13? 0^ EDWARD ANGAS JOHNSON POENAMO SKETCHES OF THE EARLY DAYS OF NEW ZEALAND ROMANCE AND REALITY OF ANTIPODEAN LIFE IN THE INFANCY OF A NEW COLONY. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 14. HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 1881. LONDON: O. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, MAIDEN LANE. OOVENT GABDBN. /?5 PEEFACE. The manuscript from which these pages have been printed was not written with any intention tliat it should ever be pubhshed. It was meant merely as a narrative for the perusal of the writer's own children, depicting as it does his own early life. This could never have been known to them unless it had been set down in some such succinct form as the writer has made his manuscript assume. Chapters from it having been at various times read to friends who desired to hear some "plain unvarnished tales" of the early days of Poenamo, and the result being invariably an urgent request that the whole should be put in print, an assent has been somewhat reluctantly given. For, in fact, it is putting a private life before the public which the owners of the manuscript would have prefen*ed should remain known to themselves only. Written currente calamOf as it was, and without any pretension at artistic composition, it is hoped that, after this explanation, critics will be lenient. Polynesia, March, 1880. TO MY CHILDEEN. I DO not sit down to pen these memoirs under the vain delusion that the small events of my small life are worthy of record. But I think when I have passed away you ouo-ht not to be in ignorance of your father's life, nor be placed in the position of having to ask some stranger about those days and myself when allusion is made to events of a long-ago past in which it fell to my lot to act a somewhat prominent part. A simple narrative of my own writing seems to me the most natural and fitting source from which you should become acquainted with all I have passed through in the early days of the first colo- nisation of the country which has become the land of my adoption and will be your own future home. To that far-distant land you are as yet strangers. Born in the sunny clime of fair Italy, you have yet to learn that there is a far-away laud even more fair, with a still more sunny sky, and a still more genial climate. viii To My Children. After many, many years spent in that land, and hasdng reaped the reward of my early struggles there, I am now taking a long decade of holidays and wandering with you o'er many lands, amongst the fairest cities and finest scenery of the old world, before we finally take our rest in oiu* own home in the new world of the Great South Land. I commence these my reminiscences, strange to say, in the " land of the mountain and the flood,'' in my " ain kintrie," whilst sitting on the banks of the Dee, the Braemar moorlands around me. In all likelihood, ere the last page is written I shall be once again in the far-away land where the scenes I am about to depict took place — scenes which can never occur there again, for civilisation has replaced the reign of savagedom which prevailed in the days of the pioneer settlers. And life then was of a primitive simplicity which can never be again, for now the iron road commences to span the land, and its very aborigines of the present day can no longer speak correctly their own language as spoken by their fathers two score years ago, so rapidly has tliat short epoch in the history of the colony changed all things, I intend to divide these memoirs into two periods. The first period Avill refer almost entu'ely to myself and the native people amongst whom I was thrown '^0 My Children. ix after leaving the parental roof and starting for myself in the race of life. It will bring the period of it to the point when I changed the whole current of my life, making its stream thereafter flow in a new channel, when I joined the pioneer band who saw the birth and earliest years of the infant capital of a new colony born to the Crown of England. The second period "will deal more historically of the colony when my own individuality will have become merged in the increased population and advancement of the young settlement. When I have brought my memoirs down to a date that you yourselves can take up the thread of my life and your own from your own memories — then I shall lay aside my pen. It may be that you will not read what I intend to set down here until I shall have passed away and been gathered alongside of my brother pioneers, who have now almost all paid the last debt of Nature, leaving me in marked solitude, to be almost the only remaining link that binds the long-ago past with the present time, and who can tell you The Tale of the Early Days of P0ENA3I0. CONTENTS. BOOK THE FIRST. MYSELF. ■Chap. Page. I. ]My Advent on this Sublunary Scene. — Six Years' Despotic Nursery Reign. — My Deposition . . 1 II. The Kind of Boy I Was.— Why and How I Became a Doctor 8 III. I Weigh in the Baknce the Chances of Life, and Determine to Forsake my Fatherland ... 14 IV. Portraying the Depth of a Sister's Love ... 23 V. " Ho ! for the Great South Land" .... 30 VI. I Forswear the Great Convict Land .... 39 BOOK THE SECOND. THE TOWN THAT NETEE WAS. I. The King of Waiou 46 II. We Start on the Exploring Expedition ... 58 III. We Sing and Row Ourselves over the Hauraki . . G6 lY. The Timber-Draggers.— A Pull for Dear Life . . 76 Y. The Night Camp. — The Morning's Yision ... 87 VI. The Isthmus of Corinth of the Antipodes . . ,102 YII. The Mess of Pottage which floored the King of Waiou's Grand Scheme 112 xii Contents. BOOK THE THIRD. WITH THE MAOEIES ON TE HAUEAKI SHOEE. Chap. Page. I. Why we Invaded Waiomu 123 II. We are Adopted by the Ngatitamateras . . . 134 III. We Secure Apartments for the Winter Season . . 144 IV. De Pluribus Maori Rehus 158 V. A Maori Wake 168 VI. A Gunpowder Explosion. — The Doctor Wanted . . 181 VII. Steeped in Tapu 191 VIII. Maori Philosopliy 204 IX. Farewell to Waiomu 213 BOOK THE FOURTH. HOW A NEW COLONY IS BOEN TO AN OLD NATION. I. The Two Pioneer Pakehas of the Waitemata . • 226 II. Monarchs of all they Surveyed. — The IMonarchs Turn Well-Sinkers 239 III. I Present our Credentials to the Ngatitais. — The Early Missionary 233 IV. I Learn what Taihoa Means 266 V. Waiting in Expectancy 277 VI. My Maiden Venture in the Field of Commerce . . 287 VII. The Capital is Born to Us.— The Flagstaff that never was Erected 300 VIII. We Change the Current of our Lives. — We Visit our Newly -horn Child 309 IX. How we Shave a Pig 320 X. We Adopt our Child 328 XI The Capital of Poenamo in 1841. — How we Lived then . 334 XII. An Episode. — Our First Maori Scare. — Conclusion . 342 BOOK FIRST. CHAPTiJR I. MY ADVENT ON THIS SUBLUNARY SCENE, ANI> SIX years' despotic nursery reign MY DEPOSITION. WAS an only son. If my father had only been the same, he would have succeeded to the title and estates of " our family." But not having been imbued with the proper appreciation of the value of these in this world, he allowed himself to be born the youngest of the family, one of fourteen too, and with such a large proportion of brothers that for him to look forward to succeed to the title through such a vista of male heirs as kept cropping up in the shape of nephews, would have been as hopeless a task as trying to see to the end of the list of his own Scotch cousins ! 