancouver in British Columbia. From that point another section of deep-sea cable stretches out to Fanning Island, a little coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 1,000 miles south of the Sandwich Islands. This is the longest unbroken section of deep-sea cable ever laid. From Fanning Island it goes under water again to Fiji, and from there to Norfolk Island. One branch runs from Norfolk Island to Queensland, thus completing the link with Australia; another runs to New Zealand. New Zealand is also connected by cable with Australia, and so with the United Kingdom by means of the network of cables controlled by the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company. CHAPTER XVIII LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND The keynote to New Zealand life and prosperity is probably the respect and consideration shown to the man who goes on the land and becomes, in a primary sense, a producer. One of the leading New Zealand newspapers once offered prizes for the best essays written by boys under the age of sixteen years. The subject stipulated was 'Your Choice of Occupa- tion,' and more than sixty per cent, of the boys who competed chose the occupation of a farmer. This passion for a country life is reflected even in the cities, where the professional man and the merchant often finds the keenest pleasure of his life I 104 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY in the section of land in the country where he hopes some day to retire, ending his days as a sort of gentleman farmer. The fashion in which the inhabitants of New Zealand are spread over the country is one of the most striking features of the colony to a visitor. This is more especially the case when, as frequently occurs, he has also recently taken a tour through Australia. On the continent each State is swayed by the public opinion of its huge capital ; in New Zealand there is no huge centre of population, no metropolis. Two-thirds of the population live in the country or in small townships. There is a sort of rivalry among the four New Zealand cities, but in spite of very marked differences between them, life is very similar in all. One of the peculiarities of the New Zealand town is the great extent to which wood is employed in house-building. There are two reasons why most New Zealand houses are built of wood : in the first place, earthquakes are of frequent occurrence, and at such times wooden buildings suffer less than erections of brick or stone. Then, again, wood is very cheap and good in New Zealand, so that the material for a wooden house costs onl}'' one-half as much as it would in Australia. There are no tenement buildings or many-storied dwelling- houses to be found anywhere in New Zealand. A comparison of the number of houses with the population of the Colony shows that there is one house to every five inhabitants. Each house usually stands in its own block of land, with a garden plot in front and behind it. These are facts which serve to explain why the areas of the New Zealand cities are so large compared with their population ; they also have some bearing on the New Zealand death-rate, which is the lowest in the world. A glance at the map will show that all the larger cities of New Zealand are upon the sea-coast, or only a very few miles distant from it. Auckland is placed upon a narrow neck of LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND 105 land between two beautiful bays, where yachting, boating, and fishing form pleasant amusements all the year round. The people of Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin are almost as favourably situated, so that life upon the water is a great feature of city life in New Zealand. Indeed, in a country so long and so narrow, nobody lives more than a day's journey from the sea, or beyond its influence. Where the aged are provided for by the State, and the able- bodied can always find employment, real want is not known. On the other hand, the acquisition of large fortunes has been found difficult in New Zealand, owing, perhaps, to the great extent of State trading. It is said that New Zealand can boast no millionaire, and very few men with incomes that would be considered large in Europe or America. But in spite of the fact that the necessaries of life are cheap in New Zealand, the New Zealander contrives to spend more upon them than either the Australian, the American, or the Briton. One gets the impression of much solid comfort by walking through the streets of a New Zealand city; there are no pinched faces, no ill-clad, shivering poor to be seen at all. A comparison between a New Zealand city and a British city of the same size would lead to the conclusion that in New Zealand there is an absence of extremes. If the working people are better housed and better dressed in New Zealand, it is likewise noticeable that the professional classes pay less regard to appearances. The lawyer, the doctor, and the merchant are not so carefully dressed as their equals in Great Britain ; it is harder in New Zealand to tell a man's position by his appearance. The education of the people, as might be expected, is a State aftair. In this respect, too, the absence of class dis- tinctions is very noticeable, for nearly all New Zealanders avail themselves of the free education which the State pro- vides. The majority of those who do not, send their children 106 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY to schools where religious instruction is also provided, for the New Zealand State schools are secular. Scholarships are pro- vided for the State scholars, so that those who are most talented may pursue their studies at the secondary schools, and