TRIP TO THE HOT LAKES.
There are several ways by which a visitor from Auckland can reach the Wonderland of New Zealand. The quickest way is by steamer to Tauranga, and then in coach to Ohinemutu, where you are at once amongst the hot springs. By starting on certain days in the week, when coaches and steamers are arranged to meet, the journey takes twenty-four hours.
Mac and I went viâ Cambridge to Ohinemutu, and returned by the Thames. These routes are much longer, but that was not to be objected to, as it gave us better opportunities for seeing the country.
We left for Cambridge by the 11.15 a.m. train, reaching the end of our journey at dark. Travelling with us there was a gentleman who knew the Maoris, spoke their language, and who gave us much information about Maori-land.
A few miles after starting we passed close to a place called Onehunga, where there are some large works for the conversion of iron-sand into iron. The sand is collected on the sea-shore, then dried, and passed through a magnetic arrangement by which the black sand is separated from earthy impurities with which it may bemixed. Next it is mixed with charcoal and deoxidized in retorts. From the retorts, where it ought not to come in contact with the air, it is passed into reverberatory furnaces, where it is puddled and made into blooms. After this it passes through shingling machines, steam-hammers, and rolls, as in ordinary ironworks.
On the beach where the ore occurs, an old Maori cooking-stove was turned up. The method of cooking was to heat stones, which were then put into a small pit and covered with a few ferns. The food was placed on the ferns, and after being moistened to cause the generation of steam, the whole was closed in with more ferns and a cloth, and allowed to sweat.
Eight or nine human skeletons gave a clear idea of the nature of the joints. At one time Maoris were in great force about Auckland. This is indicated by the remains of many old fortifications or Pahs.
The top of Mount Eden is terraced and embanked all round its summit with the remains of such fortifications. The number of old shell-heaps or kitchen-middens which cover the mountain also points to a former population.
For sixteen miles or so, we ran along between green fields and green volcanic cones. Here and there moss-covered black stones indicated the line of a lava stream. Many of the fields were walled with blocks of lava, whilst the line on which we ran was ballasted for miles with volcanic ash and scoria. At Mercer we struck the Waikata River, and the country became undulating and swampy. Parts of it were covered with Ti bush, and the whole looked like a brown moorland.
Our average rate of travelling was about ten milesan hour, a pace which might have delighted Stephenson, but which we found tedious. When we arrived in Wonderland, as the lake country is called, our companion wished us to go some 120 miles in the bush to interview the Maori king, to whom he kindly offered a letter of introduction. As Mac and I didn’t hanker after copper-coloured royalty, we politely declined the invitation. The reason that the lake district is called Wonderland is on account of visitors wondering why they were ever induced to pay it a visit.
At one of the small stations an untidy little man, with a shock head, a fuzzy beard, and a pair of spectacles, joined us.
‘One of our traffic managers,’ whispered our Maori-speaking friend; ‘I’ll have a talk to him.’
‘Good-morning, Mr. Smith,’ said Maori.
‘Good-morning, good-morning, Mr. Maori,’ was Mr. Smith’s reply.
‘You’re getting things to work very nicely on your line this year. Very few of the other lines can beat what you’ve done up here.’
It may here be mentioned that the carriages were dirty, curtainless, and uncomfortable; the average pace was, as I have said, about ten miles an hour, and there were only two trains each way per day.
Smith felt Maori’s compliment, and replied with a sigh—‘Yes, yes, it has cost me a lot of thought. You can’t imagine the anxiety and scheming I have gone through to get things as they are.’
Then he passed his hand over his little brow, as if he wished us to imagine that his brain was yet feeling the effects of the strain that had been imposed upon it.
‘Everything fits to a nicety, and I think—the employés are satisfied, and the public are pleased.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Maori, with a twinkle in his eye; ‘the very fact that no one grumbles shows that things are satisfactory. It’s impossible to improve on what you have done, Mr. Smith.’ Mac afterwards suggested to me that walking would be a great improvement.
It was dark when we reached Cambridge. After some tea at an hotel called Kirkwood’s Cottage, at the recommendation of our landlady, we adjourned to the Town Hall to witness the spiritualistic performance of Professor Baldwin. The performance, which was clever and amusing, consisted of many rope-tying tricks after the manner of the original Davenport Brothers, finding a pin hidden amongst the audience, and finally an exhibition by Mrs. Baldwin of her powers as a thought-reader. In the latter performance you wrote a question on a piece of paper which you placed in your pocket. Mrs. Baldwin undertook, while in a trance, to tell you what the question was, and to give the same an answer. How she succeeded to the extent she did was a mystery. All we could do when we got outside was to say, ‘Well, it’s a trick, do you know.’
