OF THE 
 
 NTIPODES 
 
 T' 
 RAVEL 
 \ f \ W NMBI MBW 
 
 A/EW ZEA L A ND
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 (LU- 
 
 THE 
 
 WONDERLAND OF THE ANTIPODES
 
 WONDERLAND OF THE ANTIPODES; 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 SKETCHES OF TKAVEL 
 
 IN THE 
 
 BY 
 
 J. EENEST /TINNE, M.A. 
 
 t^ 
 
 (UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD), 
 
 LATE EDITOR AND ORIGINATOR OF THE ETON COLLEGE CHRONICLE, AND 
 OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE'S JOURNAL. 
 
 WITH MAP AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTOTYPE PROCESS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MAESTON, LOW, AND SEAKLE, 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1873. 
 [All Rightt
 
 LIVERPOOL : 
 
 ADAM HOLDEN, 48, CHDRCH STEEET.
 
 pu 
 
 MM 
 
 TO 
 
 MY FATHER, 
 
 WHO HAS DONE SO MUCH FOB ME ; AND IN RETURN FOR WHOSE 
 
 KIND AND CONSTANT AFFECTION, I HAVE BEEN AS YET UNABLE 
 
 TO GIVE ANY BETTER PROOF OF MY GRATITUDE. 
 
 150215S
 
 LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Map of North Island of New Zealand ... ... Facing Titlepaye. 
 
 Roto-Mahana Lake ; General View, with Geysers ... ... 10 
 
 Te Tarata, or White Terrace 11 
 
 Te Tarata, and Geyser at Head 12 
 
 Basins of Te Tarata 18 
 
 Otukupuerangi, or Pink Terrace ... ... ... .. ... 14 
 
 Tattooed Basin Te Tarata ... 15 
 
 Captain Mair and Arawa Native Constabulary, at Kaiteriria on 
 
 Roto-kakahi 18 
 
 Ohinemutu on Rotorua, and Mokoia Island ... ... ... 19 
 
 Te Heu-Heu's Store-house Lake Taupo ... 88 
 
 Bush Scenery, near Hokianga ... ... ... ... ... 51 
 
 Plan of Kaihu Estate 70 
 
 New Zealand Flax-bush (Phormium Tenax) near Hokiauga ... 79 
 
 The Kawau House and Bay ... ... 81 
 
 The Kawau Sir George Grey's House and Garden ... ... 86
 
 NEARLY all the recent writers on New Zealand, such as 
 Lady Barker, Sir C. Dilke, and others, have confined 
 themselves to the South or Middle island, where the people, 
 climate, and imported trees remind one so strongly of 
 England, that it is hard to imagine yourself away from 
 home. But though the glaciers and lake scenery of the 
 Southern Alps are in their way almost unrivalled, I think 
 that for variety, beauty, and interest, the natural pheno- 
 mena of the North island are pre-eminently wonderful ; 
 whilst the semi-tropical look of the vegetation, the influ- 
 ence, manners and customs of the Maori population, and 
 the eternal spring weather, lend a powerful charm of 
 novelty to visitors in these parts. 
 
 In 1872 I spent some time in exploring the celebrated 
 Hot Lakes of Rotorua and Rotomahana, continuing my 
 journey on horseback from thence to Lake Taupo and 
 Napier ; and as my experience tends strongly to confirm 
 the impressions formed by the late Governor Sir G. Bowen, 
 as to the peaceful disposition and hospitality of the natives 
 in recently disaffected districts, I have no hesitation in 
 trying to persuade sight-seers and bond fide emigrants to 
 visit or adopt for their home the " Eden of the Southern 
 Seas," without fear of any further serious disturbances. 
 To the account of this expedition I have added several 
 selected sketches of places and things not generally 
 known, in preference to inflicting on the public a complete 
 account of my travels or giving descriptions of what mav
 
 2 
 
 have already been told in far more graphic language than 
 mine pretends to be. I have borne in mind two maxims ; 
 firstly, that 
 
 Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, 
 
 in accordance with which I have tried to combine useful 
 guide-book information with personal incidents, and thus 
 to dress the former in a more pleasing garb ; secondly, 
 that 
 
 Segnius irritant animam demissa per aurem 
 Quam qua sunt oculis submissa fidelibus ; 
 
 and therefore I have embellished the pages, where I could, 
 with correct copies of photographs taken by Mr. Munday, 
 of Wellington, and Mr. Moller, of Auckland, on the very 
 spots of which I speak. 
 
 Mr. Anthony Trollope, in his recently published work 
 on the colonies, mentions that four hundred books have 
 already been written about New Zealand, but that as he 
 never read one of them himself previous to his visit 
 there, he ventures to think there may be room for just 
 one more still. Being venturous enough to tread in his 
 steps, I must plead the same excuse in presenting to 
 the public number four hundred and two, which I feel 
 assured is far from exhausting what may be said in praise 
 of " the coming country."
 
 THE WONDER-LAND OF THE ANTIPODES. 
 
 ON one of those bright summer evenings in Auckland when 
 the whole landscape is bathed in a luscious light which 
 serves to intensify the beauty of the surrounding scenery, 
 and bring out with wonderful distinctness the clear-cut 
 outlines of the trees and mountains against a warm blue 
 sky (unrivalled elsewhere in the world), I rode up the 
 Grafton Road towards Mount Eden, where I was to spend 
 the night with some hospitable friends, before starting on 
 my journey overland to the Waikato Settlements, Hot 
 Lakes, and Napier. My whole equipment was comprised 
 in my horse, saddle and bridle, mackintosh, and a leathern 
 valise weighing about fourteen pounds, which contained 
 change of clothing, etc., and a small packet of plug 
 tobacco for presents to the natives. With an exhilarating 
 sense of freedom from care, and the anticipation of a 
 pleasant companion to the end of my first stage at 
 Hamilton, I felt thoroughly contented. I could not help 
 gazing back at times on the lovely Waitemata harbour 
 beneath me, with the extinct volcano of Rangitoto grace- 
 fully rising in the foreground, and far in the distance the 
 purple ranges at Coromandel and the Thames, across 
 which, though miles away, I could see my track lying 
 over the Razor Back, like a white line on the side of the 
 mountain. No one without actual experience of it can 
 realize the life-giving buoyancy of the New Zealand and 
 Tasmanian climates; they are "as cream to skim milk" 
 compared with the atmosphere of our own little fog-bound
 
 island; so that the mere sense of existence, "breathing 
 and having our being," is vividly delightful in these 
 latitudes. These are lands from which, as a Californian 
 said of his own country, " you must go away if you want 
 to die." Then, too, a man feels so completely his own 
 master on horseback (unless indeed the case be exactly 
 reversed, and the horse be master of the man) ; he can 
 stop when and where he likes, and watch the coach- 
 passengers hasten away from a half-eaten, uncomfortable 
 meal, with all that inward satisfaction which (selfish 
 though it be) we really do feel when contemplating the 
 misfortunes of others and prosperous ourselves. Leaving 
 Mount Eden in the early morning, we struck into the 
 Waikato road, stopping at Drury for dinner, and rode 
 fifty-two miles that day to Kangirirei, where we saw the 
 remains of the old pah or fortress, so celebrated during the 
 last war with the Maories. I found myself rather saddle- 
 sick with the effects of the first day's ride ; but in a very 
 short time became hardened with continual exercise, until 
 fatigue and I were comparative strangers. As we cantered 
 along the left bank of the Waikato, the pheasants, which 
 have been acclimatised, and are now rapidly spreading 
 over the island, kept rising in twenties and thirties at our 
 horses' feet from the road, where they were feeding on the 
 swarms of crickets ; and we caught occasional glimpses 
 on the other bank of flax-mills, with their snowy fibre 
 drying on the fern ; of the wild peach groves, for which 
 Auckland province is so justly famed ; of coal mines ; and 
 of native enclosures, with their little patches of tobacco, 
 cumera (sweet potato), and maize. And before I forget it, 
 I must here relate an amusing incident which took place 
 en route. My horse, which had been very leg-weary at 
 .starting, and had pitched heavily on his head as we rode 
 into Rangirirei at dusk, the previous evening, sending me
 
 head first among the manuka or ti-tree scrub, suddenly 
 "gave out" to such an extent that I had to stop at an 
 " accommodation house " (or way- side inn) to sponge him 
 down. In course of conversation with the proprietor, I 
 happened to mention that the poor beast had covered about 
 two hundred miles in three days just before I got him, 
 whilst the detectives were in search of a notorious convict 
 named Robinson, who had recently escaped from Mount 
 Eden gaol ; the man slipped away into the house, and 
 shortly afterwards, when I requested them to give me a 
 " nobbier " or drink, his wife informed me that not having 
 a spirit license, she must refuse to serve me ; evidently 
 mistaking me for one of the constabulary in disguise. It 
 took a considerable amount of persuasion to convince her 
 that I was no informer, but I eventually succeeded in 
 obtaining what I wanted. On crossing the ferry at 
 Ngaruawahia or Newcastle, where the Waipa joins the 
 Waikato, we were a good deal interested while waiting for 
 luncheon, with the primitive way in which the resident 
 magistrate, who had joined us on the road, held his court 
 on the verandah of the hotel. He had to decide a case of 
 horse- stealing, or disputed ownership ; the prisoner and 
 accuser argued their own sides of the question, marching 
 up and down the common in front of the house, with 
 violent gesticulations as each in turn spoke, and occa- 
 sionally throwing back the blanket from their shoulders 
 as if about at once to settle the dispute m et arm is. 
 "Much cry and little wool," however, for the decision once 
 pronounced, the defeated individual quietly lay down, 
 without a trace of excitement, and smoked himself into 
 a comfortable doze. 
 
 I spent the night at Hamilton, a neat little town, 
 situated on either side of the river ; and devoted the next 
 few days at Ohaupo, to observing the marvellous energy
 
 6 
 
 aud rapidity with which settlers are transforming the 
 dusky brown fern land of the surrounding country into the 
 most charming dairy-farms and sheep-runs, with less 
 labour and expense than is the case in any district I had 
 before visited, except perhaps the virgin prairies of Kansas, 
 which, however, cannot compare with this district for 
 climate and scenery. I stayed for a time at the house of 
 Mr. C , a squatter, who has migrated hence from 
 Canterbury, with whose son I had ridden up from Auck- 
 land, and who is largely engaged in reclaiming the vast 
 swamp which lies between Ohaupo and Hamilton. Behind 
 us rose the mountain of Pironghia, on the border of the 
 " King's country," near which Todd, the road surveyor, 
 was murdered by the rebels a year or two ago, whilst 
 working well within the boundaries of the confiscated lands. 
 It is a subject of .regret with me that I did not visit Alex- 
 andra and Te Awamutu, which lie in that direction, as I 
 have been since told that the homesteads there present 
 even a more thoroughly English appearance, with their 
 neat enclosures and country stiles, than the districts I 
 rode through. Crossing the plain from Ohaupo to Cam- 
 bridge, on a still close day, the notice of the traveller is 
 attracted by the pillars of dust, exactly resembling a water- 
 spout in appearance and shape, which rise at intervals in a 
 whirlwind to the clouds, scud across the fields, and then as 
 suddenly collapse. Shortly after arriving at the hotel, I 
 made the acquaintance of Major Drumrnond Hay, whose 
 amusing anecdotes and hair-breadth escapes by land and 
 water enlivened an ever memorable evening. This gentle- 
 man told me that he had not seen his " young brother 
 Frank," our Consul-General at Tripoli, for nearly twenty 
 years ; and as I myself had spent six months in that town, 
 during 1870, to investigate the circumstances of the 
 murder of Miss Tinne, the Dutch Traveller, and had been
 
 in pretty constant communication with the British Con- 
 sulate, a bond of union was at once established between us 
 in my African reminiscences, Among other bush-stories, 
 some of which savoured a trifle of Munchausenism, one 
 especially tickled my fancy. A " new chum," or novice in 
 colonial life, was consulting my friend as to what amount 
 of luggage he would advise for bush travel. "Well!" 
 replied the Major, " I myself prefer to carry nothing but 
 an empty canvass bag of moderate dimensions." 
 
 " What on earth is the good of that ? " said his friend. 
 
 " If it rains," said the Major, " I immediately take off 
 my clothing, place it in the bag, and walk on till it stops, 
 when I am in the enviable position of having a dry suit to 
 fall back on at the end of my journey." 
 
 I was just thinking of retiring to bed, when I heard a 
 familiar voice in the adjoining room, and, looking in, found 
 an Auckland man, Mr. M , who was on his way to the 
 Hot Lakes, in company with two Mends from Australia. 
 They invited me to join their party so far, and, as I had 
 not yet secured a guide, I was glad to avail myself of their 
 kindness. We appointed M. commissariat officer to the 
 expedition, and it was chiefly owing to his prudence in 
 catering, that we owed our successful journey; a verier 
 desert for man or beast than the Lake district I never saw ; 
 the stores are nearly always empty, and beyond the mere 
 necessaries of life, such as potatoes and bacon, literal 
 starvation threatens the unwary traveller in these parts. 
 We laid in a bountiful supply of sardines, canned sahnon, 
 jams, biscuits, tea, cocoa, and sugar; also a tin pannikin 
 apiece, and a "billy" for boiling the water. Meanwhile 
 I mounted my " bag of bones " and rode out to " Walker's 
 Swamp " at Moana-tui-tui, to try and obtain a change of 
 horses. I was fortunate eno*ugh to find a strong black 
 mare, which, though slow, was in good condition, and likely
 
 8 
 
 to last me through to Napier. My visit to Mr. Walker 
 was otherwise interesting, for he explained to me the 
 curious history of his "swamp," which at first appeared 
 to me a "lusus naturae" from its height above the sur- 
 rounding plain, and facilities for drainage. It seems that 
 centuries ago, the Maories, who even now subsist to a large 
 extent on eels and sharks' fins, had dammed up the stream 
 running from this plateau, with a strong and wide barrier 
 of ti-tree fascines, which I could still see at the bottom 
 of the deep drain recently cut through the land; and having 
 thus formed immense eel preserves in the soft mire, they 
 left a very small opening in the centre of the dam, where 
 they laid their wicker basket eel traps, and thus secured 
 a regular supply of food. Eejoining my party, we made 
 a late start for Maunga-tautari, the first halting-place, 
 about twelve miles distant, where our guide lived, the only 
 white man in the settlement. My English friends would 
 have laughed to see us, after we had made up our beds 
 of fern in the tents, sitting round the camp-fire with our 
 new acquaintances, and subjected to their running fire 
 of criticism and wit. Many of the women were suckling 
 small pigs and puppies at their breasts, a disgusting habit, 
 for which I can offer no reasonable explanation. The 
 pigs do not always reciprocate the affection that is thus 
 shown them, for we were informed that they had half-eaten 
 an old Maori woman a week or two before, as she lay sick 
 on the floor of her hut; and her friends, on returning 
 from work, found her body in a shockingly mutilated con- 
 dition. The women, after they have done smoking, have 
 a nasty practice of sticking the pipe through the place 
 where an earring ought to go, which disfigures the lobe 
 of the ear immensely. Very often, by way of quieting 
 their squalling babies, who are strapped on to their mothers' 
 backs, you see them hand a half-finished pipe of tobacco
 
 9 
 
 to the child over their shoulder, who immediately stops 
 his cries and sucks away with the utmost contentment. 
 Fancy these tamariki, piccaninnies or brats of one or 
 two years old, indulging thus early in the herb nicotiana. 
 They were immensely delighted with some comic songs 
 which I sang to them, and joined in the chorus of "When 
 Johnny comes marching home again," with rather laugh- 
 able pronunciation, but evidently a quick ear for music. 
 
 I was much pleased with one little trait of their 
 good nature ; they noticed that I was the only one of the 
 party without a blanket, and, after peeping into the tent 
 several times, a young girl pulled her new shawl off with 
 a muttered ejaculation of pity, and threw it over me, 
 running away immediately to nestle in the adjacent mass 
 of Maori humanity round the fire, where I hope she found 
 warmth enough to compensate for the loss of clothing. 
 I rewarded her next morning with a plug of my best 
 tobacco, which evidently more than repaid her for the loan 
 of the shawl. In the grey dawn we saddled our steeds and 
 reached the ferry, where we crossed in canoes, having 
 previously swam the horses over under the leadership of 
 one old " stager," who took to the water more like a duck 
 than a quadruped. The morning's ride was rather unin- 
 teresting, over endless plains of tussock grass, and small 
 but rapid streams of the purest water. We reached Te 
 Whetu, a village of Hau-haus, or former rebels, very 
 early in the afternoon, but decided to travel no further 
 that day, as the sky had already become overcast, and 
 we should have had to bivouac under a drenching down- 
 pour of rain, in lieu of enjoying dry and comfortable 
 quarters at the great " whare-puna," or meeting-house, 
 of the tribe. This building was a fine specimen of Maori 
 architecture ; the walls being formed of raupo or rushes 
 laced together with flax, and fastened to the huge beams
 
 10 
 
 of totara, on which I noticed carvings more ingenious 
 and grotesque than decent. We were treated here with 
 the uttnost hospitality ; the old " rangatira," or gentleman- 
 farmer and his wife who were in charge, made a mess 
 of pottage, with chickens, onions, and potatoes, for which 
 Esau would have sold his birth-right a second time ; whilst 
 they apologised with finished courtesy for not having a 
 Union Jack to hoist on the flag- staff in honour of our 
 arrival. This latter want we have since rectified, by send- 
 ing them a flag from Auckland with which to welcome 
 future travellers. Our journey on the following day was 
 rather more exciting. After a precipitous descent of eight 
 hundred feet from the Pass of Painuiorehua, down which 
 the pack-horse, a one-eyed but sagacious beast, rather 
 slid than walked, to the imminent risk of our " swags; " 
 and, crossing a series of tantalizing swamps, at times 
 glancing past an old geyser-hole within a few inches of 
 the track, with its treacherous depths half concealed by 
 an over-growth of lovely creeping ferns ; drenched through 
 and through with rain, UTO &np.evoi TS, we at last reached 
 Kaiteriria, a pretty settlement on the shores of Roto- 
 Kakahi, and found there the head quarters of Captain 
 Mair, of the Arawa contingent of Native Constabulary, who 
 gave us a hearty welcome, and in the evening invited us 
 to visit him and inspect his rare collection of Maori curi- 
 osities, such as kiwi-feather capes ; flax mats ; tobacco- 
 pipes carved from the ti-tree wood into quaint little figures 
 with huge mother-of-pearl eyes, the work of a hunchback, 
 named Bartholomew, from Opotiki on the East Coast, 
 whose art has now become obsolete with his eyesight ; 
 and, lastly, the great Toutanikai's flute, made from a 
 human thigh-bone, to which I shall refer later on in the 
 legends of Rotorua. 
 
 Rotokakahi is "a very pretty lake, completely shut in
 
 11 
 
 by precipitous but verdure-clad mountains, with the bright 
 little island of Motu-tawa, set like a jewel in the midst of 
 its cold dark-blue waters." Here we spent a day to recruit 
 our spent energies and dry our clothes, whilst the native 
 lads strummed away on their Jew's harps, or danced the 
 " haka " outside the door of the " whare." We started 
 hence too late to make Kariri and Tarawera Lake, and had 
 to sleep in a hut at the old mission- station of Wairoa, 
 where even Keating's Persian Insect Powder proved ineffec- 
 tual to stay the appetite of certain unwelcome bed-fellows, 
 which actively assailed us throughout the night. As there 
 seemed to be a faint chance of our horses obtaining a bite 
 of food about the settlement, and our oats were rapidly 
 running short, we walked on next morning to Tarawera 
 Lake, where we were to embark, and sat down on arrival 
 to a repast of potatoes, apples, and cray-fish, which I 
 thoroughly enjoyed. A difficulty now arose about manning 
 the canoes, as the men were all absent road-making, and 
 the women very naturally refused to leave their babies 
 behind them alone. Finally, we arranged " to take the 
 lot," and accordingly stowed away our own party of six, 
 seven Maori women, a steersman, manifold children and 
 dogs, and numerous kits of potatoes, into one large but 
 somewhat leaky canoe. I shall never forget our paddle 
 across Tarawera ; the women, working like demons (their 
 eyes rolling and tongues lolling), bursting ever and anon 
 into a wild excited chorus of Hekate-korare-hekate as we 
 shot rapidly over the waves, towards the hof river which 
 flows from Rotomahana, the gem par excellence of the 
 whole volcanic district. This little lake is situated in the 
 midst of the most astounding natural phenomena, each one 
 of which would at once make any more civilised locality 
 the Utopia of invalids and sight-seers. The tepid waters 
 of the lake itself are the resort of innumerable water-fowl, 
 

 
 12 
 
 which, however, are " tapu," or sacred from the gun of the 
 sportsman, as they glide peacefully on the bosom of the 
 waters, or scream defiance at the intruder on these fairy 
 precincts the wonder-land of the habitable world. 
 
 Landing at some dilapidated huts on the edge of the 
 lake, we were soon luxuriating in the delights of a 
 " waireka " (hot tank), the temperature of which may be 
 regulated at pleasure by turning in boiling water from the 
 neighbouring geyser, in which our pots of potatoes were 
 being rapidly cooked ; the natives warned us against laying 
 our clothes on the ground, as the exhalations of vitriol 
 rapidly destroy anything with which they are brought in 
 contact. I spent a very restless night, for the whole 
 surrounding country seems alive with escape-pipes of 
 steam, and I could hear the grumble of the water at no 
 very great distance beneath my head. I awoke in the 
 morning with my clothes perfectly soaked by the vapour 
 which rose from the holes in which the side-posts of the 
 huts were fixed. In our immediate neighbourhood also 
 we noticed that several whares had completely sunk 
 through the crust into the boiling mud, at no very recent 
 date ; and we shuddered as we thought of the possible fate 
 of their poor inmates. We had a partial exemplification of 
 this danger when on our way to the geysers, for one of my 
 companions was imprudent enough to place his foot down, 
 a few inches from the beaten track, and immediately began 
 to sink into the scalding mud. He cried for assistance, 
 and I caught him by the hand before any very serious 
 injury was done ; but on cutting off the boot we found his 
 ancle and instep badly blistered, which incapacitated him 
 from further exertions that day. A most vexatious inci- 
 dent to commence our explorations with ! 
 
 The first sight of interest was Te Tarata or the White 
 Terrace, a series or gradation of seven or eight most lovely 

 
 13 
 
 white basins, formed by a deposit of silica from the over- 
 flowings of the great geysers at the summit. The water 
 itself is strongly sulphurous, and of the deepest azure blue ; 
 whilst the edges of each basin are adorned with the most 
 delicate incrustation, almost resembling lace-work in its 
 delicate regularity. We found several insects, such as 
 grasshoppers and beetles, beautifully petrified ; but were 
 unable to bring away specimens owing to the brittleness of 
 the substance, which would have involved more careful 
 transport than we could give. The temperature and depth 
 of the water vary considerably, as the wind backs up the 
 overflow, or drives it down the face of the terrace. 
 
 As we picked our way across the Terrace, one of the 
 old Maori women suddenly began to yell with fright at the 
 increasing temperature of the water, which was beginning 
 to penetrate the horny soles of her feet; so we had to 
 make stepping-stones of ourselves till we got her to the edge 
 again. Although she bitterly complained at first of her 
 parboiled state, a small douceur proved a very efficacious 
 cure, and she soon walked as soundly as the rest. Retrac- 
 ing our way past the whare, where we had slept, and 
 stopping here and there for the amusement of " chocking " 
 a geyser-mouth with stones and lumps of earth, to see 
 it suddenly burst thirty or forty feet into the air - with 
 redoubled vigour, we found ourselves on a large flat of 
 pinkish mud, dotted at intervals with small cones, which 
 kept spitting up clots of scalding liquid, about the con- 
 sistency of thick cream. We picked our steps very 
 cautiously to the head of the gully, and there found a large 
 pool, called Roto Pounamu, or the Cold Green Lake, whose 
 waters are tinged with some vegetable substance, which 
 renders them of the deepest emerald hue. Further along 
 this shore of the lake are other geysers and small terraces, 
 whose name is Legion, each one differing slightly in
 
 14 
 
 appearance or flow, and each with some curious Maori 
 legend attached. One large basin we saw, into which two 
 babies had been thrown and cooked at a sacred feast, 
 in the "good old cannibal days" of the country; and 
 another into which a woman had fallen and disappeared. 
 The " Babies' Cauldron " appeared to me well adapted for 
 the purpose, as it was always at a uniform steady boil, and 
 never rose into the air with a surging column of water, like 
 the more turbulent ngahaus around. The water also was 
 less impregnated with sulphur, and so would affect the 
 flavour of the cookery less ; it was green in colour, unlike 
 the lovely blue of Te Tarata. 
 
 On taking to our canoe again, we paddled to the west 
 side of the lake, and landed at the foot of Otukupuerangi, 
 or the Pink Terrace, in which the bans are larger and 
 better denned ; but there is not quite so intricate a device 
 of trace-work on the hard enamelled surface as in those of 
 Te Tarata. To the right, as you ascend, is an immense 
 boiling hole, almost on the lake-level, the yellow walls of 
 which are composed of the purest flower of sulphur, and 
 present a striking contrast to the pink and blue colouring 
 of the adjacent terrace. Here we could no longer resist 
 the temptation of a swim ; and the luxury of that bathe 
 I shall never forget. The water imparted a silkiness to 
 the skin which no artificial nostrum can give ; and the 
 great delight of the whole affair to me was that Nature 
 herself had here provided a lounge, with which the marble 
 tanks of the ancients could not for a moment compare. 
 
 Did you require additional warmth, you had but to 
 take a step up towards the great blue depths of the geyser, 
 whence the water flowed down into successive basins, each 
 more lovely than the other. Did you wish to brace your 
 flagging powers from the enervating warmth of the sulphur- 
 bath, with three or four bounds down the face of the
 
 15 
 
 terrace you could take a final dive into the colder depths of 
 Rotomahana, and return invigorated to the spotless ledge 
 which formed your temporary dressing-room. I regret to 
 notice that here, as everywhere, the pet vice of English 
 travellers is predominant, and that an entire step of the 
 terrace has been finally disfigured by the names (scribbled 
 in pencil) of nearly every visitor to the place. So rapid is 
 the coating or deposit from the waters, that the writing is 
 now imperishable, and cannot be effaced without destroying 
 the rock. Not only have the contemptible effusions of 
 would-be poets been here immortalized, . but eminent per- 
 sonages have thoughtlessly emblazoned their autographs 
 side-by-side with the "nobodies," to whom this cheap 
 means of notoriety is usually confined. We turned our 
 backs on* Rotomahana with regret, for it would be the study 
 of a life-time to describe or discover all its marvels, and 
 we had scarcely devoted one entire day to our visit. But 
 it was a clear case of starve -out for our horses and our- 
 selves, if we remained longer in the district ; for all the 
 stores seemed empty, the people away, and the promised 
 supplies of oats which are all "packed" from the coast, 
 and frequently run short even in the summer season, when 
 tourists- abound had now entirely failed us for a time ; 
 and, unless our poor beasts could at once change their 
 habits, the fern, ti-tree, and tutu" which monopolise the 
 district would have proved but a sorry substitute for their 
 natural diet. 
 