2 My Advent. My forefathers for nearly three liundred years had been baronets, and lived in an old baronial castle on the borders of the Highlands. For as many more years previously I believe my ancestors could be traced as being very worthy gentlemen indeed. But beyond that period I always steadfastly set my face against making too minute inquiries " anent my forebears," because when a boy I remembered to have read in the Tales of a Grandfather, certain stories concerning Highland raids into the Lowlands for the purpose of " lifting" cattle, that in these operations the vile savages of the Lowlands some- times used to kidnap their more civilised mountain neighbours, and ruthlessly consign them to a branch of the nearest tree. Now I had always a very distinct aversion to look any of my ancestors in the face in that exalted position, and not being at all sure but that I should require to do so, if I penetrated into a too remote antiquity of my family, I wisely accepted the story of it as told in the Peerage, and hurked everything antecedent. My father, as I have said, was the youngest of fourteen. My grandfather had had two wives — of course I don't mean at the same time. The conse- quence was, that before my fatner saw the light the children of his eldest sister — step-sister — did so, and My Advent. 3 \\Q, had nephews and nieces who used to dandle their uncle on their knees. I merely tell this fact to prove that in the prolific increase of the thirteen there was as legitimate a hope that " our family" would never die out for want of male heirs, as there was a legitimate excuse for my grandfather getting head over ears into debt. The hospitality of the old castle that had to be extended to the direct members of the family — not to mention " Hielan" cousins and retainers — was enough to drain a heavier purse than the old gentle- man's, so he got very handsomely indeed into debt, and, being an honest man, he foolishly sold off all the unentailed portion of the fine old family estate to make himself square with the world and his own conscience. And so it fell out that the old castle and the barony lands were all that were left, and, in fine, to tell a sad story in a few words, my grand- father died having only as many hundreds a year as his father had thousands, and sic transit gloria of old families ! You may think all this has little to do with me, but it has, for inasmuch as it affected my father's fortunes and obliged him to go forth and do battle with the world on his own account, with little to help him in the shape of hard cash, so it happened that when my time came I had e'en to go and do likewise. 1* 4 My Advent. My clear worthy father's idea of starting in the world Avas after this fasliion : he fell in love and married when he was only a boy of four-and-twenty. He certainly was not guilty of Ids father's im- prudence, that of numbering his progeny by a dozen and one or two extra, but marrying at four-and- twenty was just about as fatal to his w^ordly pros- pects. But if fatal to worldly prosperity I am bound to record that his imprudence secured an amount of happiness rarely attained in this world. Never was there a happier union. After seven-and-fifty yeai's of wedded life my mother passed away at the matm'e age of seventy-seven, and two years later — at eighty- three — my father was laid by her side. If their end was peaceful and happy, and smTounded by the comforts of this life, they had their early struggles. Of course they had. Have I not already said he was the youngest of fourteen, son of a father with an exchequer at zero, whose children for inheritance had only the best of educations; but marrying at four-and-twenty, what other than early struggles could await him '^ He began life with a wife and seven-and-sixpence a day as a surgeon in the Army, when the whole world was gazing with fear and wonder at that fiery meteor Napoleon the First, whose after-consignment to St. Helena disbanded my father's regiment and My Advent. 5 sent him afloat on the worhl with his young Avife and two young children, and no seven-and-sixpcnce a day to help them I Xow pray do not be impatient and think that all I have been telling is irrelevant. I flatter myself I have condensed into a marvellously small space what might have been spun out into quite a long story, merging to a point coeval with my own appearance on this world's stage, the whole scope of what has been previously written being none other than to usher myself into your presence with just that necessary introduction to enable you to understand my position "when I became the " only son," as announced in the Avords first herein written of these my memoirs. ]\Iy earliest reminiscences of nursery life are worthy .an "only brother." I remember enacting the small tyrant in a manner worthy the " only son" of a duke, let alone that of a metropolitan physician, which my father was when I appeared upon the scene. I ought rather to say that he was a family physician in a metropolis, as he was still too young to claim the more -easily earned fees of a consulting physician. Indeed, when I was enacting the nursery tyrant my father was only pushing his way into "family practice," and had difficulty in making the two ends meet. My early 3'ears were fast ripening me into a most intolerable nuisance, as I lorded it over all the women- 6 My Advent. kind in a manner that ought to have brouglit down, condign punishment on my young understanding.. My worthy mother would have been equal to the occasion, but my father was the soft one who did the spoiling, and it was only when his organ of com- bativeness was direfully roused that he invoked that horribly cruel Scriptural adage, " He that spare th the rod hateth his son." I shall only chronicle one sample of the manners and customs of the young savage I then was, to prove how well I earned the opprobrious epithet I have just given myself. When in a particularly abominable humour I well remember I insisted, when being put to bed, that I should sit stridelegs on the neck of one of my sisters, and so have my ablutions performed. I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind that I should have grown up an unmitigated pest in the house, and perhaps afterwards in the world, if Providence had not most mercifully stepped in after I had tyrannised six years over my three sisters in the manner already described, and deposed me from my perilous reign of *'only son" and youngest child by making me no longer the latter, and giving me a foui'th sister. Tliis auspicious and happy event, all unlooked for, in the nursery in particular, and household in general, was my salvation. My Advent. y How in after years, when I have pondered over the matter, have I not thanked that dear sister's arrival in true heartfelt thankfuhiess ; showered down blessings on that singleness of purpose which caused her to appear on the family scene, and take upon herself the parental spoiling which had hitherto been my monopoly I The transfer, fortunately for me, was complete. A very short time had elapsed ere I ceased my gambols on my sisters' necks at bedtime, and was to be found instead consigned to the tub in a summary manner, the