When I went to my bedroom that night, I observed standing on my dressing-table a spherically shaped blue flask, with a corrugated surface. When I first went into the room on my arrival, I had seen this same bottle, and thought it was a scent-bottle or something or other which had been left in the room by accident. As I undressed I could not keep my eyes away from the queer-looking bottle, which I observed was corkedand had evidently not been opened. Some sort of schnaps, perhaps? No, I know what it is; we are getting near the hot springs, and there is some sort of mineral water put up here as a sample just to induce strangers to buy. It might, however, be whisky, I said to myself on reflection; but whatever it was, if I opened it, I must pay.
So, blowing the light out, I jumped into bed, congratulating myself on having escaped from a dodgy old landlady. Still, I could not help thinking about the blue bottle. It was so very different to all bottles that I had seen before. It’s a funny way of forcing business by exciting the curiosity of people who want to go to sleep, I thought. And so I kept on thinking, and thinking, and speculating as to the contents andraison d’êtreof the blue bottle. I suppose it must have been two hours before I went to sleep.
When I awakened, the first thing I saw was the blue bottle. The prominent position it occupied upon the dressing-table, together with its oddness of shape and colour, made it an object from which I could not remove my eyes. The more I looked at the thing the more I desired to solve the riddle.
My curiosity at last escaped control. Schnaps, whisky, scent, mineral water, bomb-shell, or whatever you are, I must investigate, even if it cost the expenses of a funeral. I could not stand the mystery any longer, so with a one, two, three, I tumbled out of bed and picked up the bugbear.Semper paratus, it said on the top. Yes, it’s always been ready. Then on the neck were directions as to how I could break it and throw it on the fire. By jingo, it’s only a hand-grenade,and here I’ve been fooling round thinking it might be whisky. As I put the bottle down I saw a rope peeping out from beneath the dressing-table. Looking underneath, I found a new rope with knots in it fastened at one end to the wall. This was a fire-escape. When a fire occurs you shy the bottle at the conflagration, and then bolt in yourrobe de chambreto the window, and slide down the rope into the garden.
Mac’s room had similar furniture. If I had known of all these precautionary measures before I went to bed, I might not have slept at all. In time I got accustomed to knotted ropes and blue bottles, for I found them in almost every house where we stayed.
In some hotels I heard that from time to time they had a fire drill. They usually, so my informants said, chose a night when there was a guest with a red head staying in the house. At about 2 a.m. ‘Fire! fire!’ is shouted through the building; the guests all rise, shy the bottles at the red-headed visitor, and slide down the ropes. The ladies object to the performance, as they consider that they do not look well dangling on a rope. However, as the people wish to stick to thesemper paratusmotto of their bottles, the fire drill is not neglected. If the man with a red head is not killed, he receives profuse apologies for his hair having been mistaken for a conflagration. I did not see a fire drill.
We left Cambridge very early next morning. The conveyance was of the usual stagecoach type. Mac and I had inside seats, I being on the weather-side and he on the lee-side of the vehicle. By lee-side is meant the side that was usually leaning over a precipice.
Shortly after starting we dived down a steep slope at the end of the town, and crossed the Waikata River. All the country was open and brown. Here and there a lonely cabbage-tree reared its green round head. Ti-trees, which in height are anything between six inches and six feet, occurred in patches. They looked like sage-bushes, and from their twiggy character might possibly make good besoms.
Next in importance to the Ti-tree comes bracken. The Maoris eat young bracken, that is, when they can get nothing else. When Ti-trees and brackens find some useful application, New Zealand will have the means of speedily reducing her public debt. The public debt of New Zealand is per head greater than that of any other country, the population of the country being about 500,000, and the debt about £30,000,000.
Sir Julius Vogel, a New Zealand Disraeli, has much to answer for as author of the incubus.
The defence for having such a debt is that with the money they build railways and other public works, and as these pay, or are destined to yield huge profits, it is a good thing to have a debt.
The most wonderful things up the Waikata River are the terraces. When you look ahead you see the river like a long bright band surging down towards you, between high perpendicular banks. Above these banks on either side there is a strip of flat ground, perhaps fifty, perhaps two hundred yards in width, and then two more steep banks. Above these there is more flat ground, and another set of banks—each flat strip representing an old flood plain of the river. In some places five or six of these terraces could be counted, each ofthem being beautifully defined. They had the appearance of so many parallel roads cut in the hills on either side the river gorge.
The first sixteen miles of our road was very clayey, in fact, places were so extremely sticky and puddle-like that we were in danger of being stuck fast. In summer-time the driver said it was like a billiard-table. What we crossed was like a brick-field.