 Shooting the rapids at precipitous speed, and amid 
 intense excitement of all but the old steersman, who sat 
 immovably at the stern, like a tattooed statue in bronze, we 
 were soon floating on the broad bosom of Tarawera. We 
 landed in one of the little bays, and after mooring our 
 canoes under the shade of some gigantic pohutakawas, 
 whose knotted arms make the best possible " elbows and
 
 16 
 
 knees " for shipbuilders' work, we watched with some inte- 
 rest the preparation of our food in a genuine copu-maori, or 
 native oven. This was done as follows : the women 
 scraped a hole in the soft ground with their hands, and 
 filled it with dry wood, to which they set a light. On the 
 top of the blazing fire they placed stones about the size of 
 a man's two fists, which became heated and dropped 
 through as the fuel burnt out. Then having collected fish, 
 potatoes, and a few squashes, which we found in the 
 deserted settlement hard by, they brought a good-sized 
 pannikin of fresh water, dashed it over the stones, and, 
 before the steam had time to escape, filled the hole in with 
 the provisions. On the top of these a clean kit, or hand- 
 bag of woven native flax, was placed; then some armfuls of 
 fresh- cut fern, and lastly a pretty thick layer of soft 
 mould, which they patted down till there was no aperture 
 by which the vapour could escape. In about twenty 
 minutes the cooking was complete, and we sat down to a 
 frugal but most delicious repast of steamed food, which I 
 thought much superior to the usual boiled vegetables of an 
 English cuisine. We coaxed some of the little children 
 into friendship by letting them drink the oil from our 
 sardine-tins when we had eaten the fish ; but they evidently 
 looked upon us as a kind of white-faced ogres, whom it was 
 prudent to keep at a respectful distance. One little pickle 
 of a fellow, with bright black eyes, who had quite overcome 
 his terror, amused himself by creeping up behind the 
 others, and frightening them by shouting in their ear, 
 "Nui pakeha, nui pakeha" (the big white man, the big 
 white man) "is coming" meaning me; at which they 
 would burst into tears, and run like rabbits from the sup- 
 posed cannibal your humble servant. They had evi- 
 dently been taught the same cock-and-bull stories that 
 English nurses often inflict on their charges, of the giants
 
 17 
 
 that eat naughty children, only that here the case was 
 reversed, and instead of the " big black man" in the myths 
 of our infancy, our pale-faces produced a similar effect on 
 them. 
 
 We held a "drawing-room" at Kariri that evening, 
 in a small hut of 8 feet by 18, with a small aperture (mis- 
 named a door), through which I could scarcely drag myself 
 even when prostrate. Imagine the state of the atmo- 
 sphere, with a smoky fire of green wood, no chimney, and 
 about twenty Maori ladies and children all smoking 
 furiously at their pipes, and nearly a hundred-weight of 
 green tobacco steaming on the walls preparatory to use ! 
 
 I had heard a good deal of the fresh-water cray-fish 
 (goura) that are found in these lakes, and asked whether I 
 could have some of them. My wish was soon gratified, 
 but my equanimity was a good deal disturbed, for when a 
 kit of them was produced, instead of letting me shell them 
 myself, an old hag, with very dirty fingers, seated herself 
 opposite to me and proffered her services. A sense of 
 etiquette forbade me to decline, so I screwed up my courage 
 and held out a biscuit for her to lay the first slippery morsel 
 upon. It went down pretty easily, and when she had given 
 us two or three dozen, like the Greek travellers of old, 
 "mensas etiam consumpsimus," we even ate our temporary 
 plates as a finale to the repast. 
 
 I noticed several plots of tobacco in this settlement, 
 with its pretty pink flowers ; and from what I know of 
 Tennessee and Virginia, I am confident " the noxious 
 weed" would thrive exceptionally well in the North Island 
 of New Zealand; the soil in places has the same bright 
 red appearance here as in America, and the climate is bright, 
 warm, and moist. At present, all that the natives raise is 
 solely for their own use, but I live in hopes of seeing it 
 become in the future a leading article of manufacture or
 
 18 
 
 export. The Maori women are most persistent smokers, 
 and when the pipe is off duty, as I have said before, it is 
 stuck through the lobe of the ear in the place where the 
 ear-ring ought to be, much as our clerks at home stick 
 their pen behind their ears. The weight of the pipe, 
 however, has occasionally the disagreeable effect of wearing 
 the ear through, and making a piece drop off. 
 
 We were glad to " quit" early next day, and stopped for 
 breakfast at the Wairoa, where old Mary, native servant to 
 the missionary, Mr. Spencer, made a welcome contribution 
 of fruit to our scanty breakfast. Thence, leaving Kaiteriria 
 behind us, and passing on the left hand Tiki-tapu, or the 
 Blue Lake, we entered a thick bush on the road to Rotorua. 
 The scarlet rata was still in flower, and I succeeded in 
 obtaining some bunches for my companions, to whom it 
 was not familiar. This curious parasite is said to begin 
 its growth in the branches of the tree to which it is found 
 attached, gradually dropping downwards to the ground 
 to obtain redoubled strength by its contact with mother 
 earth, when it strangles its parent support in a deadly 
 embrace. 
 
 A faint smell of brimstone, such as Mark Twain 
 says would not be unpleasant to a sinner, met us while 
 some miles from our destination, and ere long we sighted 
 the native village of Ohinenutu, where two rival hostelries 
 claimed our attention. The first is kept by a Maori, Ari 
 Katera, or Harry Carter, and the food and lodging are 
 said to be excellent of their kind, but his house was full of 
 semi-intoxicated natives from Napier, whilst outside the 
 door groups of young girls were dancing the voluptuous 
 and disgusting "haka," so we preferred taking beds at 
 Bennett's, where we found nothing but a semi-Anglicised 
 hut, with execrable accommodation. 
 
 The Arawas, to whom the village belongs, are a most
 
 19 
 
 consummate race of thieves, and actually boast of their 
 descent from the greatest thief in the Island ; it is unsafe 
 to leave your horse's side at the inn door after dismounting, 
 for if you turn your back a minute, these rogues will pur- 
 loin the saddle or bridle in the twinkling of a duck's eye. 
 Quite recently some horse-races took place here, and I was 
 assured that very few of the visitors took their horses back 
 with them. Nay, worse than that, some of them had been 
 bathing, and imprudently left their clothes on the shore of 
 the lake without anyone to watch them. When they left 
 the water, everything down to their boots had disappeared, 
 and they had to sit there till a messenger could be sent to 
 borrow blankets from the inn for temporary apparel. As a 
 rule, I found these men, who were our allies during the 
 war (not that they liked us more, but they liked the rebels 
 less), much inferior to the natives in the Hau-hau villages; 
 the latter are evidently the patriots of New Zealand, and 
 had a noble, upright bearing, that contrasted very favourably 
 with the cringing manners of the semi-civilized scum of 
 these lake districts. All the Arawas wear a small white 
 feather stuck in the hair on the side of the head ; and in 
 this way our soldiers used to distinguish them during the 
 war; when, however, they rarely lent us any active assis- 
 tance, but turned out only when victory had already 
 declared itself on our side. 
 
 Within two or three miles of the shore is the island of 
 Mokoia, to which the fair Hinemoia is said to have swum, 
 "suspended by a string of gourds round her neck," on a visit 
 to her lover, Toutanikai, whose music had engaged her 
 affections, thus reversing the story of Leander and Hero. 
 The identical flute on which the Maori Orpheus played, like 
 Oliver Cromwell's skull, is in the possession of at least two 
 gentlemen, who positively assert that their own and no 
 other is the genuine thing. The first I saw at Kaiteriria,
 
 20 
 
 in the possession of Cap. Mair ; it is made from a human 
 thigh hone, and is undoubtedly of great antiquity ; the 
 other, which is fully as old, but made of wood, and played 
 from the top like a flageolet, Sir George Grey showed me 
 in his house at the Kawau, shortly before I left the Colony. 
 Shortly before retiring for the night, I donned a costume 
 suitable for the occasion, viz., a blanket, or modern toga, 
 and boots, and stalked forth under the guidance of a small 
 Maori boy to a sheltered bay at the end of the village, 
 where I found a number of the inhabitants (irrespective of 
 sex) undergoing a preparatory stew themselves, whilst they 
 cooked their potatoes and calabash for their evening meal 
 in a boiling hole hard by. I joined the conversazione in 
 the water, and found that I was actually bathing on the 
 spot where the great geyser used formerly to rise, as 
 shown in the frontispiece of L* Meade's Hot Lakes. I had 
 looked in vain for this object during the afternoon ; but I 
 believe it is beyond a doubt that subterranean action is 
 gradually subsiding near Ohinemutu, and this among other 
 minor wonders has almost disappeared. A cold southerly 
 wind also rendered the temperature more than usually low 
 in this inlet. Whilst walking back to the inn, and carefully 
 picking my way among the "ngahaus," Captain Mair told 
 me that, when up here during the war to enlist recruits 
 among the Arawas, he refused to pass an old man who was 
 evidently superannuated for service. The native took his 
 rejection so much to heart, that he went off to a short 
 distance and deliberately sat down in the midst of a boiling 
 mud-geyser ; of course, the extreme heat soon made him 
 yell with pain, and before they could pull him out, his 
 flesh was entirely sodden, and he died in the most excru- 
 ciating agony. It was here that I had to part with my 
 three friends from Auckland, as they were unable to con- 
 tinue the journey with me to Napier, and I did so with
 
 21 
 
 great regret. After spending a day in a visit to the Ngae, 
 formerly a mission station, and now the telegraph office of 
 the district, and obtaining a glimpse of Roto-Ehu, a cold 
 lake of great beauty, I started alone towards Lake Taupo. 
 As I rode along the shores of Rotorua, I picked up some 
 curious "felt balls," which were probably composed of the 
 roots of fibrous plants, and rolled into this shape by the 
 action of subaqueous geysers. When about three miles from 
 Ohinemutu, I came to an unpleasantly deep creek, with hot 
 springs on both sides; a curious feature about it being, 
 that if the horse happened to break through the crust 
 underneath the cold stratum, he would have found himself 
 in a lower stratum of Scalding mud. I never felt entirely 
 easy about fording these New Zealand rivers. However 
 minute the directions given might be, a sudden " freshet," 
 or a new crossing, was sure to render them of doubtful 
 benefit. The preliminary pause on the bank, the ripple of 
 the water as it gradually rose above the saddle at the 
 deepest point, and the sigh of relief as we emerged on the 
 opposite side, to speculate on the next ford, are among my 
 least agreeable reminiscences of inland travel in New Zea- 
 land. Not much further on than this, I came to a swamp 
 of doubtful depth, which I subsequently founa was really 
 not more than up to a horse's fetlocks; but "discretion 
 being the better part of valour," I thought I would dis- 
 mount and drive the mare across in front of me. The 
 cunning brute bolted on reaching hard ground, and I speni 
 a weary hour and a half chasing her, over plains, up moun- 
 tain gullies, in swamps, with a blazing sun overhead, till 
 I was ready to drop with vexation and fatigue. I did not 
 dare to let her get out of sight for a minute, or I should 
 have been benighted on the plain, with no blankets or food. 
 Besides this she had my saddle and bridle, bag of oats, and 
 whole brief of necessaries on her back, which would have
 
 22 
 
 been a serious loss in such a forsaken part of the country 
 as this. At last she joined some wild native horses, and 
 began to feed, the bridle dropped over her head and became 
 entangled with her Upre feet, and I made a successful rush 
 to secure the runaway. 
 
 After crossing a hot river, and passing a large mud- 
 geyser, I halted by a little brook of water, clear as crystal, 
 and made my luncheon off the water- cress, which I found 
 growing there in abundance, and enjoyed the frugal meal 
 very heartily. The whole of that day I did not see a 
 human being or animal of any kind, nothing but a lifeless 
 expanse of fern and flax ; so that I felt glad at dusk to see 
 the mighty Waikato again rolling at my feet, while on the 
 summit of a neighbouring hill, across the river, the " pah " 
 of Orakei-korako promised me shelter and food for the 
 night. A loud "cooee" brought the natives down to the 
 ferry, and I soon found myself seated in a genuine Maori 
 accommodation house, eating bacon and potatoes with a 
 real ivory-handled knife and fork, and drinking tea from 
 a china tea-cup and saucer, which the hostess produced 
 with pardonable pride, in lieu of the tin pannikin which I 
 had already laid on the table for my own use. Before 
 resuming ttte route next morning, I recrossed the river to 
 examine " The Alum Cave," certainly not the least beauti- 
 ful sight in the district, the entrance to which is most 
 gracefully shaded by gigantic tree-ferns, and pendent stag's 
 horn moss; the chasm apparently extends for some dis- 
 tance beyond the entrance chamber in which one stands, 
 but all the passages from it are closed by a pool of very 
 transparent tepid water, strongly impregnated with alum ; 
 the walls and dome are encrusted with salts of various 
 kinds and colours, red, white, and green predominating; 
 and the tout ensemble reminded me so strongly of the 
 transformation scenes in the pantomimes of one's child-
 
 23 
 
 hood, that I was disappointed to find no fairies there to 
 welcome me to their retreat. Both banks of the river are 
 alive with geysers, and the terraces are second only to 
 those of Eotomahana. I was favourably impressed with the 
 moderate charges of my Maori landlord ; he charged me 
 only " five heringi " (shillings) for my tea, bed, and break- 
 fast, everything, though simple, being very clean. 
 
 I had little difficulty in rinding my way now without a 
 guide ; for although the telegraph posts would sometimes 
 leave me for half-a-mile, and take a short cut over some 
 ravine or hill-top, I was always pretty sure of the direction 
 in which I was travelling, and I found that most of the 
 Maori tracks showed better in the twilight than during the 
 day time, from the white sand which had washed down into 
 them and contrasted with the surrounding darkness. On a 
 later occasion, when I lost my way in the " bush," and had 
 to sit down hopelessly for four hours, until the moon shone 
 out, and the Southern Cross gave me my bearings, I could 
 see the narrow line of road stretching away for miles across 
 the hills, like a sparkling band of silver. 
 
 But after a dreary ride, through hills clouded in mist, 
 and reminding me forcibly of Connemara, from the almost 
 universal absence of trees, and scanty cultivation, I sud- 
 denly came upon a well- constructed dray-road, some dis- 
 tance before reaching Oruanui Pah, which I followed 
 nearly all the way to Napier. . It is a continuation of the 
 great coach-road from Napier to Lake Taupo, an under- 
 taking, suggested I believe by Mr. Orrnond (Minister of 
 Public Works), likely to do more for maintaining peace 
 between Maories and settlers than any number of red-coats 
 or breech -loading rifles. Instead of spending money as 
 heretofore on fighting the natives, the present policy is to 
 expend the same amount in giving employment to them on 
 road works through their own country, in establishing
 
 24 
 
 secular schools in the villages, and in restoring the trade 
 and agriculture, which (seventeen years ago) made it pos- 
 sible for a white man to visit safely any part of the Island. 
 As I ascended the steep hill, from the summit of which I 
 was to see Taupo Moana (for the Maories call this lake 
 Moana, or sea, from its extent, though equally fresh with 
 the waters of the other island lakes, such as Roto-Rua, 
 Roto-Mahana, &c.), the vegetation began to change ; and 
 instead of the manuka, with its white blossoms, a blackish- 
 looking broom covered the entire country, except where 
 tall white columns dotted here and there announced the 
 presence of geysers, constantly blowing off steam like a 
 dozen locomotives at high pressure. The deep cuttings and 
 frequent land-slips showed me that nearly the whole of the 
 higher grounds were marine deposits of fossil shells, 
 upheaved by a convulsion of nature which has not yet entirely 
 subsided. In fact, as several people have said, New Zea- 
 land ought not to have been inhabited for another cycle or 
 two, for in the South Island you have glaciers and snow 
 torrents grinding down the mountain range, and gradually 
 raising the level of the plains on the sea- coast with the 
 shingle and boulders they bring down ; whilst up North, 
 vast tracts of lands are in a constant state of chemical 
 change; and though Wellington rather monopolizes the 
 treat of five or six annual earthquakes, nearly all the 
 country south of the Waikato districts to beyond Taupo 
 Lake is still actively volcanic, and resembles one great 
 laboratory on the grandest scale. 
 
 On riding down to the ferry, at a point where the whole 
 volume of the Waikato flows straight out of Lake Taupo in 
 full grandeur, like the goddess Minerva from the head of 
 her father Jove, I found a solitary native putting out from 
 the land to fish in a very crazy canoe, and made him under- 
 stand I wished to "cross" myself and horse. When we
 
 25 
 
 reached the other side, and I asked how much he intended 
 to charge me, instead of giving any rational answer, he 
 began to dance and laugh, with a kind of suppressed mum 
 um um, which made me think he was an idiot. I tried 
 him with "hickapenny" (sixpence) for myself, and ditto for 
 the horse, at which he again commenced his antics with an 
 expression of intense delight. I afterwards found he was 
 deaf and dumb, but, nevertheless, one of the sharpest lads 
 in the tribe. 
 
 Judge of my surprise, on riding up to the inn, to find 
 myself suddenly in the midst of civilisation. Two days 
 before my arrival, Cap. Bowers, a survivor of the memor- 
 able charge of the Six Hundred at Balaclava, who has been 
 for some time connected with the commissariat of the armed 
 constabulary hereabouts, had opened this little hostelry 
 in time to welcome the Governor and his suite on their 
 overland tour. Food for man and beast in abundance 
 was there, and creature comforts to which I had long been 
 a stranger. Fresh butter from Canterbury, oats from 
 Napier, beef and mutton, a German baker who gave 
 us the best and cheapest bread I had eaten since I left 
 England, Turkish bajfeh-towels, arm-chairs, and looking- 
 glasses, had magically made their appearance on a spot 
 which six months ago was "the abomination of desola- 
 tion," and afforded but a scanty support to the poorest 
 tribe in all New Zealand. The only objectional feature 
 about the place was the canteen, where a crowd of drunken 
 natives were squatting before the door, ready to sponge 
 on the newest arrival for another glass of their beloved 
 waipero (stinking water), the curse of their race here as 
 in America. There is a lurking devilry in these people, 
 which occasionally peeps out, as with Mahomedans ; and 
 though the men seldom indulge in private quarrels, but 
 reserve all their savagery for war, I saw a woman suddenly
 
 26 
 
 display her wild nature in a way that almost made me 
 shudder. She was a decidedly pretty girl, with an exqui- 
 site figure, set off to advantage by a black riding-habit and 
 natty little hat ; and she had been displaying her horse- 
 manship by racing with some friends at full gallop in front 
 of the house ; when the husband came up, and, feeling 
 irritated at her conduct in fatiguing his horse on the eve 
 of a journey, he attempted to pull her off the saddle. She 
 stuck to her seat like a Centaur, or rather Amazon, but her 
 dress was torn in the struggle ; as soon as he desisted, she 
 leapt off herself, with a shriek like a madwoman, and struck 
 him several times with her whip. He simply took her up in 
 his arms and threw her down ; satisfied with recovering his 
 horse, which he led away. Springing to her feet again, her 
 heaving bosom half uncovered, her long black hair stream- 
 ing in the wind, her eyes glaring, and her pearl-white 
 teeth gnashing defiance, she seized a large piece of pumice- 
 stone in her hands, and, running up behind, dashed it with 
 her full force against his temple. I thought the man 
 would have fallen to the ground ; but he merely staggered 
 a moment, and then, without the least retaliation, smiled 
 disdainfully at her, and walked off to the canteen. He 
 even took no notice when she yelled after him " Tutua," 
 or low-born one, the most deadly insult one can offer a 
 Maori, whose distinctions of caste are even more exclusive 
 than those of our own upper ten. Ask a man, who is 
 attempting to impose on you, "Who was your grand- 
 father?" and he will generally collapse, unless he happens 
 to be a " rangatira " of real blue blood, when you may 
 expect a string of epithets to be hurled at you in return, 
 as he enumerates his ancestry from the remotest ages. 
 The little children of six years old learn this lesson before 
 any other from their mothers' lips, and can rattle off a 
 pedigree as long as your arm almost as soon as they talk.
 
 27 
 
 I believe that any nobleman, of acknowledged long descent, 
 would have a far better chance of buying a large block of 
 land out here, than some rich parvenu who had made 
 himself. The Governor and his party were away down the 
 lake, and near the great mud- geyser of Tokano, where 
 they were holding a "korero," or talk, with some of the 
 chiefs ; and as it is extremely hard to find one's way there 
 by land, in consequence of the numerous swamps near the 
 shore, and the official whale-boats which are used here were 
 already in requisition, I resolved to spend my day profitably 
 in visiting the great Huka (Sugar) Falls, which are said to 
 equal, if not surpass, those of Schaffhausen on the Ehine. 
 As I rode down the right bank of the river, I saw an 
 extremely curious geyser called the "Crow's Nest," the 
 incrustations of which exactly resemble sticks laid across 
 each other in that shape. A short way further on, we came 
 to a hot creek, in which I would have bathed with more 
 pleasure had the temperature been less, for I came out of 
 the water the colour of a boiled lobster. It is becoming a 
 famous resort for invalids from Napier, who next year will 
 be able to travel all the way by coach (two days' journey) . 
 and besides its efficacy in curing rheumatism, scrofulous 
 affections, &c., they have the additional advantage of 
 Captain Bower's comfortable house on the lake close by at 
 Tapuehararu (Sounding Footsteps), thus named because, 
 when riding, 
 
 " Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit angola campum," 
 
 in the most audible manner, and one not reassuring to a 
 nervous person, who cannot help but speculate on the 
 thickness of the crust on the earth's surface in this spot, 
 however disinclined to scientific research in general. 
 
 About two miles down the river, I recrossed the hot 
 creek where it joins the Waikato, and tethered my horse in
 
 28 
 
 a little meadow of the coarse native grass and young flax- 
 plant. On entering the settlement, I found two old women 
 peeling potatoes, who reluctantly consented to take me over 
 the river. The canoe in which we embarked was of the 
 crankiest kind. I was afraid to sneeze or cough for fear of 
 an upset, and kept my eyes steadily fixed on the centre of 
 the boat, with a hand on each side to balance it. There 
 was some difficulty in picking one's way for a mile, 
 through the tall raupo (rush) and tohi-grass ; but I soon 
 heard the distant roar of the falls, and caught sight of the 
 rapids at the head, where the stream suddenly narrows to 
 about fifty yards. In the centre were some black rocks, 
 with piebald shags perched on them, watching intently for 
 the fish as they darted beneath them ; whilst immediately 
 below this the water leaped up in convulsed masses of green, 
 pink, and white froth, like the great whirlpool below Niagara 
 Suspension Bridge. I crept cautiously over the huge 
 boulders along the bank, in which sundry suspicious cracks 
 indicated an impending addition to the debris of rock, and 
 came shortly upon a scene of the utmost grandeur. The 
 whole force of the river breaks over the edge in a fan of 
 feathery sugar-like spray into the basin beneath. This is 
 fringed on all sides with a wonderful variety of evergreen 
 over-hanging shrubs, any one of which would be prized in 
 an English garden. Whilst peeping over the precipice, one 
 can see where the green eddies of water have undermined 
 the rock far beyond the ledge on which one stands. The 
 hill sides are clothed with a dense scrub of the tutu, a 
 treacherous bush with dark bright-green leaves, which have 
 the effect of either killing outright the cattle which impru- 
 dently eat it, or intoxicating them to such an extent that 
 the eyes become glazed, and the brain giddy, and for a 
 day or more they are unable to walk. * 
 
 My great regret in visiting all these new scenes was,
 
 29 
 
 that I did so generally alone, which destroys half one's 
 pleasure. One ought to have a travelling companion, both 
 for the sake of a little human sympathy and society, when 
 crossing these lonely tracts, and also in case of any acci- 
 dent which, as we all know, will occur in the best regulated 
 equipages. There is, too, a great delight in talking over 
 past experiences in after life at a comfortable fireside, or 
 with your feet under the mahogany ; but the deaf adders, 
 who have not seen the spots which you may be describ- 
 ing, and who have not shared the adventures of your 
 route, refuse (reasonably enough) to open their ears, charm 
 you never so wisely. In fact, they think you are talking 
 "shop," as we used to say at College; i.e., monopolising 
 the conversation on a subject which is familiar and intensely 
 interesting to yourself alone of all the company present. I 
 have been asked whether my lonely rides never suggested 
 thoughts which would never have occurred to me "in the 
 busy hum of cities and of men ; " but, to me, nature never 
 wears her brightest guise unless I have some one to share 
 her delights with me. Men do, it is true, get to love a 
 solitary life, and, like the prisoner who had been all his 
 life confined in the Bastille, cannot bear to face the world 
 again ; but this is a morbid, unhealthy frame of mind, 
 which should be sedulously discouraged, for 
 
 " He liveth best who loveth best ; " 
 
 and what is the love of a recluse but selfishness. 
 
 On my return from the waterfall, I stopped at the 
 mouth of the hot creek, and had a sensation bathe. The 
 modus operandi was to climb up a little waterfall, shoot 
 down the smooth rock channel about six feet into the pool 
 beneath, then recline for an interval in the comfortable 
 stone arm-chair formed there by nature, enjoying a douche 
 or shower-bath ; and, finally, to brace one's relaxed energies
 
 30 
 
 by a dive into the invigorating waters of the Waikato, 
 which passed the mouth of the little brook, with only a 
 bar of sand between the cold and warm currents. 
 
