CHAPTER XIIITHE WAITOMO CAVESAs in other countries, so in New Zealand, there are limestone caves, with stalactites and stalagmites, and all their effect of wonder and mystery. They are found in some of the low hills which rise in the heart of the Maori-owned "King Country," and as they are only a few miles from the Main Trunk railway line, which connects Wellington with Auckland, they can be very conveniently visited by tourists going north or south.The distance from Wellington to the caves is three hundred miles. Even on the main lines the average speed of an express train is only twenty-five miles an hour, so that a journey of three hundred miles takes a whole day, and gives the traveller many excellent opportunities for studying the landscape.The trains run on a 3 foot 10 inch gauge; except for a few miles in the South Island, there is but a single line throughout theDominion; often the trains accomplish well-nigh impossible feats in crawling up and down precipitous gorges, and yet so carefully are they handled that an accident is almost an unheard-of occurrence. Nearly all the first-class carriages are on the corridor plan, with a gangway up the middle. There are two seats on one side and only one on the other, and the seats have movable backs, made to face either way. The seats are numbered and can be reserved separately.The second-class cars have straight rows of cushioned seats set lengthwise along the sides of the train and are not very comfortable; the fares on them are the same as the English third-class fares, while the first-class fare is always half as much again. There is never any difficulty about food on a long journey. The express trains have restaurant cars and provide excellent meals, charging only 2s. for early dinner or late tea. If you happen to be on a train that has no restaurant car, the train considerately stops at suitable hours for lunch or tea, and you find everything ready, either at the station refreshment room or in a hotel close by, and are warned, at theend of your meal, by a loudly-rung handbell, that the train is ready to go on again.Neither is there the least difficulty with luggage. The check system is in vogue. On showing your ticket, each box is labelled and numbered, duplicates of the numbers are given to the passenger, and the New Zealand Government assumes full responsibility for the luggage. On a through ticket from Wellington to Auckland, the traveller may, after the first thirty miles, break his journey as often as he pleases, and, if he takes two days or a month on the road, will find his belongings safely stored in the Auckland Left Luggage Office.On leaving Wellington, the railway skirts the west coast, and runs through rocky country, gracefully covered with native trees, chiefly manuka and kowhai: I was there in winter, too soon to see the yellow fringes of kowhai bloom, which in September are"Flung for gift on Taupo's face, Sign that Spring is come."The kowhai is one of the prettiest trees, with feathery green leaves and laburnum-like flowers, and shares with the fuchsia andthe ribbon-wood the distinction of losing its leaves in the winter, and standing, though only for a short time, with bare branches. The views are fine on either side. On the west you look out on the ocean and a succession of irregular bays, whose high cliffs rise steeply up from the water: some miles away to the east, stand ranges of snow-capped mountains, remote and beautiful, with white clouds floating between the peaks.Between the mountains and the sea is level ground, excellent for grazing and dairying, and settlements and towns are rapidly growing. To the north of the plains is a rough country of swamp alternating with low, rounded hills. This land has been partly cleared and the beginning of settlements made, grass is sown in places and cabbage trees are left standing in the paddocks. Beyond, come stretches of fern and scrub—bracken and tea-tree repeated indefinitely for many miles—until presently the line runs through vast forests—thousands of acres of big bush—pines, ratas and the rest, with all their glorious entanglement of creepers and ferns.Later, while the train still runs through the forests, passengers wrap themselves in their rugs and try to sleep. It is not a very successful attempt, as at each stop you are roused—sometimes by the entrance of fresh passengers, and always by the guard who comes round to demand tickets.At midnight I reached my stopping-place, found a hotel and a bed, and slept comfortably.Next morning I was up at 7, and after a good breakfast of fried egg and bacon—the customary fare in country hotels—went on again by train for another fifty miles. At 11 o'clock I reached Hangatiki, a solitary little station, near a hotel and a few small houses. Here a coach with three horses was waiting, to drive the remaining six miles to the Waitomo Caves. The scenery was very much the same as before—small hills and swamp-land, with scrub of fern and manuka, varied by great patches of tall forest-trees.The whole of this district, the so-called "King Country," forms a Maori Kingdom in the centre of the North Island, and is, with the exception of some few holdings, in Maori hands. This land was formally assuredto Maori chiefs, after one of the wars between English and Maoris, fifty years ago, and though the Maoris rejoice in its possession, they yet make little use of it. English settlers, who would turn it to good account find it difficult to buy; as, even if one Maori is willing to sell, he cannot sell without the consent of all the other Maoris, who, in common with himself, have rights of possession over any particular section.At Waitomo I found a government hostel, a very imposing two-storied wooden building, lighted by electricity, and with hot and cold water laid on in every bedroom.I was the only tourist, and when I asked the manager if a guide could show me one of the caves after dinner that evening, he expressed great regret that a party of visitors, whom he expected from Rotorua, had not arrived. However, as I was quite certain that I wished to see the caves, even if unattended, he finally summoned the guide, and sent one of the maids from the hotel with me as chaperone.It is no light matter to visit these caves. Having found guide and chaperone, thetourist is next expected to hire a suitable outfit, and to don nailed boots of strong leather, also a tunic and baggy knickers made of blue and white striped galatea, and is finally provided with an oil lantern, while the guide carries a lighted candle and a reel of magnesium wire.The guide proved to be a boy of good education, who had come out from Home in search of adventure, he had worked for a time in a solicitor's office in Wellington, and was doing a little guiding by way of variety.It was a pitch-black night and we were glad of our lanterns. The entrance to the first cave is a quarter of a mile away from the hotel and is approached by a rough and muddy track. You enter the cave through a rocky archway among the bush. This cave was first shown to white men in 1886, though the Maoris knew of it many years ago and avoided it and all such places as the abodes of evil spirits.The Waitomo Cave consists of a vast series of limestone caverns, with endless stalactites hanging from the roofs, and pure white columns rising to meet them from the floor. Thereis very little bare rock, wherever you look are limestone formations, richly covering the surface and assuming beautiful or most fantastic shapes. One great cluster of columns is like the pipes of an organ; in one cavern you have a poulterer's store, with geese and turkeys, heads downwards, hanging from the ceiling; in another is a greengrocer's shop, with great carrots and parsnips of yellow or creamy limestone; on the floor are many beginnings of stalagmites, formed by the overhead drippings, and which the iron in the water has coloured yellow or brown—these are poached eggs or Stewart Island oysters, according to fancy. In one grotto hangs a beautiful white shawl—the Waitomo Blanket—it hangs in graceful folds, and the iron has given it a broad brown border. All these caves are entirely untouched and unspoilt, they have not been in any way altered or improved, not even by the introduction of electric light. As we went slowly through, the guide kept lighting fresh lengths of magnesium wire, which softly and delightfully illuminated each fresh marvel. In one place he made a veritable bonfire of the wire, and displayed a lofty hall,very white and glittering, ornamented with lovely white pendants of all shapes and sizes.An underground river flows through the caves: when you reach the last cavern, the lights of candle and lantern are extinguished, and in perfect silence and almost total darkness you enter a small boat, which the guide pulls gently along on a wire rope fixed to the wall; then you are told to look up, and there on the roof are myriads of tiny glow-worms, by whose light huge stalactites are visible. The cavern continues for some two hundred yards, with a very uneven roof, all craggy projections of rock and limestone, and in every nook and corner, like stars in the sky, shine glow-worm lamps of varying intensity, giving just light enough to show the outlines of this mysterious place, and in the black water roof and glow-worms are dimly reflected.Next morning I again put on Government boots and cave dress, and, mounted astride on a good horse, went with the guide and a friend of his—a boy from the Waitomo Store—for a short ride of between two and three miles to see two more caves. Both of these were entered by low openings among the trees of a bush-covered hill.The larger of the two has a succession of long narrow passages, connecting several lofty halls, and the walls of passages and grottoes alike are covered with deposits of lime, much of it looking as though incrustations of brown coral had been thickly spread over every square inch of surface. Here too are glittering hanging shapes and many strange formations, some reminding you of huge cauliflowers, others of birds' heads.A narrow stream flows through, and, on the "ghost walk"—most appropriately named—you hear an uncanny noise, caused innocently enough by a waterfall which rushes down the rocks outside.The last cave is the smallest, and, except that it has no glow-worm cavern, the most beautiful of the three Waitomo Caves. Each and all of the caverns and passages which compose it are equally lovely, from floor to roof one gorgeous adornment of pure white crystal, which shines in countless jewelled forms in the glow of the light from the magnesium wire. One hall was particularly beautiful with multitudes of hanging stalactites; another was crowded with slenderpillars stretching away into the darkness. In some caverns are small white figures perched on rocky ledges—one set like chessmen on a board; from the roofs of the caverns hang several thin white shawls with hem-stitched edges, while innumerable snowy pendants taper elegantly downwards to meet white columns rising from the floor. The whole effect of this wondrous cave is of some magician's palace of fairyland, built for Oberon and Titania, and to be gazed at in reverent amazement by mortal eyes.Apart from the caves, there is little to detain the traveller at Waitomo. There are few settlements and fewer tracks among the surrounding swamps and forests. I climbed a low hill which has been partially cleared. From the top I looked down upon a very new homestead of wood, its paddocks partly cleared and all fenced in with barbed wire. All round me on every side stretched ridges behind ridges of low hills clothed with sombre forests: while forty miles away, bounding the view to the south, were the snowy peaks of volcanic mountains, one of them over eight thousand feet high.