After twelve miles’ driving we stopped at a post-office. There were no houses. The country looked like open moorland covered with bracken. The post-office was a square box about as big as a tea-chest. It stood at the side of the road on four stout legs in amongst the bracken. It was painted sky-blue, and on it was written, in very large letters, ‘V.R. Matanabe Letterbox.’
The V.R. brought such vivid pictures to my eyes of the chairs in a British Consulate, that I had to turn my head from Mac and hide my sorrow.
A great deal of the land along the road is wire fenced. If it was put upon wooden posts or electrically insulated tests would tell the squatter where it was broken.
This would be convenient for travellers who had lost their bearings. They might break a wire and then sit down until a shepherd came to repair the damage.
Inside the fences I saw a lot of fat cattle. They were all red and had white faces. Ti-trees and bracken appear to suit cattle.
After twenty-one miles we stayed at a solitary inn, where there was an Irish landlord, and many pictures of O’Connell, Parnell, and other Hibernian celebrities.
When we looked at Dan with his thumb in the armholeof his waistcoat, we thought of his famous address to a mob of his supporters:
‘Will ye live for yéer Dan?’
‘We will, we will.’
‘Will ye fight for yéer Dan?’
‘We will, we will.’
‘Will ye run when the cavalry come?’
‘We will, we will.’
If our host had not been so jovial we should certainly have looked under the table for a box of dynamite. I did not note the name of this place because, as I told Mac, it would probably be one of those heathen names with forty-threehiki pikisandrapi tapiswhich we could neither pronounce nor write correctly. That evening I learnt that it was called Oxford. It is either at Oxford or the place next to it where there is alusus naturæ, which for many years has attracted the attention of the medical faculty. This is a boy who has the attributes of a small bull. When a stranger arrives he comes and snuffs, then he stares and snorts and ‘moos’ like an ox. When a gate or door is shut, instead of opening it with his hands he will stand in front of it and paw the ground. If it is not opened he lowers his head and butts. It is expected that some day he will smash his skull, and this remarkable phenomenon will be lost to science.
The last and worst part of our journey was through sixteen miles of what is known in these parts as ‘the bush.’ At the entrance to it there were some pretty steep precipice-like slopes, about 1,000 feet in depth, from the edges of which our wheels often did not have more than six inches clearance.
Mac, who was on the hanging or lee-side of the coach, said he did not like it.
To describe the sixteen-mile bush I must ask you to imagine the Suez Canal lined on either bank with tall trees, and an undergrowth so thick that it formed a dense black wall. Next imagine the Suez Canal, instead of being straight, to be curved. Finally, imagine the Suez Canal to be filled with from six inches to two feet of stiff clay and water-holes. When you have done this, you will have a picture of something not very much like the Suez Canal, but very much like the sixteen-mile bush.
Some of the fern leaves were big enough to thatch a haystack. A botanist collecting specimens of these plants would require twenty-four foot screens in which to press his specimens. Many of the trees were covered with things which Mac called orchids, and which he said were worth from £5 to £20 apiece. I expect he thought I should stop the coach and begin to climb.
The trunks of some of the trees were completely buried by these parasites, while their heads were bowed down by the weight they had to carry.
If a tree was cut down, the grass, or whatever it is which grows upon it, ought to fodder a herd of oxen for several months.
Vine-like climbers are very common in this bush. There is one called the Rata, which grows to a larger size than the tree it embraces. Many tall, straight trees which were being slowly compressed to death by the rata, looked like huge maypoles clasped by monstrous centipedes.
I don’t know how the rata grows, whether it commencesat the top of the tree and grows downwards, or whether it commences below and grows upwards. Perhaps it does both; anyhow, if you cut a rata off near the ground it will send down roots and re-establish communication.
A guide-book we had said the road was extremely interesting, calling our attention to the rata-trees and £20 orchids.
The chief interest which Mac and I found was with regard to our hats, which were continually in danger of being smashed on the roof of the coach. The bumps and rolls that we experienced along the Suez Canal were perfectly awful. Every moment you expected the vehicle either to capsize or else roll down a precipice. Most of the time you were holding on to an upright or a strap, like a cat to a waterspout. And all this time you could hear the driver telling a fellow outside that in summer it was as smooth as a billiard-table. Interesting indeed! Yes, it was full of interest, but the man who wrote that book ought to be hung.
The sun was setting when we emerged from the bush and descended towards Lake Rotorua. A short drive brought us round to the village of Ohinemutu. The hills near the lake are moderately high, and of a sad green colour.
This particular bit of Wonderland will not appal anyone by its beauty. But for the steam rising from numerous hot springs all is still and dead. The faint smell of the springs is not pleasant.