 When Sir George Bowen and his cavalcade arrived in 
 the evening, I introduced myself to him as a fellow- 
 Oxonian, and he immediately (much to my relief) asked 
 me to make use of the house, the whole of which had been 
 exclusively engaged for him during his stay. Of course, I 
 gladly accepted the offer, hi preference to continuing my 
 journey, especially as the next day there was to be a 
 "korero, " or talk with the Ngatimaniapoto, which was 
 quite a novelty to me. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast, Poihepe, one of the seven 
 chiefs who signed the treaty of Waitangi ceding the sove- 
 reignty of the Islands to Queen Victoria, came to conduct 
 the Governor to the verandah of a neighbouring house, 
 where we found the whole village assembled in front of us. 
 The meeting was addressed first by Poihepe ; and, although 
 I am told he is a great diplomat, and a really able man, his 
 speech appeared to me to consist of "Haere mai, come 
 hither, Governor " then a grunt of self- approval, and a 
 little walk up and down the arena ; " haere mai, haere mai, 
 for the Pakeka and Maori are at peace " grunt, walk, nod 
 of approval, etc., etc. None of the speakers ever seemed 
 nervous ; they uttered their sentences very deliberately, 
 and the rule was, when at a loss, say "haere mai." It 
 seemed to be the custom in their runanga, or meeting, for 
 young men to be put on their legs for practice ; whilst all, 
 even women, are listened to with equal gravity and atten- 
 tion. Some of those present had been leading rebels 
 during the war; e. g., Hoani Makau, from Orakei-Korako ; 
 but all alike expressed the same wish for schools, roads, 
 and commerce, that Poihepe did. This chief, though in. 
 the heart of the disaffected country, was our steadfast ally
 
 31 
 
 throughout the recent war, and had led his small body of 
 men against Te Kooti, the instigator of the Poverty Bay 
 massacre, when the latter was still the popular favourite 
 with a large number of followers. Arete (Alice), his wife, 
 was the most matronly and handsome woman I met. She 
 must have been also an unusually skilled housekeeper ; for 
 I heard rumours of fat pigeons and ducks, which she bones 
 in the most skilful way, and puts up in casks for her lord's 
 use. One fault she has she's a little too fond of her grog ; 
 but then, Poihepe himself is a man who thinks nothing of 
 Ins two bottles of brandy after dinner. The korero might 
 have been indefinitely prolonged, for, like all colonials, 
 they are much given to " yarning," and generally keep it 
 up till some peculiarly happy metaphor, in which they 
 largely deal, takes the fancy of the majority, and the 
 debate terminates in applause and acclamation. 
 
 I was most interested in one of their "waiata," or songs 
 of welcome, which they introduce as we might do quota- 
 tions from Homer or Shakespeare, and which went down 
 with the audience to any extent. Mary, the pretty girl 
 whom I had seen in such a state of ungovernable fury the 
 previous afternoon, was sitting in the midst of her friends ; 
 and as she smiled coquettishly while they performed a new 
 edition of the haka, kneeling (for every village has its own 
 peculiar style of dance), I could scarcely believe her to be 
 the same woman. I was once surprised in the very same 
 way by some Arabs at Tripoli. They had been educated 
 at the French school in Algiers, and were the quietest, 
 most European-like girls, to all appearance. But one 
 evening, when, by special request, I had allowed their 
 husbands to invite the hadra, or religious club, to the 
 house, and the tomtoms had struck up their dizzy, mono- 
 tonous thrill, I suddenly found that the women's faces had 
 all disappeared from the gallery above ; and on going
 
 32 
 
 upstairs, I discovered them with their hair tossed, and eyes 
 rolling like demons, in the full frenzy of the dance. I 
 stopped them, with some difficulty, for none of them were 
 able to recognise me ; their teeth were fast clenched, as if 
 in a fit, and they moaned piteously ; and the spectators 
 urged me to let them dance the devil out. But how 
 sickened and disgusted I felt at the sight ! All the polish 
 was on the surface : 
 
 " Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurrit, 
 Et mala (?) perrumpt fastidia." 
 
 You cannot tame a Maori or an Arab thoroughly, and it 
 is a fact that many of the half-castes in New Zealand have 
 a strong tendency to resume their savage nature and rejoin 
 their tribes, after becoming apparently so civilised as to 
 thoroughly adopt the habits of Europeans. 
 
 Luckily, before I left Taupo, I made the acquaintance 
 of MajorL., who gave me letters ensuring a warm reception 
 at all the Constabulary posts on the road to Napier. I 
 may here say that this body of cavalry is virtually the 
 standing army of the colony. It numbers about eight 
 hundred ; both officers and privates are a splendid lot of 
 fellows, very intelligent, and with a strong esprit de corps. 
 They may well be proud of the force to which they belong, 
 for most of them distinguished themselves by acts of 
 gallantry during the war, which are but ill rewarded by the 
 universal New Zealand medal, and a most scanty pay. Sir 
 Charles Dilke's story of admitting none but elder sons of 
 British peers, old army officers, and members of the two 
 great English universities to the force, contains, like most 
 jests, an undercurrent of truth, for you really do meet here 
 and among the gum-diggers in the north, the strangest 
 mixture of refinement and rough life. 
 
 At my first halting place, Opepe, a little block-fort on
 
 33 
 
 the edge of a lovely bush, I met an old French priest, 
 Father Reny, who told me that he had been out here as a 
 missionary for thirty years. He impressed upon me the 
 fact that the cloudless days of mid -winter lend additional 
 enchantment to the shores of Taupo, for then a per- 
 fect view is obtained of the grand volcano of Tongariro, 
 and the still more lofty peak of Ruapeho in the distance, 
 clad in a spotless robe of eternal snow. The legend of the 
 mountains is, that Ruapeho and Mount Egmont were both 
 giants who fell desperately in love with the snowy bosom 
 and sparkling eyes of the lady-mountain, Tongariro ; but 
 Ruapeho being the stronger kicked his adversary right 
 across to the East Coast at Taranaki, where he still sulks 
 in solitary grandeur ; not that he should do so, for what 
 Mount Domett is to Dunedin, or Mount Wellington to 
 Hobarton, that Mount Egmont now is to Taranaki, the 
 pride and pet of all the patriotic beauties of New Plymouth, 
 a fact which ought fully to compensate him for his rejection 
 by Tongariro. 
 
 At Runanga, a very exposed block-house on a bare 
 hill-top, I spent my next evening, gaining shelter in time 
 to escape a drenching storm which beat down from one of 
 the three great mountain ranges between Taupo and 
 Napier. 
 
 After showing me "the Institute," where, to my sur- 
 prise, I found all the English illustrated papers, and most 
 of the home magazines and reviews, which are thus passed 
 on from post to post for the men's recreation, and telling 
 me how an old friend in the "force" had edited a comic 
 manuscript fortnightly with great success whilst stationed 
 here, my host, Captain G , entertained me, as we sat 
 before a comfortable wood fire, with an inexhaustible 
 repertoire of Maorilore and legend. 
 
 "Their very name," said he, "of 'Maori,' or 'pure,' is 
 
 o
 
 34 
 
 a misnomer. It may be, and probably is true that the 
 Hawaians or Samoans immigrated here in olden times ; but 
 in all probability they murdered the weaker race of Morioris, 
 whom they found indigenous to the islands, and then, as 
 took place in the Chatham group quite recently, the women 
 became the wives of their conquerors, and, as is invariably 
 the case, introduced many words into the language, by the 
 education of their children, which are entirely distinct 
 from either the Malay or Hawaian dialects. This theory 
 would explain the variety of tints observable in different 
 families, even those belonging to one tribe. 
 
 " The Maori is a strangely excitable creature, so much 
 so that from purely working on his imagination he will 
 turn sick suddenly and lay down to die, with no apparent 
 ailment beyond the fright caused by the witchcraft of his 
 enemy. There are two tribes in particular, one of which 
 is the Uriwera, who are able to makutu, or bewitch 
 people in this way, and I heard some stories illustrative of 
 the terror with which the power is regarded among them. 
 
 "In the first case, an old chief was reputed to have made 
 several of his grandchildren waste away by his enchant- 
 ments. His son and daughter-in-law were, of course, 
 inconsolable for their loss, and carefully kept their sur- 
 viving child, a little boy, out of reach. One fine day, 
 however, they discovered that the lad was sitting by the 
 side of the old man, who was hoeing potatoes in the field. 
 The father took down his tomahawk, and creeping up 
 cautiously, lest he himself should be makutu- ed by a look, 
 brained his parent on the spot to save the child's life. He 
 was considered by his neighbours to have performed a most 
 heroic and noble act, as at the sacrifice of his own filial 
 affection he had rid them of a wizard universally dreaded 
 and hated." 
 
 Captain G 's other anecdote was even more startling
 
 35 
 
 than the above. Tamaika, an Uriwera chief, had been 
 down to Opotiki ; on the east coast, and, when passing 
 through a village on his return to the interior, asked a 
 favour of some native girl which she refused him. Pointing 
 to her with his finger, he said, "I makutu you." This 
 took place on a Saturday afternoon, and early on 
 Monday morning, the girl, who had at once taken to her 
 bed, died without any apparent symptoms of disease or 
 poison. My informant on this occasion told me that he 
 had been to visit the patient, and attempted to argue her 
 out of the superstition which was killing her. "Yes," she * 
 said, " it may seem foolish, but then you can't feel as I do. 
 White men can't be bewitched as we are, and my death is 
 certain." 
 
 This strong belief in .supernatural power sometimes 
 leads to good effects. I saw a half-caste lad at Tauranga 
 who some time ago had been warned by the doctor that he 
 could not survive three months; and he was, in fact, in the 
 last stage of consumption. His native relations, however, 
 came and begged leave to exercise their power of makutu on 
 him. He was so weak at that time that they actually had 
 to carry him to their canoe, in which they conveyed him to 
 an island not far from Tauranga, where he remained 
 under their treatment for a few weeks, and when I saw him, 
 he was strong enough to undergo a long day's jour- 
 ney on horseback. I asked what they had given him 
 in the way of medicine, and he said, "Nothing at all; they 
 fed me on fish and potatoes, and no one was allowed to 
 touch my head for a week or two, and here I am again, 
 half restored to health !" 
 
 Travellers often hear stories about the unchastity of 
 the Maori women. Although this may be the case among 
 the unmarried girls, who base their claim to be considered 
 " belle of the village " on the number of intrigues they can
 
 boast of, one rarely finds instances of infidelity after 
 marriage ; the penalty is too serious for the woman, 
 probably death, for the man, "utu" or confiscation of 
 his available property. 
 
 Next morning, to my dismay, no horse could be found ; 
 my mare had broken down a rail of the " government 
 paddock," and wandered off into the woods in company 
 with a " wild horse," which had been hanging about the 
 enclosure of late. The men went out to look for her, and 
 succeeded in capturing her companion too. He was a 
 - queer object ; he had evidently been living in the forest for 
 years ; and from want of rapid exercise in open ground, 
 (for the supple-jacks, a kind of climbing black cane, 
 impede a beast's progress very much in the bush, and 
 frequently strangle it in its terrified efforts to escape), his 
 hoofs had grown to an enormous length, so that he almost 
 resembled some new species of quadruped. 
 
 The next twelve miles of the road to Tarawera are as 
 yet quite incomplete, and it is marvellous to see how the 
 poor pack-horses have worn regular steps or ladders up the 
 sides of nearly perpendicular hills, by which they climb to 
 the top with the agility of cats. Every now and then I 
 met long trains carrying up oats and stores of all kinds to 
 the interior, led by a sober old beast with a bell round his 
 neck, the sound of which they follow like sheep. 
 
 To compensate, however, for the hardships of the road, 
 it lies through the most glorious bush I have seen in 
 the island, with cascades and rivers as beautiful as those 
 in the western highlands of Scotland. Besides gigantic 
 tree-ferns, rata with its scarlet blossoms, and kahikatea 
 pine in clean spars of two hundred feet in height, one is 
 fascinated by the variety of creepers and ferns near the 
 running water, more especially the dense undergrowth of 
 the Prince of Wales' Feather (Leptopteris Superba), whose
 
 37 
 
 dark green mossy fronds lose their velvet-like softness very 
 rapidly on exposure to the sun. I tried very hard to 
 send home specimens of this rare fern, which is even more 
 luxuriant here than near Hokitika in the South, and also 
 some plants of variegated flax (Phormium Colensoii variegata) ; 
 but they began to turn a suspicious brown on landing in San 
 Francisco, and I bequeathed them to Woodward's Gardens on 
 the chance of obtaining duplicates if I ever visit the States 
 again. At Tarawera, there is a snug little inn for visitors, 
 and a hot spring, to which one ought to be acclimatised, 
 for I came out of the rough wooden tub on the hill-side as 
 red as a lobster, and with a disagreeable tightness about 
 the forehead. In fact it is very imprudent to indulge oneself 
 in these baths at random, or too often, without medical 
 advice. They bring on a kind of " crisis " after a week or 
 two, when the body is subject to painful boils, which how- 
 ever are said to disappear with all other ailments by 
 persevering in the waters. It may have been poor diet in 
 the Maori country that brought me down in physique, but 
 I was completely laid up for a time at Napier in this way. 
 
 The country hereabouts is very curiously constituted; 
 the ground seems firm enough to cut, but as soon as the top 
 binding of fern is removed, there are perpetual landslips 
 of the soft pumice and gravel underneath, which involve 
 constant care ; also, as far as I could see, all the pasture is 
 on the very tops of the high mountain plateaus, and in the 
 valleys there is nothing but raupo or flax. 
 
 On Titiowharu, where I slept the next night, I found 
 
 the overseer (to whom Mr. C , at Hamilton, had 
 
 franked me,) " mustering " sheep, which is the next impor- 
 tant process to " shearing" in the squatter's annual pro- 
 gramme. The rams and ewes are divided and subdivided ; 
 whilst the poor little lambs, before they go out of the fold 
 again, "leave their tails behind them," as little Bopeep
 
 38 
 
 would say, and also have their ears punched and backs 
 marked with raddle or tar,. It is customary to invite all 
 the neighbours to your " muster," as they can then pick 
 out their missing sheep which have strayed from the 
 adjoining runs. As they complete each flock, it is 
 turned over to a shepherd, who would drive it off with the 
 aid of his dogs to a beat, possibly ten or twenty miles 
 distant, for these squatters own enormous tracts of land 
 about here. 
 
 To show you some of the peculiarities of New Zealand 
 travel, I may mention that between this and Napier, 
 I crossed one little river forty-two times in about ten miles, 
 though it is only fair to say that none of the fords were at 
 all deep or dangerous. There were numbers of natives on 
 the road from town, well mounted, and dressed up to the 
 eyes in the latest fashions ; for in Hawke's Bay some of 
 them are extremely wealthy, and you may see Maories in 
 black frock-coats and tall hats, sitting in their carriage and 
 pair there ; men, too, who consider themselves judges of 
 brandy, and talk of their " Hennessy " as we might do of 
 Sandeman's port, or Koederer's carte-blanche champagne. 
 One old gentleman was most indignant lately at being 
 offered " Beehive " brand instead of his favourite mark, 
 and threatened to withdraw his custom from the unfor- 
 tunate spirit merchant who had dared to suggest such 
 a change. 
 
 Napier is a small but rather pretty town, built on a high 
 spit of land facing the sea ; the harbour runs in behind the 
 town to the north, and is not accessible to large steamers. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere in New Zealand, one meets now and 
 then with social anomalies which one can look at some- 
 times from a ludicrous, as well as a distressing point of 
 view. For instance, when I was looking about, on my 
 arrival at the hotel, for some stables in which to put up
 
 39 
 
 my horse, I suddenly felt a tap on the shoulder, and heard 
 a " How d' ye do ? " from a nice looking young fellow 
 whose face I had some difficulty at first in recalling. It 
 
 was N , a pupil of the same tutor as myself at Eton ; 
 
 and here he had taken to keeping a livery stable in Napier 
 and driving a hansom in the streets for hire. Most of the 
 residents knew his history, and looked upon the whole 
 .affair rather as a joke than otherwise; so much so that 
 they did not hesitate to offer him their hospitality, and 
 ladies would always bow on meeting him, unless he was 
 actually on the box driving. They told me an amusing 
 story of his experience. Col. Eussell, the Minister of 
 Instruction, hired the hansom for a ball in the neighbour- 
 hood; and on reaching the door of the house, gave 
 
 N directions to return for him at one a.m. ; N 
 
 touched his hat and drove off, but had not gone far 
 down the carriage-road before he stopped, took the horse 
 out and tethered him to a tree, and slipping off his mack- 
 intosh, came back to the house in full evening dress, 
 having received an invitation also himself. The evening 
 wore out, and morning arrived. About three o'clock, some- 
 one walked up to Col. Russell, whom he saw leaning 
 against the wall, and looking rather annoyed, and remarked 
 to him, " Why, Russell, I thought you were an early bird ; 
 what are you doing at the ball still ?" " Well," said the 
 Colonel, " I had intended to go home about two hours ago, 
 but there 's that confounded cabby of mine engaged for 
 three more dances, and I can't get away till he 's done." 
 
 After a short visit to Rissington, the proprietor of 
 which, Colonel W., told me he could ride forty miles in a 
 straight line on his own " sheep run," I took passage in 
 the " Rangatira," a very diminutive steamer chiefly 
 employed in the cattle-trade, for Tauranga, a fine harbour 
 on the east coast, south of Cape Colville. We stopped
 
 40 
 
 twice on the voyage to take in wool, once at Poverty Bay, 
 the scene of Te Kooti's great massacre, and afterwards at 
 Tolago Bay, where we saw the little cove in which Captain 
 Cook hauled up his vessel for repairs. Here a solitary 
 white man came off, steering a large whale-boat manned by 
 natives in very primitive and scanty costume. I could 
 not help congratulating myself that I was not stranded 
 like him in this lonely spot, without newspapers or letters 
 for months together. I heard a good deal of Te Kooti's 
 exploits as I rode across the island, which I must record 
 here. Since the war there have been three malcontents 
 among the rebels, who steadily refused to accept terms, 
 and were a constant source of terror to the settlers, viz., 
 Kereopa, Tito Kiwaru, and Te Kooti. Kereopa was the 
 man who murdered Volkner, the missionary, and ate his 
 eyes; he was hung in Napier, shortly before I arrived there. 
 Tito Kiwaru received a free pardon on condition of aban- 
 doning his evil ways, and settled down quietly near 
 Taranaki ; but Te Kooti, the great Hau-hau leader, has 
 for the last three years baffled all the energy and persever- 
 ance of his pursuers, though his band of three hundred 
 followers has gradually dwindled down to something less 
 than half-a-dozen, including women. After his escape 
 from the Chatham Islands, he wandered about in the bush, 
 occasionally pouncing down upon some unprotected farm- 
 house, and burning it, but beyond this leaving no visible 
 sign of his whereabouts. Almost constantly there were 
 three or four bodies of constabulary on his track ; but 
 partly owing to the secret support he received from those 
 natives who dared not openly sympathise with him, and 
 partly from the fact that even the hardiest white men 
 cannot subsist on berries and fern -roots for any length of 
 time, (and it was impossible to carry many stores through 
 such a maze of hills and forests,) Te Kooti, though living a
 
 41 
 
 miserable hand-to-mouth existence, and hunted down from 
 camp to camp frequently only a few hours in advance of 
 his enemies, was still enabled to elude them. When 
 asked the nature of the country hereabouts, a native will 
 hold up his hand and show you the spaces between his 
 fingers ; it is an endless succession of ridges and valleys, so 
 that it is impossible to get an extended view. "It is like 
 looking for a needle in a haystack," said one of the officers, 
 "and we shall never catch him unless they employ blood- 
 hounds or Australian blacks to track him." Once a party 
 actually caught sight of him scaling a cliff in front of them, 
 and attempted to discharge their guns, but the caps and 
 powder had become so damp by constant exposure to the 
 damp weather, that they would not ignite. At last, after 
 he was finally supposed to be hemmed in somewhere on 
 the east coast, and a sensational paragraph had appeared 
 at least once a week in the Auckland papers, announcing 
 "the imminent capture of Te Kooti," we suddenly heard 
 of his appearance in the Waikato, right on the other side 
 of the island, whence he made his escape into the "king's 
 country" and claimed protection from Tawhiao, who seems 
 inclined to let him live there, on the condition that he 
 causes no further disturbances. Leaving aside the con- 
 sideration of his guilt, it seems almost better to withdraw 
 the price set on his head, and not to risk the chance of 
 another fight by insisting on his extradition. He has lost 
 his influence, and we should only make a martyr of him 
 by any further action on our part, so that " quieta non 
 movere " seems to be the best policy. 
 
 I had made up my mind to leave the steamer at 
 Tauranga, and try to ride overland to Ohinemuri, where I 
 could get a boat down to the Thames gold-fields ; but, as 
 the Eangatira steamed off from the wharf and left me 
 standing there in a drenching rain, my heart rather sank
 
 42 
 
 as I remembered the warnings my friends had given me 
 about travelling after the summer had broken and the 
 wet season set in. However, the best face had to be put 
 on the matter now, so I went off to the inn, and there 
 stopped for two whole days, reading Gulliver's Travels and 
 looking from the window at the steady down-pour from 
 a dull leaden sky which never seemed likely to clear. On 
 the third morning however, seeing enough blue heavens 
 to make a Dutchman's breeches, I imprudently char- 
 tered a boat to begin my journey, against the advice 
 of my landlord who told me the creeks would be " up " 
 still, and I should be unable to cross them. Off we started 
 on our weary useless journey down the harbour, and crossed 
 the little forest of mangroves which divide the Tauranga 
 and Kati-kati tides, just as the bush tops began to peep 
 out of the rapidly receding waters. At the little hostelry, 
 kept by a half-caste, Alf. Faulkner, I found him and his two 
 brothers ruefully regarding the sunset, which certainly had 
 a suspiciously liquid appearance ; they were intending to 
 start next day for the races at Ohinemuri, and told me that 
 I might try the experiment with them. As they were 
 about the best guides in the district, and thoroughly up in 
 bush travel, I thought myself almost at my journey's end ; 
 but, like the young bear, all my troubles were before me. 
 That night and all next day we had a terrific thunderstorm, 
 and the ceaseless patter of the heavy drops on the cor- 
 rugated iron roof, told us that the difficulties of the road 
 were hourly increasing, and that I should have much delay 
 and vexation of spirit before I got to Auckland again. 
 However, I could not complain of my quarters, the beds 
 were clean, and Polly, our pretty Maori hostess (the 
 neatest and most good-natured of girls possible, and far 
 superior to any native woman I have met before or since) 
 gave us the best plum-pudding I have tasted since leaving
 
 43 
 
 England, and introduced me also to a delicious preserve 
 made of "pie melon" cut into little s'quares, and very 
 much like Everton toffee in flavour. 
 
 At last (our patience being exhausted) my cicerone, Alf. 
 Faulkner, thought we would try to force our way across the 
 country ; " we could but turn back again, and it would be 
 such a pity to miss the first race-meeting of the Thames 
 natives." His wife prudently slipped a bottle of gin and 
 some slices of cold plum-pudding into her husband's 
 wallet before starting, 'which, as experience proved, was a 
 a very needful precaution. 
 
 The Maories generally commence a journey as fast as 
 their horses will carry them ; and I am afraid in this case 
 we were no exception to the rule. We galloped the first 
 five miles along a hard sandy beach, with the waves occa- 
 sionally dashing up to our horses' fetlocks, and then began 
 a slow and tedious ascent by the Kati-kati pass to a plain 
 of about twenty miles in width, which, people say, is to be 
 before very long the great alluvial gold-field of this island. 
 It has not been " prospected " yet, from the reluctance of 
 the natives to mining encroachments ; but some residents 
 in Tauranga, who possess influence with them, and who 
 think their own little town is destined to become the " hub 
 of the Antipodes," eclipsing even Grahamstown or Hoki- 
 tika in the rapidity of its growth, are already taking steps 
 to secure concessions from some of the leading chiefs, 
 under which they will develop the resources of the " field " 
 for the benefit of the native landlords. And here our 
 misfortunes began ; the first creek we came to should have 
 convinced us that we need go no further, for what was 
 usually a little brooklet had swollen into a large torrent, 
 which rose nearly to the saddle-girths of our horses, as 
 they cautiously picked their steps across the treacherous- 
 looking ford. Each creek in succession grew worse and
 
 44 
 
 worse ; at some there were falls and rapids not a hundred 
 yards below where we crossed, which threatened an 
 untimely end in the event of one false step on the slippery 
 black rocks, over which the water was now rushing with 
 unusual force ; at others the steep banks had become so 
 greasy, that when our horses had slid rather than walked 
 down the zigzag path to the water, they became hopelessly 
 bogged in the stream, till we hauled the poor brutes by 
 main force up the opposite bank. At last we came to a 
 ford, over which our leader decided we should have to 
 swim them, at the cost of getting thoroughly wet through. 
 Accordingly, in we plunged, and down they went, with 
 their heads just rising above the surface of the water. It 
 is a most unpleasant feeling to have the ripple gradually 
 creeping higher and higher, until it reaches the waist. 
 Unfortunately, like most young travellers, I had neglected 
 to guard against such a contingency. I suddenly remem- 
 bered that my watch, matches and tobacco were getting 
 soaked, instead of being safely stowed in my hat, as they 
 should have been ;.but " sweet are the uses of adversity," 
 and T shall know better next time. When we had ridden 
 some twenty-five miles, and were entering a thick bush, 
 I began to look for signs of Ohinemuri village, and almost 
 to think my journey at an end ; but to my intense disgust 
 Alf. Faulkner informed me that we were jmt coming to 
 "the river " (the others having been mere creeks or brook- 
 lets). After a weary walk of two miles, through mud knee 
 deep, pausing frequently to free our horses from the over- 
 hanging supple-jacks, a species of black cane, which often 
 entangles and throttles cattle in their terrified efforts to 
 extricate themselves, we came to our bete noir, the Ohine- 
 muri river, and as we looked down at it, " spes omnis 
 tenues evasit in auras." It would be hopeless to attempt 
 the ford that night; the first step would have taken us
 
 45 
 
 into a deep boiling eddy, a few yards below which we 
 could hear the heavy plunge of the water as it rushed past 
 the little island in the centre of the rapids, bending down 
 the bushes with its impetuous force, and fell over the rocks 
 from a considerable height into a large basin at the foot. 
 No one in his senses would have ventured across the head 
 of that miniature Niagara ; therefore, 
 
 " Eusticus expectans inhiat dum defluat amnis." 
 
 we resolved to wait for the chances of the morrow, and 
 before the night fell, collected the driest firewood we could 
 find and hunted about in the bush for some branches of the 
 karaka, the dark-green leaves of which resemble in appear- 
 ance those of the camelia and would serve as provender for 
 our famished steeds ; for there was not a blade of grass in the 
 place. From a wet canvas knapsack our own rations were 
 served out ; to every man a slice of bread and butter, a lump 
 of plum-pudding in a semi-diluted state, and a modicum of 
 gin which warmed our shivering frames. I was very thank- 
 ful to get even this much, for we had eaten nothing since 
 breakfast and felt a pretty good " twist " for food. This 
 was the first occasion on which I had bivouacked in the 
 open air ; it was unustfally trying, for I was the only one 
 of the party without a dry change of clothes, and it certainly 
 was a miserable night's experience. I spread my mackin- 
 tosh on the muddy ground close to tlie fire, with a log of 
 wood for my pillow, and literally steamed till morning, like 
 a bundle of clothes from the wash. You maj imagine that 
 I hardly got a wink of sleep, for the fuel was damp, and 
 required to be constantly replenished with small sticks and 
 fanned to make it burn at all. Now in England the effect 
 of all this would probably have been rheumatic fever, or 
 inflammation of the lungs, but I can conscientiously assert 
 that no harm at all came of it in my case. The sky, fortu-
 
 46 
 
 nately was clear; the Southern Cross shone out brightly 
 overhead, and although there was just the slightest suspi- 
 cion of frost in the air, you felt that it was an exhilarating 
 cold full of life, and not the dismal rawness of our climate 
 at home. 
 