THE WAITOMO CAVES
As in other countries, so in New Zealand, there are limestone caves, with stalactites and stalagmites, and all their effect of wonder and mystery. They are found in some of the low hills which rise in the heart of the Maori-owned "King Country," and as they are only a few miles from the Main Trunk railway line, which connects Wellington with Auckland, they can be very conveniently visited by tourists going north or south.
The distance from Wellington to the caves is three hundred miles. Even on the main lines the average speed of an express train is only twenty-five miles an hour, so that a journey of three hundred miles takes a whole day, and gives the traveller many excellent opportunities for studying the landscape.
The trains run on a 3 foot 10 inch gauge; except for a few miles in the South Island, there is but a single line throughout theDominion; often the trains accomplish well-nigh impossible feats in crawling up and down precipitous gorges, and yet so carefully are they handled that an accident is almost an unheard-of occurrence. Nearly all the first-class carriages are on the corridor plan, with a gangway up the middle. There are two seats on one side and only one on the other, and the seats have movable backs, made to face either way. The seats are numbered and can be reserved separately.
The second-class cars have straight rows of cushioned seats set lengthwise along the sides of the train and are not very comfortable; the fares on them are the same as the English third-class fares, while the first-class fare is always half as much again. There is never any difficulty about food on a long journey. The express trains have restaurant cars and provide excellent meals, charging only 2s. for early dinner or late tea. If you happen to be on a train that has no restaurant car, the train considerately stops at suitable hours for lunch or tea, and you find everything ready, either at the station refreshment room or in a hotel close by, and are warned, at theend of your meal, by a loudly-rung handbell, that the train is ready to go on again.
Neither is there the least difficulty with luggage. The check system is in vogue. On showing your ticket, each box is labelled and numbered, duplicates of the numbers are given to the passenger, and the New Zealand Government assumes full responsibility for the luggage. On a through ticket from Wellington to Auckland, the traveller may, after the first thirty miles, break his journey as often as he pleases, and, if he takes two days or a month on the road, will find his belongings safely stored in the Auckland Left Luggage Office.
On leaving Wellington, the railway skirts the west coast, and runs through rocky country, gracefully covered with native trees, chiefly manuka and kowhai: I was there in winter, too soon to see the yellow fringes of kowhai bloom, which in September are
"Flung for gift on Taupo's face, Sign that Spring is come."
The kowhai is one of the prettiest trees, with feathery green leaves and laburnum-like flowers, and shares with the fuchsia andthe ribbon-wood the distinction of losing its leaves in the winter, and standing, though only for a short time, with bare branches. The views are fine on either side. On the west you look out on the ocean and a succession of irregular bays, whose high cliffs rise steeply up from the water: some miles away to the east, stand ranges of snow-capped mountains, remote and beautiful, with white clouds floating between the peaks.
Between the mountains and the sea is level ground, excellent for grazing and dairying, and settlements and towns are rapidly growing. To the north of the plains is a rough country of swamp alternating with low, rounded hills. This land has been partly cleared and the beginning of settlements made, grass is sown in places and cabbage trees are left standing in the paddocks. Beyond, come stretches of fern and scrub—bracken and tea-tree repeated indefinitely for many miles—until presently the line runs through vast forests—thousands of acres of big bush—pines, ratas and the rest, with all their glorious entanglement of creepers and ferns.
Later, while the train still runs through the forests, passengers wrap themselves in their rugs and try to sleep. It is not a very successful attempt, as at each stop you are roused—sometimes by the entrance of fresh passengers, and always by the guard who comes round to demand tickets.
At midnight I reached my stopping-place, found a hotel and a bed, and slept comfortably.
Next morning I was up at 7, and after a good breakfast of fried egg and bacon—the customary fare in country hotels—went on again by train for another fifty miles. At 11 o'clock I reached Hangatiki, a solitary little station, near a hotel and a few small houses. Here a coach with three horses was waiting, to drive the remaining six miles to the Waitomo Caves. The scenery was very much the same as before—small hills and swamp-land, with scrub of fern and manuka, varied by great patches of tall forest-trees.
The whole of this district, the so-called "King Country," forms a Maori Kingdom in the centre of the North Island, and is, with the exception of some few holdings, in Maori hands. This land was formally assuredto Maori chiefs, after one of the wars between English and Maoris, fifty years ago, and though the Maoris rejoice in its possession, they yet make little use of it. English settlers, who would turn it to good account find it difficult to buy; as, even if one Maori is willing to sell, he cannot sell without the consent of all the other Maoris, who, in common with himself, have rights of possession over any particular section.
At Waitomo I found a government hostel, a very imposing two-storied wooden building, lighted by electricity, and with hot and cold water laid on in every bedroom.
I was the only tourist, and when I asked the manager if a guide could show me one of the caves after dinner that evening, he expressed great regret that a party of visitors, whom he expected from Rotorua, had not arrived. However, as I was quite certain that I wished to see the caves, even if unattended, he finally summoned the guide, and sent one of the maids from the hotel with me as chaperone.
It is no light matter to visit these caves. Having found guide and chaperone, thetourist is next expected to hire a suitable outfit, and to don nailed boots of strong leather, also a tunic and baggy knickers made of blue and white striped galatea, and is finally provided with an oil lantern, while the guide carries a lighted candle and a reel of magnesium wire.
The guide proved to be a boy of good education, who had come out from Home in search of adventure, he had worked for a time in a solicitor's office in Wellington, and was doing a little guiding by way of variety.
It was a pitch-black night and we were glad of our lanterns. The entrance to the first cave is a quarter of a mile away from the hotel and is approached by a rough and muddy track. You enter the cave through a rocky archway among the bush. This cave was first shown to white men in 1886, though the Maoris knew of it many years ago and avoided it and all such places as the abodes of evil spirits.
The Waitomo Cave consists of a vast series of limestone caverns, with endless stalactites hanging from the roofs, and pure white columns rising to meet them from the floor. Thereis very little bare rock, wherever you look are limestone formations, richly covering the surface and assuming beautiful or most fantastic shapes. One great cluster of columns is like the pipes of an organ; in one cavern you have a poulterer's store, with geese and turkeys, heads downwards, hanging from the ceiling; in another is a greengrocer's shop, with great carrots and parsnips of yellow or creamy limestone; on the floor are many beginnings of stalagmites, formed by the overhead drippings, and which the iron in the water has coloured yellow or brown—these are poached eggs or Stewart Island oysters, according to fancy. In one grotto hangs a beautiful white shawl—the Waitomo Blanket—it hangs in graceful folds, and the iron has given it a broad brown border. All these caves are entirely untouched and unspoilt, they have not been in any way altered or improved, not even by the introduction of electric light. As we went slowly through, the guide kept lighting fresh lengths of magnesium wire, which softly and delightfully illuminated each fresh marvel. In one place he made a veritable bonfire of the wire, and displayed a lofty hall,very white and glittering, ornamented with lovely white pendants of all shapes and sizes.
An underground river flows through the caves: when you reach the last cavern, the lights of candle and lantern are extinguished, and in perfect silence and almost total darkness you enter a small boat, which the guide pulls gently along on a wire rope fixed to the wall; then you are told to look up, and there on the roof are myriads of tiny glow-worms, by whose light huge stalactites are visible. The cavern continues for some two hundred yards, with a very uneven roof, all craggy projections of rock and limestone, and in every nook and corner, like stars in the sky, shine glow-worm lamps of varying intensity, giving just light enough to show the outlines of this mysterious place, and in the black water roof and glow-worms are dimly reflected.
Next morning I again put on Government boots and cave dress, and, mounted astride on a good horse, went with the guide and a friend of his—a boy from the Waitomo Store—for a short ride of between two and three miles to see two more caves. Both of these were entered by low openings among the trees of a bush-covered hill.
The larger of the two has a succession of long narrow passages, connecting several lofty halls, and the walls of passages and grottoes alike are covered with deposits of lime, much of it looking as though incrustations of brown coral had been thickly spread over every square inch of surface. Here too are glittering hanging shapes and many strange formations, some reminding you of huge cauliflowers, others of birds' heads.
A narrow stream flows through, and, on the "ghost walk"—most appropriately named—you hear an uncanny noise, caused innocently enough by a waterfall which rushes down the rocks outside.