best-behaved and most exemplary " only son" that ever got soused in soapsuds ! In justice to the new arrival I am bound to state that when in course of years she ripened into woman- hood her nature had resisted all paternal indulgences, and she came throue-h the ordeal of beinc the youngest of the family in a manner I am certain would have put me to shame had I remained in her position. CHAPTER II. THE KIIs^D OF BOY I WAS, AND HOW I BECAME A DOCTOK. WAS not a bright boy ; I was not a stupid one. Indeed, I have a kind of feeHng now that I was one of those dreary, sensible boys who provoke people because they find a fellow is so sensible — for a boy. I scarcely ever got into scrapes, which makes me wonder now how I pushed my way in the world so well in after-life ; for boys who have not spirit enough in them to get into scrapes are generally slow, steady-going fellows avIio live and die within the radius of a small and narrow local vision. At school I did not shine, and could only just manage to keep a little above the middle of my class. I well remember I used to wonder why this was so, because I felt myself a better fellow than those beside me, and my companions were invariably those at the head of the class. In after-years the reason why dawned upon me, and I came to the conclusion — in confidence to myself — that I really should have been a tremen- The Kind of Boy I Was. ■dously clever man if I had not, most unfortunately for myself and the world at large, of course, been horn with only — half a memory ! This has been my bane through life ; to save that life I could not at this moment tell you the year in whicli I was born. Little wonder that I was only in the middle fonii, little wonder my poor mother used to deplore that she never •once knew me to say my Sunday lessons without a blunder. So hopeless was I, that she once offered a sovereign whenever I could repeat to her a chapter from the Bible without making a mistake. Did I not, one Sunday, with a sort of mean feeling that I was not doing the right thing, go to her to claim the trial, and repeat a chapter from the Old Testament? I had managed to find one with only a couple of verses ! The old lady was equal to the occasion, and, looking sternly at me, asked, " Is that a chapter from the New Testament?" Of course I was ashamed to tell her she had said a chapter from the Bible. She had bowled me over, and — I never pocketed the sovereign ! With herculean labour I do remember managing to learn the song " If I had a donkey," thinking all the time what a marvellously stupid one I was my- self, a belief confirmed beyond all contradiction when thi'ee days afterwards I in vain endeavoured to (repeat " If I had a donkey." Ko, I had none other lo The Kind of Boy I Was. than myself — I had to sigh and give it up. I had not then discovered that I had been born with only half a memory or I might have been consoled. My school-days were pain and grief to me. I learned, but only to forget ; it was as hopeless as the task of trying to carry water in a sieve. I grew up a horrid, classicless, sensible lad; I laboured at Latin and Greek through the accepted curriculum of school and college for over six years — in my case a direful waste of my young life. My masters thought well of me, over-much of me, though only figuring in the middle of my class; but I did differ from those on each side of me, for they never attempted an " essay," and I always got my half-holiday for my composition. If I could not retain I could create y. there was something in me, in myself, however much I allowed what others ordained to be driven intO' me, to run out again, and before my school-days were ended fearful was the quantity which had run out. And what next ? What was I going to be ? Only sons generally have little difficulty in fixing the grooves in which their lives are to run, for in nine cases out of ten it is fixed for them ; they follow in their father's wake. If there are two boys, people will ask " What are you going to be ?" of the second, it being taken for granted the eldest is entitled to The Kind of Boy I V/as. 1 1 succeed liis father, be it in his estates or in his busi- ness. Of course I was going to be a doctor — it never entered my mind to be anything else — it was a fixed and determined thing before I had brains enough to think about it myself. And I found myself becomhig a doctor accordingly. But as the time kept slipping past Avhich was con- verting me into a doctor, I had brains enough to force home the conclusion that when I fairly was one, the sticking up my name on a brass plate on the door, below my father's, with "Junior" on it, would not add to his practice ; nor did I see, as long as he was alive and well, how it would bring me any. What connection I had was his already ; he was hale and hearty, and up to more work than he had to do. And so it came about that by degrees, slow but sure, it became a fixed idea in my mind that I wo'uld push my fortune abroad somewhere or other. I am (piitc satisfied now that in this conclusion there came out some of the " sensible fellow" that 1 had . been christened by my friends. Doubtless you will be Avondering how it came about that a man with only half a memory managed to pass his examinations, but with superhuman per- severance I did so. True, I was still a mere sieve, but I kept pouring the thousands of facts which I had to "be up in" in such an incessant stream 1 2 The Kind of Boy I Was. through my brain that the necessary quantum got entangled therem somehow or other for the ordeal of examinations. But it was hard work. For six months before going up for the degree of physician, and diploma of surgeon — for I took both — I had only five hours' sleep a night. I was at college all day attending lectures, not cettino; home until five o'clock, then came dinner, and thereafter digestion and the sleepiness of worn- out nerves, so that one did not brighten up to Avork until ten o'clock, then at it I went, in a cold attic room in winter witiiout a fire, wrapped in a cloak, until two in the morning. During these hours the meshes in my brain — my poor sieve brain — seemed to grow •closer, but it was overstrained work, bordering on danger both to the mental and bodily system. Some- times I would protract my sederunt to half-past two or three, but I soon found that this was not to be done with impunity. As soon as I exceeded the four hours' grind I spoiled my five hours' sleep. I used to fall into a half- nightmare, half- cataleptic state, ^live to the night-watchman's call and every noise in the street, but unable to move a muscle of my body. And I soon learned that two o'clock was the extreme limit that nature would stand, and so I was compelled to stick to it. I had to get up at seven The Kind of Boy I Was. 1^ o'clock all the winter to go to attend a lecture at eight. When spring came I exchanged that hour's lecture for very different work, as shall be chronicled further on in these memoh's. CHAPTER III. I WEIGH IX THE BALANCE THE CHANCES OF LIFE, AND DETERMINE TO FORSAKE MT FATHERLAND. HAT shall be my future — where pitch my tent and start in life?" These were the absorbing questions which now occupied my mind as the time drew near when I should be dubbed ]\I.D. and hold a legitimate title to exercise " my