There are several hotels here for the convenience ofvisitors wishing to enjoy the baths. There are baths for everything; one will cure the gout, another the rheumatism, another the toothache.
One of the baths is called the Priest’s Bath, another one the Lobster, another Madame Rachael. The quantity of water and the temperature of many of the springs vary considerably with changes of the wind.
When you want a bath, you find that you have at least to cross a road, and generally to wander through the scrub to some wretchedly-built shanty open to the heavens at more places than its windows and doors. Here you undress in the cold, and if it is wet in the rain.
After a trial of one of these primitive baths, the arrangements for which are hardly comparable with those which savages would provide, it seems astonishing that invalids are not killed rather than cured. The whites of New Zealand have come into a legacy which they have not yet learned to use. When in a bath, put up your hands, and you are cool; put them down, and you are hot; always go home with your wet towel round your neck, and you cannot catch cold, are amongst the many other wonderful things which the new owners of the springs have discovered.
There were one or two visitors at the hotel. One of them told us that he had been out all day exploring mud-holes and hot springs.
‘Took a hammer, a magnifying-glass, and a bottle of vitriol acid, you know.’
‘And what was that for?’ we asked.
‘Just a lark, you know. Testing the waters.’
He only wanted a pair of spectacles to become a completesavant.
Another visitor told us of his experiences. The Lobster bath was a terror. But according to him everything was a terror—the roads were terrors, the lake was a terror, some of the women were terrors (I believed this). Terror is a New Zealand adjective. Shilling knives are advertised as ‘perfect terrors.’ You can’t go wrong if you call a thing a terror.
A young Englishman, however, called everything and everybody ‘a Johnny.’ Mac thought him as big an ass as the other visitors.
That night it was cold, and in the morning the ground was white with frost.
There are many Maoris at Ohinemutu, and we had good opportunities to see both them and their houses. They are physically fine, but with coarse, broad features. They are tolerably honest, fearful beggars, consummate liars, and dreadfully lazy.
Their hardest work is to plant and dig potatoes, smoke, and occasionally go in search of kauri gum, which they sell to foreign merchants.
The Government built them a mill at Wairoa, but the Maoris did not think well of it, so they took out the machinery, and now use it as a dwelling-house. It was too hard work to grind corn.
Their homes (wharis) are, to look at, like the roof of a thatched cottage minus the side-walls. At one end there are usually a number of elaborately carved pieces of wood, many of the figures on which are highly indecent.
They have churches, where they pray and sing according to formulæ taught them by the missionaries.
In the afternoon we had an eleven miles’ drive over to Wairoa, the headquarters from which one visits Rotomahana and the terraces—the glory of Wonderland.
The drive was over a pretty country, past two crater lakes. One of these, with a white bottom, has an exceedingly beautiful blue appearance. The other is dark green.
Part of the way is through bush, very similar to what we had seen on the way up from Cambridge. If we except skylarks, which are everywhere in New Zealand, the country appears to be entirely without bird life. In the sixteen-mile bush, a road-mender told me that in three months he might have seen six birds.
We stayed at the Terrace Hotel. Here there is a large quantity of sweetbrier. You meet with the plant in many parts of the northern island. It is said to have been introduced by a missionary. It is now a pest.
At Wairoa we were introduced to a curiosity in the form of an animal-plant, or true zoophyte. The animal is undoubtedly a caterpillar; but the plant, which appears to grow out of one end of the caterpillar, may be anything. It is usually from six inches to two feet in length, and looks like a flexible root or piece of a vine.
Our host said it was a young rata-vine, and the way in which the combination of plant and animal cameabout was as follows. The caterpillar lives beneath the rata-tree, and when the seeds are shed they fall upon the caterpillar beneath. Most of the seeds roll off the caterpillar’s back, but it sometimes happens that one will lodge in a particularly large crease at the back of the caterpillar’s neck. Here it germinates, and the caterpillar, being irritated by the process, digs into the ground, where it dies while struggling to release itself from the parasite. The parasite then grows, and the natives seeing the shoot, carefully dig it up, dry it, and keep it as a curio to be sold to the guileless tourist.
Our coachman who was there said:
‘No, that’s not it. I’ve found plenty of them; the root sticks in the ground, and the caterpillar is on the end of it, standing up like fruit on a tree. The caterpillar sees the young rata-tree sprouting, and swallowing the end of it, gets stuck fast—the end of the plant swelling in its mouth. The plant goes on growing, and the caterpillar gets shoved up in the air end on.’
A tourist who was there said that a Maori told him that the caterpillar ate the seed, and then it germinated.
Here Mac broke in with the remark, that if it chewed the seed, the seed could not germinate.