The last cave is the smallest, and, except that it has no glow-worm cavern, the most beautiful of the three Waitomo Caves. Each and all of the caverns and passages which compose it are equally lovely, from floor to roof one gorgeous adornment of pure white crystal, which shines in countless jewelled forms in the glow of the light from the magnesium wire. One hall was particularly beautiful with multitudes of hanging stalactites; another was crowded with slenderpillars stretching away into the darkness. In some caverns are small white figures perched on rocky ledges—one set like chessmen on a board; from the roofs of the caverns hang several thin white shawls with hem-stitched edges, while innumerable snowy pendants taper elegantly downwards to meet white columns rising from the floor. The whole effect of this wondrous cave is of some magician's palace of fairyland, built for Oberon and Titania, and to be gazed at in reverent amazement by mortal eyes.
Apart from the caves, there is little to detain the traveller at Waitomo. There are few settlements and fewer tracks among the surrounding swamps and forests. I climbed a low hill which has been partially cleared. From the top I looked down upon a very new homestead of wood, its paddocks partly cleared and all fenced in with barbed wire. All round me on every side stretched ridges behind ridges of low hills clothed with sombre forests: while forty miles away, bounding the view to the south, were the snowy peaks of volcanic mountains, one of them over eight thousand feet high.
CHAPTER XIVNEW ZEALAND'S WONDERLANDIn the middle of the North Island of New Zealand is a marvellous district, stretching from White Island, in the Bay of Plenty, to the active volcano of Ngaruhoe, a hundred and fifty miles to the south, and varying in breadth from ten to twenty miles. Throughout the whole of this area no one knows what will happen next. Strange underground rumblings are heard; earthquake shocks are felt; in places the whole countryside is puffing out volumes of steam; and only twenty-seven years ago, a mountain, believed for centuries to be quite harmless, suddenly burst into violent eruption, and destroyed three villages with over a hundred Maoris and several Europeans. It is all very interesting: but as one man who lives close to a boiling lake explained to me, you can hardly enjoy living there, because you are always close to forces that no one really understands.i210LAKE ROTORUA.To face page 179.For the tourist the centre from which to see all the wonders is Rotorua—a very new town of straight streets at right angles to one another. The houses are of wood, roofed with corrugated iron: it is hardly safe to build with any other material in Rotorua, as two feet below the surface you are always liable to come upon a spring of hot water.The town is owned by the Government, which has built and maintains a hospital and sanatorium and fine bath-houses, surrounded by extensive and well laid-out grounds. In the grounds are planted many firs and gums and tall Australian wattles. When I saw them, the early-flowering wattles were a glory of golden blossom and delicate green leaves under the bright blue sky of a New Zealand winter. There are flower-beds with daffodils and other bulbs, rose-trees, and all the flowers of an English garden; also good tennis lawns and bowling-greens, and both town and gardens are set by the shores of a big shining lake. Round the lake are low, rather bare green hills, and on one side a mountain of two thousand feet.The first thing about Rotorua that strikesthe visitor as strange is the smell of sulphur, which greets you even before the train stops at the railway station, and which you never lose while you remain in the place. When you walk out to see the town, your second surprise is the steam. It is not actually in the streets; but less than two miles away, behind a long avenue of gum-trees, you see masses of steam constantly rising in larger or smaller columns, and by the lake and away on the opposite side, more puffs of steam. The steam comes from hot springs and hot rivulets, which you find side by side with streams of cold water, from pools of boiling mud, and from fascinating geysers.A regular cluster of all these marvels is to be seen beyond the gum-trees, at Whaka, in a few acres of rocky white ground, overgrown with thickets of stunted "manuka" scrub, with its tiny evergreen leaves and rough brown stem. There is a large Maori settlement here, and another close to the cold water of Rotorua Lake, among more boiling pools and springs.The Maoris have always loved the hot water, and Maori villages have existed herelong before Europeans thought of making a town and using Rotorua as a health resort. The Maoris use the hot pools to bathe in, and the Maori women wash their clothes in the hot streams, rubbing the things with soap on a convenient stone, and then boiling them in a still hotter stream close at hand. They even use the springs for cooking. They fix a wooden box over a steaming patch of soil; inside the box they place the kettle or the pot filled with meat and vegetables, cover the whole with coarse sacking and leave the food to simmer.As you walk about these strange places, the ground, sprinkled with sulphur, alum, red or yellow ochre, is hot under your feet. At Whaka you unexpectedly come upon deep holes where dark grey mud is always boiling. In one corner is a large pool of oily mud boiling perpetually in circles, and as it boils, the mud goes leaping up into the air like a company of frogs. There are many geysers here, but they are less active than formerly, and the most wonderful—which, with the help of bars of soap thrown down its throat, used to play always inhonour of any royal personage—has not played for several years.How am I to describe a geyser? You walk on hot ground up to a low mound of white rock with a round hole in the middle of it. You look into the hole, and see, far below, bubbling water, with steam rising from it—very innocent apparently. Presently you are warned to stand back, and up comes the hot water, rushing through the geyser's throat, straight at first, then sloping outwards, and rising to any height from two feet to a hundred, in a beautiful spreading column of sparkling drops, curving over at the top like an ostrich feather; and round the water and above it steam rises in clouds. Some geysers play with absolute regularity, every four minutes or every half hour or at some other fixed time; others are more capricious, and play only once or twice a day, and at quite irregular intervals. I waited a whole afternoon hoping that the best of the Whaka geysers would play, and in the end it did, and up gushed the hot water to a height of forty feet or so—a magnificent display of sparkling diamonds.Most of these hot waters contain sulphur and other minerals, and bathing in them is an excellent cure for rheumatism, skin complaints and other ailments. In Rotorua you can even have a delightful bath of liquid mud, which is like grey cream mixed with oil, and makes one's skin feel as soft as silk.The railroad ends at Rotorua. Beyond, you must either drive in coach or motor, ride on horseback, or go in a steam launch across the lake.The country round is singularly desolate and almost uninhabited. Mile after mile the roads run between low hills covered with bracken and manuka scrub, with here and there some scanty tussock grass. Many thousands of pines, larches, gums and birches have been planted by prisoners who are kept in camps among the hills, and more trees are being planted all the time and are growing well; so, in a few years, the countryside will look less dreary.Among the low undulating hills other solitary hills stand out, of strange forbidding shape, either flat-topped ridges or cones—most of them extinct volcanoes, or not quiteextinct even now: as from some of them puffs of steam are always rising, not from the tops of the hills, but from cracks on the hillsides. In some places the scattered puffs are concentrated in great blowholes: you hear a mighty roar inside the hill, and from a narrow throat-hole a gigantic mass of steam comes pouring out perpetually—the safety-valve of some internal machine.At Waimangu, seventeen miles from Rotorua, I was shown the spot where two girls and a man were all killed by a geyser a few years ago. The girls had been warned not to go too close, but they were anxious to take photographs and disregarded the warning. The guide sprang forward to pull them back, when suddenly up spouted the geyser to the extraordinary height of fifteen hundred feet, and the boiling water dashed down upon them all and carried them away and killed them in an instant. Since that tragedy the geyser has not played again, but a blowhole close by is beginning to send out jets of water as well as steam, and may in time develop into a geyser.Waimangu is only a few miles from TaraweraMountain, which in June, 1886, burst into eruption, and covered everything within a radius of eight miles with a deep deposit of grey mud, and scattered thin layers of mud and ashes to a much greater distance. After the eruption, a very heavy rain fell and wore deep channels in all directions through the mud. In consequence, round Waimangu and the adjoining lake of Rotomahana you see the strangest, most desolate scenery of grey gullies, by this time scantily sprinkled with bracken and "toi-toi" grass, a tall, white-flowering grass like pampas grass. Waimangu itself is principally a valley of steam, sulphur, boiling mud, and little mud volcanoes. On the ground are deposits of sulphur and alum, and you walk cautiously on patches of hot, dry ground. Among the hot mud and through it all runs a hot stream, with some variety of green algæ growing in it. The hot stream flows into Rotomahana Lake, where once the famous pink and white terraces were to be seen: they were destroyed by the Tarawera eruption. Still the lake is sufficiently wonderful: a lake of chalky blue water, actually boiling at one end and coldat the other, lying in a crater, with the high, oblong-shaped mass of Tarawera Mountain on one side. A great gap in the side of the mountain is plainly visible, reminding all who see it of the hidden forces ever at work.On the other side of a low ridge, half a mile away, is Tarawera Lake, several miles across—a lake of quite ordinary, clear, cold water. The hills surrounding it are partly covered with bush, and among the living trees still stand the skeletons of trees destroyed by the eruption.A few miles from Waimangu is another valley, and in it a succession of primrose-coloured terraces, which are gradually being formed of silica left by the overflow of a lake of boiling sulphur, and very pretty they are. A lake of yellowish green water lies above several long shallow steps of pale primrose silica; all around are clumps of manuka and patches of brilliantly green mosses; and looking across the terraces, you see mile beyond mile of level plain, all a study in browns, with