prentice hand" in the curing •or killing, as the case might be, of my trusting or mistrusting, as the case might be, fellow-creatures. ISIy enterprising mother saw, and nobly joined me in saying, there was no use in my remaining at home. The old gentleman did not take at all kindly to that idea : he would have been quite content to have seen the second brass plate with the " Junior" •on the door. Indeed, my mother and I had to canvass privately the friends through whose good offices there was a prospect of procui'ing a commission in the East India Company's service. For I had determined to enter upon that field of enterprise. The Chances of Life. 15 I ought in an earlier page to have mentioned as a trait of my boyhood's character a deeply-rooted love of travel. When a mere boy I had walked from the east to the west of Scotland to spend my holidays at my grandmother's, and many were the pedestrian excursions I had made through Scotland with my iishing-rod and basket, the latter not to carry fish but to serve as a knapsack. I well remember the one promment and prevailing desire of my heart was, that some day I should see the world. I believe it was this feelino; which was the movins; spirit in determining me to have no second brass plate underneath my father's. I believe it was this feeling that decided me to try for the " Company's service." And I well know the book that first kindled this deep desire : it was Mungo Paries Travels in Egypt, and it was the embers still slumbering that fired me to look beyond my own home for my future career. The description of Egypt's vast monuments and her underground tombs made such a lasting im- pression on my boyish imagination, that the desire to travel in that land never faded away. Ah me ! it is now long, long ago since I grati- fied that desire of boyhood's days, and the best part of manhood's too have passed away. The Nile, 1 6 Jlje Chances of Life. far beyond where Belzoiii's tomb lies hidden, has been ascended, but the ruling passion is ever still strong upon me. Other things " might cloy the appetites they feed," but to me travelling "made hungry where most it satisfied." But there is a dear face opposite me now which caused the rolling stone to be at rest and gather moss, which created new feelings and new ties, and there are two other dear wee faces for whom I write these memoirs, proclaiming that they are my little anchors dropped in the stream of life to hold me back so that I cannot now go floating away hither and thither over the world to look at it. But I digress. Let me go back to the time of my cold attic studies. The end of winter still found me struo;a"lins: hard to narrow the meshes of my sieve-like memory and hold in the quantum sujfficit to face my examiners, but with the spring came a new light as to my future, unlooked-for prospects opened up, and it became a question whether I should dare this new path or continue in the beaten track I had chosen. I had no idea, however, of letting one rope go before getting hold of another, so I carried my midnight labours to a successful issue, and duly became an M.D. and surgeon of the Edinburgh Schools of Medicine. And now rose the question, was I to follow the The Chances of Life. 17 profession I had cliosen, or ^' throw physic to the doers ?" The new path whicli had opened up was one in the great new workl — not the Western, but the Great South Land of Austraha. Was I to be, or not to be, a medical officer in the Company's sen-ice, and risk the cHmate of India, or become a squatter in the plains of Austraha, and make a fabulous fortune by " growing wool ?" This expres- sion, by the way, has grown up since those days when we made use of the more homely term of " keeping sheep." I am noAv writing of the years 1838-9, when the first great excitement prevailed with regard to Australia, and when the first great stream of emigration set out towards that colony. The return of some connections of my family, who had been early settlers there, soon turned the scale, as far as I was concerned, in favour of my descending from the " high estate" of M.D. to shepherd. True, if I failed in that walk in life I could still fall back upon my profession. But my being an M.D. could do the sheep no possible harm, while I looked after them, while possibly I might shoot with two strings to my bow, and be a bush doctor as well. My late midnight studies might come in handy, with regard to the sheep, if they were overtaken with catarrh or such-like, and there 1 8 The Chances of Life. was myself just smitten with the sheep and Australia fever, and no doctor was going to cure me of" it. At last my dear cautious father got bitten with the mania for Australia, and my mother, im- proving the occasion, ended by talking him over to the new opening for the ** only son." The old gentleman was only too glad to get rid of the East India Company's service, having a dread that the climate might bring his only son to an untimely end ! So he dropped into the excitement of the day — " the making a fortune in Australia." As for my darling old mother, I knew she had visions of transplanting the whole family to the banks of some beautiful river in the far-off land, and of all of us ending our days there in some hitherto unaccomplished patriarchal manner. The dear old lady little thought that the rivers of that land some- times dry up and cease to flow for a year or two at a time, or that I should stand on the banks of one within a year of our discussing " the making a fortune in the Antipodes," and look dow^i on an immense river-bed — all that was to be seen of the river being a little green pool every two or three miles. But I am describing the future long before I have left my fatherland, so I had better make my start therefrom first. The Chances of Life. 19 And had I not much to leani before I left? Truly yes. My life hitherto had been purely a college one. I had, it is true, generally passed my summer vacations Avith relations in the country, where I had seen farming operations going on, in which I had helped in a very small way. I could load a cart with sheaves of corn, and take it to the stockyard. I could even build the stack — all save the top ! I had seen bulls, and cows, and steers, ■and really knew one from the other quite well ; but when I heard my country friends from Australia talking about ewes and maiden ewes, and wethers and hoggets, I felt I Avas not " up in sheep" as an intending shepherd ought to be, and that wise adage of ne sutor ultra crepidam, tvould keep rising uj) before me in a way that forced home the necessity of being up and doing. "Well, I was up and doing all sorts of things, for we had decided that I was to be a squatter, and I laid my plans accordingly, and made a rush at the acquisition of some knowledge of the various trades which I hoped would serve me in good stead in my future life at the Antipodes. AVhen my eight o'clock in the morning class at college ended with the winter session I exchanged the college for the carpenter's shop, and I used to commence there at seven. 