The tourist seemed annoyed, and said:
‘Well, sir, it doesn’t eat it, but it swallows it like a Cockle’s pill, and then it germinates. The body of the caterpillar becomes a flower-pot for the plant, which grows until it has exhausted the contents of its friend, and then both of them die. The caterpillar is neitherup nor down, but it lies horizontally with the plant sticking out of its mouth.’
Here we appealed to the specimens, and pointed at the fact that the plant might come out of the tail of the animal or the back of its neck; but it was certain that it did not come out of its mouth.
‘Everybody gets mixed about them inseks,’ said a gentleman in a flannel shirt, who had been listening to the argument. ‘The way they comes to be as they is, is because they’ve been stuck in when you sees them. It’s a sandpiper as does it. The sandpiper builds in rata-trees, and, just to ornament the surroundings, fills up its spare time in sticking caterpillars on the branches. I’ve seen a sandpiper and its mate in two hours cover a tree so thick that you couldn’t see the sky for caterpillars.’
By this time I had learnt that a caterpillar did something with the rata-seed, or else the rata-seed did something with a caterpillar, or else a sandpiper——here I got mixed.
But rata-trees begin to grow from the tops of other trees! Perhaps our zoophyte was found suspended in the air like fruit. Altogether it was as mysterious as a mermaid. Somehow or other, I don’t think it has anything to do with rata-trees. Caterpillars do not take pills. Possibly they may take in the spores of a fungus which use the stomach of their host as a flower-pot.
Another curious object for the naturalist was a plant calledPisoniasomething or other. A friend of mine had one in his garden, and he gave me some seeds. The peculiarity of this plant is that it catches birds.The way in which this is done is by its having seed-pods covered with a kind of birdlime. Insects stick on the birdlime, and sparrows and other feathered pets coming for a feed, get stuck themselves. Cats then go round and catch the sparrows. I never heard of the tree catching cats. I am sorry I never made inquiries.
Next day we went to see the terraces—the hub of Wonderland. Our guide was a Maori called Sophia. Sophia and Kate are historical characters in Wonderland, and everybody who visits this district passes through the hands of one of these ladies.
Kate, who is decorated with a medal for having saved life—I think it was the life of a bishop—was away on her twenty-fifth honeymoon, so we fell into the arms of Sophia. Sophia is a big woman, and it would be a big man who ever escaped should he ever fall into her arms. I don’t know her age, but I should guess it at being about forty-five.
Although Sophia is masculine, she speaks English with the affectation of a well-bred duchess. She is always merry, and has a twinkle in her eye, indicating that she is continually on thequi vivefor fun. She wore a short dress like a Welshwoman, black stockings, and buckled shoes.
From the hotel we walked a mile or so down to the lake, where we all embarked in a whale-boat. Here we had a row of a mile and a half down a river-like arm of the lake before we were fairly launched in the lake itself. Before us were the rugged rocky heights of Mount Tarawera, a volcano after which the lake is named. On the opposite side of the lake there are hills covered with trees.
It was a pull of nearly eight miles against a stiff breeze, before we came to the top of the lake. On the way we made one stoppage. This was to interview a fisherman in a dug-out. Sophia told us that to buy craw-fish from the fishermen of Tarawera was the correct thing, and as we could not oppose the wishes of a lady, we stopped. Luckily the fisherman had not caught any craw-fish. We were very cold and a little wet when we reached the head of the lake.
A walk of a mile and a half up the banks of a small creek, which was in many places steaming, and we were on the shores of Lake Rotomahana and at the foot of the White Terrace. At a distance the terrace looked like one side of a pyramid which had been made by piling together rows of white wash-hand basins.
Another comparison is to liken it to a huge white marble staircase on the side of a hill, each step being rounded in front and hollowed out above. These steps, or wash-hand basins, are from one foot to twelve feet in height, and they are all filled with water, which is hotter and hotter the higher you ascend. At the top there is one large basin filled with water that is boiling. When the wind is in a certain direction (north-east, Sophia said), this may be entirely empty.
When we saw it, it was twenty feet or so in depth, and overflowing. The water was running down from basin to basin, getting cooler and cooler and depositing silica as it descended. One exceedingly striking point connected with the marble-like basins of limpid water is that the water appears to be of a brilliant light-blue colour—so blue that it often looks unnatural.
The pool at the top looks like a crater that had beenbreached on one side, and from the breach a lava stream had descended to the lake. The terraced arrangements of basins have been built on the lava stream. In many places, especially at the foot of the terraces, you could see basins in the process of formation. As a stream of water flows over an inclined surface, it spreads out to form a fan-like film.