a dim blue ridge of hill on the distant horizon.Each of these wonder-spots has some special characteristic which distinguishes it from the others. The valley of the primrose terraces was one of sulphur—fringes of yellow sulphur floating round the edges of hot green lakes and pools; sulphur surrounding hot steam-holes; sulphur colouring the rocks and lying thickly upon the ground. In another place, where, again I saw sulphur, alum and hot springs, the chief wonder was the boiling mud: horrible, deep pools of dark grey mud and petroleum, always working away and heaving themselves up and down like the huge cauldrons of wicked witches.Fifty miles south of Rotorua is Weirakei. Here you see a marvellous valley, which not only has excellent examples of all the strange sights of this wonderland, but is also exceedingly pretty. It is a narrow valley, on either side are high cliffs of grey rock streaked with pink. At the bottom, among dainty ferns and bright green moss and silvery lichen runs a brawling stream of clear, cold, blue water. Beside the stream, and up the cliff sides, grow quantities of manuka, with feathery green sprays; and other shrubs,with tiny green leaves and small white berries: and on every hand, puffs of steam rise and float away over the greenery.This valley is specially noted for geysers, which play in absolute regularity one after another in beautiful columns of glittering water-drops, the columns varying in height from ten to forty feet. One geyser shoots out from a truly awesome opening, in shape like a dragon's mouth, formed in a mass of old-rose coloured silica, and torrents of boiling water pour out of the mouth and down a steep slope of more pink silica, and you stand on hot rock at the bottom of the slope, watching the water come right up to your feet. Below the geyser is another wonder—a small pool, deep blue in colour, and from its depths some gas is continually rising to the surface, like a flash of dazzling lightning. This is a valley of many colours; the deposits of silica are of white, pink, or emerald-green—there are mud-pools of cream or pink, where the boiling mud rises up and falls over in shapes resembling roses or lilies: and always the setting is of green, leafy sprays, emerald mosses and luxuriant ferns.Near Weirakei is another valley, where the stream which flows through it is a boiling creek, fed by tiny tributary streams of boiling water, all of chalky white. Half-way up this valley is a wide waterfall of boiling water tumbling over salmon-coloured cliffs; and all about, watered by the hot spray, grow lovely ferns and feathery manuka. There are three little pools in a cluster, two quite hot and one cold, their margins only a foot apart. You see a large lake of hot blue water, and on its surface is a floating scum like oily soapsuds. There are twin lakelets of brilliant blue. Deep down in a hollow is a lake of deep rose-colour. Side by side are lakelets, one of deep blue, the other of emerald green. You are shown a large mud volcano. Near it is a deep hole of fathomless black water. At the entrance of the valley is a big lake of hot blue water, surrounded by high grey cliffs. Here and throughout the thermal district, it is wise to follow the guide warily among the scrub and on the hot rock, for outside the track are holes and swamps; and if you once slip, you may get a scald from which you will never recover.Six miles beyond Weirakei is Taupo Lake, a great lake, twenty-five miles long. On the right of it are dim grey hills; and opposite them high cliffs of grey, streaked with pink and white. Beyond the far end of the lake, on a clear day, are to be seen snow-covered mountains, one of them a still active volcano, with smoke pouring out from its snowy crater.To the east of Rotorua, between that town and the Bay of Plenty, is still volcanic country, but the strange sights grow gradually less frequent. You see occasional puffs of steam among the bracken, and are told of hot springs where refreshing baths may be taken, but it is all a more normal country of lake, forest and swamp-land.A coach road, principally composed of yellow sand—as stone is scarce or almost unobtainable—runs from Rotorua to the Bay, a distance of eighty miles, and a very good road it is in dry weather. It runs past lakes surrounded by untouched bush, through the heart of sombre forests, and up and down steep gorges, where you see magnificent tree-ferns, "nikau" palms andmany giant trees. The North Island forest is different from that in the South Island, though some of the trees are the same. There are still rimus and other pines, but the feathery beeches of the south are less frequent. The trees in the north are on the whole more massive and gloomy: there are great "tawas" and honeysuckles, with enormous trunks and dark glossy leaves; also many great ratas and totaras. The supple-jack erects its slender black stems among the tall trees, and the bush-lawyer drapes fuchsias and tree-ferns with festoons of green; but it is all far less luxuriant than the Westland bush. There are fewer ferns and mosses, often you see patches of bare brown earth among bare tree-trunks, and, scattered frequently through this northern forest, are the bleached branches of dead or dying trees.Some twenty miles from the sea, the hills, which in this part of New Zealand run down to the coast in long parallel ridges, stand back on either side, and the country opens out into a great plain—eighty thousand acres of swamp-land. This will one day be some of the most fertile land in the district. Itis now being drained by a steam dredge, which forces its way straight through the swamp, leaving a wide dyke of dark brown water. At the beginning of the swamp there is a wide river, to be crossed only by a flat-bottomed punt, worked on a steel cable. The passengers sit still and the horses are driven on to the boat, and the current quickly pushes the boat to the opposite side.Later, the road runs along the coast, and reaches an inlet from the ocean of, perhaps, a mile wide. The water has to be crossed in a little ferry boat, worked by oil and petrol. The horses are quite used to it and go up the hanging gangway willingly enough; but sometimes, when the sea is rough, it is not safe to venture, and passengers must wait for several hours on an inhospitable, sandy shore.All this part of the country through which the coach runs, from Rotorua to Opotiki, on the Bay of Plenty, is some of the most isolated in New Zealand. Inland are scattered Maori settlements, and tiny English townships by the coast. During the last few years the land away back has been, to a great extent,taken up—forests are being cut down and swamps drained—and in a few years' time, the east coast will be one of the chief centres for sheep runs and dairy farms.On the Bay of Plenty, settlers tell you of cows and sheep, the price of wool and the prospects of new cheese factories. In spite of that you are still in "Uncanny Country," for there, forty miles out to sea, is the cone of White Island, which was once an active volcano. Its activities are now reduced to a large blowhole and a lake of ever-boiling sulphur, from both of which by day and night pour forth volumes of steam, and sometimes the north wind carries the smell of sulphur to you across the bay.
NEW ZEALAND'S WONDERLAND
In the middle of the North Island of New Zealand is a marvellous district, stretching from White Island, in the Bay of Plenty, to the active volcano of Ngaruhoe, a hundred and fifty miles to the south, and varying in breadth from ten to twenty miles. Throughout the whole of this area no one knows what will happen next. Strange underground rumblings are heard; earthquake shocks are felt; in places the whole countryside is puffing out volumes of steam; and only twenty-seven years ago, a mountain, believed for centuries to be quite harmless, suddenly burst into violent eruption, and destroyed three villages with over a hundred Maoris and several Europeans. It is all very interesting: but as one man who lives close to a boiling lake explained to me, you can hardly enjoy living there, because you are always close to forces that no one really understands.
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LAKE ROTORUA.
LAKE ROTORUA.
LAKE ROTORUA.
To face page 179.
For the tourist the centre from which to see all the wonders is Rotorua—a very new town of straight streets at right angles to one another. The houses are of wood, roofed with corrugated iron: it is hardly safe to build with any other material in Rotorua, as two feet below the surface you are always liable to come upon a spring of hot water.
The town is owned by the Government, which has built and maintains a hospital and sanatorium and fine bath-houses, surrounded by extensive and well laid-out grounds. In the grounds are planted many firs and gums and tall Australian wattles. When I saw them, the early-flowering wattles were a glory of golden blossom and delicate green leaves under the bright blue sky of a New Zealand winter. There are flower-beds with daffodils and other bulbs, rose-trees, and all the flowers of an English garden; also good tennis lawns and bowling-greens, and both town and gardens are set by the shores of a big shining lake. Round the lake are low, rather bare green hills, and on one side a mountain of two thousand feet.
The first thing about Rotorua that strikesthe visitor as strange is the smell of sulphur, which greets you even before the train stops at the railway station, and which you never lose while you remain in the place. When you walk out to see the town, your second surprise is the steam. It is not actually in the streets; but less than two miles away, behind a long avenue of gum-trees, you see masses of steam constantly rising in larger or smaller columns, and by the lake and away on the opposite side, more puffs of steam. The steam comes from hot springs and hot rivulets, which you find side by side with streams of cold water, from pools of boiling mud, and from fascinating geysers.
A regular cluster of all these marvels is to be seen beyond the gum-trees, at Whaka, in a few acres of rocky white ground, overgrown with thickets of stunted "manuka" scrub, with its tiny evergreen leaves and rough brown stem. There is a large Maori settlement here, and another close to the cold water of Rotorua Lake, among more boiling pools and springs.
The Maoris have always loved the hot water, and Maori villages have existed herelong before Europeans thought of making a town and using Rotorua as a health resort. The Maoris use the hot pools to bathe in, and the Maori women wash their clothes in the hot streams, rubbing the things with soap on a convenient stone, and then boiling them in a still hotter stream close at hand. They even use the springs for cooking. They fix a wooden box over a steaming patch of soil; inside the box they place the kettle or the pot filled with meat and vegetables, cover the whole with coarse sacking and leave the food to simmer.