 As morning approached, the clouds began to gather 
 overhead, and drops of rain pattered down, which soon 
 roused us from our uncomfortable couches. I went down 
 to the river bank, but, me miserum ! instead of falling, the 
 water had actually risen three inches since the previous 
 evening, for I had placed a little flood-mark at the edge of 
 the stream by which to ascertain this. 
 
 We saddled our horses, and with a settled gloom upon 
 our faces turned back to Kati-kati. Fancy our being within 
 three miles of our destination, within half an hour's ride 
 of Ohinemuri and the races, and we actually had to return 
 over the old ground (28 miles) to the place we had started 
 from. 
 
 Such are the inglorious uncertainties of New Zealand 
 travel ! I shall know better than travel overland in the wet 
 season when I go there next. 
 
 What aggravated my sense of failure was, that I had 
 particularly wished to visit the grave of Taraia, a celebrated 
 old cannibal chief, and a pensioner of our Government, who 
 had just shuffled off this mortal coil, and been buried at 
 Ohinemuri. There was to be a "tangi," or wake, in his 
 honour, at which all the leading men of the North would 
 be present, and I should have seen a really memorable 
 feast ; for on such occasions, the friends and' relatives of 
 the deceased send enormous quantities of dried eels, pota- 
 toes, rum, tea, sugar, biscuits, and, lastly, the great 
 national delicacy of decomposed sharks' fins, on which 
 the guests are entertained as long as the provisions last, 
 when the ceremony of mourning also ceases. The " tangi "
 
 47 
 
 itself is a " keen " or low monotonous wail, which is kept 
 up night and day over the body by the women, till the 
 food and their endurance simultaneously give out. This 
 process is not limited to funerals ; for a Maori woman 
 welcomes her friends by a "tangi" or whimper, and by 
 screwing out some crocodilish tears to express, I suppose, 
 her intense grief at their previous separation. The process 
 is as follows : Look as unhappy as possible, squash your 
 nose against that of the new arrival, and make a low melan- 
 choly whine, with your lips compressed; continue the above 
 as long as suits your taste. I have seen very affectionate old 
 ladies sit with their noses together, and their eyes dribbling 
 for half-an-hour together, while they crooned like two 
 love-stricken cats. But curiously enough, they " speed the 
 parting guest " in a far more cheerful way ; then every 
 face is wreathed in smiles ; you mount your horse, and 
 ride off amid a chorus of Haere, haere, haere (Go, go !), as 
 long as you are within hearing- distance. This I could 
 understand as a kind of a " God speed ; " but I am afraid 
 I once scandalised a very punctilious old dowager, who had 
 begun to "tangi," as I came up to a pah at the Hot 
 Lakes, by bursting into a hearty laugh at her dolorous 
 expression of countenance. I have often since wondered 
 whether she thought me wanting in respect ; but I fancy 
 she would possibly excuse the faux pas on the score of 
 ignorance. 
 
 But to return to my story : " Misfortunes never came 
 single ; " for after we had embarked at Kati-kati on the 
 little cutter belonging to my guide, the wind and rain 
 suddenly stopped, and we drifted slowly the whole day 
 on the tide towards Tauranga in a dead calm and blue 
 sky. As I laboured away with one of the long " sweeps," 
 punting the boat over the mangrove shallows, I almost 
 wavered in my purpose, and thought of turning back
 
 48 
 
 again ; but the heavy white clouds which still hung 
 over the Corinandel ranges in the distance warned rne 
 not to trust the spiteful caprices of the weather again, 
 and rather to make certain of getting home by sea, even if 
 I had to wait a fortnight for it. We made a frugal meal 
 about noon of bread and " pipis," a small shell- fish not 
 unlike our mussels. Kati-kati harbour is the great fishing, 
 ground of the Northern natives ; and even when the canoes 
 are not out, the flocks of gulls and cormorants, and other 
 sea-fowl, make it very lively for the innumerable shoals of 
 mullet and snapper. A child may walk into the banks at 
 low water, and, in five or ten minutes, gather a basket of 
 pipi, which will provide a day's food for the family. The 
 peculiarity of these shells is their sharp knife-like edge, 
 which makes them useful for two purposes, viz., the carving 
 of pipes and other ornamental wood-work, at a time when 
 Sheffield cutlery had not reached these remote regions; 
 and secondly the important process of tattooing, an art 
 however which is rapidly dying out before the progress of 
 civilization. Now-a-days the women confine themselves 
 to two blue lines along the lips, ju-i about kissing-point, 
 which, in my opinion, does not improve their personal 
 appearance ; whilst the men, whose heads used to form an 
 important article of export in olden days and served as 
 curiosities in the museums of Europe, have now become 
 so effeminate as scarcely to undergo the tortures of tattoo 
 in the interests of fashion. Everyone knows how the 
 British tar loves to adorn himself with anchors and 
 mermaids on the arm, by the simple process of pricking 
 the flesh with a needle and rubbing in gunpowder ; but 
 the tattoo is a far more serious undertaking. The patient 
 is placed in a reclining position, whilst the artiste deli- 
 berately nips out little particles of flesh, with his pincers 
 of pipi- shell. The blood streams from the face, and the
 
 49 
 
 pain, accompanied with swelling of the parts operated 
 upon, must be very excruciating for a time ; but as the 
 design is often really very ornamental, and serves either 
 to inspire terror into the foe or else to distinguish families 
 of aristocratic rank by a kind of armorial bearings, you 
 may still occasionally see young men of Conservative 
 proclivities keeping up the old custom with stoical endur- 
 ance and hardly wincing at each fresh touch of the 
 operator. 
 
 Well ! to conclude ; I had to wait at Tauranga for 
 nearly a week before any means of escape turned up ; and 
 bereft as I was of books or friends, it was the veriest 
 prison-house you can imagine. At last the schooner 
 "Dauntless" arrived, and I took my passage by her to 
 Auckland, where I arrived exactly a fortnight later than 
 I need have done if I had kept to the slow but sure 
 means of sea-voyage, instead of attempting overland travel 
 ad nauseam. Even when we had started, the same fatality 
 seemed to dog my footsteps, and for a whole afternoon 
 we beat about Kati-kati with a head wind; but when I 
 awoke early next morning, we had made half the distance, 
 and anchored off Mercury Island to pick up a " squatter " 
 who lived there. He came off shortly with a regular boat- 
 load of wild-turkeys, which thrive amazingly here, and 
 which he was taking to market in Auckland. Before noon 
 we had rounded Cape Colville, and, much to my relief, we 
 anchored that same evening at the Queen Street Wharf, 
 exactly six weeks after I had started on my eventful and 
 solitary trip across the North Island.
 
 50 
 
 OUK FLAX-MILL. 
 
 THE roughest month's experience I have had in New 
 Zealand, was up in the bush, about a hundred miles 
 north of Auckland, where my brother has been building 
 a mill to manufacture fibre from the Phormium Tenax, 
 a kind of gigantic aloe, which grows wild over immense 
 areas of the land in those parts. We manage the journey 
 as follows: a little steamer, the "Gemini," carries us 
 up the Waitemata Eiver to Eiverhead, about two hours' 
 distance from Auckland ; there we get the coach ; or^ in 
 winter, when the roads are nearly impassable, we ride 
 on horseback for fourteen miles across the portage, to 
 Helensville on the Kaipara Harbour ; there is a railway 
 already begun from here to Riverhead, but although the 
 earthwork and bridges are complete, we shall have to 
 wait for rails from England before it is opened to the 
 public. At Helensville we find either the Government 
 cutter, or the regular weekly mail-boat " Pai-Mariri," 
 which takes about a day to sail eighty miles up to Man- 
 gawhare, a trading station on the Wairoa Eiver, the future 
 Mersey of the country and navigable for vessels of 1,000 
 tons for fully forty miles above this point. Here we used 
 formerly to get into a little gig, and row for nine miles 
 up our particular creek, the prettiest little stream imagin- 
 able, called the Kaihu ; but now we have got a diminutive 
 steam-launch, which I have christened the " Elsie," and 
 which flies the dear old University College flag at her stern, 
 Oxford blue with a golden cross in the centre. She can
 
 51 
 
 run about eight knots an hour, and startles the flocks of 
 wild duck which abound up our creek, as she glides swiftly 
 along under the graceful fern-trees and giant puriri with 
 their soft magenta flowers. 
 
 In summer, we are never at a loss for fresh meat, for 
 you may count by dozens the large native pigeons, as they 
 sun their bronze and purple plumage, lazily perched on the 
 top of the totara pines, or gather in flocks to eat the 
 berries of the puriri and karaka. They are the most 
 stupid birds in existence, and never seem to be much 
 frightened at the discharge of a gun, so long as they can- 
 not see who fired it. If one only had a few English comforts 
 and friends up here, I think it would be the pleasantest 
 spot in existence. I have seen no bush or river scenery 
 to equal it for quiet loveliness ; there is such an immense 
 variety of foliage on the banks, and at a very short distance 
 from the mouth of the creek the water runs as clear as 
 crystal between high, dense bushes of the flax (our pecu- 
 liar industry), from whose pendant crimson petals, on 
 flower-stalks nearly thirty feet high, the wild bees gather 
 the sweetest of honey. Far away on the sky-line to the 
 north-west, there is a mountain range extending from 
 Monganui Bluff to Tutamoi, a high table-land with an 
 abrupt precipitous face. You can hear the heavy boom of 
 the breakers on the sea -coast, six miles away, where the 
 whole force of the Western Pacific breaks upon the hard 
 beach of white sand, along which you can gallop for hours 
 as straight as an arrow. The cliffs here and there show 
 great seams of lignite on their face, which makes me think 
 that some day we shall be finding coal-fields in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Indeed we are right in the line of such a 
 discovery, for the Bay of Islands mine is but a short 
 distance from us on the other coast. 
 In Moeatua, one of the creeks running down to the sea,
 
 52 
 
 I found the remains of a French frigate which was wrecked 
 there in early times. Nothing now is left but a few heavy 
 spars and such iron rings as the Maories could not carry 
 away. They say that Parore, one of our landlords, secured 
 about sixty tons of gunpowder from the wreck, and has it 
 stowed away safely in some remote corner. 
 
 But I must get back to our mill, and give a succinct his- 
 torical account of it alone, for if I wander off into details of 
 other things the world itself would not contain them all. 
 Before my arrival, T - had gone up with a couple of men 
 to select a site, and clear the river of snags. They began with 
 a series of mishaps. The first morning when they woke, 
 they found the blankets covered with large white patches, 
 which at first sight they thought were the drippings from 
 their candle, but on closer examination and touch they dis- 
 covered, to their intense disgust, that the whole surface 
 was a crawling mass of maggots, which the noisy blow-flies 
 had deposited there during the night. I think this was the 
 worst misery of all our bush life. Fleas, Maori bugs, 
 sand-flies and mosquitoes were bad enough in their way 
 (and we had plenty of them), but to hear, just as you were 
 dropping off to sleep, the loud buzz of these other loath- 
 some insects, as they bobbed against the canvas of the 
 tent, and then dropped on to one's blanket or clothes with 
 malicious intent, destroyed all the romance of camping out 
 at once. I found a way of balking them at last, by 
 peppering, salting, and smoking everything woollen in my 
 possession, whilst, as an additional safeguard to the meat, 
 we always kept it covered; or, if carving at table, one 
 of us would mount guard with a roll of newspaper to 
 knock over our enemies, whilst the other cut off what he 
 wanted as rapidly as possible. These plagues disappeared 
 when we got a regular house built, for the little English 
 fly came in swarms, and actually worried their big brothers
 
 53 
 
 to death. They themselves proved troublesome enough 
 in turn, but were a vast improvement on their prede- 
 cessors. 
 
 Misfortune the second was as follows : S , one 
 
 of the hands, rowed down to the store at the mouth of 
 the creek to buy provisions, and bring back some house- 
 blocks. We suppose the " dingy " must have caught on a 
 snag, and, in leaning over to free it, he fell out of the boat 
 and was drowned ; for the body was found three days after- 
 wards among some rushes in the river, whilst the " dingy" 
 had not capsized, but was floating right side up and half 
 full of water. His poor dog " Jonah " whined pitifully 
 when he saw his master's dead body, and for a long time 
 seemed quite disconsolate, but has since attached himself 
 to us, and will not follow anyone else. When we got the 
 stream cleared of snags, and the timber for the mill was 
 ready, more " hands " came up, and we were rather 
 puzzled for a time how to lodge them all as there was only 
 one tent ; but in a very short space of time they built 
 themselves "whares," or huts, of a very ingenious kind 
 and perfectly waterproof. The stakes at the four corners 
 and sides were of manuka or ti-tree, while the roof and 
 intermediate spaces were made of the spreading leaves of 
 the "nekau" palm, which answered the purpose fully as 
 well as the corrugated iron used by more ambitious archi- 
 tects. Certainly in dry weather I have seen a house like 
 this burnt down in about a quarter of an hour ; but then 
 it really cost nothing but the half-day's labour to build 
 another exactly similar, so that, even though "Procsirnus 
 ardet Eucalygon," no one troubles his head about insur- 
 ance up here. Our nearest white neighbours are a 
 colony of gum-diggers, at the Kaiwaka swamp, two miles 
 lower down the river ; they have built quite a little 
 of these "nekau" huts, and live a most celibate
 
 54 
 
 life, for I don't think there is a woman in the settlement. 
 They generally work in parties of four and five, taking it 
 in turn to remain at home to do the cooking, or scrape the 
 gum clean which has been brought in the previous day. 
 The first time I saw them at work with their gum-spears, 
 they puzzled me as much as I did my brother when he 
 saw me stirring the porridge with the handle of a large 
 wooden rake in default of a spoon, as he came up the river 
 one day. The " spear " is simply a spike of iron, about a 
 foot long, on the end of a pole, with which they " prick " 
 the ground where the kauri gum is found. Directly they 
 hear the iron ring, they dig round the spot and find a 
 lump of gum, generally about nine inches beneath the 
 surface. I think it brings twenty shillings a hundred- 
 weight on the spot, after being cleaned ; but they have to 
 pay the Maories a royalty of five shillings, which reduces 
 their profits. If a man hits on a good " pocket " of gum, 
 he may make five or six pounds a week ; but au contraire, 
 for weeks together he scarcely fills the sack on his back. 
 The gum is used in England and America for carriage 
 varnish ; and the children about here make very pretty 
 little ornaments from it, much like clear transparent 
 amber, with occasionally a flaky white cloud in the centre. 
 It cuts easily with a knife; and after carving it into a 
 heart, cross, or what not, you rub it with oil- and wash- 
 leather before giving it a final polish with kerosene to 
 remove any scratches on the surface. The most curious fact 
 about it is, that for miles and miles there is not a single 
 kauri pine now standing on the gum-fields ; you sometimes 
 see gigantic trunks lying across the swamps, half buried in 
 the mud, and in a semi-petrified state, but no live trees are 
 to be seen in the proximity. The theory of the deposits 
 is that in the active volcanic period of New Zealand, these 
 immense forests must have been kindled by the
 
 55 
 
 scoriae which fell over the country, and that during the 
 conflagration the liquid gum ran into the ground and 
 solidified. Certainly wherever you find a " hummock " 
 of fern and earth, covering an old trunk, you are almost 
 sure to strike " gum " on the lower side of the hill, close 
 beneath the tree. Both the wood and the fossil gum make 
 splendid fuel. I have often crept out of my tent on a 
 drenching wet morning to light a fire in the " open," and 
 cook an early breakfast, with a sense of despondency at 
 successive failures with the damp wood, until one fine 
 day some one suggested making a blaze with a lump of 
 " kauri gum." It burns like turpentine, and with the 
 protection of a bank of sods at the back of my fire-place, 
 and a sheet of corrugated iron to keep the " heavy wet " 
 off, till I got a fair start, I used to triumph over all 
 weathers. There was however a great feeling of relief 
 at seeing our own " store " completed, with a good roomy 
 chimney, across which I could hang my kettle and keep 
 a constant supply of hot water for wet and hungry way- 
 farers to make their tea or cocoa with. They installed me 
 as cook, and I found that my old experience as a fag at 
 Eton came in very useful to me. The worst of it was, that 
 at school I had all the materials to my hand, and some 
 variety in the dishes ; but here, one had to make the bread 
 as well as toast it ; and also to bear patiently the muttered 
 complaints of the men, as they saw the eternal junk of 
 salt beef, backed by sardines, potatoes, and even ship- 
 biscuits, appear at every meal. Every Sunday we managed 
 to get enough pigeons and ducks to make a " sea-pie; " 
 and as some of my readers may not understand its myste- 
 ries, I shall give them the recipe, for the chance of their 
 ever being similarly circumstanced. You take a good sized 
 iron pot, and put successive layers of paste, potatoes, and 
 till full, topping up with paste ; of course there must
 
 56 
 
 be a little fat and some water to make the gravy, and 
 onions, if you have them ; then you stew gently for about 
 three quarters of an hour, and a most savoury mess is 
 produced, fit for the table of Belshazzar or the Emperor 
 Heliogabalus. 
 
 My expedients were becoming well-nigh exhausted at 
 last, and I felt like a fellow-passenger of mine between 
 Melbourne and Adelaide, who said, as we leaned over the 
 stern in Lacepede Bay, and looked at the fish darting about, 
 Well ! now if we could get a bit of fat, we might fry some 
 of those fish, if we had 'em ! 
 
 But at last I resolved, as Mr. Dombey urged his wife, to 
 "make an effort." We sent for two fat sheep from Auckland, 
 which duly arrived in the cutter, and which, though costing 
 the enormous sum of thirty-two shillings each, actually 
 realised a handsome profit retail at the extortionate price 
 (for the colony) of sixpence a pound. To my intense delight 
 also, as I walked across country one evening, I lighted 
 upon a bank of the most beautiful mushrooms, with pink 
 centres and creamy white tops, which I seized upon instanter, 
 and carried carefully home. About the sa.me time, our 
 friends had sent us a box from England, with a number of 
 little delicacies, which can only be prized as they deserve 
 when at such a distance from civilisation. They shall have 
 a treat at last, thought I, instead of the "toujours sardines" 
 diet, to which they have so long submitted ; and accord- 
 ingly, on this occasion, "the Soyer of the camp " out-did 
 himself. I annex the bill of fare : 
 
 Julienne Soup, made from little preserved squares, and sent in 
 
 the box from home. 
 
 Roast leg of mutton, fried potatoes, and mushrooms. 
 Stewed prunes and figs, with rice. 
 
 Candied ginger. 
 
 Tea and cocoa, dried for a quarter of an hour before the fire, to ^ 
 bring out the flavour before mixing.
 
 57 
 
 We also unpacked our cask of crockery, and enjoyed our 
 China tea-cups, saucers, plates, etc., like Christians, instead 
 of feeding from those horrible tin pannikins and dishes. 
 
 The only rebuffs I encountered were that my scullery- 
 man, like King Alfred, let the cakes, or rather rice, burn ; 
 and one of the " hands," a canny old Scotchman, objected 
 to " thae puddock-stools," which I had stewed with butter 
 and flour in my most artistic style. 
 
 It was not long before I got a cow and calf to these 
 remote parts, to supplement my kitchen with a dairy ; but 
 " thereby hangs a tale," which I reserve for another chap- 
 ter. The only drawback to our table was the want of milk, 
 though, if I had had all my wits about me, I might have 
 brought up some tins of the condensed milk from town. 
 There were many charms about this semi- savage life ; 
 among the greatest was the utter absence of convention- 
 alities ; no tall black hats ("bell-toppers," a la coloniale), 
 no gloves, no stiff shirt- collars, even, no coats on a hot 
 day; and then, in the mornings, when you woke with 
 the fresh air of summer breathing gently in at the open 
 door of the tent (for it hardly ever blows hard between five 
 and eight a.m.), you had but a few yards to walk from your 
 bed, and, with one plunge, were swimming in the cool 
 waters of the Kaihu river, which ran so alluringly close at 
 hand. People often talk of the rapid spread of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, and, when discussing its greatness, wonder what 
 signs of it will be left thousands of years hence, should 
 the race itself have disappeared. Most observers would 
 say that future generations of men will trace our power 
 and genius by the Cyclopean embankments and cuttings, 
 which a spider-like net of railroads is forming over the 
 fcce of the habitable globe ; but here in New Zealand, at 
 least, three infallible witnesses will be found to attest our 
 influence. I never rowed up a creek or back-water, in the
 
 58 
 
 most secluded part of the native country, without finding 
 an empty black beer-bottle from Tennant's Lady Well 
 Brewery, Glasgow, bobbing in the water; and I never 
 crossed a flat, or any large tract of bush, without seeing a 
 sardine-tin, or an abandoned paper-collar, slowly settling 
 down in the dust, to puzzle the Lyells, and Lubbocks, 
 and Murchisons of a later day, when, in company with 
 Macaulay's New Zealander, they visit the shores of Eng- 
 land, and find similar deposits there in the strata of the 
 present epoch. 
 
 After the men had stopped work, eaten their supper, 
 and lit their pipes, my brother or myself, after drawing up 
 to the fire our arm-chair (extemporised from a hip-bath, 
 with a pillow at the bottom of it), used to read aloud to 
 them for an hour or two before we went to bed. A good 
 many of them had never seen Dickens' works ; and when 
 we began "Martin Chuzzlewit," you might have heard a 
 pin drop in the old cook-house. Every now and then they 
 would give vent to their feelings, with an audible expression 
 about " that brute Pecksniff, serve him right ; " or a pitying 
 shake of the head, as I read of Jonas Chuzzlewit's brutality 
 to his wife. I almost frightened myself the night we got 
 to that chapter about the murder of Mr. Montagu; the 
 wind whistled so gloomily round our wooden house, and 
 just as we came to the most horrible part of the story, the 
 sheet of corrugated iron which served us for a door fell in 
 with a crash, and a blast of cold air came rushing through 
 the aperture, as we jumped from our seats with scared faces 
 to look what had happened. 
 
 But there are no ghosts in New Zealand ; the country 
 is not old enough for such "sensations;" so we soon 
 subsided into our beds, and slept as only those wearied with 
 honest manual labour in the finest climate in the world 
 can sleep.
 
 59 
 
 We think of building a house for the manager, up 
 beyond a settlement called Taita, where the chief Te Eoore 
 lives ; the spot we are likely to choose is near the old ruins 
 of the Mission- station, where Mr. Buller used to live. The 
 stream is fringed with willows, the banks are far out of the 
 reach of floods ; and, as far as the eye can reach, is a fertile 
 flat of Phormium and peach trees, from which last the 
 Maories used to bring us " kits " of delicious fruit the first 
 summer we spent up here. 
 
 Since T left me alone in my glory, I have had 
 
 many queer experiences, I went down to see him off by 
 the " Pai-Marire " cutter, which derives its name from the 
 Hauhau motto (Peace, be still), and found that my horse 
 " Taffy" had arrived by that mail, with the cow and calf, 
 which I had been anxiously waiting for, to inaugurate my 
 dairy arrangements. My brother rather laughed at the 
 idea of getting the trio of quadrupeds overland that night, 
 through a meshwork of bush and swamps, which was 
 puzzling enough in broad daylight ; but I resolved to make 
 the attempt. Having got the assistance of one of our 
 boatmen, off we started about four o'clock, and in a very 
 few minutes our troubles began ; the calf wouldn't be 
 driven at all; the cow kept running off the track, even 
 after I had slung the calf across the horse's back to attract 
 her maternal instincts ; but at last we devised a plan 
 which promised every prospect of success. One of us 
 mounted the horse and drove the cow; the other tied a 
 rope to the calf, which ran after its mother. Whenever 
 the cow turned off the road, we checked the calf till we 
 drove her back, and she never went far without it. So, by 
 slow stages, we surmounted our difficulties until we had 
 reached our southern boundary line, the Maungatara 
 Creek, where, as dusk fell, we entered Puhi's swamp, 
 which was pretty familiar ground. But alas ! I was no
 
 60 
 
 better than a child when darkness came on ; I lost my 
 bearings directly, and that infernal cow kept trotting off 
 into soft places where my horse sank to the girths, if I 
 attempted to follow. At last, about fifty yards from the 
 further side of the swamp, we both fairly gave in ; and, 
 leaving the cow hopelessly bogged, I took the horse to the 
 edge, and tethered him to some ti-tree. We then went 
 back, and dragged the other poor beast out by her tail and 
 horns, as she moaned helplessly, and placed her on a little 
 island of tussock grass, where we secured the calf to a flax 
 bush. Next morning I found her lying exhausted in 
 exactly the same place where I had left her the previous 
 night ; and it took an hour and a half to haul her on to 
 dry land, across that little bit of a bog. I never tried this 
 amusement again, but drove her right round the head of 
 the swamps, and nearly over to the sea-coast, which, 
 though it trebled the distance, was a far more simple task. 
 But to return to where I left the horse. After mounting 
 the hill, the sky became overcast, and, for the first time in 
 my experience, I was utterly and entirely "lost in the 
 bush." It was no good walking further, for we had no 
 idea in what direction we were moving, so we sat down in 
 the darkness for the morn to rise. Presently we began to 
 feel thirsty ; but before we dare stir to look for water, we 
 lit the bushes for a beacon to guide us on our return. 
 After a long search, stumbling over "pockets," from which 
 kauri gum had been dug, and which are very awkward for 
 a careless rider, we found a few small holes of rain-water, 
 which gave us enough to wet our lips ; and then, after 
 smoking our pipes in sullen silence for a time at our wood 
 fire, the Southern Cross suddenly peeped out, and the 
 moon broke out from the bank of clouds on the horizon. 
 I then recollected that if I could strike the native track to 
 the west coast, and follow it along, I should find a news-
 
 61 
 
 paper flag on the bushes, which would give me the direct 
 line for turning off home. We soon succeeded in our 
 search, and arrived at the mill about half-past eleven at 
 night. It was very fortunate that my brother had thought 
 of tying up these landmarks of paper as we were exploring 
 short cuts over our block of land, as in daylight we could 
 see them a quarter of a mile away ; and by constantly 
 making a bee line for them, and chopping here and there 
 a ti-tree to guide us in between, we soon established a well- 
 defined track on the nearest and best line of march. 
 
 We used to find it hardest to prevent circling round 
 and round when cutting a road in the forest, for then one 
 had no view ahead ; but the compass afforded some assist- 
 ance ; and we could also start from different sides, giving 
 an occasional call, as we neared each other, to see if we 
 were going straight. I could never resist slicing off the 
 head of a "nekau-palm " as I passed, if it looked particu- 
 larly tempting ; for the white succulent flesh of the young 
 leaves is very like celery in consistency and taste. I think 
 it quite possible that we shall make some use, too, of the 
 leaves of the cabbage-tree (what Lady Barker calls the 
 ti-tree palm) ; the fibre is very strong and clean, but 
 short ; and requires boiling to get rid of the green outer 
 coating. 
 