2* 20 The Chances of Life. My studies now were a strange mixture, as it was quite a question whetlier my professional or my trade knowleda;e was ffoinij; to serve me best in after- life. Of course I took kindly to the carpenter's shop, for I had always displayed a strong mechanical bent, and was never happier than when at work at some carpentry or other. As my college education came to an end so did my apprenticeship at the carpenter's shop, but at the end of the spring session I had served three months at it, and had produced a huge splendidly dovetailed tool-chest, which was to carry an ample supply of tools for Antipodean iise. It was carpentering at early morn, then a turn at college, then a rush between lectures to the cattle- market, and to where the cattle were slaughtered, or how else could I have known whether sheep were skinned and pigs scalded, or vice versa ? — a most necessary knowledge when I had made up my mind to go to the uttermost parts of the earth, and very likely might have to do everything myself, or superin- tend others who knew no better ! Then one required to know how to mend a saddle-girth, and to be able to do that one required to know how to put a bristle on the thread that had to be used. I found it so much more easy to remember all these things that I saWf than to remember the minute anatomy of the eye which saw them, which I had to remember by The Chances of Life. 21 the aid of memory alone, that I found my day studies much more simple than my night ones. But they all came to a conclusion in early summer. I had passed my examinations, and written a wonderful thesis (lying unappreciated in the archives of the University to this very day), proving how the tono;ue was not the or^an of taste, thus complying with the last requirement before going through the ceremony of being " dubbed." But as this dubbing of neophytes was forbidden unless they were of the age of one-and-twenty, and as 1 had not as yet attained that ripe age of green manhood at the time of the last dubbing, and should not be forthcomino; when the next one came off. the Senatus Academicus had to make a special case of it, and allow me to be dubbed by proxy, keeping back my parchment certificate of M.D. until after said dubbing ceremony, which came oif in August, had been gone through. But it was now only June. The time had come, however, that was to witness my departure from the parental roof. The " only son" was bidding it farewell, starting on his pil- crima^e in life. The inheritance to which he was succeeding was simply that which he could carve out for himself in the race for life, the patrimony in hand summed up in his education of M.D. and a five-hundred-pound note! My worthy father had 22 The Chances of Life. come to believe so completely in " keeping sheep" in Australia that he had raised a thousand pounds^ giving me one-half, the other to be invested by me on his account. How can I tell all that I felt in leaving the home of my youth before starting on my long voyage — a home in which we had been so united, where no discordant element of " incompatibility" had ever entered to mar the family happiness? And I was parting from a sister to whom I was attached by an affection as deep as that by which it was returned. Yes, if ever there was a union of two beings who were as one in deepest love for each other — in sympathy of ideas and feelings — who had no desire or wish unless shared in by the other — that union was ours. We also had our dreams of a home by a beautiful river in that great far-away land ; we had often together created the spot and built the home that was to unite us once more ; we had wandered with each other along the banks of that river and through shady, luxuriant groA'CS. Ah ! never more were we to wander together — our first parting was our last. It was not to be a new home in the New World nor our old home in our " ain kintrie" that was ever to unite us again. CHAPTER IV. POKTRAYING THE DEPTHS OF A SISTER S LOVE. H ! the sickening pain uf that parting, and how nobly my poor darling bore it ! She had come with om.' mother to see the vessel in which I was to sail ; and which was to take me away. To the last moment she clung to my side, and not until the dread "All for shore" was heard from the tug-steamer did she leave me. Then one convulsive and ao-onising embrace, and we were parted — parted for ever, to see each other again, ah ! never more. But I cannot allow you, my darling children, to part with her now and know no more of her. Before desci'ibing the voyage which was to take me away from her for ever I must give you some extracts from my darling's letters. From the moaning wail in which these were couched you may be able to fathom the depth of her love for me — a love as deeply implanted in me, and returned. Her letters reached me in a land we had never dreamt 24 The Depths of a Sister's Love. of when we discussed our new home which never was to be in the Great South Land. Through her young hfe she liad been afflicted by many serious illnesses, so it was not without great dread and grave misgivings that I parted from her. During these illnesses it had ever been my favourite task to watch over her, and cheer her during her con- valescence. Her first letter was dated the fourth day only after she had parted from me. She could restrain herself no longer, and thought to ease her oppressed heart by sitting down to talk to me in a letter : — " Ah I that weary, weary long night, and then these four days ! It has appeared so many weeks. No one, I am sure, lives more in hope than I do, but the part- ing is too fresh yet even to look forward. I find myself often wondering what can be keeping you so long, and I start when the street-door is opened. But all this is nonsense. I must, and, with God's assistance, shall, get over this. I am unfitting myself for my other duties, and sinfully forgetting the many blessings I enjoy, not the least of which is that as yet you have been spared to us and been a comfort and blessing to us all. I can hardly think I can ever look so far forward as your coming home a dozen years hence, and I do look forward, darling, to meeting you before The Depths of a Sister's Love, 25 that in your new country. Remember I always hope to come out to you. * * * * I dream of nothing but of ships and the sea, and all night there are bawling in my ears all the different sea phrases I «ver heard — in short, night and day I am in the Palmyra full sail, and the men ye-hoing." Ah ! what could my poor darling do but pine and suffer? what stirring occupation had she to occupy her mind and help to assuage her grief? But to me .there was the relief of manifold duties consequent upon my position of medical officer in charge of the ^sliip ; yet did I not daily wander back in memory to >be by her side ? But what availed that to her poor stricken heart? I knew but too well how terrible would be her loneliness. Even four months after I Jiad left her it was thus she wrote •- — " I cannot describe to you, my darling, my sort of feeling since you left. Somehow I cannot feel •settled. I fancy this is only a temporary home, and find myself constantly looking forward to the day I am to join you. I do not despair that we may all do so yet." She then made a tour in the covmtry, visiting some of my old friends, at whose country houses I had passed many of my summer vacations when a iG The Depths of a Sister's Love. youth. She had gone to a bachelor's ball at L- in D shh'e, and havhig danced a