As you walk about these strange places, the ground, sprinkled with sulphur, alum, red or yellow ochre, is hot under your feet. At Whaka you unexpectedly come upon deep holes where dark grey mud is always boiling. In one corner is a large pool of oily mud boiling perpetually in circles, and as it boils, the mud goes leaping up into the air like a company of frogs. There are many geysers here, but they are less active than formerly, and the most wonderful—which, with the help of bars of soap thrown down its throat, used to play always inhonour of any royal personage—has not played for several years.
How am I to describe a geyser? You walk on hot ground up to a low mound of white rock with a round hole in the middle of it. You look into the hole, and see, far below, bubbling water, with steam rising from it—very innocent apparently. Presently you are warned to stand back, and up comes the hot water, rushing through the geyser's throat, straight at first, then sloping outwards, and rising to any height from two feet to a hundred, in a beautiful spreading column of sparkling drops, curving over at the top like an ostrich feather; and round the water and above it steam rises in clouds. Some geysers play with absolute regularity, every four minutes or every half hour or at some other fixed time; others are more capricious, and play only once or twice a day, and at quite irregular intervals. I waited a whole afternoon hoping that the best of the Whaka geysers would play, and in the end it did, and up gushed the hot water to a height of forty feet or so—a magnificent display of sparkling diamonds.Most of these hot waters contain sulphur and other minerals, and bathing in them is an excellent cure for rheumatism, skin complaints and other ailments. In Rotorua you can even have a delightful bath of liquid mud, which is like grey cream mixed with oil, and makes one's skin feel as soft as silk.
The railroad ends at Rotorua. Beyond, you must either drive in coach or motor, ride on horseback, or go in a steam launch across the lake.
The country round is singularly desolate and almost uninhabited. Mile after mile the roads run between low hills covered with bracken and manuka scrub, with here and there some scanty tussock grass. Many thousands of pines, larches, gums and birches have been planted by prisoners who are kept in camps among the hills, and more trees are being planted all the time and are growing well; so, in a few years, the countryside will look less dreary.
Among the low undulating hills other solitary hills stand out, of strange forbidding shape, either flat-topped ridges or cones—most of them extinct volcanoes, or not quiteextinct even now: as from some of them puffs of steam are always rising, not from the tops of the hills, but from cracks on the hillsides. In some places the scattered puffs are concentrated in great blowholes: you hear a mighty roar inside the hill, and from a narrow throat-hole a gigantic mass of steam comes pouring out perpetually—the safety-valve of some internal machine.
At Waimangu, seventeen miles from Rotorua, I was shown the spot where two girls and a man were all killed by a geyser a few years ago. The girls had been warned not to go too close, but they were anxious to take photographs and disregarded the warning. The guide sprang forward to pull them back, when suddenly up spouted the geyser to the extraordinary height of fifteen hundred feet, and the boiling water dashed down upon them all and carried them away and killed them in an instant. Since that tragedy the geyser has not played again, but a blowhole close by is beginning to send out jets of water as well as steam, and may in time develop into a geyser.
Waimangu is only a few miles from TaraweraMountain, which in June, 1886, burst into eruption, and covered everything within a radius of eight miles with a deep deposit of grey mud, and scattered thin layers of mud and ashes to a much greater distance. After the eruption, a very heavy rain fell and wore deep channels in all directions through the mud. In consequence, round Waimangu and the adjoining lake of Rotomahana you see the strangest, most desolate scenery of grey gullies, by this time scantily sprinkled with bracken and "toi-toi" grass, a tall, white-flowering grass like pampas grass. Waimangu itself is principally a valley of steam, sulphur, boiling mud, and little mud volcanoes. On the ground are deposits of sulphur and alum, and you walk cautiously on patches of hot, dry ground. Among the hot mud and through it all runs a hot stream, with some variety of green algæ growing in it. The hot stream flows into Rotomahana Lake, where once the famous pink and white terraces were to be seen: they were destroyed by the Tarawera eruption. Still the lake is sufficiently wonderful: a lake of chalky blue water, actually boiling at one end and coldat the other, lying in a crater, with the high, oblong-shaped mass of Tarawera Mountain on one side. A great gap in the side of the mountain is plainly visible, reminding all who see it of the hidden forces ever at work.
On the other side of a low ridge, half a mile away, is Tarawera Lake, several miles across—a lake of quite ordinary, clear, cold water. The hills surrounding it are partly covered with bush, and among the living trees still stand the skeletons of trees destroyed by the eruption.
A few miles from Waimangu is another valley, and in it a succession of primrose-coloured terraces, which are gradually being formed of silica left by the overflow of a lake of boiling sulphur, and very pretty they are. A lake of yellowish green water lies above several long shallow steps of pale primrose silica; all around are clumps of manuka and patches of brilliantly green mosses; and looking across the terraces, you see mile beyond mile of level plain, all a study in browns, with a dim blue ridge of hill on the distant horizon.
Each of these wonder-spots has some special characteristic which distinguishes it from the others. The valley of the primrose terraces was one of sulphur—fringes of yellow sulphur floating round the edges of hot green lakes and pools; sulphur surrounding hot steam-holes; sulphur colouring the rocks and lying thickly upon the ground. In another place, where, again I saw sulphur, alum and hot springs, the chief wonder was the boiling mud: horrible, deep pools of dark grey mud and petroleum, always working away and heaving themselves up and down like the huge cauldrons of wicked witches.
Fifty miles south of Rotorua is Weirakei. Here you see a marvellous valley, which not only has excellent examples of all the strange sights of this wonderland, but is also exceedingly pretty. It is a narrow valley, on either side are high cliffs of grey rock streaked with pink. At the bottom, among dainty ferns and bright green moss and silvery lichen runs a brawling stream of clear, cold, blue water. Beside the stream, and up the cliff sides, grow quantities of manuka, with feathery green sprays; and other shrubs,with tiny green leaves and small white berries: and on every hand, puffs of steam rise and float away over the greenery.
This valley is specially noted for geysers, which play in absolute regularity one after another in beautiful columns of glittering water-drops, the columns varying in height from ten to forty feet. One geyser shoots out from a truly awesome opening, in shape like a dragon's mouth, formed in a mass of old-rose coloured silica, and torrents of boiling water pour out of the mouth and down a steep slope of more pink silica, and you stand on hot rock at the bottom of the slope, watching the water come right up to your feet. Below the geyser is another wonder—a small pool, deep blue in colour, and from its depths some gas is continually rising to the surface, like a flash of dazzling lightning. This is a valley of many colours; the deposits of silica are of white, pink, or emerald-green—there are mud-pools of cream or pink, where the boiling mud rises up and falls over in shapes resembling roses or lilies: and always the setting is of green, leafy sprays, emerald mosses and luxuriant ferns.
Near Weirakei is another valley, where the stream which flows through it is a boiling creek, fed by tiny tributary streams of boiling water, all of chalky white. Half-way up this valley is a wide waterfall of boiling water tumbling over salmon-coloured cliffs; and all about, watered by the hot spray, grow lovely ferns and feathery manuka. There are three little pools in a cluster, two quite hot and one cold, their margins only a foot apart. You see a large lake of hot blue water, and on its surface is a floating scum like oily soapsuds. There are twin lakelets of brilliant blue. Deep down in a hollow is a lake of deep rose-colour. Side by side are lakelets, one of deep blue, the other of emerald green. You are shown a large mud volcano. Near it is a deep hole of fathomless black water. At the entrance of the valley is a big lake of hot blue water, surrounded by high grey cliffs. Here and throughout the thermal district, it is wise to follow the guide warily among the scrub and on the hot rock, for outside the track are holes and swamps; and if you once slip, you may get a scald from which you will never recover.
Six miles beyond Weirakei is Taupo Lake, a great lake, twenty-five miles long. On the right of it are dim grey hills; and opposite them high cliffs of grey, streaked with pink and white. Beyond the far end of the lake, on a clear day, are to be seen snow-covered mountains, one of them a still active volcano, with smoke pouring out from its snowy crater.
To the east of Rotorua, between that town and the Bay of Plenty, is still volcanic country, but the strange sights grow gradually less frequent. You see occasional puffs of steam among the bracken, and are told of hot springs where refreshing baths may be taken, but it is all a more normal country of lake, forest and swamp-land.
A coach road, principally composed of yellow sand—as stone is scarce or almost unobtainable—runs from Rotorua to the Bay, a distance of eighty miles, and a very good road it is in dry weather. It runs past lakes surrounded by untouched bush, through the heart of sombre forests, and up and down steep gorges, where you see magnificent tree-ferns, "nikau" palms andmany giant trees. The North Island forest is different from that in the South Island, though some of the trees are the same. There are still rimus and other pines, but the feathery beeches of the south are less frequent. The trees in the north are on the whole more massive and gloomy: there are great "tawas" and honeysuckles, with enormous trunks and dark glossy leaves; also many great ratas and totaras. The supple-jack erects its slender black stems among the tall trees, and the bush-lawyer drapes fuchsias and tree-ferns with festoons of green; but it is all far less luxuriant than the Westland bush. There are fewer ferns and mosses, often you see patches of bare brown earth among bare tree-trunks, and, scattered frequently through this northern forest, are the bleached branches of dead or dying trees.