afterwards attend the lectures at the colleges affiliated to the New Zealand University. In the scheme of free education the Maoris are not overlooked, and one remarkable feature of the Maori schools is the attendance, which is better in propor- tion than that of the other schools. Secondary schools also exist for the Maoris, and quite a number of them have graduated at the University. In a land where the women vote, it is only reasonable to expect that women will be prominent in other ways as well. They have always been allowed to enter the learned profes- sions, and have availed themselves freely of the privilege. One lady, who took an interest in civic life, once succeeded in being elected Mayor of the little town of Onehunga, but the experiment was the last, as well as the first, of the kind. The conclusion drawn by the average observer is that the granting of a vote to the women of New Zealand has made less difference there than might have been expected. This chapter opened by pointing out that the natural avoca- tion of many New Zealand boys was farming. There is cer- tainly more encouragement and more reward for the farmer there than in countries less favoured by Nature, and the Government wisely assists the settler in many ways. Doubt- less the New Zealand farmer, like his fellow elsewhere, has many difficulties to contend with that are not apparent to the uninitiated; but it is claimed, and with some good reason, that the pastoralists and farmers of New Zealand are pros- perous, and favoured by all the circumstances of climate, a fertile soil, and a paternal Government. What strikes the outsider is that they dwell — or some of them dwell — among scenery that may be compared to that of WATERFALL NEAR LAKE HAYES 108 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY Switzerland ; that the soil is well watered and fertile ; and that they everywhere look healthy, well clad, and contented. The man fond of country pursuits would find his ideal in some parts of the New Zealand Bush. Horses are cheap and good, so that no one with a mind for equestrian exercise need ever walk. For the fisherman there are countless beautiful streams teeming with fine trout, whose ancestors were originally imported from England and California. Many enthusiastic Australian fishermen make a trip to New Zealand every year for the sake of the fishing alone. Wild deer, wild cattle, and wild pigs are to be encountered in many spots, and pheasants also afford good sport, although it is not possible to make huge bags, as in an English covert. Many of the New Zealand farmers are fine riders, expert fishermen, and straight shots. As in most colonies, the possibilities of political and social advancement are very great for a man of character and talent. The story of Richard Seddon is too well known to need more than a passing reference here, but the poor lad who left his Lancashire village at the age of eighteen, and afterwards became Premier of New Zealand, would hardly have found his way to such high position had he chosen to remain in the country of his birth. Many stories are told of the democratic customs of the country. One worthy man, raised to the honour of membership of the Legislative Council, received the news of his advancement while plying his trade of boiler- maker. He was summoned from the interior of a boiler, clad in blue dungaree and grimy of face, to help to make the laws of his country. ' I want to go home now,' said a guest to his host, ' but I can't, because your daughter is dancing with my cabby.' Such stories may be true, but they illustrate only the possi- bilities of life in a young colony, not the ordinary everyday events. LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND 109 One more noticeable feature of New Zealand life is the love and pride of the New Zealanders for their beautiful country and for their own part of it. For a parallel it is necessary to go to Great Britain. Such love of a town or district is not found in the average Australian, who is a nomad by instinct, and makes his living where he can do so with the best advan- tage. But the New Zealander is, as a rule, intensely patriotic, and clings, moreover, to the belief that the spot he inhabits is the brightest and best in the finest country in the world. He usually has some excellent reasons for that belief. Life in New Zealand, then, is freer and less conventional than in England, more settled and less speculative than in Australia. Class distinctions do not exist to any marked extent, but the steady and orderly fashion of living makes it possible that they may become more noticeable in the future. The ups and downs of New Zealand in the past can be traced to preventable causes, and are not, as in Australia, attributable to drought. The legislative experiments that have been made in New Zealand are dealt with in another chapter. They, too, are not without their effect upon the life of the people, causing them to look to the State in a manner that sometimes strikes an observer as rather pathetic. With this exception, life in New Zealand is much what might have been expected of a purely British stock, with agricultural tastes, transferred to a country somewhat resembling their native land, but sunnier and more fertile. 