 What puzzles one most in our amateur road-making, is 
 the way in which the face of the country alters in the wet 
 season ; where we walked dry-shod the other day, we find 
 next week either a treacherous bog, or else it is chest deep 
 in water ; and I have had one short acquaintance with a 
 summer " fresh," that is vividly impressed on my memory 
 still. There had been three months of consecutive sun- 
 shine, and we had stacked our timber for the mill, close to 
 where it was landed, in apparent safety. The rain came 
 at last without any previous warning ; and for three days
 
 62 
 
 we had an unceasing down-pour. The first night made me 
 take to the " store," for I had the weather-side of the tent, 
 and after a vain attempt to sleep in my mackintosh, I 
 found the insidious drip and patter from the roof was sure 
 to creep in at some weak or exposed corner, and give one a 
 cold shiver as it trickled down the body. 
 
 During the next two days the river kept rising rapidly, 
 for the dry ground was unable to drink in the rain fast 
 enough owing to the previous drought, which had caked it 
 so hard ; and all the surface drainage ran off at once as 
 from a duck's back. I felt uneasy the third day, when the 
 water had reached the level of the banks, and sat up 
 measuring its rise, which was at the rate of an inch every 
 half hour. I carried the bulletins to the tent, where one 
 of my companions still held out bravely ; and after my 
 repeated warnings had wakened him from an incipient 
 drowse into a state of the most fidgety watchfulness, he at 
 last sprang to his feet, with an exclamation of " Here it 
 comes through the tent ! " We carried all our possessions 
 up the hill side, and out of harm's way ; and then, at 
 two a.m., worked hard to remove our timber to a safe 
 distance, splashing about in the overflow which had already 
 reached the stack. It was only after having to " turn " out 
 like this, or when one had passed a restless night with 
 other little torments, which abound in newly-cleared places, 
 that I ever regretted the luxuries of a town, or thought 
 that I had bragged a little too much of the " glorious 
 liberty " of bush-life. 
 
 " Komce Tibur amem, ventoso Tibure Romam " is a 
 far truer remark than most of us think ; and I am afraid, 
 at this distance, I think only of the delights of that life ; 
 but if boating on that lovely river, and breathing that pure 
 air, was pleasant to me after coming from Oxford, where 
 our Nuneham water-parties at Commemoration time had
 
 63 
 
 the additional charms of female society, and other creature 
 comforts that were missing here, what must such a life 
 appear to a working-man from the old country ? There he 
 probably tastes meat but seldom ; he undergoes real hard- 
 ships, in a miserable climate, and on stinted wages ; but 
 here, one of our " hands " actually grumbled because he 
 could only lay by fourteen shillings out of his thirty 
 shillings a-week. On a wet day I have known the boat- 
 men refuse to turn out and brave the inclemency of the 
 day, and leave us ourselves to carry the mails down to 
 Mangawhare, whilst they did a "government stroke," and 
 lolled in their huts over a pipe. Any labourer who can 
 pay his passage out to New Zealand is a fool to remain at 
 home ; for here he feels himself almost on equal terms with 
 the man of capital, and has him almost at his mercy. So 
 far from losing in social advantages by the change, as an 
 educated gentleman may do, he makes a positive gain in 
 this respect ; and, if he is only fairly steady and saving, 
 may realise a position which he could never attain to in 
 older countries, where the laws of caste and prejudice are 
 so tyrannical in their operation. " Slow rises worth, by 
 poverty oppressed," may be true of England ; but in 
 America or New Zealand, a poor man, who will not loaf 
 or be ashamed of manual labour, is bound to get on well. 
 
 We have already built seven cottages for our workmen, 
 which they occupy free of rent ; and they are quite at 
 liberty to enclose a piece of land for garden produce, which 
 begins to give a ship-shape appearance to Katangi, our 
 first village. 
 
 I rather enjoy christening the new spots with old 
 and well-remembered names from home ; for instance, we 
 intend to pick out a site for "Aigburth" settlement, if 
 enough people would come out from Liverpool to entitle it 
 to the name ; and I think myself it removes the feeling of
 
 64 
 
 exile, which emigrants experience on first reaching their 
 adopted country, to find familiar names already planted 
 
 there. T , however, is inclined to adopt the rule of 
 
 retaining Maori names, wherever they are really poetical and 
 decent (many being quite unfit for translation), which 
 would not leave much room for my scheme. It adds very 
 much to this same illusion, if all the settlers bring a few 
 flowerseeds from home to scatter broadcast in this flower- 
 less island. Though the ferns and creepers are so exqui- 
 site in their variety, I know of only two flowers, the Rata 
 and the Phorraium, which shine out conspicuously with 
 their scarlet or crimson blossoms from an all-pervading 
 green. I have sown a little packet of cowslips near the mill 
 already ; and I fully intend that, before many years elapse, 
 the country under our care shall be covered with daisies, 
 primroses, and heather each returning spring. Everything 
 that grows at home should grow still better here, if I am 
 not mistaken ; and it would be a real delight to find 
 violets and lily-of-the-valley in the "bush," whilst the more 
 domestic roses and carnations lent a novel brightness to 
 the house-front. It is not much use to attempt a vegeta- 
 ble garden, until we get a strong enclosure built to keep 
 out the pigs, not the wild pigs, but an impudent little 
 porker, called Tommy, which our friend Parore gave us 
 when calling one day. He is provokingly tame ; but as he 
 does not " pay the rint " like Paddy's pig, we occasionally 
 come to loggerheads, when I find him rooting up my 
 turnips, or invading the sacred precincts of the " store," 
 where he sometimes steals a surreptitious doze, nestled 
 in a heap of shavings. Often when we are out walking, 
 he will follow us for miles like a dog ; and I could never 
 make up my mind to kill him, even when at the last 
 extremities for fresh meat. What can one do, when he 
 confides so securely in your honour ? It is impossible to
 
 65 
 
 strike the fatal blow ! as he trots off to your side, with a 
 plaintive grunt, to wish you good morning. 
 
 I had sowed four beds of vegetables, viz., turnips, 
 cabbage, cauliflowers, and radishes, but only the first and 
 last made their appearance. The ground requires a good 
 deal of preparation besides digging over ; all the fern-root 
 should be picked out and burnt, or it sours and impo- 
 verishes the soil to such an extent that your crops can 
 make no head. 
 
 This district of the North Wairoa however, will some 
 day be the fruit country and vineyard of the two islands. 
 The grapes are really magnificent, and peaches, though of 
 course hardly equal to hot-house and wall-fruits, surpass the 
 flavourless productions which they " can," or preserve, in 
 the United States. I have seen cumeras (sweet potatoes) as 
 large as a man's head ; and all this, remember, under 
 Maori cultivation, which is of the most meagre description. 
 You often hear people say in jest, of very prolific lands, 
 that if yon " tickle the earth, she smiles with crops "; but 
 here the proverb is literally true, for the natives scarcely 
 scratch up three inches of the surface. 
 
 The other day, when we were invited to " lunch " at 
 Parore's, he gave us a vegetarian entertainment of cumeras, 
 calabash and taro. I don't think either of the latter grow 
 in the South Island. The taro ia the great staple of food 
 with the Kanakas of Honolulu, and, in fact, all the inhabi- 
 tants of the Pacific. It requires copious irrigation ; its 
 leaf is not unlike that of a water lily, but the flower is a 
 bright pink, and the edible bulb or root is of a lilac colour, 
 and tastes a little like a yam, but the substance is stickier 
 and more glutinous. I always thought it best when cut 
 into slices, and baked like " scones," or potato-cakes. 
 
 We have seen a good deal of Maori customs lately, and 
 I suppose that, as we have come to reside in the neigh - 
 
 E
 
 66 
 
 bourkood, they look upon us as members of the "hapu," or 
 family connection, and pay us ceremonious calls, much as 
 you would to new arrivals in England. The first visit we 
 had was from Maria, a " chiefess," who owns most of the 
 estate on which we live. She is a pleasant, dignified 
 woman, about thirty, and the most industrious native I 
 have seen. Whether in a canoe or on horseback, or while 
 chatting to us, she has perpetually got a piece of knitting 
 or needlework in hand. She took a very intelligent inte- 
 rest in our mills, and put a leaf of Phormium through the 
 dressing-machine with her own hands. Of course it did 
 not come out as white or silky as what she herself could 
 have prepared with the pipi-shell ; but the rapidity of our 
 process amazed her, and also the fact that we utilised the 
 whole leaf ; whereas in hand-dressing nearly two-thirds of 
 the fibre are left in and wasted. When the inspection was 
 concluded, she sent us a present of a basket of tairoas, a 
 large white shell-fish from the coast, which is considered a 
 delicacy by those who can't get oysters. The natives find 
 them by digging in the sand wherever they see a breathing- 
 hole ; and when roasted, or, better still, made into soup, 
 they are not unlike the clams of New England. 
 
 Parore's son rowed up to lunch a few days after Maria 
 had been here, and amused us a good deal by his attempts 
 to handle a knife and fork, which he had never seen before. 
 He held them with his fist clenched, which gave him more 
 strength than delicacy of manipulation ; and, as he refused 
 advice, and would not use his fingers, it took him some 
 time to finish his foolf 
 
 The most important and interesting ceremonial, how- 
 ever, that took place while I was there, was a " huhunga," 
 or bone- scraping, at which nearly four hundred Maories 
 were present. You must know, that after a body has been 
 buried some two years, the remains are disinterred, and the
 
 67 
 
 bones carefully scraped. The latter are then wrapped up 
 in a new blanket or shawl, and sent off to their relatives, 
 who deposit the precious relics in some hiding place, known 
 only to a select few. This precaution is taken to prevent 
 insult after death by enemies of the deceased or his tribe ; 
 and one frequently comes across such " chapels of bones " 
 in the most remote corners and caves of the country. 
 
 As I walked up to Taita, where the family gathering 
 was to be, I noticed casually that nearly all the large puriri- 
 trees had marks of the tomahawk on them, and the only 
 explanation I could suggest was, that the surveyors had 
 chiprHd out the pieces to make them serve as land- marks ; 
 but we afterwards heard that there is a grub which buries 
 itself in the trunk, and that here, as in Australia, it is con- 
 sidered a great delicacy by the native gourmands, whose 
 Aouths water on extracting the savoury morsel, much as 
 ours might do over a Whitstable "native," or a creamy 
 " Saddle-Eock " oyster from New York; and with equally 
 good reason too, allowing for the difference of tastes. 
 
 When nearing the village, I picked up a skin of the 
 aboriginal black rat, "a thing of which you often read, 
 but very seldom see ;" for he has been nearly exterminated, 
 or eaten out of house and home, by his brown brothers 
 from Norway. I have been told that no such animal 
 exists now; but here was evidence to the contrary. It 
 had been cleanly skinned from the carcase, as if with a 
 knife, by the "more-pork," a small owl which preys on 
 such vermin, and which gets its name from the melancholy 
 and monotonous cry it utters through the night. 
 
 The fur of the rat was of a glossy black, but the longer 
 hairs were tipped with grey, rather like a baby 'possum skin 
 from Tasmania. I tried hard to keep it a curiosity ; but 
 having no means of preserving it at hand, I had to throw 
 it away before I got back, to prevent it walking off itself.
 
 68 
 
 Taita, the Maori settlement to which I was going, is 
 picturesquely situated on a small peninsula, between two 
 tributaries of the Kaihu, across which lie natural rustic 
 bridges, formed of single totara pines, which the natives 
 have felled across the stream. The size of these trees may be 
 estimated, when I say that a horse can easily walk over them 
 from end to end as they lie. The sight which greeted me, 
 as I entered the enclosure, was sufficiently quaint. In the 
 centre of the stockade was a group of " tamariki," or 
 children, playing at cricket with the most primitive bats in 
 the world ; at the further end of the enclosure hung two 
 bundles of red blanket, swinging in the breeze, which con- 
 tained the bones of two distinguished strangers, whose 
 friends had come to convey them to their last resting- 
 place. 
 
 I found Te Koore's whare or hut, full of notable chiefs 
 from Hokianga and the Bay of Islands, to whom I was 
 introduced as "the most recent addition to the 'hapu,' or 
 social circle of Kaihu Valley." The lady of the house 
 soon made her appearance, and, seizing my hands in her 
 own (which were rather sticky, from eating dried eels and 
 decomposed shark's fin), exclaimed, Tenakoe (You here ? 
 which is the Maori How d' ye do ?) then, after a pause, 
 Tena-a-a-a-akoe (What ? you here, this is indeed an honour, 
 I feel much flattered by your condescension, etc.), and then 
 a long-drawn breath, Eh-h-h ! confirmation of the above. 
 Whilst they sent off for their interpreter, Te Koore (a 
 finished diplomatist, by-the-bye, who is famed far and wide 
 for his silvery laugh) pressed upon me rum and biscuits, 
 apologising for the absence of fish. Presently, they 
 returned with the object of their search ; a white man, 
 named Tom Johnston, who is living here with another lad, 
 and has married a native wife. He does their fencing, etc., 
 and often has to go and catch eels in the evening, while the
 
 69 
 
 chiefs recline at ease in their blankets waiting for supper. 
 Rather a servile office, considering our received opinions of 
 the respective position dark and light skins should hold 
 with regard to each other. 
 
 Separated from the rest of the inhabitants, and in a 
 state of " Coventry," were the bone-scrapers, who had 
 performed the last offices to the dead. These wretched 
 men are not allowed to touch food or anything else with 
 their fingers for some days after the pollution ; but are fed 
 with long sticks, from which they gnaw the meat or 
 potatoes, like so many brute beasts. It is a pitiable and 
 disgusting sight ; but the Maoris have the strictest possible 
 rules of " tapu " on such an occasion, and would never 
 think of using any utensil again if it came in contact with 
 these fellows. 
 
 There are two customs, or superstitions, which are a 
 constant source of difficulty to strangers here, viz., the 
 " tapu," or consecration, and the " utu," or forfeiture. 
 Quite lately I was bringing a heavy barge up the river, 
 and, having got it about half way before the turn of tide, 
 was about to moor it for the night to a willow, which stood 
 near Puhi's house. To my surprise, the boatmen begged 
 me not to do this, for the tree had been " tapued " by Puhi, 
 and anything tied to it would be claimed by him, if we 
 broke the " tapu." The forfeiture of a person's effects, or 
 " utu," is generally for more serious offences, such as 
 adultery or homicide, in which the injured individual lays 
 his case before a meeting of the tribe, and they decide to 
 what extent he may mulct the offender, by taking his horse 
 and saddle or requiring a money-payment as a fine. 
 
 I would refer anyone who is curious on these points to 
 a very amusing book, the Pakeha Maori, by Judge Manning, 
 who lives at Hokianga, about two days' journey north of 
 us. He has been for thirty years living among these
 
 70 
 
 people, and his " mana " or influence, is said to be very 
 great with them. 
 
 At all important meetings, they have a custom of pre- 
 senting kits of potatoes, biscuits, &c., to all who attend. The 
 quantity and quality of the " backsheesh " varies according 
 
 to your rank. I dare say E , one of the Lands' court 
 
 judges, whose jurisdiction as magistrate I dare say extends 
 over nearly two hundred square miles, would receive two 
 canoe-loads of provisions, if he came to a " bone-scraping " 
 in his official capacity, or as a dignitary of the county. 
 
 When potatoes were selling at extortionate prices in 
 Auckland, and it even paid our merchants to import them in 
 steamers from Sydney ; when, also, the poorer natives were 
 starving from the failure of the crops, or begging for 
 Government rations, Parore would frequently pay us a visit 
 at the Mill, and bring a present of half-a-dozen kits from 
 his ample store of perquisites, as one of the Ngapuhi 
 chiefs. 
 
 When I entered the village of Taita, I found a warm 
 discussion going on about our " lease ; " and, at the risk of 
 being tedious, I must explain somewhat of our local 
 politics. 
 
 Our land forms about a quarter of a very fertile block, 
 called the Kaihu Valley, the whole of which (about two 
 hundred thousand acres) the Provincial Government have 
 been trying to buy for years, for the purpose of forming a 
 special settlement. There is this difficulty, however, about 
 the purchase. Land is not owned here by individuals, but 
 by the whole tribe ; and this particular piece belongs jointly 
 to the Ngapuhis and the Uriohaus. Until they decide 
 among themselves to arrange the boundaries, and also to 
 " individualise " their titles, it is hard to know who is 
 entitled to receive the payment. We have at present a 
 body of ten landlords, all of whom receive a portion of the
 
 e MANCANU1 BLUFF 
 
 7 
 
 4^ TUTAMOI 
 MT* 
 
 i ''>'' IT 
 
 $^ ;--'''- 
 
 MANCAWHAftE ,Q' -.P. ^/Vf 
 
 ^JW^^ ' 
 
 PLAN OF KAIHU ESTATE.
 
 71 
 
 rent, on behalf of their still more numerous clients, who 
 established their claims to a share of it, as follows ; The 
 lands' court gave notice, that it was agreed to lease a piece 
 of land to us, and that, by a certain date, all claimants to 
 the property must register their titles before they could 
 receive a grant from the Crown as landlords. 
 
 All sorts of the most absurd reasons were advanced, 
 according to the usual custom, by the representatives of 
 these two tribes, as well as others from outlying districts, 
 to establish their rights. 
 
 For instance, one man recollected landing, five years 
 ago, to cook his food as he passed up the river ; and the 
 ashes of his fire, if they could be found, must be conclusive 
 evidence of his occupancy. Another had eaten a piece of 
 some celebrated warrior there, after a fight in the neigh- 
 bourhood ; and a title dating from the good old days of 
 cannibalism was surely indefeasible. A third had hunted 
 wild pigs ; a fourth had thrown some peach- stones ashore, 
 which must have become trees by this time, and you could 
 hardly deny him his tenant-right or compensation, for had 
 he not improved the value of the land by this scientific 
 fruit- culture, extending over the laborious term of five 
 seconds ? 
 
 Such were some of the stories which judicial patience 
 had to sift before we received a legal document, stating 
 exactly to whom we were indebted for the amount of our 
 annual rent. 
 
 When the deed was signed, Tirarau, a great potentate 
 from the North Wairoa, made a congratulatory address to 
 the other natives, stating that, as they had been brought 
 into one enclosure (the lease), he hoped the close quarters 
 would conduce to the settlement of all outstanding feuds. 
 My brother had gone up to witness the signatures ; and he 
 told me that at the conclusion of this speech the whole
 
 72 
 
 audience suddenly retired to their huts, and reappeared 
 again in a costume that would not pass muster in Eegent 
 Street. They had taken off every stitch of clothing, with 
 the exception of a girdle round the waist ; one exquisite 
 had wrapped the Union Jack round his middle ; and all had 
 clubbed-muskets in their hands. He felt somewhat nervous 
 as they rushed towards him with a kind of hoarse shout ; 
 but they stopped short within a few yards, and began a real 
 war-dance in honour of the occasion, keeping the most 
 mechanical and exact time in their movements. You may 
 talk of animated clock-work or Marionettes ; but here, the 
 rolling eyes, protruded tongues, and panting gasp at inter- 
 vals, gave a hideous expression to the performers, which 
 would frighten a child out of his wits ; whilst the peculiar 
 agility displayed throughout the entertainment reminded 
 one strongly of the song about "a yaller-girl a-kicking up 
 behind and before." 
 
 I don't think this dispute about the ownership of the 
 Kaihu Valley will ever do us any harm ; the natives may 
 fight each other, but would hardly be so stupid as to drive 
 us away and lose their source of income. The dispute 
 I myself heard when up at Taita was more especially about 
 the question of "burnt flax." They had specified in the 
 lease that, for every hundred acres of Phormium destroyed 
 by gum-diggers when clearing the ground, we should be 
 excused ^6100 per annum of the rent. When we held back 
 this amount at the quarter-day, the Uriohaus turned sulky, 
 and said that, as all the burning had taken place in a 
 swamp of Parore's, it was only fair that his tribe, the 
 Ngapuhis, should suffer the loss, whilst they received their 
 full share of the rent. I don't know how they settled it ; 
 but we paid in the full amount owing to their duly- 
 appointed agent at Mangawhare, and left him to diyicle it 
 as best he could.
 
 73 
 
 There is, however, a far more serious question looming 
 in the future, and one which Tamati Waka, an old and 
 trusty friend of the white man, is confident will breed 
 trouble (and possibly war) with the colonists. It is the 
 " Surplus Lands Act." In days gone by, when the natives 
 bartered their land away for a mere song, kegs of nails or 
 axes were often enough, in the hands of a cunning settler, 
 to secure a block of eight thousand acres, or more. 
 
 When, however, a paternal government, which was not 
 itself ashamed to bamboozle the Maoris into the treaty of 
 Waitangi, ceding the sovereignty of the islands to Queen 
 Victoria, came to scrutinise these early transactions between 
 individual white men and their new subjects, it decided, with 
 gross injustice to both alike, that no white man could 
 purchase more than (say) four thousand acres in his own 
 name; and that therefore all surplus lands, even though 
 bought under the old regime, must pass to Government, 
 not (mark you) to their original possessors, the Maoris. 
 Now what the latter say, is : "If we were robbed or 
 cheated of our land from ignorance, and you decide to 
 deprive the purchasers of their bargain, it should belong 
 to us again, and not to you. You pretend to be acting in 
 our interests, but really are robbing both parties." 
 
 It is very like the fable of the lawyer, who swallowed 
 the oyster, and left the disputants the two empty shells. 
 
 As I sauntered back from Taita to Mangawhare, I 
 thought what a much happier life half the young fellows at 
 home might lead here, instead of being boxed up in those 
 hateful offices all their life, to inhale the grimy air of 
 London with its November fogs, and still more trying heat 
 in the long summer-days, when one longs to leave the four 
 prison-walls of desk routine, and revel in the delight of 
 the country. We have no sallow faces, or narrow chests,
 
 74 
 
 or suspicious coughs in the healthy climate of Kaihu. 'Tis 
 true that the pioneer work of a flax-mill elicited a few 
 grumbles from our " hands " at first starting : 
 
 *' Fortunati nimium, sua si bona norint." 
 
 But in a couple of months, almost as if by the touch of a 
 magician's wand, the features of the place were trans- 
 formed. Before we go back, there will be a church and 
 school up at Taita, where Dr. Cowie, Bishop of Auckland, 
 paid his first visit the other day, on a tour through the 
 diocese. 
 
 It may be that one forgets the discomforts too easily, and 
 paints a Utopia which does not yet exist ; but even in our 
 real misfortunes there was a romantic zest, which robbed 
 them of half their sting. "What fun it will be to talk 
 about this when we see the old folks at home again," is a 
 constant thought of emigrants in their distant exile. 
 
 Perhaps our hardest work at the mill was navigating rafts 
 of timber and heavy barges, before we learnt the thousand 
 dangers that beset us from snags, freshes, and tides ; for 
 the stream of the Kaihu, though itself quite fresh and 
 fit to drink, is " backed up " by the flow of salt water from 
 Kaipara Harbour. The first adventure of this sort was 
 particularly disagreeable, and enough to dishearten anyone. 
 
 T had brought the first load of machinery up to the 
 
 mill- site with the tide ; and after mooring the punt to the 
 bank, deservedly sought his much-needed rest, When he 
 went down to the river in the morning, he found the punt 
 had hitched on the bank when the tide ran out, and cap- 
 sized. There lay all our heavy machinery in twelve feet of 
 water, including a ten-horse portable engine, and numerous 
 smaller etcetera. 
 
 I should have despaired of recovering it ; but T , 
 who was the only one up there who could dive, set to work at
 
 75 
 
 once, and spent a whole day off and on, seated on the mud 
 at the bottom of the stream, and tying ropes to the wheels 
 as he groped along and felt them. He's a most ingenious 
 fellow, and never neglects an opportunity on board ship of 
 learning from the sailors some new "hitch," or " Tartar's 
 head," or some equally mysterious arrangements of the 
 rope, so that one could depend on his knots when he had 
 tied them. He stuck to his task so indefatigably that 
 before night everything was on terra firma, and we lost 
 nothing but a tin dish, which may have slithered along 
 any distance down the river. 
 
 My turn came next, as follows : We started down with 
 the tide at ten p.m. in the heavy barge, to bring up the 
 flax machines and scutches, which had just come round in 
 the schooner from Auckland ; and I was steering. I forget 
 whether I was drowsy at having to leave a warm bed at 
 such an uncanny time of night, or whether I was watching 
 the weird blue eyes of phosphoric light in the water, which 
 the Maoris say are those of the taniwha, or monster who 
 devours men. They are dreadfully afraid of this fabulous 
 creature, and you can hardly get them to stir out after 
 dusk, for they see him glaring at them from the eddies of 
 the whirlpool as the canoe passes rapidly by. But what- 
 ever my thoughts were, we had made about six miles with 
 the aid of the strong "fresh," and I was congratulating 
 myself that I soon would be warming before a good fire, 
 when suddenly a queer grating sound was heard, as the 
 punt half slid over a hidden snag (which I ought to have 
 known), then swung round to the stream, and finally settled 
 hard and fast in her berth. We rocked her about, and 
 pushed and hauled, but with a rapidly falling tide all our 
 efforts failed to make her budge one inch ; so there we were 
 for the night. I wrapped myself in my plaid, lay down on 
 the sloppy planks, and dreamt fitful dreams of home, till I
 
 76 
 
 wakened up in the grey dawn to a weary task of rowing the 
 remaining three miles against the tide, whose flow had 
 lifted us off the snag at last. 
 
 I was determined to have no more of these midnight 
 plaisanteries ; so, as day broke, and the sun rolled back 
 the heavy white banks of fog from the hills, I loaded the 
 old punt at the Kaihu wharf with about ten tons of iron- 
 work, and to within half an inch of her leaky seam 
 through which I could see the ripple of the waves. But, 
 sink or swim, I was determined to take the lot in one trip, 
 and have no further worry. We worked hard on our 
 return, and got up to the mih 1 in one tide ; but I was very 
 nervous about another capsize, and moored the punt stem 
 and stern in the middle of the river till next morning. 
 This heavy rowing is not quite congenial to me, after being 
 accustomed to a light gig from Searle's or Salter's ; and it 
 cramped my fingers so that I could not close my fist for a 
 full fortnight afterwards ; but muscular Christianity, with 
 all its crosses, is better than that perpetual quill-driving, 
 whether it be in law or commerce. 
 