At a certain distance from its origin it has become sufficiently cooled to deposit the silica which, while hot, it holds in solution. The deposition takes place on a curved ridge, the curvature of which corresponds to the curvature of the flowing fan-like film of water. In time the ridge grows higher and higher, until finally it becomes a basin in which water does not cool so rapidly as it did when the formation commenced.
We spent a considerable time paddling about the White Terrace. At one pool Sophia showed us some sparrows which she had placed in the water to petrify. Strangers are not supposed to remove the stalactitic formations and various petrifactions which are met with on the terraces, but a few shillings will usually enable you to procure a few specimens.
A short distance from the White Terrace we saw several boiling caldrons, which every now and then would shoot up columns of water twenty or thirty feet in height.
Farther on, we met a dug-out canoe and two boatmen who had brought our lunch. The potatoes had, of course, been boiled in a hot spring.
Sophia told us that the last party she had the honour of conducting were missionaries. One old man had given her a drink of brandy, and when in the dug-out,where you have to sit fore and aft, had placed his head in her lap.
‘I told the old gentleman,’ said Sophia, ‘that drinking brandy and putting his head into the lap of an unmarried girl did not go well with a white necktie. What do you think he said? why, he whispered, “Never mind, Sophia,” and he gave me a squeeze.’
Sophia in talking to us always called us ‘poor boys.’ Mac, who was getting bald, did not like it.
After lunch, we carefully balanced ourselves in the dug-out, Mac putting his head in Sophia’s lap, and set sail on Rotomahana. This is a little round lake bounded on all sides with low hills. Most of them are steaming with hot springs, the water from which comes down into the lake, so that the lake itself is hot.
Although the water is quite warm, and has a nasty taste, some sort of beetles appear to live in it. The trip across the lake is one where everything depends on the accuracy of your balance. There is no turning round, and Mac having once put his head in Sophia’s lap, he had to keep it there, or else run the risk of overturning the boat.
The Pink Terrace on the other side of the lake is far more pink in description and books than it is in reality. On the top there is a boiling pond, and below this comes the staircase of basins just like the White Terrace. We had a bath here. We unstripped in a grove of Ti-trees, and then had our first dip in a pool which was moderately warm. From this we ascended, step by step, to other pools which were warmer.
It would take a long time to describe all we saw. One little valley we went up was filled with small mudvolcanoes, one of which was called the Porridge-Pot. This contained a beautiful bluish-grey creamy mud which was gently simmering. All of these had certain medicinal qualities attributed to them. The Porridge-Pot was good for dysentery. I took a spoonful of it. It was smooth, warm, and inky.
Many visitors have written a description of these wonders. One man, who describes the place in blank verse, speaks of the waters as a ‘lithic lymph.’ But about all this I will speak more fully in my Guide-book to New Zealand.
Another man, struck by the quantity of steam, the pits, the bubbling and snorting, the ponds of steaming mud, and the sulphurous burning hillsides, entitled his description ‘An Introduction to the Devil; or, The Vestibule of Hell.’ I could not get a copy of his work.
The activity is continually shifting. One day you find a steam-hole in the scrub, and next day it has gone. Some of these holes are big enough to receive a bullock, and we were told the story of a herd of bullocks falling into a hole, and their coming up out of another about a mile distant from the place where they had disappeared. The subterranean activity of Wonderland is a kind of public works which are difficult to inspect. Mac said he would not live there at any price; he was afraid the whole thing might blow up.
On our way back Sophia gave us a lot of information about the terraces and their visitors. Several American speculators had from time to time paid Rotomahana a visit.
One old gentleman, who had a craze for naturalphenomena, tried to buy up the terraces; what he wanted to do with them we never properly learned. One idea was that he was going to cut them up in sections, and then ship them to New York; another idea was that he intended to light them up with the electric light, and show them through variously coloured glasses to visitors; a third notion was that he intended to convert the heat into electricity, and send it down by wire to Auckland; but what the old man really wanted was never known.
‘What did he offer for your Wonderland, Sophia?’ asked Mac.
‘He offered us a yearly rental of five shillings, or £10 down.’
We reached Ohinemutu on Saturday afternoon. In the evening we paid a shilling to get entrance to a Maori dance, which was going on in a shed opposite the hotel.
There were a great many persons present—half-whites, and half-Maoris. I reckon the half-castes, some of whom were very pretty, in with the Maoris. The ladies sat in benches round the sides of the room. Five or six of these ladies were white. Many of the Maori girls, who were dressed in European dresses, with French boots and plaited pig-tails, spoiled their appearance by having tattooed lips.
The music, consisting of a concertina, at length commenced, and a young Englishman, desirous of dancing with a live Maori, asked a young lady for the pleasure of her hand.