Some twenty miles from the sea, the hills, which in this part of New Zealand run down to the coast in long parallel ridges, stand back on either side, and the country opens out into a great plain—eighty thousand acres of swamp-land. This will one day be some of the most fertile land in the district. Itis now being drained by a steam dredge, which forces its way straight through the swamp, leaving a wide dyke of dark brown water. At the beginning of the swamp there is a wide river, to be crossed only by a flat-bottomed punt, worked on a steel cable. The passengers sit still and the horses are driven on to the boat, and the current quickly pushes the boat to the opposite side.
Later, the road runs along the coast, and reaches an inlet from the ocean of, perhaps, a mile wide. The water has to be crossed in a little ferry boat, worked by oil and petrol. The horses are quite used to it and go up the hanging gangway willingly enough; but sometimes, when the sea is rough, it is not safe to venture, and passengers must wait for several hours on an inhospitable, sandy shore.
All this part of the country through which the coach runs, from Rotorua to Opotiki, on the Bay of Plenty, is some of the most isolated in New Zealand. Inland are scattered Maori settlements, and tiny English townships by the coast. During the last few years the land away back has been, to a great extent,taken up—forests are being cut down and swamps drained—and in a few years' time, the east coast will be one of the chief centres for sheep runs and dairy farms.
On the Bay of Plenty, settlers tell you of cows and sheep, the price of wool and the prospects of new cheese factories. In spite of that you are still in "Uncanny Country," for there, forty miles out to sea, is the cone of White Island, which was once an active volcano. Its activities are now reduced to a large blowhole and a lake of ever-boiling sulphur, from both of which by day and night pour forth volumes of steam, and sometimes the north wind carries the smell of sulphur to you across the bay.
CHAPTER XVAUCKLANDThe people of Auckland love to think of their city as "last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart," and when they are away from it, they miss its sunny climate, with the glint of the sunlight on the water and through the water of its spacious harbours. It is the largest town in New Zealand, and has a population of one hundred and ten thousand inhabitants. It is situated on a neck of land, at its narrowest only eight miles wide, with the shining sea on both sides; and it is to its position that Auckland owes its unique and elusive charm. There are two harbours—one on the east, the other on the west, and at the eastern harbour wharves are built; here big ships lie at anchor close to the main streets of the city, and an excellent service of trams connects the wharves with shops and hotels and distant suburbs.When in 1840, New Zealand was declareda British colony, it was decided to make Auckland the capital, and so it remained until 1864, when the seat of Government was transferred to Wellington, as being more central for the whole country.The site of Auckland itself as well as the country round it is all volcanic, and in every direction are small cone-shaped, grass-covered hills, each just high enough for a pleasant afternoon's walk. From any one of their summits you look down on an innocent crater at your feet; on the hillside sheep browse and citizens play golf; and beyond, on a clear day, Auckland lies spread out before you—its streets and harbours, with sea and islands and distant forest ranges. The eastern harbour has no definite entrance, so numerous are the inlets and islands which you see on all sides; but bush-covered Rangitoto Island—a large extinct volcanic cone—forms a wall of several miles to the inner harbour; and for the outer harbour you may look across the Hauraki Gulf to Great Barrier Island, sixty miles away—a fine expanse of water for yachting and all kinds of boating.Auckland is truly a garden city. A deep,green gully, rich in beautiful tree-ferns and other native plants, runs through the centre, spanned by a wide and elegant bridge of iron and white stone; in the middle of the town are delightful public gardens with trees, green grass and gay flower-beds; private houses close to the shops have gardens in which grow violets and great camellia bushes, laden in winter with pink or white blossoms; tall white arum lilies run riot wherever they can find standing room; while close to the harbour are survivals of the ancient forest—big, gnarled Christmas trees, in summer a mass of crimson bloom. Just outside the chief thoroughfare is the Domain—a hundred acres of park-land with grass and groups of trees—the inalienable property of all the citizens. The town and suburbs are scattered over several miles. There are groups of houses beside the Domain; others encircling the green conical hills; and often the houses are built near some arm of the harbour, separated from it by trees and grass and a steep cliff, with always wide open views of sea and tree-clad islands.i230MAORI ANCESTRAL FIGURE.To face page 197.Even more delightful than its natural beauties is the fact that Auckland has no slums. There are a few narrow streets and mean houses, but the overcrowding and dirt of the poorer quarters of an English town do not exist, and the Auckland city authorities have firmly resolved that they never shall. There is plenty of space, so the houses need not be built too close together, and very few of them are of more than two stories; and as there is far more than enough work for everybody, there need be no poverty.The Anglican Cathedral is a fine wooden building, the outside painted red, while inside, the wood panelling from floor to ceiling is beautifully polished and left absolutely plain. It is just a hundred years since the Rev. Samuel Marsden and his helpers preached Christianity to the Maoris, and most of them are now at least nominal Christians, and they have all given up cannibalism.Auckland has a very good museum and two picture galleries.The museum has a magnificent Maori war canoe with exquisitively carved prow; parts of carved or painted houses; and a complete specimen of a Maori dwelling-house madeof native bulrush, the long brown leaves packed closely together both for roof and walls, and fastened securely to a framework of wood. A large number of the exhibits, including most of the native weapons—clubs of stone, greenstone or wood, stone axe-heads and wooden spears—were given by Sir George Grey, who was for many years Governor of New Zealand.There are many specimens of more peaceful implements: fish-hooks made of bone or of glittering "pawa" shell; carved canoe balers, like large wooden slippers; also several fishing-nets. You see a large wicker birdcage of Maori workmanship, and a number of calabashes for holding water; these latter are made out of gourds, and the gourds were originally brought by the Maoris in their canoes from Hawaika. There is a quantity of kauri gum, and many ornaments made from it—all a clear yellow amber colour.In the art galleries are pictures both by English and New Zealand artists—some of England, Italy or the Mediterranean, others of New Zealand subjects. One of the most striking represents the coming of the Maorisin the Arawa Canoe—supposed to have been in the fourteenth century. The coast of the new country is shown as a distant, blue headland; on the green sea is the brown canoe, crammed with swarthy, brown bodies in the last stages of exhaustion; some of the men able to point out the land, and some looking eagerly, others too weary to care. How men provided with only frail wooden canoes ever dared to leave their homes in some far northern island of the Pacific seems an almost incredible venture of faith: and that they actually voyaged safely for several hundred miles, and in the end found "Ao Tea Roa"—the Land of the Long White Cloud—as they poetically called their new home, is more astonishing still.Goldie, a New Zealand artist, has very arresting portraits of Maoris. One picture is called "Memories," and shows an old Maori woman brooding over the past glories of her race; the whole face is instinct with thought and feeling, the brown eyes downcast, the skin wrinkled, blue tattoo markings are very plain on the chin, the hair is grey and abundant, and in her ears are long greenstone earrings. Thesecond picture is of a man—a fine type of warrior and cannibal, his face tattooed all over in a geometrical pattern, and the lower lip protruding—a sign that he has lived largely on human flesh. Yet another portrait is of a young and handsome girl, with dark hair and eyes, full red lips, and a clear, brown complexion.From Auckland, I took a journey of over a hundred miles, in search of a kauri pine forest. The kauri is the king of the New Zealand forest trees and takes a thousand years to come to maturity. It is found only in the northern half of the North Island. Through the kindness of the Auckland Tourist Bureau and the Kauri Timber Company, special arrangements were made for me to see some forests, on the south-east of Auckland, where the trees are now being felled.I had first a train journey of six hours. The train ran through a level country of swamps alternating with stretches of bracken and manuka scrub, with here and there uncut patches of forest, to the small town of Te Aroha. Here I stayed for the night.I spent my spare time in climbing half-way up a little, wooded hill behind the town, and from this point gained a glorious view. On the one side lay the blue Hauraki Gulf, shimmering under golden sunset rays; and on the other stretched a great plain, through which wound a blue river, to lose itself in the far distance; and beyond the furthest gleam of the river, with the clear blue sky for background, stood a high, bush-covered mountain, glowing with soft rose-colour as the sun went down.Next morning I went on again for another hour and a half, and was met on the platform of a tiny country station by the local manager for the Kauri Timber Company. He took me to a curious conveyance strongly built of wood, drawn by a pony and running on tramway lines—a most convenient carriage; for when it was necessary to pass a timber truck, the wheels were taken off the lines, and when the truck had gone by they were put on again. In this carriage we drove for nine miles right into the heart of the bush. We went first through partially cleared country, with a few scattered homesteads;then past bush from which the kauri has been cut, and through acres of which forest fires have swept, leaving bare hillsides and blackened stumps. Here we saw the canvas tents of gum-diggers, who spend their days in searching for gum left many years ago by kauris long since dead. The men are usually Austrians from Croatia, and, I was told, a fine set of people. They probe the ground with