 Much as I should like to write something more prac- 
 tical about the Phormium industry before I leave my hobby 
 of "our flax mill," I am afraid to damp the romance of 
 life at Kaihu by statistics and dry facts ; but I have 
 gone thus far because so many people have asked me in 
 England, what there is to do in New Zealand besides taking 
 a " sheep station;" for though the " squatters" have their 
 good years, I really don't think many of them clear much 
 money in the long run. Last year, the exceptionally high 
 price of wool brought them on the right side of their 
 bankers' books ; but, as a consequence of this, they have 
 doubled the value of their " runs," and a young beginner 
 would find it very hard to buy in now at at all a safe price. 
 Of course, if I were asked about the pleasures of such a
 
 77 
 
 life, I should tell any one that, with a good horse, com- 
 fortable house and food, all the latest English magazines 
 and papers, and such society as Canterbury Province 
 affords (where every second man is from a first-class 
 English school or University), he must be very exigeant if 
 he were not pleased. A man can have no fairer sketch of 
 both sides of the question, than you find in Lady Barker's 
 Station Life in New Zealand. I think, however, that per- 
 haps people starting in this line now would be able to 
 invest their money more economically, by taking up some 
 of the new lands in the Waikato districts of the North 
 Island, where there are no severe winters or snowstorms 
 to kill their flocks, and towards which already a tide is 
 gradually setting of the more adventurous squatters from 
 Canterbury and Otago. 
 
 The next and most alluring occupation to new comers 
 who cannot afford a sheep-run is gold mining. I cannot 
 call it an industry, though there is plenty of hard work to 
 be done at the " diggings." What I mean is, that beyond 
 drawing population to uninhabited lands, and benefiting a 
 lucky few, it does no good at all ; it rather draws men from 
 permanent and productive industries, which do far more for 
 the country at large. I have been told that every pound's 
 worth of gold from the field costs twenty-five shillings to 
 extract it, if you set the total costs against the total 
 expenses of the diggings. Gold mining is a kind of gam- 
 bling ; and the temporary excitement of a great find like 
 the " Caledonian " at the Thames, where they obtained 
 half a million in two months, seems to set men's minds 
 ablaze. The feeling is as unhealthy for the neighbouring 
 towns, as it is for the individuals actively employed on the 
 spot. Take the case of Auckland : I can almost count on 
 my fingers the men there who confine themselves to steady, 
 commercial work; the rest of the beings, who haunt the
 
 78 
 
 New Exchange or the lower end of Shortland Crescent, are 
 " spiders " or sharebrokers, who make their living by the 
 feverish rise or fall of the market, dependent as it often is 
 on vamped-up reports from Coromandel or Grahamstown, 
 where the favourite mine suddenly turns out to have been 
 " salted " with gold as foreign to the spot as imported 
 diamonds to Arizona. All these fellows manipulate money ; 
 but they don't make it. 
 
 If a man is fond of city life, which is at best a second- 
 rate imitation of England, he may choose three lines here ; 
 either the professional career of a clergyman, doctor, or 
 barrister (and I don't think he would find any special 
 advantages in New Zealand) ; or secondly, commercial life, 
 where the rivalry is greater than at home, because nearly 
 all are struggling for a name, and few are so established as 
 to feel out of reach of competition ; or lastly, engineering. 
 I think the last decidedly affords a good opening at present. 
 
 We have borrowed ten millions, of which a great 
 portion will be spent on railroads already surveyed. Coal- 
 fields are springing up in myriads ; and I saw quite lately 
 specimens, from the Miranda Redoubt, near the Thames, 
 fully equal to the cannel-coal used here in gasworks. The 
 Taranaki iron-sand has been at last actually used, after 
 repeated failures ; and there are miles of it on the beach 
 at New Plymouth lying idle yet. In fact, there are few 
 countries so naturally gifted with materials for engineering, 
 and fewer still where such a rife opportunity for their 
 development exists. 
 
 Those, however, who prefer the country, and are 
 unable to raise capital enough to "squat" on a sheep- 
 station, where, like the patriarchs of old, they may count 
 their flocks and herds by thousands, would probably choose 
 either a farmer's or a flax-planter's life. Now, a propos of 
 the former, I have heard poor people at home run down
 
 El
 
 79 
 
 the Australian and New Zealand preserved meats, which 
 no doubt may suffer a little from packing and transport ; 
 but let me assure them that out in the colony, Invercargill 
 beef, merino mutton from Canterbury, Stilton and Cheshire 
 cheeses made in Kangitikei and the Waikato, can fairly 
 hold their own against anything from the old country. A 
 farmer who is ambitious enough to extend his operations 
 beyond the dairy or root-crops, can now easily find a sale 
 for his "beeves" with the meat-preserving companies, 
 whose trade is assuming proportions beyond all previous 
 expectation. But, in my opinion, the flax-planter's life 
 presents even more attractions than fanning, if you look at 
 it from a pecuniary point of view ; and it derives an 
 additional interest from the vast number of uses to which 
 the fibre can and will be shortly put by those who are 
 devoting themselves to the industry. The fact that the 
 plant is only found in full perfection in New Zealand, 
 though indigenous also to the Scilly and Channel Islands, 
 makes the manufacture quite a specialty of the colony, 
 which we are wisely taking pains to encourage, by means 
 of premiums, exhibitions, and the labours of a permanent 
 " Flax Commission." 
 
 I have heard lately of the erection of immense rope- 
 walks at San Francisco, which will depend to a great 
 extent upon our little island for their material. The 
 supply of Manilla hemp cannot meet the increasing 
 demand at home and abroad for strong fibres, and I confess 
 I heard with selfish satisfaction, the other day, that the 
 crop there this year has been seriously damaged by some 
 little insect, which, from its evident partiality for us, 
 in thus encouraging our Phormium of New Zealand by the 
 destruction of its rival, deserves at once to be idolised like 
 the sacred beetle of the Egyptians, and placed among the 
 household gods of Kaihu.
 
 80 
 
 Among other uses of the flax (not to mention that 
 a mere strip of the green leaf will mend a stirrup-leather 
 or girth, or do for a shoe-lace, more especially if it be 
 slightly heated at the fire first to melt the gum), I found 
 that the refuse, when fresh, is an excellent febrifuge and 
 tonic, with a not unpleasant bitter taste. 
 
 But as we seldom get sick in New Zealand, and the 
 medicine would be apt to accumulate on our hands, it is 
 also worth mentioning that, when boiled, it forms a rich 
 brown dye, and in conjunction with the peaty water of 
 swamps, is used to colour the beautiful little hand-bags, 
 kits, and mats, which the natives plait for sale in Auckland 
 and New Plymouth. 
 
 Our fibre has already survived the antipathies and 
 jealousies with which manufacturers always regard any- 
 thing which necessitates a new adaptation of their machi- 
 nery ; it has ceased to fluctuate between extremes in the 
 market, and is now steadily rising in price, as its too little 
 known capabilities become realised at home, whilst in New 
 Zealand the first "rush" into the new industry has slack- 
 ened ; and instead of clergymen, schoolmasters, and small 
 capitalists with less knowledge than capital, who burnt 
 their fingers over this, as their prototypes did in the first 
 days of the railway mania at home, we have now men of 
 experience and energy, and sufficiently prudent to maintain 
 a uniform standard of excellence in their shipments, which 
 of itself will materially develop the trade in our new 
 " staple."
 
 81 
 
 THE KAWAU. 
 
 ABOUT twenty-eight miles to the N.E. of Auckland, in the 
 Hauraki Gulf, there is a little island called the Kawau, 
 which brings back vividly to one's memory the tales one 
 has read in boyhood of fairy spots in the Pacific seas, 
 where cast-away mariners, like Kobinson Crusoe, used to 
 live in solitary glory. Just as the Earls of Derby ruled the 
 Isle of Man in olden days, or Mr. Augustus Smith more 
 recently the Scilly Islands, so at the Kawau Sir George 
 Grey, the former Governor of New Zealand, is absolute 
 
 " Monarch of all he surveys, 
 And his right there is none to dispute." 
 
 This island, which measures about thirty miles round, 
 contains three magnificent harbours, one of which could 
 easily float the Great Eastern close to the shore at low water. 
 As you enter the middle harbour in the Comerang, a Bay 
 of Islands' steamer, which calls in with the weekly mail 
 from Auckland, a large English-looking house suddenly 
 breaks upon the sight from a lovely sequestered bay to the 
 right, where it stands embosomed in trees, within a few 
 yards of the shelving beach of white sand and gravel. 
 The loud whistle of the boat wakens the echoes of the hills 
 and glens as she nears the long pier, from which a little 
 boat is already putting out, laden with produce for the 
 Auckland market, and expectant of the newspapers and 
 letters which link their quiet existence with the busy stir 
 and bustle of the great outside world. 
 
 And this is indeed a spot where one might be well 
 
 F
 
 82 
 
 contented to pass the remainder of one's life in blissful 
 tranquillity ; amid scenes of exquisite beauty, with every 
 variety of plant, bird and beast ; an almost perfect climate ; 
 and a complete absence of care, were it not for the ever- 
 present thought that such an existence is almost too happy 
 for mortal man to lead; it is so completely shut off from 
 human misery that one begins almost to think the tales of 
 poverty in great cities, with their increasing myriads of 
 hunger- stricken squalid beings, are but an ugly dream of 
 the past ; for 
 
 " Segnius irritant animum demissa per aurem, 
 Quam quce sunt oculis submissa fidelibus." 
 
 This must surely be the Atlantis of the ancients, where 
 the earth gives forth her choicest fruits unasked, where 
 animal life has found its utmost limits of variety and 
 health, and where, with Plato, we may at length find 
 perfect happiness in the contemplation of beauty, and 
 sympathize with nature in her divinest guise. 
 
 Before I tell of all the delights of this little Paradise, 
 a type of what New Zealand will become in future years, 
 when her lifeless plains are peopled, her willing soil is 
 planted, and her forests of endless green diversified with 
 the bright colouring of English flowers, let me attempt a 
 short sketch of the previous history of the island. 
 
 There is immense interest here for the geologist, both in 
 the mineral riches of the place, and also in the fact that the 
 Kawau is a relic of a far older country than New Zealand. 
 The former has sunk into the sea, for the valleys that still 
 intersect it were clearly, in a previous age, the beds of large 
 rivers, whose watershed must have been from a far wider area 
 than this ; whilst the present main-land of New Zealand is 
 still slowly rising from the deep, and thus differs widely from 
 the Kawau in its origin and present state of volcanic dis-
 
 83 
 
 turbance. In fact, so comparatively new a creation are the 
 two islands of New Zealand proper, that it has been fre- 
 quently remarked that they were inhabited centuries too 
 soon. In the South the glacier period is still grinding 
 down the huge snow-clad mountains and forming of the 
 debris plains for future cultivation ; the precise action is 
 there still in force, which men of science detect in the 
 boulders of Huelgoat in Brittany, or those of Wales. 
 The North Island for many square miles is yet a seething 
 and boiling mass of chemical disturbance. The volcano 
 of Tongariro, the earthquakes at Wellington, the hot lakes 
 and geysers of Kotomahana, the extinct crater of Rangitoto 
 at the entrance to the Waitemata or Auckland harbour, 
 whose eruption still lives in Maori tradition, all prove how 
 comparatively recent an addition to our globe this portion 
 of its surface has been. The only land which can compare 
 with the Kawau for antiquity is Karewa Rock, from which 
 Captain Mair lately sent to the British Museum two lizards 
 (Hatteria punctata, Tuatara in Maori), the venerable repre- 
 sentatives of an extinct fossil genus found only in that 
 locality. 
 
 The Kawau in olden times was inhabited by a popu-
 
 84 
 
 lation of about two thousand Maories, which proves the 
 fertility of the soil ; the adjacent fisheries must also have 
 contributed largely to their sustenance. Now there is not 
 a living native on the island ! 
 
 I believe it was bought originally by squatters in New 
 South Wales, who intended to breed stock there. They 
 actually despatched a cargo of beasts, which were landed, 
 but next morning had disappeared in the dense bush, and 
 now form the herd of wild cattle, which infest the forests, 
 and number about five hundred head. 
 
 After this, it became the property of a succession of 
 copper-mining companies, who worked to more or less 
 profit the very rich mine on the west side, until in 1849 
 a discovery of gold in California, and the " rush " to that 
 country deprived them of the necessary labour ; and since 
 that time I believe nothing has been done in this direction, 
 although the old shaft and a fine smelting house still 
 remain as evidence of the past enterprise. 
 
 Lastly it passed into the hands of its present possessor, 
 Sir George Grey, who is rapidly converting it, by the 
 assistance of his own taste and the natural capabilities of 
 the place, into the Utopia which I am about to describe. 
 
 The house is built almost entirely of materials taken 
 from the spot ; there are fine kauri forests which supplied 
 timber for the ceiling and walls of the rooms, whilst the 
 matting for the floors is plaited from the native flax (Phor- 
 mium Tenax), of which vast quantities are found in the 
 swamps of the island. 
 
 To show how many-sided an existence one may lead in 
 this retirement, and how one is not entirely dependent on 
 nature here for enjoyment, I may mention that the library 
 contains about the finest collection of works on the dialects 
 of South Africa to be found in the world. They were col- 
 lected chiefly while Sir G. Grey was Governor of the Cape.
 
 85 
 
 In addition to this, you might spend weeks over his 
 Maori antiques and curiosities, many of them presents 
 from personal friends among his former subjects, and 
 others of them trophies of the last war. 
 
 There is the original idol which was brought in the 
 canoes from Hawaii, when the natives colonised New 
 Zealand, made from a hard red stone, for which one may 
 search their present country in vain ; there is the wooden 
 flute of the poet Toutanikai ; there are also several mere- 
 meres or greenstone clubs, of immense antiquity, the 
 symbols of authority and long descent, every one of which 
 with its minutest flaws is as well known to the Maories as 
 our celebrated diamonds to an expert in jewels. The 
 greenstone itself resembles the Chinese jade, and is only 
 found near Hokitika, on the West Coast of the Middle 
 Island, at the bottom of rivers. It is extremely hard 
 to cut, being of a greasy tough substance, but may be 
 bought in the rough for a mere song. It is seldom that a 
 piece of it turns out well in the cutting. There are two 
 main varieties, the dark opaque and the light semi- 
 transparent, of which the latter appears to be the least 
 common, though perhaps not the most valued. Each 
 great mere has a history of its own, telling who were its 
 possessors, in what battles they had been engaged, how 
 many skulls it had cleft in twain, besides personal anec- 
 dotes of the combatants and their families. You may buy 
 a pendant of this stone for your watch-chain at any shop 
 in Auckland for a few shillings; but attempt to bargain 
 with a native lady for the ugly little idol that hangs round 
 her neck, with huge eyes of red sealing-wax, or the lump 
 of greenstone tied in her ear, and at once you find that 
 " thereby hangs a tale," and that the prestige of antiquity 
 has trebled or quadrupled the value of such ornaments. I 
 saw lately the mere of a celebrated chief, named Jaketai,
 
 86 
 
 who died in Hawke's Bay Province. His child being still 
 of tender years, the guardians brought the precious heir- 
 loom to a friend of mine, and deposited it with him for 
 
 safety till the rightful heir came of age. As C was 
 
 about to visit England, he asked permission to take the 
 mere with him, which was granted. They however would 
 not touch or look at it themselves when he removed it from 
 the chest where he had kept it, for "was it not 'tapu,' 
 or sacred for a term of years"? He even told me that 
 Jaketai's widow, having caught an accidental glimpse 
 of the club as he was packing it, rushed from the house 
 with her hands before her eyes, in the utmost grief at 
 having invaded the sanctity of the relic by her profane 
 gaze. The last request they made, before C - left Napier, 
 was as follows : " Take it, show it to Queen Victoria, and 
 bring it back safely to us." A higher compliment to 
 a man could not be paid than entrusting him with this 
 precious charge, with no acknowledgment beyond his word. 
 It would be just as if the Emperor of Kussia gave 
 me his " blue diamond " to show my friends in England. 
 
 But, leaving these indoor sights as a resource for a 
 rainy day, let us wander through the maze of wonders 
 outside, while the Kawau wears its brightest autumn 
 garb. 
 
 First in order comes the garden. There you find 
 bushes of scented daphne growing with wild luxuriance, 
 and a profusion of blossom that I have never seen equalled 
 elsewhere ; trees of geranium and heliotrope ; English 
 violets breathing forth their modest fragrance in retired 
 nooks, and blushing beds of the ever-welcome rose. 
 Gigantic aloes guard the corners of the walks, whilst on 
 the hill-side is a dense jungle, or undergrowth of wild 
 ginger, interspersed with a Japanese plant, from the pulp 
 of which the exquisite rice-paper of commerce is made.
 
 87 
 
 The india-rubber trees, tea and coffee plants, small date- 
 palms grow side by side, and the only rule which prevents 
 the garden becoming a small epitome of the vegetable 
 universe, is that Sir G. Grey will not introduce any plant 
 which requires artificial heat or cannot thrive naturally in 
 the New Zealand climate. I think the list of fruit-trees in 
 itself is enough to attract emigrants to a country of such 
 wonderful capabilities. 
 
 In the early morning, before the sun had dried the cool 
 dew off the ground, you could saunter out and begin your 
 day with fruit ; the only true way to enjoy it thoroughly 
 being to pick it yourself when fresh. On one side ran 
 a line of bushes, studded with the small purple guava 
 whose flavour is a delicious acid, interspersed with ruddy 
 pomegranates, which do not ripen quite so well as the 
 oranges hard by. On the other side of the walk were 
 citrons, lemons, large fig-trees, prickly pears from Malta, 
 strawberries, and grapes, an enticing medley suited to the 
 most capricious tastes. 
 
 In the single class of pines and firs, this little island is 
 "California ipsa Californior " ; nearly every kind you can 
 mention is there, though naturally they will not rival the 
 American "big trees" in size for centuries to come. 
 
 But I am afraid of making this account too much of a 
 catalogue ; so we will proceed with our explorations. Every 
 bay or head- land in the Kawau appears to be devoted to a 
 different kind of animal. Close to the house, and on the 
 point round which the mail-boats came, I saw some tree- 
 wallaby from New Guinea. The " wallaby," let me say 
 for the information of home readers, is a smaller variety of 
 the kangaroo ; but to most Australians even, my saying 
 that I had seen wallaby perched in trees, like 'possums or 
 monkeys, would .seem as absurd as the story of Mark 
 Twain's buffalo in Roughing It, where there is a picture of
 
 88 
 
 the horned and hoofed beast climbing after a hunter, who 
 is perched in the top branches of a large oak. New 
 Guinea is still a terra incognita to most of the world ; and 
 tree-wallaby are as little known yet, as black swans were on 
 the first discovery of Australia. They are of a dark glossy 
 brown, with rather lighter fur in front ; and, as far as I 
 could see, made no use at all of their tails for holding on, 
 but kept them for the same object as a kangaroo, to give an 
 additional spring to their long hind legs. It is rather hard 
 to find them, as they are extremely shy and acute of hearing. 
 On the next point are rock-wallaby, who live on the 
 face of precipitous cliffs, and burrow like rabbits. Behind 
 them, on the high plateaux, are the " forester " or " bush " 
 kangaroo. I saw one " old man," standing away on the 
 sky-line, who must have measured full six feet in height. 
 The meadows near the house, and all the open ground is 
 alive with pheasants, and coveys of the pretty little Cali- 
 fornia-quail with their black crests, who always keep a 
 sentry perched on the stump of a neighbouring tree to 
 give them timely warning of the approach of strangers. 
 Towards the head of the middle harbour there is a colony 
 of wild pea-fowl, which it seems sacrilege to shoot. We 
 took no dog with us to hunt for them, but the sharp eyes 
 of our guide quickly detected the brilliant plumage on the 
 head of a fine old cock, glancing through the fern. You 
 must shoot them running if they wont rise ; but in either 
 case it would be nearly as bad to miss them as a haystack. 
 As we walked over the hills, I was glad to see English 
 daisies and buttercups springing up on the soft turf; it 
 made the place feel homelike and friendly. Little things 
 of this kind are very powerful in recalling to one's memory 
 the happy past ; in the words of Wordsworth : 
 
 "To me the humblest flower that grows can give 
 Thoughts that do lie too deep for human tears."
 
 89 
 
 I remember how we treasured some cowslip seeds, which I 
 planted lately on the river-bank beneath our flax mill ; they 
 came from a dear old house in England, where every 
 winter a small army of cousins used to meet for the 
 Christmas festivities. Talking of Christmas, we have a 
 mistletoe in New Zealand, but such an apology for the 
 genuine thing ; it is a much darker green, and has none of 
 the shining white berries which make the home plant look 
 so gay. It is wonderful how slight associations like these 
 help to cement the link that binds us with such an intense 
 clinging to the old country; the sight of a robin red- 
 breast, the song of a thrush in a far-off land, like the face 
 of old friends, awaken lively feelings of gratitude to the 
 Acclimatization Societies. Colonial-born children soon get 
 accustomed to decorating the house or church with rata, or 
 tree-fern, or cabbage-tree ; but to an emigrant these inno- 
 vations never will seem so appropriate as the bright holly 
 with its red berries, or the misletoe and ivy, which make 
 our Christmas bush at home. 
 
 Nature must have made the Kawau with a special view 
 to pic-nics and al fresco luncheons ; for, choose what direc- 
 tion you will for your mid-day saunter, the only provision 
 you need make for a meal is a small hammer to knock the 
 oysters off the rocks, wherever you like to sit down on the 
 shore. These rock-oysters are very small, but deliciously 
 flavoured ; they are not the same symmetrical shape as 
 those at home, and therefore you find it easier to open 
 them by a sharp blow on the butt with a stone or hammer, 
 insead of using a knife to prise them. The natives bring 
 great quantities into Auckland from the islands about 
 here ; and I found that, on board the steamer returning 
 to San Francisco, some kits of oysters, which had lain in 
 the full blaze of a tropical sun for more than a week, 
 without receiving more than an occasional douche of salt
 
 90 
 
 water, were as fresh as when we started, which is a decided 
 point in their favour. 
 
 You remember the saying in the Western States, that 
 in the prairie-dog cities on the plains, you always find a 
 " dog," an owl, and a rattlesnake living amicably in one 
 hole. Well ! in almost every bend of the Kawau, you will 
 find an oyster-bed, a pair of Cape geese, and a small 
 cottage at the head of the bay for some of the labourers. 
 These Cape geese are strangely exclusive birds ; they do 
 not congregate in flocks, but seem to prefer a Darby and 
 Joan existence, a perpetual tete-a-tete, and attack fiercely 
 any intruders on their special domain. I do not think 
 they ever leave the piece of water which they have first 
 appropriated to themselves at the commencement of their 
 wedded life. 
 
 At present there are about forty souls or eight families 
 living on the island. To each is allotted sufficient ground 
 for a small garden, a comfortable cottage, and as much 
 firewood as they can use. In return for this and their 
 wages, they are employed on road-works, clearing bush, 
 planting, and other out-door works. I believe Sir George 
 Grey intends to increase the number of inhabitants gradu- 
 ally to about two hundred ; and he tells me that the only 
 and most severe punishment he inflicts is banishment from 
 the Kawau, which I should suppose is regarded much in 
 the same light as the driving our progenitors Adam and 
 Eve from the Garden of Eden after the fall. He enforces 
 strictly temperance regulations ; no one is allowed to 
 import spirits or beer into the island except for medical 
 purposes; but I believe the use of tobacco is freely per- 
 mitted. At places in America, where I found the same 
 rule, such as the Mormon Territory and " Shaker " Settle- 
 ments, the people seemed none the worse for total absten- 
 tion. Another scheme, which I sincerely hope he will
 
 91 
 
 carry out, is the building of villas for sea-bathing which 
 would make a kind of sanatorium for people from Auckland 
 during the summer months ; they would be a special boon 
 to invalids. 
 
 I should be sorry however to see the Kawau over-run 
 at all by tourists, or becoming too busy a centre of industry, 
 which would destroy its great charm of retirement. And 
 yet the island is naturally very rich in resources for the 
 money-making man. First, there is the great copper-mine, 
 which is now lying perfectly idle ; and secondly, I am 
 nearly sure there is gold ; for one day, I walked up a little 
 bye-path to a water-fall, the basin of which and the 
 surrounding rocks were quartz-reefs, and I believe the 
 " colour" (of gold) has actually been seen there. 
 
 There is just a trifle too much excitement for me in wan- 
 dering through the back-parts of this island, especially if you 
 are accompanied by a dog. The latter is sure to go sniffing 
 about in the bush by the side of the road, after wild pigs or 
 cattle, and suddenly you hear a loud crackling of twigs, as 
 the animals take to their heels ; or should it prove to be 
 an old bull in the thicket, the first you know of it is a 
 sullen roar, which (" discretion being the better part of 
 valour,") strongly tempts you to look for the nearest avail- 
 able tree. Away on the sky-line, a wild bull, with his ears 
 erect, and lashing his tail as he scents the approach of 
 man, may be and is a very fine sight ; " but distance lends 
 enchantment to the view," and, as I had been carefully 
 impressed with the fact that, " when the dog sets them, you 
 must be cautious, for they always come at the man and 
 not the dog," I inwardly anathematized the brute of a dog 
 at times. He invariably seemed to come upon a " lurking 
 foe," at some awkward turn in the road where there was 
 no tree with sufficiently low branches to climb, or where an 
 open space left ample room for you to be caught in flight.
 
 92 
 
 Seriously however I did hear of several narrow escapes 
 from the cattle. Sir George Grey himself was attacked by 
 a cow one day, when taking a photographer round the 
 island to view the scenery. I forget who was the first 
 object of his fury, but the unhappy photographer tumbled 
 backwards into a hole about three feet deep, which con- 
 cealed him from view, while Sir George stepped aside from 
 the path just as she made her rush, coming off luckily with 
 no worse than a slight tear in his clothing from one of her 
 horns. Anyhow, the nuisance has become so great that 
 some men are now constantly employed in killing them and 
 salting down the beef for market. They make very slow 
 progress however, in their work of destruction, and the 
 cattle will continue to afford a sensation to future visitors 
 for many a year to come. It is said, that sometimes mis- 
 takes are made between them and the domestic beasts on 
 the farms. In one case, some sailors belonging to one of 
 Her Majesty's men-of-war, which had put in here for a day 
 or two, were allowed to land and go in search of sport after 
 the wild cattle. All they succeeded in bagging was a 
 valuable bullock, which was peaceably grazing near the 
 house ; " unconscious of his doom the little victim played." 
 The second story was more laughable still, and " no harm 
 done." A couple of "new hands," or fresh arrivals from the 
 old country, who were bidden to the chase, are said to have 
 seen a beast approaching them, and took to trees with the 
 utmost alertness. There they sat perched for hours, while 
 the savage and unrelenting foe paced beneath them like a 
 sentinel. Unfortunately as they thought at the time, they 
 had dropped their guns and could not finish him off; so they 
 remained like " patience on a monument " for some hours, 
 until messengers arrived from the house in search of the 
 missing men, and informed them that their bete noir was a 
 tame bullock which had been frightened by the wild
 
 93 
 
 cattle, and taken refuge under the tree in which they were 
 imprisoned. I trust I may be pardoned for repeating this 
 oft-told tale, but as I mention no names and should 
 probably have done exactly the same thing myself, perhaps 
 no apology is needed. 
 