‘You play schottische?’ said she.
‘Waal, no; but can try, you know.’
So they commenced. The Maori pranced, and the poor young man acted like a brake.
‘You no play schottische?’ she again inquired; and while he was looking at her, searching for a reply, she gave him a push, and rushed off to her seat, saying:
‘Horrible! horrible!’
He did not solicit the hand of any other princess. The Ohinemutu whites, with their dark-skinned friends, danced grandly. All the quadrilles and country-dances were of an old type.
The gentlemen would cavotte and shuffle about by themselves in the centre, then rush in and whirl their partners with vigour.
A schottische was superb; everybody danced all over the room, throwing up their arms, cutting little capers, and yelping in true Highland fashion.
Mac was enraged. He looked upon all this as an insult to his country. Why should white people lower themselves by hob-nobbing with, and even marrying, what he called ‘female cannibals?’ If he were ruler, he would begin by making them pay taxes, like other people; and if they would not pay, he would have the country cleared.
With all his raillery I observed that he did not seem so hard on the flounces and French boots.
All Sunday was spent in exploring Ohinemutu. At one place the Government have built a hospital, and covered in some of the baths. All the Maoris go to their churches. When the Wesleyans are having service, the Catholics sit outside playing cards in the porch; and when the Catholics occupy the buildings, the Wesleyans play cards in the porch. They are passionately fond of cards.
By the afternoon all the hot springs and cooking-holes had been examined, and life at Ohinemutu became a burden. This resulted in all the guests taking a nap. Ten miles away I heard that a big Maori funeral was going on. These funerals are conducted on the principle of a wake. The visitors eat, drink, and mourn. They may last two weeks.
We left Ohinemutu next morning at seven, in the coach for Cambridge. When I came to take my seat, I found that the box-seat had been occupied by Mac and a gentleman with a red beard. Inside there was a Maori lady, evidently the wife of the gentleman with the red beard.
I felt a little annoyed at having an inside place, and I showed my annoyance by sitting on a narrow seat opposite to my Maori, rather than on the broad and relatively comfortable seat by her side. But having taken my seat, I was stupid, and preferred discomfort to giving in and shifting.
I succeeded in getting discomfort fairly well. For thirty-three miles I was dragged, with my back to the horses, looking at rows of trees, cart-ruts, sticks, pebbles, and puddles, all appearing to chase each other and run backwards.
Inside, however, I could study my tame savage. She had a dark olive complexion, black flashing eyes, and white incisors. She did not wear feathers on her head, but a Sultana plush hat, turned up on one side,à laMadam Rousby, and decorated with ostrich plumes. Round her neck she had a ‘masher’ collar. Her dress was a tight-fitting gabrielle, ornamented with bretelle, the fronts apparently opening over a long plaited vest,which had an effective extension over the entire front.
The skirt was draped and trimmed with gore plaiting, the ornamentation being soutache embroidery. I estimated the garment as containing eighteen yards and three-eighths of twenty-four inch stuff. The double-breasted polonaise and pointed basque were particularly attractive. Behind, she carried a bouffant bow, and feather-trimming tastefully draped below the waistband.
One point to which I would draw the attention of all ladies, was the deep box-plaiting round the collar. The redingote, which she cast aside shortly after taking her seat, was a plain sacque, shirred around the neck and shoulders, giving the effect of a circular yoke and Spanish flounce.
The general appearance was that of a graceful and elegant combination of twenty-four inch goods, suitable for boating, yachting, bathing, archery, the seaside, the drawing-room, the tropic of Capricorn, the ballroom, the dining-room, for both hemispheres, and for all seasons. Her boots were high-heeled number sixes. I had a good view of these, because she put them up on the seat by my side. Her gloves were number five brown silks.
The only indication of savage restlessness which she exhibited at being cooped up and jolted was now and then to eject saliva. This she did with a neatness and precision which would excite the envy of a professional. Some people splash or slobber, others guffaw as an introductory accompaniment to their performance.
Behaviour like this is intolerable, and it ought to besuppressed. My Maori friend, who found spitting a necessity, expectorated with grace. First she puckered up her lips to a pretty point, as if about to take the soprano at a whistling show. Then placing the tip of her tongue in juxtaposition with her teeth, she gave a sudden gentle, but decided contraction of her facial muscles. The only sound was a gentle click. From the initials S. M. upon her trunk, her name may have been Susan Macintosh. Susan could spit with grace. The sparkling thin spheroid, as it pursued its paraboloidal course, glittered in the sunlight with a meteoric brilliancy. But for Susan’s performance I should have felt dull and miserable.