long iron rods, and when the point of the rod sticks to gum they begin to dig, and often are successful in digging up huge blocks of clear yellow gum, which they sell at a good price. The gum is either turned into varnish, or used, like European amber, for ornaments.Growing among magnificent bush of beeches, ratas, red pines and other trees, we saw at last the precious kauri pine—some small trees no thicker than a man's arm, and others giants of twenty feet in girth. The full-grown kauri has a clean, straight trunk of sixty to a hundred feet without a branch; and then a massive head of stout branches stretching out on all sides for another sixty feet, and bearing thick tufts of small greenleaves, growing very close together on their stems. The bark is the prettiest colour—pearly grey mottled with pink. We could hear the sound of axes hammering some distance away. After a picnic lunch at the manager's hut, the manager took me over a rough bridge of kauris thrown from side to side of a swift-flowing stream, and then along the edge of a deep trough of yellow mud and on through the forest, until we found men at work among the kauri pines. Some of them were fixing an iron chain round a great log about twelve feet long and six in diameter; when the chain was firmly screwed down, it was attached to an iron rope which ran alongside the mud-trough and across the creek to the engine-house. A shrill whistle was sounded, the engine set in motion, and the log, with a mighty heave, began to move. At turning corners it required great care from the bushmen, and at last it ploughed its way safely through the mud, and was brought quietly to rest by the engine house. Kauri timber is excellent for all purposes of building and furniture, and is now being rapidly cut down; in another twenty yearsor so, except for scattered trees in inaccessible places, very few will be left.On my way back to Auckland—a different journey by rail and steamer—a friend had arranged for me to be shown over a gold-mine. Accordingly, I stopped at Thames, a small town nestling under green hills beside a broad estuary at the mouth of the Thames River. The clerk at the booking-office kindly rang up a taxi for me, and I was then driven through the town to the Watchman Mine. To reach the mine, I was taken half-way up one of the hills to the entrance of the mine—a large, roughly-cut hole, with a passage running straight into the hill.From outside the entrance the view was a splendid one—I looked down on the town beneath and the wide river-mouth, which on the far side is bounded by irregular hills. I could see too for many miles up the Thames Valley—a wide, open plain, at present almost uncultivated, but destined one day to be rich in dairy farms and grain—and towards the head of the valley rose distant blue hills. So often in New Zealand you see this combinationof plain and river and distant mountains, all fresh and unspoilt in the bright sunshine and clear atmosphere of a land where smoking factories are rare and fogs unknown.The mine itself I found to be a succession of dry, dark passages, through which we walked, holding lighted candles. The mine is most scientifically worked. The direction of the gold-bearing reefs is ascertained by experts, and the quartz, in which the gold lies buried, is blasted by dynamite. The quartz is next taken in trucks on a wonderful aerial tramway to a thoroughly up-to-date battery in the valley below. Here the quartz is crushed and mixed with water, and the mud is then treated with cyanide of potassium, which, after separating the gold, deposits it on zinc shavings.This sort of gold-mining seemed to me a very terrible occupation, when I heard that the miners often get killed through an unexpected explosion of dynamite; and even if the dynamite leaves them unscathed, after working a certain number of years, they get "miners' complaint," and die, choked with dust.I sailed from Auckland for Sydney on a sunny July day in New Zealand's mid-winter, very sorry to leave such a beautiful country, and the many friends who had done everything in their power to make my visit a pleasant one.
AUCKLAND
The people of Auckland love to think of their city as "last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart," and when they are away from it, they miss its sunny climate, with the glint of the sunlight on the water and through the water of its spacious harbours. It is the largest town in New Zealand, and has a population of one hundred and ten thousand inhabitants. It is situated on a neck of land, at its narrowest only eight miles wide, with the shining sea on both sides; and it is to its position that Auckland owes its unique and elusive charm. There are two harbours—one on the east, the other on the west, and at the eastern harbour wharves are built; here big ships lie at anchor close to the main streets of the city, and an excellent service of trams connects the wharves with shops and hotels and distant suburbs.
When in 1840, New Zealand was declareda British colony, it was decided to make Auckland the capital, and so it remained until 1864, when the seat of Government was transferred to Wellington, as being more central for the whole country.
The site of Auckland itself as well as the country round it is all volcanic, and in every direction are small cone-shaped, grass-covered hills, each just high enough for a pleasant afternoon's walk. From any one of their summits you look down on an innocent crater at your feet; on the hillside sheep browse and citizens play golf; and beyond, on a clear day, Auckland lies spread out before you—its streets and harbours, with sea and islands and distant forest ranges. The eastern harbour has no definite entrance, so numerous are the inlets and islands which you see on all sides; but bush-covered Rangitoto Island—a large extinct volcanic cone—forms a wall of several miles to the inner harbour; and for the outer harbour you may look across the Hauraki Gulf to Great Barrier Island, sixty miles away—a fine expanse of water for yachting and all kinds of boating.
Auckland is truly a garden city. A deep,green gully, rich in beautiful tree-ferns and other native plants, runs through the centre, spanned by a wide and elegant bridge of iron and white stone; in the middle of the town are delightful public gardens with trees, green grass and gay flower-beds; private houses close to the shops have gardens in which grow violets and great camellia bushes, laden in winter with pink or white blossoms; tall white arum lilies run riot wherever they can find standing room; while close to the harbour are survivals of the ancient forest—big, gnarled Christmas trees, in summer a mass of crimson bloom. Just outside the chief thoroughfare is the Domain—a hundred acres of park-land with grass and groups of trees—the inalienable property of all the citizens. The town and suburbs are scattered over several miles. There are groups of houses beside the Domain; others encircling the green conical hills; and often the houses are built near some arm of the harbour, separated from it by trees and grass and a steep cliff, with always wide open views of sea and tree-clad islands.
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MAORI ANCESTRAL FIGURE.
MAORI ANCESTRAL FIGURE.
MAORI ANCESTRAL FIGURE.
To face page 197.
Even more delightful than its natural beauties is the fact that Auckland has no slums. There are a few narrow streets and mean houses, but the overcrowding and dirt of the poorer quarters of an English town do not exist, and the Auckland city authorities have firmly resolved that they never shall. There is plenty of space, so the houses need not be built too close together, and very few of them are of more than two stories; and as there is far more than enough work for everybody, there need be no poverty.
The Anglican Cathedral is a fine wooden building, the outside painted red, while inside, the wood panelling from floor to ceiling is beautifully polished and left absolutely plain. It is just a hundred years since the Rev. Samuel Marsden and his helpers preached Christianity to the Maoris, and most of them are now at least nominal Christians, and they have all given up cannibalism.
Auckland has a very good museum and two picture galleries.
The museum has a magnificent Maori war canoe with exquisitively carved prow; parts of carved or painted houses; and a complete specimen of a Maori dwelling-house madeof native bulrush, the long brown leaves packed closely together both for roof and walls, and fastened securely to a framework of wood. A large number of the exhibits, including most of the native weapons—clubs of stone, greenstone or wood, stone axe-heads and wooden spears—were given by Sir George Grey, who was for many years Governor of New Zealand.
There are many specimens of more peaceful implements: fish-hooks made of bone or of glittering "pawa" shell; carved canoe balers, like large wooden slippers; also several fishing-nets. You see a large wicker birdcage of Maori workmanship, and a number of calabashes for holding water; these latter are made out of gourds, and the gourds were originally brought by the Maoris in their canoes from Hawaika. There is a quantity of kauri gum, and many ornaments made from it—all a clear yellow amber colour.
In the art galleries are pictures both by English and New Zealand artists—some of England, Italy or the Mediterranean, others of New Zealand subjects. One of the most striking represents the coming of the Maorisin the Arawa Canoe—supposed to have been in the fourteenth century. The coast of the new country is shown as a distant, blue headland; on the green sea is the brown canoe, crammed with swarthy, brown bodies in the last stages of exhaustion; some of the men able to point out the land, and some looking eagerly, others too weary to care. How men provided with only frail wooden canoes ever dared to leave their homes in some far northern island of the Pacific seems an almost incredible venture of faith: and that they actually voyaged safely for several hundred miles, and in the end found "Ao Tea Roa"—the Land of the Long White Cloud—as they poetically called their new home, is more astonishing still.
Goldie, a New Zealand artist, has very arresting portraits of Maoris. One picture is called "Memories," and shows an old Maori woman brooding over the past glories of her race; the whole face is instinct with thought and feeling, the brown eyes downcast, the skin wrinkled, blue tattoo markings are very plain on the chin, the hair is grey and abundant, and in her ears are long greenstone earrings. Thesecond picture is of a man—a fine type of warrior and cannibal, his face tattooed all over in a geometrical pattern, and the lower lip protruding—a sign that he has lived largely on human flesh. Yet another portrait is of a young and handsome girl, with dark hair and eyes, full red lips, and a clear, brown complexion.