countiy dance with the Duke of , thus alludes to the " events so far important that most probably I may never have the like to announce again ! Since then I have returned to my former state of insignificance. I am visiting about a great deal, and, to use a common phrase, I really think am much run after, as invi- tations from every direction in the neighbourhood come in ; and when I again went over to for a day I did not get back for a week. Since coming^ out here I am so much — I will not say admired — you need not be afraid my vanity would ' carry me quite so far, whatever I might be told — but say made of, that it would, perhaps, be more than would be ffood for me were it not that I am sui'e I owe it o in a great part to you. Yes, dearest, you have made^ many kind friends here, as you generally manage to do wherever you go. You seem to be a favourite,, and every one is anxious to show kindness and attention to your sister, and surely I may be proud of this, and I just hope that the friends that are inclined to be mine for your sake may continue to be so for my own." Take example, my dear children, from this modesty, so touching and simple — a darling girl that went straight to the hearts of all who knew her, and yet would fain hide her own attractions and The Depths of a Sister's Love. 27 say it Avas for her brother's sake ! Surely a sister's love must have made her blind. During this tour she became wonderfully improved in health, and returned home believing she had outlived her delicacy. But, alas ! it was not so. She was again smitten by the hand of sickness, and after ten months' illness and partial i*ecovery she again thus writes : — " I cannot get over your absence even yet. I feel it as much as if it were only last Aveek you left us, but what a weary time it seems since I saw you ! How I missed you during my illness I Man}- a hearty cry do I still take about you. I get up to the drawing-room by myself and give vent, and try to console myself by looking at your picture. I know this is very foolish, but I cannot help it. If I did not sometimes give way I really think my heart would burst, and I would suffocate. But I have been worse lately, being very weak from my illness." Then came a Avarning letter from my broken- hearted father, telling me the old disease had dis~ appeared and the last fatal one had set in, ami she wrote telling me how weak she Avas, and Avith a bad cough, thus continuing : — " Do you knoAv I am beginning to think that I loA-e you too much. I am afraid 1 have made a kind 2 8 The Depths of a Sister's Love. of idol of you in my heart. I know it now that you are gone. There is a kind of void now. I take an interest in nothing because you cannot participate in it. Now this must be wrong to carry it so far. But I cannot stop this subject; when I begin I never can end ; but oh for the day when we shall meet •again !" Never more to meet again, for daily she grew ■weaker and weaker and faded away, and one more letter only was she able to write to me. And one more extract only will I pain you with, my darling children — the last sentence of her last letter : — " My paper is done and I am tired ; not my will, but my weak body, so good-bye, dearest darling. I Avisli you were here to cheer me now. How I miss you when ill equally as when well !" And her spirit passed away while she tranquilly slept, without suffering and without pain. Amongst my manuscript relics I find a sheet con- taininfr the followino; lines, thus dated in the writinej of my youngest sister : — *' Written on the lOth Anniversary of 's death. " Metlunks I see tliee as tliou wert of yore ! Mcthinks I see thee when thou wei't no more ! And still the memory of the vision blest As of a soul and mind pure and at rest. The Depths of a Sistcr'^s Love. '■' Yes, thou wert fair, my sister, brightly fair ! For all the graces of the heart were there. By early suflering nurtured into life, Xor ever blighted by the world's rude strife. But in thy narrow circle shining bright ! And drawing others to thy source of light. Till beaming brighter into perfect day. In God Himself dissolved thy borrowed ray. Yes ! thou wert fair, my sister, sweetly fair. And graceful fell thy clustering auburn hair. And slight and fragile was thy gentle form. Nor meant to bullet out Time's pelting storm. And thou wert versed in every nameless art That can a charm around a home impart. Thy busy fingers oft in secret tasked To fashion gifts, precious — because unasked. With cheerful industry those hours- were graced Which sickness throws away, nor deems it waste. While Order, with her well-appointed train, O'er all thy thoughts and ways held steady reign. Yes ! thou wert fair, my sister, calmly fair. When ruthless Death stood hovering o'er thee there. When blanching e'en consumption's hectic glov.-. He stayed the current of thy life-blood's flow, And left thee sleeping on our mother's breast Like some fair infant at its evening rest. Thy soul to God committed long before. Then joyful woke upon th' eternal shore. Yet parting left on thee a smile of peace. The seal of life began, no more to cease, While we awoke with agonising cries To feel that now thy home was in the skies !" CHAPTER V. " HO ! FOE THE GREAT SOUTH LAND." SAILED from Greenock in July, 1839, in tlie good ship Palmp'a, Brown master, bound for Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, a new vessel starting on its first voyage. Next to the captain I was the most important person on board — I was the doctor, not the officer of that name who rules over the " ship's galley," and who really is of more importance on board a vessel than the veritable captain. I was the medical ofiicer in charge of the ship. It had been duly advertised in the newspapers — " carries an experienced surgeon," " and a cow." If we were not actually coupled in the same sentence, we were in such close proximity that intending passengers by the vessel looked somehow on the one animal as of as much importance to them as the other. It is quite possible that the quadruped was in some eyes the more important. To me, however, being coupled with the cow was *' Ho ! for the Great South Land?"* 3 1 not to be liglitly thrown away. Indeed, I sub- mitted to the conjunction for a valuable consideration in the shape of a saving of seventy guineas for my passage, and the additional comfort of a cabin to myself. It was a very small one truly, but still what a comfort ! The ship, only some 500 tons, was crowded : nearly fifty in the cabin, as many in the intermediate, and as many in the steerage, and the crew in addition. I soon had my hands full ; we had six days of our first start down Channel as rough as well might be, tacking, with double-reef topsails, with the wind dead ahead. It was " AVhere's the doctor ?" every five minutes, and the poor doctor, just as sick '[as those who sent for him, was groaning with sea-sickness ; but I had to jump up and go and write iiseless Jprescriptions for that vile ailment, and make them up myself as best I could. I don't doubt I was set down as the very stupidest of doctors, and probably most of my patients thought the " cow" was worth half-a-dozen of me. I had so little time to think of my owii sea-sickness, that I am sure I cot over it all the sooner. But I had three days' very handsome benefit of that hideous inflic tion. Imagine having to get up with a splitting headache and go to the steamy steerage with all 32 "//(?