 Very many of the birds and animals which have turned 
 out in the Kawau are seldom seen ; but I saw the tracks 
 of elk, Virginia spotted deer, fallow-deer, and other 
 creatures. One rare species of bird is the Australian bush 
 turkey, which must equal the capercailzie in size. 
 
 From where you look out towards the Coromandel 
 Ranges and the Thames, there is a small head- land, where 
 the wingless kiwi is carefully preserved. They are very 
 scarce, and the feathers are much prized for making caps and 
 cloaks among the Maories. It always appears to me a great 
 pity when any birds or plant is destroyed before the approach 
 of civilization. Man's works can generally be renewed, but 
 in nature, a single species once extinct is lost for ever.
 
 94 
 
 I am not prepared to argue that the dodo of the 
 Mauritius, for instance, was a particularly graceful bird, or 
 calculated to adorn the society in which it moved ; but it 
 was at least interesting for its very awkwardness ; and what 
 would our life be without the charm of variety. The little kiwi, 
 of which one sometimes sees specimens for sale in Auckland, 
 is a mottled-brown in colour, with a very long beak, like a 
 hoo-poe ; its legs look as if they had been stuck in, where 
 the tail ought to be. On Darwinian grounds, it is possible 
 to argue that these birds gradually " dropped" the fashion of 
 wings, because there was no need to fly in islands where there 
 is no quadruped larger than a rat to molest them. But, then, 
 what of the gigantic Moa, whose fossil remains show him 
 to have stood at least " twelve feet high in his stockings." 
 With or without wings, he would have been a match for 
 any beast of prey on earth ; so that, after all, it seems best 
 to suppose that they never had any such appendages, or 
 simply gave them up for conveniency's sake, having no 
 desire to leave their mother -country for foreign climates. 
 
 Quot homines, tot sentential One lives and learns out 
 here things that are passing strange. For example, I was 
 told in Napier the other day, that nothing in the world 
 improved land so much as to sow Scotch thistles on it 
 broad-cast. " Horses and other stock are very fond of 
 " the pink flowers ; and after three years, during which the 
 " roots have opened and manured the soil, the plant dies 
 " down for want of its proper subsistence, and never re- 
 appears." Do the burs never stick in the wool of the sheep 
 all this while, and destroy its value ? Fancy, spinning such 
 yarns as these to the men who passed the thistle act in 
 Victoria ! There, in the month of November, before the 
 seeds begin to fly through the air on their mischievous 
 errand, a procession starts from each " station," armed with 
 scythe and flags, to mark out the ground for cutting down
 
 95 
 
 the foe. The ceremony equals our harvest-home in im- 
 portance ; and if omitted, the neglect of it would be severely 
 punished by law. I am not surprised that the owner of the 
 Kawau was annoyed at finding a rank luxuriance of thistles 
 sown here during his absence in England to prove this 
 theory, for they show no signs yet of the dying down process. 
 We shall be told next of a new and excellent substitute for 
 tobacco ; for, in the early days of the colony, the white 
 traders did not scruple to sell dock- seeds to the simple 
 Maories, which have taken only too strong a hold of the land 
 on which they raised their tobacco-crops. Talk of giving 
 "stones for bread!"; that would be a far less harmful act. 
 
 From the highest point of the Kawau, a magnificent 
 view is to be obtained. On a clear day, Auckland is dis- 
 tinctly visible ; whilst on the ocean side, you see the Great 
 
 and Little Barriers, the Hen and Chickens, and all the 
 
 v 
 
 other islands dotted about the entrance to the Hanjaki 
 Gulf. More immediately beneath you are the windings of 
 Kawau Middle Harbour, which possesses all the charms of 
 lake scenery in its stillness, with the addition of bright 
 green salt water, over which you see the penguins swooping 
 down with shrill cries on the shoals offish. The island com- 
 bines the park-like undulations of Blenheim, the bold cliffs 
 and tides of Menai Straits, and the wooded mountain-sides 
 of Killarney or the Trossachs. 
 
 But with all these delights, I think I enjoyed my last 
 day most of all.* We went out "stingareeing," or spearing 
 sting-rays, a sport of which Dr. Kingsley gave such a 
 vivid account in the Field about a year ago. I had been 
 
 over in the morning to Rabbit Island ; and while B 
 
 landed with the gun, I was sitting in the boat and looking 
 down into the clear depths below. Suddenly, there glided 
 into the shallow waters three black monsters, floating 
 slowly along, like dark clouds or shadows, at the bottom of
 
 96 
 
 the sea. They were " sting- rays," flat, circular, slimy 
 masses, with malicious deep-set red eyes gazing upwards, 
 and a long spike behind which first showed me where their 
 tail began and head ended, covering the barbed sting with 
 which they disable their victims. I tied my sheath-knife 
 to the end of the boat-hook, and drove it into one of them, 
 but I might as well have tried to hold an elephant with a 
 skein of wool; the loathsome brute wriggled away from 
 me and came to the top with a plunge, skating off along 
 the surface, like the "ducks-and-drakes" which school-boys 
 make with flat pebbles. The strength of the creature 
 rather surprised me, and on my companion's return we 
 "concluded" to make better preparations for an attack on 
 them in the afternoon. Accordingly, after dinner, we got 
 the right sort of weapon, which is a trident on a long pole, 
 and fastened to a line. Fortune favoured us ; the day was 
 a little overcast, and there was not a ripple on the water to 
 disturb it, so that I could see some way ahead, as I peered 
 over the bows of the dingy, with the " grains," or spear, 
 poised in my hand, and a few coils of rope ready to let out 
 if I struck anything. The " sculler" also sits with his 
 face the way he is going, so that he can steer better, and 
 not frighten the fish by splashing his oars as he 
 approaches. For a good half-hour we floated along the 
 shore of the island, without securing more than a good- 
 sized mullet, which would not have succumbed so readily, 
 but for being stranded in a little pool by "the ebb of tide. 
 We exchanged places at last, and in five minutes or less I 
 saw one of mine enemies slipping lazily over the rocks, 
 while the receding waves sung a lullaby to his last com- 
 fortable doze. Slowly and silently we crept up, until 
 
 we were well over him, then down B drove the grains 
 
 into his ugly carcass. Off we went like lightning for a few 
 yards, myself " holding water" as hard as I could. He
 
 97 
 
 at last came to a dead stop, and sulked at the bottom, until 
 we fixed the "grains" more securely in his flesh. Then 
 we had a royal struggle for the mastery, he trying to take 
 us into deeper water, we hauling him up to the shallows, 
 where he had less room to fight. At last we pushed 
 him by main force into two feet of water, and, jumping 
 out of the boat, I chopped off his ugly head with my toma- 
 hawk. I didn't quite relish the way in which he lashed 
 his tail about in close proximity to my naked feet, for they 
 say the sting is hard enough to penetrate even a thick leather 
 boot. We lifted the inanimate mass into the boat, and as 
 we rowed leisurely homewards cut out his barbed sting of 
 ivory, about nine inches long, leaving the rest of his body 
 for garden manure, for which it is very useful. 
 
 Next morning, as we were starting off again to spear 
 " stingarees," we heard the distant pit-a-pat of the 
 steamer's paddles, and in a few hours the Comerang had 
 landed us in Auckland, to exchange the realities of every- 
 day life for the pleasures of the dream-land we had left 
 behind us. 
 
 G
 
 98 
 
 THE NEW OVERLAND ROUTE, OR HOW TO GET 
 TO NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 Now that the tide of emigration and travel has fairly set 
 towards New Zealand, and she has entered upon a career 
 of prosperity even greater than her best friends could have 
 expected, it may be worth while to give people some idea 
 of how the journey is to be made from England to the 
 Antipodes. There are, at present, four distinct routes, all 
 of which have excellences of their own to offer in different 
 respects. The first and cheapest is to start by sailing- 
 vessel direct from Glasgow, Liverpool, or London, the 
 voyage by which takes about one hundred days. If you have 
 a quantity of luggage, and if you are transporting to the new 
 home all your Lares and Penates, such as furniture, stock- 
 in-trade of farming implements or machinery, there is little 
 doubt you would choose this route, as there is no tranship- 
 ment to be undergone ; and what you lose in time you gain 
 in economy, for a first-class cabin passage only costs about 
 60 ; and assisted passages, which are now being granted 
 by the Colonial Government at their London Agency, can 
 be obtained for a sum varying between 3 and J62 for 
 married people and single men, whilst unmarried women 
 between 14 and 35 years of age are taken gratis. It is 
 even said that a premium will soon be offered to heads of 
 families, taking out two or three suitable girls to the Colony 
 under their charge. There is an extraordinary demand at 
 present for this class of labour female domestic servants ; 
 a ship load of forty Norwegian girls, who landed at Napier 
 lately, and none of whom could speak English with any
 
 99 
 
 facility, were all engaged the first day they went on shore ; 
 and in Auckland, when an emigrant ship is signalled, you 
 will see in the office a list of perhaps two hundred names of 
 people wanting servants ; they have to wait their turn, and 
 take whoever they can get when the ship arrives. Even 
 then many are disappointed, and have to wait for another 
 lot. The country is quite a Paradise for labour ; for not 
 only are wages high and hours short, but in social position 
 servants gain so much, as they have a change of bettering 
 themselves indefinitely here. And then a little experience 
 in service goes such a long way ; " it is easy to be a whale 
 among minnows," and we have often to put up with pre- 
 tentious ignorance, and teach our minnows what little they 
 do know before they become " whales." 
 
 Another very favourite route for invalids, or men with 
 large families, is to travel by the Great Britain from Liver- 
 pool, or one of Money Wigram's steamers from London, 
 transhipping once only at Melbourne, from whence there is 
 good communication every week with all parts of New 
 Zealand. This voyage takes about sixty days to Melbourne, 
 and eight days to Dunedin or Auckland. It has the recom- 
 mendation of good English food all the way, and little 
 trouble. 
 
 The third and most luxurious route perhaps, is to take 
 the Peninsular and Oriental boat from Southampton, 
 Venice, or Brindisi ; the accommodation on board in the 
 way of baths, berths, food, wine, piano, smoking-room, &c., 
 is proverbially excellent, and the journey fairly interesting, 
 if one has never seen Egypt, or Point of Galle before ; but 
 there is one great drawback to it in the passage of the Red 
 Sea, which is at all times unpleasant, and frequently almost 
 intolerable. 
 
 Last of all comes the New Overland Route by steamer, 
 from Liverpool to New York, across America by rail to
 
 100 
 
 Sail Francisco, and thence by steamer touching at the 
 Sandwich and Navigator Islands to Auckland. In point of 
 time (if the steamers on the Pacific were at all up to the 
 mark) this would be incomparably the shortest way, and 
 ought not to occupy more than six weeks ; but, as a matter 
 of fact, the journey is rarely accomplished under two 
 months ; and though there is much to see en route, the 
 discomfort and positive danger of the American mailboats, 
 and the constant delays in winter from snow-drifts when 
 crossing the Continent, are gradually driving people away 
 from what should be the high-road to the Southern 
 hemisphere under more favourable circumstances. In 
 any case it is better to return from than to go to New 
 Zealand this way ; as in coming home you are sure to find 
 a steamer waiting for you any day of the week at New 
 York, to put you " over the ferry," and can thus please 
 yourself how long you remain at each place on the line of 
 rail, without being tied to a day or two ; whereas, going to 
 New Zealand, you must be at San Francisco on a certain 
 date to catch the mailboat, which only leaves once a month. 
 I have tried it myself in both directions, and in giving a 
 short account of it, prefer to describe my journey from 
 Auckland homewards, so that I may have a double experi- 
 ence to guide me in recording my impressions. When I 
 went out to New Zealand in 1871, there were two rival lines 
 of steamers on the Pacific; the one ran from San Francisco 
 to Sydney, via Honolulu and the Fijis ; the other direct to 
 Auckland, via Honolulu and the Navigators. The boats of 
 the first were rather small but clean, and the table was 
 liberally supplied with English cookery, viz., joints, pud- 
 dings, and fruits. An American of the name of Hall had 
 chartered the steamers Wonga- Wonga and City of Melbourne, 
 from the Australian Steam Navigation Company ; but there 
 was not room for opposition, and he had to succumb to
 
 101 
 
 the superior capital and pretensions of his countryman 
 Mr. Webb, to whom our extravagant little Colony, under 
 Mr. Vogel's auspices, has been paying an annual subsidy 
 of 60,000 for an ill-performed and uncertain four- weekly 
 service. The steamers to which the safety (?) of Her 
 Majesty's subjects and mails were recently entrusted, are 
 three in number, the Nevada, Nebraska, and Dacota ; great 
 big wooden paddle-boats of 3,000 tons, with massive beam- 
 engines, and enormous hulls. It has always been a moot 
 point, what would become of them if their machinery broke 
 down, as they do not carry sufficient sail to make steerage- 
 way in case of any such accident; but passengers were 
 always assured that there was no instance on record of bad 
 weather or hard work affecting their powers of going ; so on 
 they went, in a reckless kind of way, till now we read in a 
 recent number of the Times: "On the arrival of the 
 Nevada, in Auckland, on December 16th, a unanimous 
 protest was signed by her passengers, against the state of 
 the vessel; they were never twenty-four hours without one of 
 the boilers giving out ; for a considerable time the engines 
 were altogether stopped, and the steamer lay for hours in the 
 trough of a heavy sea, all hands, passengers and crew, 
 working at the pumps by relays," &c., &c. 
 
 So much for the general history of the line ; my per- 
 sonal reminiscences are nearly as unpleasant in many 
 respects. For various reasons, my brother and I had kept 
 deferring the day of our departure from month to month, 
 until at last we had almost decided to leave Auckland by 
 the Nebraska, in August, 1872. Shortly after she had left 
 the harbour, in June, however, a sinister rumour began to 
 spread abroad that she had brought small-pox down with 
 her on the last trip from the United States, and that two 
 of the seamen on board were infected when the vessel left 
 Auckland again. Credence was attached to this report
 
 102 
 
 from the fact that a man named Thompson, who had been 
 landed there sick, died shortly afterwards in hospital. 
 There was a small panic in the island ; New South Wales 
 and Victoria quarantined our vessels ; an enterprising 
 doctor paraded a calf before his door in Parnell, whilst 
 hundreds rushed to be vaccinated ; and one read an adver- 
 tisement in the papers about " a fresh heifer ready by the 
 end of the month ; " whilst opinions were freely expressed 
 that the scourge would more than decimate the population 
 if it were allowed to spread ; and as for Maories, there 
 would be no more need for volunteers or armed constabu- 
 lary to protect us against the infinitesimal remnant of 
 natives which would survive the infection. However, not 
 more than four white people died ; and the Thames chiefs 
 prudently issued orders forbidding their people to come 
 into town till the panic subsided. To our surprise we 
 found that the natives were as fully alive to the merits of 
 vaccination as ourselves, and had for some time had their 
 own practitioners in the art. But nevertheless, we made 
 up our minds that the Nebraska would not come back, and 
 so we hurried our preparations to go by the Nevada in 
 July. When she arrived, to our dismay we found her 
 boilers sadly out of order, and the shaft on the port side 
 suspiciously cracked in three places. " Small-pox or ship- 
 wreck," utrum horum mavis, accipe ! We were on. the 
 horns of a dilemma, but decided to risk the latter evil, as 
 Nancarrow, the Government inspector, said that she would 
 be safe enough at half- speed, and with only eleven pounds' 
 pressure of steam ; but he urged that she should be laid up 
 at the end of her voyage for repairs. She had then run 
 over fifty thousand miles in sixteen months, without an 
 overhaul ; whereas (to show the difference) the Cunard and 
 other first-rate boats are carefully examined each time they 
 come into the dock at Liverpool. This was in July, 1872,
 
 103 
 
 and the Nevada has been running ever since, under protest 
 from the captain, Until her last mishap, as above, in Decem- 
 ber of the same year. Many of our fellow-passengers backed 
 out at the last moment from fear of accident, but we came 
 through safely enough after all. But I should be sorry to 
 speak no good word for the line ; although the stewards 
 are extremely dirty and rather uppish, although the disci- 
 pline is lax, and the officers do not look so neat as are 
 those on Red Sea boats, with their spruce uniforms and 
 (on occasions) white kid gloves, still there is a magnificent 
 promenade along the whole length of the hurricane deck, 
 from bow to stern, and the three tiers of cabins are wonder- 
 fully well ventilated, with the exception of an occasional 
 whiff from the cattle, sheep, and poultry forward, which 
 might be the case on any boat, where the meat is not 
 stored in an ice-house. The cookery is questionable; 
 there is an attempt at reform from the profusion of little 
 dishes to which one is accustomed in an American hotel ; 
 but they have fallen between two stools in the effort, and 
 there is a smack of both nationalities, with the distinctive 
 merits of neither. Up to the end of the solids all goes 
 smoothly; then pudding, cheese, dessert, and coffee are 
 huddled on together to save time, and to prevent the meat 
 growing cold for the stewards, who dine at the same table 
 immediately after the saloon passengers have finished. 
 The Englishman's love for a matutinal tumby is beginning 
 to be understood, though at first the captain of the 
 Nebraska could not understand "the Britishers wanting more 
 water in the bath-room than would wet their sponges." 
 Beyond and above all this there is a barber's shop on 
 board, which is not yet fully appreciated by us as it should 
 be ; all good Americans go to be shaven every morning, 
 and seldom perform the office for themselves. To those who 
 have never experienced the skill of negro barbers, hair-
 
 104 
 
 dressing is robbed of half its pleasures ; for all through the 
 United States there are three occupations or professions 
 almost monopolised by our black brethren, viz., barbering, 
 waiting at table, and whitewashing houses. 
 
 In about three days' steaming from Auckland, one is 
 out of the region of variable winds and into the tropics, 
 where for the rest of the voyage a deliciously cool trade- 
 wind blows steadily from the east, and prevents the heat 
 from ever becoming oppressive. The " social hall," at the 
 head of the cabin stairs, is a good sized comfortable room 
 for reading in ; piano there was none, but we soon found 
 a couple of concertinas on board, and inaugurated " The 
 Amateur Musical and Dramatic Club," with a dozen per- 
 forming members. I contributed a collection of Orpheus 
 Glees, Musical Times, and Mendelssohn's Open-air Quar- 
 tettes, which our choir rendered very effectively. My 
 brother performed on the Picco-pipe, and gave a few 
 humorous recitations from Hans Breitman's famous bal- 
 lads ; and an old gentleman, called Donaldson, gave us 
 some of the best comic songs I ever heard, one being "Kate 
 McClusky, or the Gooseless Gander," the other an entirely 
 new version of " Old King Cole," one verse of which might 
 have been written to describe King Thakombau of the Fiji 
 Islands, so accurate is the likeness. It was as follows : 
 
 " His sign for Eex was a single X, 
 
 And his drink was ditto double ; 
 So to read and to write were useless quite, 
 And it saved him a vast deal of trouble." 
 
 The German consul from Hobarton, Tasmania, was 
 our conductor, and to him we owed most of our success. 
 
 On the eighth day, at dusk, we sighted Upola, one 
 of the Samoan or Navigator Group, and about nine o'clock 
 p.m. we stopped off Pango-pango (the finest harbour in
 
 105 
 
 the South Pacific), until the canoes came out with a chance 
 passenger or two, and a welcome supply of bananas, cocoa- 
 nuts, and other fruits. I had heard that cakes of scented 
 soap were much prized by these savages, and accordingly I 
 had laid in a stock to barter for curios. I exchanged some 
 with a gigantic chief who came on board, for a handful of 
 the lovely green opercula shells, which make very neat 
 sleeve-links or solitaires ; but. to my horror and amuse- 
 ment, he raised it to his mouth, and, exclaiming interroga- 
 tively "kai-kai?" (food?) was going to make a bite at 
 it, if I had not stopped him and explained its uses. 
 
 These Samoans are the most lovely race of savages 
 with whom it has been my fortune to meet ; they have not 
 the flat noses, thick lips, and frizzled hair of the negro type, 
 but have distinctly European features, and a very pleasing 
 expression. The colour of their skin is a rich golden ; 
 their whole costume is limited to a light fringe of grass 
 round the waist, and the women confine themselves in the 
 way of tattooing to a couple of thin blue lines across the 
 lips. The men are of great physical strength and enor- 
 mous stature ; they have a queer disdain for us whites, and 
 say that while we employ brute force, e. g. Armstrong guns, 
 etc., like a bull, they have the reason and intellect of the 
 child who runs away from the bull. 
 
 They live a happy graceless life ; the earth unasked 
 produces her treasures in abundance ; they have no need to 
 dig when all is ready to their hand. They bask in the 
 sunshine, or bathe in the cool waters of some retired cove, 
 and cannot understand why we should come to thrust 
 our business worries upon them, to buy their land and 
 grow cotton and sugar, and disfigure the romantic pic- 
 turesqueness of their islands with convenient but intrusive 
 roads ; and, above all, why we should send missionaries, 
 who can't agree among themselves, and who attempt to
 
 106 
 
 introduce all-concealing garments, of which the want was 
 before unknown. It isn't half as pretty a dress as the 
 garlands of fresh flowers with which they love to adorn 
 themselves in their artless and primitive simplicity. They 
 are not moral, according to our ideas far from it, but 
 they have a strong sense of the aesthetic, and chastity does 
 not rank as a virtue among them, where the reverse is 
 no sin. They are very clever at hammering out shillings 
 into rude silver rings between a couple of stones, and they 
 also bring for sale little tortoise-shell ornaments, inlaid 
 with silver. Their coiffure might have come from Paris or 
 London, for when I was there bright red hair was in vogue 
 with both sexes. They plaster their heads over with lime 
 for a few days, which destroys the original colour of the 
 hair, and produces a loud saffron tinge. When a man 
 becomes engaged, the fair fiancee often clips her flowing 
 locks, and brings them to her Adonis, who plaits them 
 in elaborately with his own, producing a most elaborate 
 head-dress. The disgusting way in which they prepare 
 kava, an intoxicating drink, by chewing, has often been 
 described, and I do not care to repeat it. 
 
 Strangely enough, the Samoans are just one day behind 
 all the rest of the world. Their Sunday should be the 
 same day as in New Zealand and Australia, but, as their 
 missionaries came from the East to them, and forgot to 
 miss out a day in their reckoning, they have perpetuated 
 the mistake. It was Monday on board the Nevada when 
 we touched at Pango-pango, but with them it was still the 
 Sabbath, and in consequence we were unable to "trade" to 
 any large extent. In this respect, the missionaries have 
 certainly produced the most stringent observance of their 
 teaching, however much they may fail in checking immo- 
 rality. I was the more struck with it, because a ship 
 doesn't call here every day, and they must have felt
 
 107 
 
 sorely tempted to make the most of our visit by a 
 little contraband dealing. 
 
 We heard a good deal about life in these islands from a 
 lady who came on board here for San Francisco. She had 
 been living in Apia, the largest of the group, for some 
 time, and told us there were about fifty white settlers in 
 all, British, German, and American. Her husband, an 
 energetic Scotchman, who came to see her off, had taken 
 up an immense block of land here for sugar and cotton, 
 and his partner has lately been in England to try and form 
 a Steamship Company for working the island trade, by 
 taking Tahiti as a centre, and running boats thence to 
 Sydney, Auckland, the Navigator and Sandwich Islands, 
 and San Francisco. It seemed strange and somewhat 
 incongruous, to see a highly-refined and well-dressed 
 
 Englishwoman like Mrs. C step out of a canoe full of 
 
 naked savages, and to hear her experiences of "roughing it." 
 It shows what ladies can put up with in these out-of- 
 the-way places, and what a curiously abnormal life some of 
 
 our fellow countrymen lead out of England. Mrs. C 
 
 was born in Tahiti, had been living in Sydney, Melbourne, 
 had often visited New Zealand, and now after a few years 
 in the Navigators, was going to California to see her 
 daughter and nieces educated. I kept wondering to myself, 
 how one that had never seen England could be so 
 thoroughly English, and, in that lonely spot still preserve 
 the fascination of manner which made her so universal a 
 favourite on board our steamer. For the last eight years 
 with one short interval, a sanguinary war has been going 
 on in these islands between the young king and an 
 usurping uncle. The natives have run very short of ammu- 
 nition now, and were firing old bottles and all kinds of 
 rubbish from their guns, with as much danger to them- 
 selves as their adversaries. Like the Maories, they never
 
 108 
 
 spare a wounded man ; nay, worse, if your friends see you 
 lying on the ground crippled, they decapitate you them- 
 selves, to save your relations and you the indignity of 
 having your head exhibited to the women in the enemy's 
 camp. The heads, however, when taken as trophies are 
 only kept for a time, and then "returned with care" to their 
 belongings to be buried with the body. Both sides seem 
 to respect the white people, possibly from the fact of there 
 being several men-of-war in harbour to protect their 
 respective nationalities. When a European wishes to pass 
 between the conflicting parties, he simply puts up his 
 umbrella, which is the signal for " cease firing," while be 
 walks over the neutral grounds in the middle of the two 
 fortifications. We had two other passengers on board who 
 contributed to our information on the subject. One a 
 Frenchman, who was going to the States to raise capital, 
 either for guano-islands or pearl-fisheries, I forget which. 
 By the bye, the latter is just now the fashionable pursuit 
 for our Colonial young ideas. " Fit up a small vessel 
 with stores and defensive weapons, go off to North Austra- 
 lia to fish for pearls, and make your fortune in a couple of 
 years." There is a smack of adventure, and at first sight 
 an absence of steady grind, which makes the scheme sound 
 attractive. The other gentleman, who knew Samoa, was 
 
 our friend D , a dry old Scotchman, the same who 
 
 sang "Old King Cole" at our concert. ^He was quite a 
 character, and to my mind spent a very happy life. He is 
 an indefatigable naturalist, and had been wandering all 
 over the Pacific Ocean, collecting new fishes, and birds, and 
 insects, native weapons and implements, in fact, every 
 kind of curiosity he could pick up. He told me that he 
 has an estate in Southern Indiana, U.S.A., of miraculous 
 beauty, on which there are seven or eight subterranean 
 caves, equal if not superior to the celebrated Mammoth
 
 109 
 
 Cave in Kentucky. He seemed to know all I could tell 
 him, from my personal experience or hearsay, about the 
 Kentucky Caves, the Caves at Deloraine in Tasmania, the 
 Caves on the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, the 
 Alabaster Cave at Folsom in California, or the Amber Caves 
 near Rio Janeiro. So I caved in and let him do the 
 talking. In the summer, he frequently has picnic parties 
 of one hundred young ladies from Indianapolis and Cincin- 
 nati, to visit the wonders of his house and its vicinity. 
 He has made the most beautiful pictures and designs of 
 flowers, from the brightest feathers of birds, which he 
 collected in different parts of the world. But his highest 
 pride is in the fact, that he was the first man to tame 
 humming birds; he prepares some honey and water for 
 his pets, when he has a visitor, and places the liquid in a 
 diminutives shell, giving it you to hold; and upon his 
 whistling, two or three little " jets of liquid fire," (the ruby- 
 breasted humming bird) dart down from the trees and sip 
 from the shell in your hands. His only condition is that 
 you must never touch or stroke the tiny things ; it seems 
 that noli me tang&re is their motto, for they regard it as 
 an unpardonable insult, and never return again if the 
 rule be transgressed. Among other curiosities, he has the 
 two-handled and two-edged sword, formerly used by the 
 headsman of Saxony, which he bought after the last execu- 
 tion of that kind took place there. In his photograph- 
 album there was an excellent cabinet likeness of Cakobau 
 Rex of the Fijis, with the king's own mark X attached. 
 