From Auckland, I took a journey of over a hundred miles, in search of a kauri pine forest. The kauri is the king of the New Zealand forest trees and takes a thousand years to come to maturity. It is found only in the northern half of the North Island. Through the kindness of the Auckland Tourist Bureau and the Kauri Timber Company, special arrangements were made for me to see some forests, on the south-east of Auckland, where the trees are now being felled.
I had first a train journey of six hours. The train ran through a level country of swamps alternating with stretches of bracken and manuka scrub, with here and there uncut patches of forest, to the small town of Te Aroha. Here I stayed for the night.
I spent my spare time in climbing half-way up a little, wooded hill behind the town, and from this point gained a glorious view. On the one side lay the blue Hauraki Gulf, shimmering under golden sunset rays; and on the other stretched a great plain, through which wound a blue river, to lose itself in the far distance; and beyond the furthest gleam of the river, with the clear blue sky for background, stood a high, bush-covered mountain, glowing with soft rose-colour as the sun went down.
Next morning I went on again for another hour and a half, and was met on the platform of a tiny country station by the local manager for the Kauri Timber Company. He took me to a curious conveyance strongly built of wood, drawn by a pony and running on tramway lines—a most convenient carriage; for when it was necessary to pass a timber truck, the wheels were taken off the lines, and when the truck had gone by they were put on again. In this carriage we drove for nine miles right into the heart of the bush. We went first through partially cleared country, with a few scattered homesteads;then past bush from which the kauri has been cut, and through acres of which forest fires have swept, leaving bare hillsides and blackened stumps. Here we saw the canvas tents of gum-diggers, who spend their days in searching for gum left many years ago by kauris long since dead. The men are usually Austrians from Croatia, and, I was told, a fine set of people. They probe the ground with long iron rods, and when the point of the rod sticks to gum they begin to dig, and often are successful in digging up huge blocks of clear yellow gum, which they sell at a good price. The gum is either turned into varnish, or used, like European amber, for ornaments.
Growing among magnificent bush of beeches, ratas, red pines and other trees, we saw at last the precious kauri pine—some small trees no thicker than a man's arm, and others giants of twenty feet in girth. The full-grown kauri has a clean, straight trunk of sixty to a hundred feet without a branch; and then a massive head of stout branches stretching out on all sides for another sixty feet, and bearing thick tufts of small greenleaves, growing very close together on their stems. The bark is the prettiest colour—pearly grey mottled with pink. We could hear the sound of axes hammering some distance away. After a picnic lunch at the manager's hut, the manager took me over a rough bridge of kauris thrown from side to side of a swift-flowing stream, and then along the edge of a deep trough of yellow mud and on through the forest, until we found men at work among the kauri pines. Some of them were fixing an iron chain round a great log about twelve feet long and six in diameter; when the chain was firmly screwed down, it was attached to an iron rope which ran alongside the mud-trough and across the creek to the engine-house. A shrill whistle was sounded, the engine set in motion, and the log, with a mighty heave, began to move. At turning corners it required great care from the bushmen, and at last it ploughed its way safely through the mud, and was brought quietly to rest by the engine house. Kauri timber is excellent for all purposes of building and furniture, and is now being rapidly cut down; in another twenty yearsor so, except for scattered trees in inaccessible places, very few will be left.
On my way back to Auckland—a different journey by rail and steamer—a friend had arranged for me to be shown over a gold-mine. Accordingly, I stopped at Thames, a small town nestling under green hills beside a broad estuary at the mouth of the Thames River. The clerk at the booking-office kindly rang up a taxi for me, and I was then driven through the town to the Watchman Mine. To reach the mine, I was taken half-way up one of the hills to the entrance of the mine—a large, roughly-cut hole, with a passage running straight into the hill.
From outside the entrance the view was a splendid one—I looked down on the town beneath and the wide river-mouth, which on the far side is bounded by irregular hills. I could see too for many miles up the Thames Valley—a wide, open plain, at present almost uncultivated, but destined one day to be rich in dairy farms and grain—and towards the head of the valley rose distant blue hills. So often in New Zealand you see this combinationof plain and river and distant mountains, all fresh and unspoilt in the bright sunshine and clear atmosphere of a land where smoking factories are rare and fogs unknown.
The mine itself I found to be a succession of dry, dark passages, through which we walked, holding lighted candles. The mine is most scientifically worked. The direction of the gold-bearing reefs is ascertained by experts, and the quartz, in which the gold lies buried, is blasted by dynamite. The quartz is next taken in trucks on a wonderful aerial tramway to a thoroughly up-to-date battery in the valley below. Here the quartz is crushed and mixed with water, and the mud is then treated with cyanide of potassium, which, after separating the gold, deposits it on zinc shavings.
This sort of gold-mining seemed to me a very terrible occupation, when I heard that the miners often get killed through an unexpected explosion of dynamite; and even if the dynamite leaves them unscathed, after working a certain number of years, they get "miners' complaint," and die, choked with dust.
I sailed from Auckland for Sydney on a sunny July day in New Zealand's mid-winter, very sorry to leave such a beautiful country, and the many friends who had done everything in their power to make my visit a pleasant one.
Travel Books from HEATH, CRANTON & CO'S LISTAMERICA, OLD AND NEW: Professor J. Nelson Fraser, M.A.,7/6net.IN FOREIGN LANDS: Professor J. Nelson Fraser, M.A.7/6net.THE AWAKENING OF THE DESERT (Illustrated): J. C. Birge.7/6net.TRAVELS EAST OF SUEZ (Illustrated): Rachel Humphreys, F.R.G.S.7/6net.CAPITALS OF THE NORTHLANDS (Illustrated): Ian C. Hannah, M.A.6/-net.SCRAMBLES IN STORM AND SUNSHINE (Illustrated): E. Elliot Stock.6/-net.THE LANDS OF THE LORDS MARCHERS (Illustrated): E. Elliot Stock.5/-net.A JOURNEY WITH A KNAPSACK (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.3/6net.LITTLE SKETCHES OF FRENCH CHATEAUX (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.2/6net.A NORTHERN VOYAGE (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.2/-net.AN ENGLISH GIRL IN TOKYO (Illustrated): Teresa E. Richardson.2/-net.SEND FORFLEET LANE,COMPLETE LIST.LONDON.BRISTOL: BURLEIGH LTD.AT THE BURLEIGH PRESS
Travel Books from HEATH, CRANTON & CO'S LISTAMERICA, OLD AND NEW: Professor J. Nelson Fraser, M.A.,7/6net.IN FOREIGN LANDS: Professor J. Nelson Fraser, M.A.7/6net.THE AWAKENING OF THE DESERT (Illustrated): J. C. Birge.7/6net.TRAVELS EAST OF SUEZ (Illustrated): Rachel Humphreys, F.R.G.S.7/6net.CAPITALS OF THE NORTHLANDS (Illustrated): Ian C. Hannah, M.A.6/-net.SCRAMBLES IN STORM AND SUNSHINE (Illustrated): E. Elliot Stock.6/-net.THE LANDS OF THE LORDS MARCHERS (Illustrated): E. Elliot Stock.5/-net.A JOURNEY WITH A KNAPSACK (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.3/6net.LITTLE SKETCHES OF FRENCH CHATEAUX (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.2/6net.A NORTHERN VOYAGE (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.2/-net.AN ENGLISH GIRL IN TOKYO (Illustrated): Teresa E. Richardson.2/-net.SEND FORFLEET LANE,COMPLETE LIST.LONDON.
Travel Books from HEATH, CRANTON & CO'S LIST
AMERICA, OLD AND NEW: Professor J. Nelson Fraser, M.A.,7/6net.
IN FOREIGN LANDS: Professor J. Nelson Fraser, M.A.7/6net.
THE AWAKENING OF THE DESERT (Illustrated): J. C. Birge.7/6net.
TRAVELS EAST OF SUEZ (Illustrated): Rachel Humphreys, F.R.G.S.7/6net.
CAPITALS OF THE NORTHLANDS (Illustrated): Ian C. Hannah, M.A.6/-net.
SCRAMBLES IN STORM AND SUNSHINE (Illustrated): E. Elliot Stock.6/-net.
THE LANDS OF THE LORDS MARCHERS (Illustrated): E. Elliot Stock.5/-net.
A JOURNEY WITH A KNAPSACK (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.3/6net.
LITTLE SKETCHES OF FRENCH CHATEAUX (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.2/6net.
A NORTHERN VOYAGE (Illustrated): Reginald Rogers.2/-net.
AN ENGLISH GIRL IN TOKYO (Illustrated): Teresa E. Richardson.2/-net.
BRISTOL: BURLEIGH LTD.AT THE BURLEIGH PRESS
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE—Plain print and punctuation errors fixed.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE—Plain print and punctuation errors fixed.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
—Plain print and punctuation errors fixed.