/ for the Great South Land.''^ ports shut ! I had to rush up again and gasp at the vessel's side, and then down again to another patient who had tried to seize nie as I had rushed away from the hxst. But after three days I had fought the battle out with the enemy, vanquished him, and cast him out for evermore. Since those days I have made voyages in every conceivable kind of vessel, down to as small a one as would have gone inside the Palmyra's saloon, but I have never been sea-sick again. I have been sorely tried in small screws from Havre to the Thames, when I have been the only one who kept captain and sailors company in defying the enemy, but I have done it ! On the sixth night we had been out it was blowing and raining hard, a dead foul wind, and we were pitching into a heavy sea, when about midnight, just as I w^as struggling along the dark, slippery deck to my cabin from visiting a steerage passenger, I heard the boatswain sing out, " My God ! there's a ship bearing right down upon us that will cut us in two. Hard down there !" he yelled. I looked into the darkness and saw a great dark mass full sail close to us. On it came as if going right over us. It was rather too close a shave. The ship struck us, not in the hull, but the cutwater, carrying away the figure-head, breaking off our bowsprit as if it had been a carrot, and slowly ground past our bows " Ho f for the Great South hand?"* '^'^^ Avitli a sound through the gale as if merely breaking some matches. At that moment we did not know Avhether we had been struck in the hull or not, and the next yell that came from the boatswain was, " Carpenter, sound the pumps." It was a few moments of intense anxiety, but " No water in the pumps," in the carpenter's voice, made us all breathe more freely. Then the next moment there rang through tlie ship from a dozen voices, " Stand clear to leeward — the foremast is going by the board," and the next moment down came the stupendous mass, smashing the bulwarks to the deck just before the main rigging, carrying away maintopmast also. For- tunately we had all stood clear, and not a soul was hurt, so the surgeon's experience was not needed. I sat up to see all the wreck cut away and let go, for the great masts and yards were battering against the ship's side as if to stave it in. Everything had to be abandoned as quickly as it could be cut clear of the ship. When all was done the poor captain sat discon- solate, I beside liira, but unable to console him. Tlio sad plight his beautiful ship was now in forced tears down his weather-beaten checks. The beautiful new ship which he had taken such pride in having put in such splendid order was a complete wreck, unable to proceed on its voyage. lie was obliged to return 3 34 " Ho ! for the Great South Land.'''' to port to refit and face his owners, bringing them back a shipload of people to feed. A dreary night truly it was for the poor captain. Morning brought a calm. A lovely sunrise shone upon a sea smooth as a mirror, in which was reflected the poor crippled barque. A small brig in sight answered our signals of distress, and a breeze spring- ing up we were taken in tow until we could rig up a jury foremast and bowsprit, and get up some head- sail to make her steer. Three days' fair wind brought us back to Greenock, not to the satisfaction of the ownei's, but they faced the situation energetically, for within twelve hours of our arrival our new " figure- head" was blocked out. The beautiful lady in flowing robes, which could be intended for no other than Zenobia herself, and which we had admired so much, was again to grace the bows of the ship. Fortu- nately for us there was a vessel on the stocks nearly completed, and the mainmast intended for it just came in to replace our foremast, and everything else in the same way which was ready for that vessel was handed over to iis. In a word, we were refitted and off to sea again on the tenth day ! During this time I suppose the passengers must have been praising the doctor — as well as the cow — to the owners, for on shaking hands with one of them on our second parting I found he had gilded my palm with ten '■'■Ho! for the Great South Land'''* '^^ bright sovereigns ! I don't recollect it as a positive fact, but I should not mind betting hoa\'y odds that I went to sleep in my bunk that nii^ht with quite a compassionate feeling of superiority — over the cow ! Considering the heavy losses the owners had sustained, I could only look upon this present as a very marked appreciation on their ]:)art of my services on board. Well, I had endeavoured to do my duty, and a good deal more too, for in this Avorld, if a man only does his bare duty, no doubt he will get on without much being said against him, but he will not get much said for him. It is the willingness to do more than is absolutely required from us that bespeaks sympathy from others and helps us along. I had tried to do all I could in my capacity of doctor, and being a youth of considerable method, I had, immediately on setting- sail, promulgated a wonderful code of regulations regarding the due cleaning and scrubbing of the 'tween-decks, manner of drawing and cooking their provisions, &c., the result being that before the night ■of our disaster everything was going on like clock- work. When the owners came on board I suppose they saw my "code" hanging up, and appreciated the system I had inaugurated. The emigrants soon saw how it conduced to their own comfort, and were willing supporters of the rules. The thing has all been now systematised, and even done "according 3* o 6 ''Ho! for the Great South Land:' to law," but in 1839 the " experienced surgeon" was left to his own resources, and much of the comfort of the passengers during the voyage depended upon whether he was a good administrator or not. We had a most beautiful passage, not a gale of wind the whole way, and I was very fortunate in not having any sickness on board amongst my passengers. But all my skill, even aided and abetted by the valuable services of the inestimable cow, could not save two tiny children from pining away and being consigned to their last home in the ocean's depths. They were replaced, however, by two births, so when we arrived at the end of our voyage I landed my full complement of immigrants. We had lung deten- tions at our first port of call. In those long-bygone days the facilities for discharging ships were con- spicuous by their absence at such young settlements, and our pushing captain had to land the greater part of his cargo by means of the ship's longboat. It was towards the end of the year before the Palmyra was an empty ship at the Sydney wharf and the "experienced surgeon" and the cow had respectively performed their duties, and had to bid farewell to their ocean home. The "cow" once more figured off in the newspapers, which was more than did the " experienced surgeon." I ^vas utterly Ho ! for the Great South hand?'' eclipsed and completely thrown into the shade by the advertisement of " A fine pure-bred Ayrshire cow" for sale on board the Palmyra. The levee that cow held for several days was something to