 This worthy monarch, when chatting to Mr. D , among 
 
 other reminiscences of his boyhood, told him that he 
 distinctly remembered being taken out by his father for a 
 walk before breakfast to select a meal ; and that whenever 
 he saw a particularly appetizing slave, his father gave the 
 man orders to lie down on the ground, while the little lad
 
 110 
 
 Thakombau battered his brains out with a toy-club. He 
 has now taken to better practices ; has acquired a gentle- 
 manly taste for old Hollands, and formed a responsible 
 government at Levuka of " mean whites," which is ignored 
 by all the better class of settlers in his kingdom. 
 
 To return to the voyage proper. Shortly after leaving 
 Pango-pango and the Samoan group, the Nevada began to 
 exhibit refractory symptoms. Instead of running on an 
 even keel, she became lop-sided and threw all the work 
 on the port paddle-wheel, the shaft of which was known to 
 be suspiciously cracked when we left Auckland. This was 
 a mystery to us, especially as it made the pump in our bath- 
 room on the starboard side incapable of use. But at last 
 we discovered there was only too much reason for the 
 step ; it was a choice of two evils, for, although the shaft 
 on one side was cracked, on the other side one-third of the 
 crank had worn clean away ; and it was a question whether 
 at any moment we might not break down, and drift help- 
 lessly about, till at last possibly we should starve, or else 
 be cast upon the New Hebrides or some unfriendly shore, 
 to be knocked on the head by some cannibal like Tha- 
 kombau, and eaten without even being properly cooked. I 
 often started up from my sleep with the idea that the 
 engines had stopped, and the bad times come ; and one or 
 two of us used to speculate as to whom we would eat first, 
 if it came to a push. Our decision was babies first, and 
 then the stoutest men, before they began to fall off and 
 lose weight, which would cause waste. It really would be 
 highly unpleasant for a vessel to break down in the Pacific ; 
 it is at present a vast deserted unknown ocean, considering 
 its size ; and except the sister-boat Nebraska, we had not 
 sighted a sail the whole way. All our fears proved ground- 
 less, however, and we steamed into Honolulu safely enough 
 in nineteen days from Auckland. The Sandwich Islands
 
 Ill 
 
 are an enchanting spot, as the ship glides into harbour with 
 shoals of red, white, and blue flying-fish playing across 
 the bows, skimming through the air, and dropping with 
 a light splash into the clear depths below, where the white 
 coral is easily seen, as you bend over the side. The town 
 has a snug, bright appearance, nestled among cocoanuts 
 and other rich tropical foliage. Cloud-capped mountains 
 rise immediately behind it, clothed to the very tops with 
 trees. The Kanakas or natives have such pleasing, good- 
 natured faces, the men are strong, independent fellows, and 
 the women have so free and graceful a gait, moving with 
 their heads erect, and just sufficient swing in their walk to 
 show the outline of their figures through their black or 
 parti- coloured gowns, which have no waist or stays to spoil 
 the general contour. 
 
 To adapt the words of Tom Moore 
 
 Lesbia wears a robe of gold, 
 
 Bat all so close the nymph has laced it; 
 Not a charm of beauty's mould 
 
 Presumes to stay where nature placed it. 
 Oh ! my native gown for me, 
 
 That floats as wild as mountain breezes, 
 Leaving every beauty free 
 
 To sink or swell as heaven pleases. 
 
 They add very much to their tout ensemble by wearing 
 garlands of flowers, ferns, and everlastings round their 
 necks and on their heads. On my last visit I was com- 
 fortably lodged by an old New England body from Vermont, 
 at whose house I had a fine large room, with a shower- 
 bath out in the garden ; whilst I used to get my meals at 
 the hospitable little British Club. This time, however, I 
 found an enormous hotel built, in which the food is that of 
 America, with the addition of an abundance of delicious 
 fruits, whilst the verandah, and easy chairs, and natives
 
 112 
 
 standing below, rather reminds one of Shepheard's in 
 Cairo. The steamers stop here a very short time ; but 
 Honolulu is already becoming a fashionable wintering- 
 place, and we found the place full of our Transatlantic 
 cousins, and some few passengers for the Antipodes. It is 
 well worth stopping over here for a month to run down to 
 Kilauea, the great volcano in Hawaii ; the voyage itself is 
 a short one, but as the mail-boat for San Francisco only 
 passes once a month, few have so much leisure time to 
 spare when running home on a hurried visit from the 
 colonies. Besides, communication had been stopped 
 between Oahu and the other islands at this time, owing to 
 the small-pox, introduced into Honolulu by the Nebraska. 
 We found she had not suffered as we expected during her 
 last voyage hither, despite the infection on board when 
 she left Auckland ; but I believe she was heavily fined this 
 time whilst in Honolulu, for having brought it to the 
 island originally from San Francisco. We had time to 
 ride up to the "Pali," a gap in the mountain-pass above 
 the town, through which the trade-wind rushes, as through 
 a funnel, with extraordinary force, and where one gets a 
 fine view of half the island, including a precipice whence 
 they used to throw their victims in former days, and 
 Diamond Cove, where the beach is strewed with the white 
 and bleaching bones of the warriors who fell in a great 
 battle fought there by the victorious king Kamehameha I. 
 
 Half-way down, between the Pali and the town, where 
 most of the European residents live, and thus escape the 
 heat of the plain, we turned up a road which led to the 
 American minister's house, and tethered our horses, whilst 
 we had a swim in the pool below. I saw a Kanaka jump 
 thirty feet down from an overhanging rock into this 
 stream, feet foremost, and he seemed to think nothing of 
 the feat. The only other ride for a passing visitor is down
 
 113 
 
 to the King's Palace in the Cocoanut Grove ; and whilst 
 there, I got a native to climb a tree and bring us down 
 some green nuts. He tore the outer husk off with his 
 teeth, getting a purchase on the nut with his feet and 
 hands, like a monkey. The cool fresh milk, and the 
 creamy coating inside, while still soft enough to be scooped 
 out with a spoon, are proverbially delicious. The evening 
 before we left, Madame Simonsen's Italian Opera Company 
 gave a farewell performance at the little theatre ; but the 
 rival claims of the Royal Band, who are now rapidly 
 improving, under the skilful tuition of a German master, 
 drew away most of the islanders ; they naturally prefer to 
 encourage native talent, and then there is all the extra 
 charm of sauntering about in the open air. 
 
 It is advisable, when stopping here, to lay. in a stock of 
 limes, pine-apples, bananas, and oranges for the voyage, as 
 the supply on these American boats is very limited. The 
 Chinese also make very cheap and comfortable cane arm- 
 chairs, which are a great comfort on board. 
 
 The scene as the boat leaves Honolulu is rather inte- 
 resting. Being the event of the month, *all the rank and 
 fashion of the place came to see us off. Queen Emma was 
 there, in her neat little landau and pair, with the coach- 
 man and two footmen in dark green livery, and cockades 
 on their hats. She is an universal favourite with both 
 Kanakas and whites. I also noticed Prince William 
 Lunalilo, a stout, goodhumoured-looking man, in pot-hat, 
 white ducks, and cut-away black velvet coat. He has been 
 elected king since I was there, on the death of Kame- 
 hameha V., and if he can only restrain his "mixed moral 
 character," and curtail his liking for ardent spirits, there is 
 no reason why he should discredit the throne from want of 
 ability. 
 
 Our new steamer was the Idaho, the slowest old tub 
 
 H
 
 114 
 
 that ever disgraced a mail-service. We took fifteen days to 
 get to San Francisco, a voyage which I had made in eight- 
 and-a-half days in the Wonga-Wonga. And the torments 
 we endured from dirt, incivility, heat, and crowding ! The 
 anxiety of travelling by the broken-down Nevada was bad 
 enough (and they sent her back to New Zealand again, in 
 the face of a protest from her captain, instead of laying 
 her up for repairs), but in the Idaho it was a case of " out 
 of the frying-pan into the fire." 
 
 Once the line is fairly established, as it promises to be, 
 the big steamers will be increased in number, and run 
 right through between Auckland and San Francisco, thus 
 avoiding the transhipment at Honolulu, and saving time ; 
 but on this occasion we had taken on board a much 
 smaller steamer, not only our original complement, but 
 fifty additional passengers from the Islands. I never slept 
 below after the horrors of the first night, but coiled myself 
 up in a 'possum rug on deck, where I awoke early enough 
 every morning to get the "refresher" of a douche from the 
 hose, when the sailors were washing the decks. And yet, 
 every cloud has a silver lining. The officers were particu- 
 larly pleasant. Captain Howell was a brother-in-law of 
 Jeff. Davis, late President of the Confederate States ; the 
 purser, Mr. Howard, was a Harvard man, and therefore 
 was especially civil to me when he found I was a brother to 
 the man who led Oxford to victory against his fellow- 
 collegians. 
 
 We managed to shake down somehow, though we were 
 never exactly comfortable, and with the aid of some pretty 
 half-castes from Honolulu, who have a particular talent 
 for part-music, our concerts not only resumed their former 
 prestige, but became less formal and more social. 
 
 I was rather disgusted at the extent to which gambling 
 was carried in the smoking-room. There were several
 
 115 
 
 "old hands" from Ballarat gold-fields who were utterly 
 reckless at unlimited loo and lansquenet. Frequently two 
 or three hundred pounds changed hands in an evening, 
 and it was with peculiar delight I learnt that Simonsen, 
 the husband of the prima- donna before mentioned, dis- 
 honoured his I U on reaching dry land, which punished 
 the chief winner to some extent, as he held it. 
 
 Exactly five weeks after leaving New Zealand (ten days 
 longer than we ought to have been), we steamed through 
 the Golden Horn, which as usual was enveloped in a cloud 
 of mist, into San Francisco Bay. 
 
 Now were I to commence a description of all that is to 
 be seen in California, I might fill a book easily ; but so 
 much has already been written on the subject that I 
 confine myself to merely mentioning what ought to be 
 seen, and hinting at the agreeables or otherwise of the 
 journey. 
 
 Of all the cities in the United States of America, San 
 Francisco is best provided with hotels. There is not 
 a pin to choose between the Occidental, Cosmopolitan, 
 Grand, and Lick House. 
 
 During the two days in which the traveller ought 
 to recruit his wasted energies for the overland route, by a 
 generous diet and a comfortable bed to sleep in, he will be 
 pestered by " railway touts," and the sooner he makes up 
 his mind by which route he is to cross the Continent the 
 quieter will be his life. This rigorous competition between 
 the railways has a good effect in one way. They bid 
 against each other in promoting one's comfort during what 
 I think a most fatiguing journey. One offers to run a 
 " through car" to Ogden, and theuce to New York, with a 
 single change at Omaha, if you can make up a small 
 party. Another has a " compartment car," which secures 
 you all the privacy of your own sitting-room, and enables
 
 116 
 
 ladies to dress and wash in comparative comfort, without 
 sitting on their berth or standing in the public passage. 
 By this line you get "hotel cars ;" and by feeding while the 
 train is running, you have time to stretch your legs when it 
 stops, instead of bolting a hurried meal in the wayside 
 restaurant; by that line you see Niagara Falls and the 
 Hudson. Or you can branch off at Cheyenne, and go 
 through Denver to Kansas city, if you are fond of buffalo 
 hunting ; on the Saline River, which may be reached from 
 Fort Hays, you will get the best of sport about July or 
 August, and the officers at these remote stations are only 
 too glad to have an opportunity of showing their hospitality 
 to a casual visitor. But the best plan is to take the journey 
 as easily as possible, unless you care to make yourself 
 a martyr. Don't rush across the Continent in seven days, 
 as you can do ; but before leaving the Pacific coast drive to 
 the Seal Eock, where the sea-lions disport themselves; 
 spend an evening at the Chinese Theatre, and another at 
 Woodward's Gardens. Then devote three days to the 
 Geysers. Go there via Healdsburg, across the Hog's 
 Back, and return via Calistoga. If possible, get Foss or 
 Albertson to drive you, and you will experience a genuine 
 sensation. The scenery is lovely, but the roads are narrow 
 and the hills steep. The horses have the good sense 
 to keep in the middle of the road, but often there are very 
 few inches between you and the precipice. The drivers 
 are clever fellows and seldom have an accident, but they 
 take a fiendish delight in shaving it close at times. 
 
 Having seen this much, you will now be ready for a 
 fair start, as follows : Cheque your luggage through to 
 Ogden (mail passengers are allowed 250 Ibs. weight, or 
 150 Ibs. in excess of ordinary travellers), and keep only a 
 small valise with a change of linen and necessaries at 
 hand. If you are adventurous enough to see everything
 
 117 
 
 thoroughly, leave the mail at Lathrop, and visit the 
 Yosemite Valley, which is unrivalled in its wonders. After 
 ascending four thousand feet of the Sierra Nevada, you 
 travel into the valley by a precipitous path, and find your- 
 self as it were in an enormous oblong box, with cliffs 
 rising sheer up on all sides to a height of two thousand 
 to three thousand feet. The features of the place are 
 strangely varied and beautiful ; waterfalls, lakes, magni- 
 ficent pine trees, snow-clad mountains, and in the midst 
 of all this wild nature at least two excellent inns. On the 
 return journey, the best way is to strike the main line 
 again at Gait, taking en route the Calaveras grove of " big 
 trees " (Sequoia Gigantea, or as we erroneously call them, 
 Wellingtonia). 
 
 But Australia, in this respect of " big trees," can hold 
 her own against, and even surpass California; for in the 
 Dandenong Ranges, near Victoria, white gum trees 
 (Eucalyptus Amygdalind) have been recently discovered by 
 Mr. Joseph Harris, of South Yarra Nurseries, Melbourne, 
 which attain a height of 520 feet, or 40 feet greater than 
 that of the tallest Sequoia. And I think the giants of the 
 Antipodes are the more beautiful trees of the two ; they 
 are not so massive at the base, nor so like an enormous 
 extinguisher in shape as the Sequoia with its insignificant 
 branches, but they run up in a clean white spar for 300 
 feet, and then spread out into large leafy branches, more 
 like those of the European forest trees. There is more 
 symmetry about them than in the Sequoia, though possibly 
 the latter from its girth contains the greater quantity of 
 timber. 
 
 Half-way down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, 
 it is worth breaking the journey for a day to visit Lakes 
 Donner and Tahoe, about which Mark Twain has written 
 so enthusiastically. The valley through which the drive 
 
 -H-
 
 118 
 
 to the latter lies is remarkable for the forests of enor- 
 mous red pines, and the variegated rocks brilliant with 
 iron, silver, and cinnabar ore. Lake Tahoe itself is sur- 
 rounded by snow mountains ; and the blue waters are so 
 clear that you can see the trout a hundred feet below open 
 their mouths and swallow your bait. They say all that 
 sinks (man, beast or timber) never reaches the surface 
 again, from the peculiar tenuity or lightness of the water. 
 
 At Emerald Bay I found an old British tar in charge 
 of Mr. Holladay's cottage, about whom I annex a para- 
 graph from one of the Californian papers : 
 
 " RUBICON POINT EMERALD BAY. 
 
 "A few miles further down is Rubicon Point, celebrated 
 from the fact that the shore there goes down almost 
 perpendicularly, a depth of one thousand feet being almost 
 immediately attained. The gem and crowning glory of 
 Lake Tahoe is Emerald Bay, which is formed by a height 
 in the lake and a break in the mountains. The water at 
 the entrance of this nook is emerald green, hence the 
 name of the bay. At the upper end of the bay, which is 
 two miles from the lake, there is a neat cottage, the 
 property of Ben. Holladay, jr. It is sheltered by a 
 rocky bluff, which protection has several times saved the 
 house from being swept into the lake by winter avalanches. 
 The mountains above the house are very steep, and are 
 forbidding in their sombre colours ; in fact, the spot is at 
 once the most Alpine and attractive that I have ever seen. 
 There is a small island in the bay, which greatly adds to 
 its beauty. The whole place looks like a painting of 
 Alpine scenery, with an Alpine cottage and garden. " Old 
 Dick," a venerable old sailor, takes care of the place for 
 Holladay. His face is seamed and lined with the effects 
 of the sun and weather. He comes around on elephantine
 
 119 
 
 and frozen feet, done up in grain sacks. His beard is 
 frizzled and his breast exposed, and he has altogether 
 the style, awkwardness, and innocence of a sailor of the 
 days of Nelson. Holladay, it is seriously said, bought 
 Dick with the bay. The old man has his self-made grave 
 all ready, when the sound of the final eight bells warns 
 him that his watch for time has ended, and that it is time 
 for him to "turn in" to eternity. The greatest wonder 
 about Dick lies in the fact that he has wintered at Emerald 
 Bay for seven years. The winters here are six to seven 
 months long, and blinding snow storms, wintry wails, the 
 frost feathered forests, with the freezing and hush of the 
 voice of running water, and the departure of the song birds, 
 make the lake at that season an almost sepulchral place 
 of residence, even where there is company. Dick keeps no 
 human company in his lonely bay, save that of a large cat, 
 the language of which he professes to understand, and she, 
 he says in turn, can in her own wise way translate every 
 word he utters. He has his chair, and the cat has 
 hers; and they sit and crack yarns together on long 
 winter nights when the wind is howling and when the 
 snow is up to the roof of the house. Dick says he has 
 seen sixteen feet of snow on the level at Emerald Bay. 
 On one occasion a let up in the weather allowed Dick in 
 his boat to revisit the world of half a dozen persons who 
 winter here at Tahoe City. He went home with a cargo 
 of whisky, not in his boat but in his stomach ; and early 
 night fell on the vast deserted lake while he was yet miles 
 away from his home. It blew, and Dick in his alcoholic 
 helplessness could not guide the boat, which capsized late 
 in the night, throwing him into the freezing water. He 
 clung to the bottom of the boat until soberness and morning 
 returned, when he managed to right her and get home, but 
 his feet his "flukes" as he calls them were both frozen,
 
 120 
 
 and all his care and skill in doctoring such an affliction 
 have failed to completely restore the use of one of them, 
 with which he goes stumping around. Dick would in 
 outward appearance at least m'ake an admirable Captain 
 Cuttle. But his manner is too quiet and sedate for that 
 tender and jovial old character. In fact, Dick appears to 
 dream even in company, and while physically present 
 seems to he mentally absent in his winter solitude on 
 Emerald Bay. Dick has had several escapes from ava- 
 lanches, one of which once roared down the mountain, and 
 passed within ten feet of his door, sweeping rocks and pine 
 trees like chips before it into the lake, and sending a tidal 
 wave from the shore which would have swept a ship before 
 it. It is worth a week's time and the cost of a trip here to 
 see Dick and Emerald Bay alone." 
 
 And now, before we get to Utah, let me describe some 
 of the experiences of a Pullman's Palace Car, which is 
 erroneously supposed to obviate all the inconveniences of 
 railway travel. It is a vast improvement on the ordinary 
 carriage ; but far, very far from perfection. Unless you have 
 one or two agreeable friends, the journey and scenery are 
 intensely dreary after leaving California, for at least a couple 
 of days. When crossing the Alkali Plains in summer, the 
 white impalpable dust which creeps through double windows 
 and closed doors, inflames the eyes and cracks the lips ; and 
 you feel just as if you had a feverish cold. In winter you run 
 a chance of getting snowed up in the drifts, while crossing 
 the Rocky Mountains ; and visions of salt junk and cracker 
 for possibly some weeks do not enliven the prospect. If the 
 cars are full, or if you have not the exceptional luck of secur- 
 ing a " compartment car," the company is rather mixed at 
 bed-time ; and if it proves embarrassing to a shy man, what 
 must it be to the feelings of the fairer sex ? I always felt
 
 121 
 
 puzzled how to act when put into a section, with some 
 unprotected female in the lower berth ; but at last I con- 
 cluded that the best way was for me to scramble up to bed 
 first and fasten the top part of the curtains, leaving the 
 inmate beneath to retire when she liked. Of course the 
 lady has to be up first and out of the way, or else she runs 
 the risk of being trodden upon when the " top berth " steps 
 down in the morning. There is more room for sleeping 
 than on board ship (nearly double as much), but not so 
 much for dressing and little or no privacy. It seemed to 
 me that the basin, &c., at one end of the car ought to be 
 devoted to ladies, and that at the other end to gentlemen ; 
 but even then it is more unpleasant than ludicrous at times 
 to see some poor girl rush from one end to the other, and 
 possibly find herself in the wrong box after all, among a 
 lot of dirty begrimed beings of the male sex in extreme 
 dishabille. One gets the smuts and grits, that fall through 
 the ventilators, regularly ingrained into one's skin by 
 morning, from rubbing against the pillow as the train 
 vibrates. I was patiently waiting my turn at the washing- 
 basin one morning, when suddenly I felt a sharp thump 
 in the ribs from behind. I started and looked round, 
 thinking some facetious person had done it for a joke, 
 and would probably peep out again from his curtains ; 
 when a testy old gentleman next to me muttered " No need 
 for you to watch my wife dressing, Sir." I apologised, 
 and told him my reason for turning round to inspect the 
 premises. The truth was, she had been sitting up in bed 
 to dress, and from the limited space at her disposal had 
 caught her elbow against me in the operation. 
 
 But there are more absurd contretemps than this. I 
 had before noticed that American couples are rather 
 demonstrative with their endearments in public, both on 
 the "cars" and steam-boats; but this beat all.
 
 122 
 
 In the " sections " of a railroad car, as in a wooden 
 house, even whispered remarks are very audible, especially 
 at night when everything is still. Par exemple, one even- 
 ing, when we had retired, a low voice was suddenly 
 heard from the centre of the car, "Fanny, Fanny, 
 give me a kiss, and say you forgive me." Then, a 
 little louder, " Fanny, Fanny, I can't sleep unless you say 
 you forgive me ; give me a kiss, and say you forgive me." 
 At last, the voice of the conscience- stricken and penitent 
 husband, regardless of the smothered tittering from the 
 surrounding partitions, spoke again : " Fanny, Fanny, just 
 one kiss, and say you forgive me! " until, at last, a peppery 
 old Indian officer down at the end of the car popped his 
 head out and shouted, " Oh, Fanny, for goodness' sake, do 
 give him a kiss, and let us get some sleep ! " Even then, 
 amidst the outburst of laughter from the other passengers, 
 you could hear the unhappy Caudle catching it in a 
 curtain-lecture : "There! I told you so! Now you see 
 what you 've done ! I knew everyone could hear you ! " 
 But at last peace reigned, and possibly Fanny gave him 
 the narcotic kiss of reconciliation for which he had been 
 asking. 
 
 It is best, if with ladies, to provide little hand-basins 
 for the journey, as they can then wash behind the curtains 
 of their berth ; and it would be prudent also to take 
 a hamper of provisions to fall back on at odd times, as 
 with a few bright exceptions, in the case of oases like 
 Humboldt, the food is execrable a repetition of coffee, tea, 
 poisonous Bourbon whisky, ham and eggs, woodeny beef- 
 steaks, and indigestible hot cakes. One thing alone are 
 you always sure of getting good, and that is iced-milk. It 
 may almost be called the national beverage of America. 
 
 After leaving the Alkali Plains, those who wish to 
 spend a day in Salt Lake City had better take the steamer
 
 123 
 
 at Corinne, as they then see something of the inland sea 
 itself, including a most interesting twenty miles down Bear 
 River Creek, where the dead willows, killed by the steady 
 encroachment of the salt water, afford a home to myriads 
 of birds pelicans, eagles, owls, black snipe, cranes, reed- 
 birds, blackbirds, and balloon-birds, which prey on the 
 river fish as they come to the surface, belly upwards, from 
 the same cause which destroys the vegetation. At Lake 
 Point, you can have a bathe in the lake, a sensation not 
 unlike sitting in an easy chair, for you cannot sink, and 
 can lie back and float without any effort to support the 
 body. 
 
 A drive of twenty miles brings you to the home of 
 Brigham Young. This city, in many ways, is very like 
 Christ Church, New Zealand : the same background of 
 hills, the houses hidden among orchards of English trees, 
 the running water in the streets, and the orderly appear- 
 ance of the people. 
 
 From this to Ogden by rail is about forty miles ; and as 
 the remaining sights henceforward do not strictly come 
 under the head of The Overland Route, I merely enumerate 
 my experiences going and returning. I chose the Pennsyl- 
 vania Central for my westward journey, and thought the 
 sight of the Alleghanies grander than anything I saw 
 subsequently, While in Kentucky I visited the Mammoth 
 Cave ; the celebrated horse-breeding establishments in the 
 Blue Grass country ; and I also spent a day with the Shakers 
 near Lexington, where I was so charmed with the quiet 
 peaceful life they seem to lead at Pleasant Hill, that I 
 nearly felt tempted to accept their invitation, and enter 
 upon a novitiate of six months, to see whether I could 
 make up my mind to stop. When returning home, I 
 chose a more northern route, and passed through Chicago, 
 which was then being "pho3nixed," or rebuilt from the ruins
 
 124 
 
 of the great fire ; probably the most gigantic building opera- 
 tion the world has ever known. After submitting for forty- 
 eight hours to the impositions and annoyance of the " hack- 
 men " at Niagara Falls, I gladly found myself in New 
 York, and embarked on the famous Cunard s. s. "Cuba" 
 for Liverpool. A delightful voyage of ten days, to the 
 pleasure of which contributed the most genial of captains, 
 the most seaworthy of boats, and the most liberal of diets 
 (who would not remember the suppers of Welsh rarebits, 
 devilled bones, grilled sardines, and roast oysters?), brought 
 me safely home again. 
 
 P. S. Since writing the above, the San Francisco 
 mail-service to New Zealand has been discontinued. Had 
 its promoters from the first established a regular and 
 trustworthy service, the line could not fail to have paid ; 
 but they effectually cut their own throats, as I have 
 described above, and the unfavourable reports sent all the 
 passengers round the other way, via Brindisi. It will not, 
 however, be long before New Zealand and New South 
 Wales will secure a really efficient line on the Pacific ; 
 and steamers are now building for the purpose on the 
 Clyde. Thus we shall see England monopolize this route 
 as effectually as she has done that of the ocean steamers 
 in the Atlantic and elsewhere. 
 
 ADAM HOLDBN, LIVERPOOL.
 
 
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