Outside I could hear that Mac and Red Beard were becoming quite chummy, obtaining information from each other and the driver. This conversation, and an occasional ‘Git ep,’ addressed to the horses, was all that I could hear.
After about twenty-five miles Susan, who had been watching my attempts to write, asked me what I was noting. I felt that I was suspected of describing objects belonging to my companion. I replied:
‘I’m writing, madam, on the trajectory of a fluid projectile passing rapidly through a yielding but non-viscous medium.’
Madam glared, gave another spit, and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, said:
‘Do you mind showing me your book, young man?’
My writing was never good, and the jolting of the coach had made it worse, so I passed it to my companion. She looked at it a moment, then remarked that the road was very rough, and handed it back.
This is the only time that I ever felt thankful for having cultivated an illegible hand. Had it not been illegible, Susan might have slaughtered me.
Shortly after this, at the driver’s request, I sat on the same seat with Susan, who, keeping her feet on the opposite seat, propped her back against me and fell asleep. I now recognised why Red Beard sat outside. When she awoke I offered her a cigarette. She replied with a look. The reference to the customs of her uncivilized sisters had evidently given offence, and she did not speak again.
The distance to Cambridge was fifty-five miles, and it cost thirty shillings a head each way.
Maoris are very susceptible to insult. In speaking to them you must be particular. To a common man you may call a pig a pig; to a swell you ought to say a porcine animal; but to a duke you can only refer to a pachydermatous quadruped, or one of the Suidæ. This joke is very old.
At Cambridge we again put up at Kirkwood’s Cottage. On the opposite side of the road there is Kirkwood’s Hotel. During the evening we picked up a little information about the Good Templars and Blue Ribbonites. Sometimes they are elected on a licensing committee, when they at once proceed to refuse all licences, even to houses which the police report as being well kept.
At some of the New Zealand hotels the landlords are compelled to be very strict. If they hold a licence for liquors to be drunk at the bar, even if you are a guest at the house, you may have to leave your dinner and go to the bar to obtain a drink, at least that is what we were told.
We returned to Auckland viâ the Thames Gold Fields. First, we went by train to Hamilton, where there is a very small town and two or three hotels. From here we crossed an exceedingly flat country in the train to Morrinsville, where the only buildings are the sheds at the station and two hotels. I suppose the landlords take turn about at each other’s houses.
A twelve-mile drive in a coach brought us to Te Aroa, where there are one or two hot springs, and at a place three miles distant some gold mines. Te Aroa is a straggling street situated at the foot of a steep range of hills parallel to which is the River Thames. Twice a week there is a steamer on the river down to a town called Thames. We went in the coach. Distance, thirty-five miles; price, 9s.
For the first six miles our road was along the foot of the hills overlooking Te Aroa. The open plain of the Thames, brown with Ti-trees, was on our right. After this came a pass through the mountains. The most noticeable tree was the tree-fern. Some of these were of immense size, and they waved their fronds like the plumes of a gigantic hearse.
The driver pointed out a kauri-tree to us. This is the tree which yields gum. Much gum is, however, found buried in marshes where kauri-trees once flourished. The natives search for it with pronged forks, much in the same way that fishermen catch eels.
When descending the other side of the hill, I saw what I took to be a field filled with troughs at which to feed cattle or sheep. It turned out to be a bee farm, and what I saw were the hives.
Near the Thames I noticed what I thought was a second bee farm. This turned out to be a cemetery.
Beyond the hills we passed the village of Piroa, and entered a flat, swampy country. The roads were fearfully muddy and irregular. At one time the coach was running on two wheels, and the next moment we were out on the road helping it out of a clay-pit.
The Thames is a large place with better hotels than Auckland. The people here appear to be chiefly Irish. We spent a day at the Thames, walking round the gold mines. At one end of the town the gold which occurs in quartz reefs is only near the surface, while at the other end it is deep. The gold is alloyed with silver, and is pale in colour and very poor. Some of it is only worth £2 17s. per ounce, while gold in other districts has fetched £4 5s. per ounce. The method of extraction is by mercury plates and blankets.
At one mine we were shown some heavy pumping machinery. We had often heard of this machinery before reaching the Thames. By-and-by it will be sent to a museum.
Great excitement prevailed in this part of the world about some new furnaces which were being put up to extract gold and silver by smelting. They had been used very successfully in Victoria and New South Wales.
From the Thames we returned to Auckland in a dirty little steamer called theEnterprise. There were two notices in the saloon. One was for passengers to take off their boots before lying on the cushions. Thecushions were strips of dirty carpet. The second was, that smoking was strictly prohibited.
The steward enforced the first regulation, but he and the captain disregarded the second notice by smoking and expectorating all over the cabin.