110 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY CHAPTER XIX SOME NEW ZEALAND NOTABLES New Zealand has always been fortunate in its public men. The schemes of its first colonizer, Mr. Edward Gibbon Wake- field, although they did not result as he had anticipated, nevertheless insured for the young colony pioneer settlers of the highest class. His name will always be remembered with gratitude and reverence in the colony which he laboured so hard to found. New Zealand also owes, and admits, its debt of gratitude to the first Bishop of the colony, George Augustus Selwyn. Bishop Selwyn was remarkable while at school and the University both as a scholar and an athlete. He rowed for Cambridge in the University boat-race, and found his physical gifts of the greatest advantage to him when he was made Bishop of New Zealand. Almost his first work on arriving there was to visit the wildest and most impenetrable parts of the island, and to obtain as much knowledge as he could of the Maoris. He gained a great deal of influence among them, and did very much to assist and protect them. His work for the Church in New Zealand was of inestimable value, while the support he gave to Governor Grey strengthened the hands of the latter, and acted for the good of the colony at large. From 1842 to 1868 he laboured in New Zealand, and then, under extreme pressure, was induced to accept the bishopric of Lichfield. His departure from New Zealand, was marked by expressions of regret from all classes of the community. His translation to the See of Lichfield was noticed by Punch in a set of verses, one of which ran as follows : ' What to him were short commons, wet jacket, hard lying, The savage's blood-feud, the element's strife, Whose guard was the Cross, at his peak proudly flying, Whose fare was the bread and the water of life.' SOME NEW ZEALAND NOTABLES 111 Up to the day of his death, which occurred in 1878, Bishop Selwyn took the keenest interest in New Zealand and the Maori people, and almost his last words were spoken to a friend in the Maori tongue. Among other great men who served New Zealand and helped to shape her destinies reference should be made to Sir Julius Vogel and Sir Harry Atkinson. Some particulars of the career of Sir Julius Vogel have already been given, but Sir Harry Atkinson was a typical colonist of the very finest kind. He emigrated to New Zealand as a settler, and, in the time of the Maori War, organized a band of volunteers, of which he was made Captain. For his many and patient ser- vices throughout the war he was thanked by the Grovernment. Afterwards he entered politics, and in that sphere he was a figure of distinction for more than twenty years. He attained the highest post in the land — that of Prime Minister — and although he had many bitter political foes, he never had a personal enemy. He was knighted in 1888, and made President of the Legislative Council three years later. This honour he did not long enjoy, for he died with terrible suddenness while the Council was sitting. Another figure of interest in New Zealand history was Alfred Domett, the old University friend of Robert Brown- ing, concerning whom the latter wrote his well-known poem entitled "Waring." Mr. Domett lived in New Zealand for more than thirty years, and was Premier of the colony for a period of about two years. His political fame, however, was eclipsed by the reputation he achieved as a man of letters. His principal work is the epic poem " Ranolf and Amohia," which recounts the love-story of a young sailor and a Maori Princess. It is the most noteworthy poem ever written in New Zealand, and was the subject of warm eulogy on the part of both Browning and Tennyson. Even among men like these, the figure of Sir George Grey 112 THE NEW ZEALAND COLONY stands out pre-eminent in its greatness. His services to the Empire were not confined to New Zealand, but it was there that he may be said to have performed the greatest work of his career. His first public service was rendered as an Aus- tralian explorer, and he conducted two expeditions into the interior of Western Australia with very great success. He was afterwards made Governor of South Australia, where the finances were in a very bad way. There he made himself very unpopular with the colonists by his system of economical government, but he performed the task for v/hich he had been appointed with great ability. His success in South Australia led to his appointment as Governor of New Zealand. There he had a still more difficult task to perform. His first care was to end the war with the Maoris, and when that was done he had to settle the very difficult land question. We have seen in preceding chapters how he managed to do these things, and to prevent the colony being given constitutional government before it was ready for it. It was Sir George Grey who drew up the constitution which was finally granted to the colony, and it was Sir George Grey who, when the Home Government was considering the advisability of sending convicts to New Zealand, made such strong representations that the proposal was abandoned. In 1853 his first term of oflSce in New Zealand ended, and in 1854 he was made Governor of Cape Colony. There he gave the same proofs of his wonderful capacity that he had elsewhere exhibited. He prevented a Kaffir rising, and, on his own responsibility, sent troops and money to India during the Mutiny. The troops were being sent to China, but on their arriving at the Cape, on their way out. Sir George Grey diverted them to India, and thus helped to prevent the Mutiny from becoming a much greater disaster than it was. Governor Grey's successor in New Zealand failed to manage SOME NEW ZEALAND NOTABLES 113 the colony as well as he had done, and on another Maori war breaking out, Sir George was sent back there from Cape Colony. During the progress of this war, Sir George Grey had very serious differences with the military officers in com- -^ 1 tt li :^SBM ^P mb ^hH s m ^^H H w l^vl jB^,i(d'^ pages. Crown 8vo. 2.s. Qd. LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD. 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