remember — and be proud of — for the cow. Streams of people came on board, but it ever was "the cow — the cow" they asked for. Not one mother's son of them asked for the "surgeon." The cow had it all her own way. If the "experienced surgeon" had been appreciated at home by the owners to the extent of a gift of ten sovereigns at the beginning of the voyage, the cow was worth half-a-dozen times that sum to them at the end of it, which was more than could be said of the surgeon. Alas ! I plead guilty to, and crave mercy for, having been so small-minded as to have been quite jealous of the innocent cow. But there was no gainsaying the fact that in those days, whenever there was a case of " pure-bred cows" versus "experienced surgeons," the latter went to the wall. Any amount of demand for the former ; the latter were a drug in the market. And so the cow one fine morning was marched away in triumph by the happy pui'chaser ! And the time had come, too, that I must march away — not in triumph ! I had no frieiuls in Sydney, had only one letter 38 ^^ Ho f for the Great South hand^ of introduction to a business fii'm, who treated me after a purely business fashion. I was no worse, I rather think better off, than the youth who had been boasting of what Ids letter of introduction to the governor would do for him ; for that exalted personage, holding up the letter between himself and the window, peered keenly through the missive and asked, "Do they lithograph these things now?" I was spared that remark, at all events. The kind captain allowed me to remain on board as long as I was in Sydney. The last day but one in the year of 1839 I shook hands with him and started in the mail-cart for Bathurst over the Blue Mountains. I was off to connections away beyond the Bathurst Plains, away to the Lachlan River, to initiate myself into the mysteries of " runs," " maiden ewes," " Avethers," and " stock" in general, to feel my way toAvards my new path in life, and determine- my future career. CHAPTER VI. I FORSWEAR THE GREAT CONVICT LAND. S the mail-cart drew up at the httle inn of Bathurst the clock struck the midnight hour, and the new year of 1840 was ushered in to me to the tune of a discordant fiddle, danced to by assigned convicts, who shuffled and scraped vile steps on the kitchen-floor to an audience whose well- marked countenances of the true convict stamp were new to me. I well remember going to bed witli a disagreeable twinge passing through me, result- ing from the question put in confidence to mj'selG whether I was quite sure that I had done the right thing in having exchanged my prospects in India for those in the land in which I now found myself. But in turning my back on the Palmyra I had finally disconnected myself with physic, and for ever barred the possibility of being ignominiously advertised in company with a cow ! My future practice was never to be more than amateur, so to speak, only acting the good Samaritan when other doctors were not to be 40 / Forswear the Great Convict Land. had. But that night I was far more in love with my profession than with sheep, and almost wished I had never heard of such a thing as a " run in Australia." I really think the scraping of that fiddle and shuffling of those heavy feet, and the hoarse laugh which found its way to my bedroom throughout the night, created a feeling in nie repugnant to casting my lot in hfe in a land where such an element as I had seen disporting itself downstairs existed. Before morning my imagination — in tiie half- sleeping, half-waking state in which I lay — had con- jured up a new and appropriate accompaniment to the fiddle — the clankine; of the convicts' chains — but it was imagination only. The " chained gangs" I had seen working on the roads when crossing the Blue Mountains were not permitted to dance the new year in. That was a privilege only to be obtained when the chains no longer fettered them. The morning of this New Year's Day was my first introduction to the day being ushered in with the bright sun of a midsummer's morning ; but many and many more were in store for me in the future. As I stepped forth from the little inn I looked on the Plains of Bathurst already basking in the hot sun. The convict element had disappeared — all was quiet ! Last night's scene ? Had it oidy been a disagreeable dream or a painf id reality ? 1 Forswear the Great Convict Land. 41 A bullock-team at this moment stopped at the inn- door, the driver entered, and from his face my eye instinctively went to his ankle. No, there was no chain there ; but — last night's scene had not been a dream ! After breakfast I presented a letter of introduction to a o-entleman in the ncioihbourhood, a retired mili- tary officer. He did not ask if "■ they lithographed these tilings now at home," but took possession of me there and then, installed me in his house, and sent off to the inn for my light baggage. Under his hospi- table roof I took my first lesson in " dumping wool," for he was busy " baling his clip" to send down to Sydney for shipment home. I had an opportunity also of studying the convict element of the colony — of the population which supplied labourers for the settlers, for as yet the immigration which had taken place consisted mostly of capitalists who were employers of labour. After a short sojourn with my kind friends I heard of a party of gentlemen who were going towards the Jjachlan River, and I made arrangements to join them. At that juncture it was prudent to travel in numbers, as the country was infested by a gang of bushrangers who had been attacking the isolated homesteads of the settlers. Their mode of pro- 42 / Forswear the Great Convict Land. cceding was something after this fashion : on arriving they collected all the inmates of the house, put thenx into one room, and placed a sentry with a loaded gun over them, with the instructions to shoot, without compunction, any recreant individual who dared to. stir "a inch," in the delicate language em- ployed. This was termed " baling up." This ceremony completed, the gang then made- free Avith the house and everything in it — took what they fancied and could carry away, which really was only money and jewels. They sat down and regaled themselves with the best to eat and drink in the house, and on taking their leave, whatever was better than what they arrived with, in the shape- of horseflesh and saddlery, they took away — on the principle that a fair exchange was no robbery, the fairness not taken into account. The gang had been, making quite a long and pleasant excursion, undis- turbed by mounted or any other police, and were in full swing at that time. On our journey to the Lachlan River we had travelled just a day in. advance of the gang, as they arrived at two of the inns in which we had stopped just the day after we had passed on. I reached in due course of time, not the Lachlan River, but the river course, for the river itself had not been running for two years. The whole country / Forswear the Great Convict Land. 43- •was just recovering from a drought of unprece- dented and alarming continuance — so that when at length rain fell, Parents remarked to each other, "What will the two-year-olds think of thisT' lor offspring had been born and lived to that ago without ever having seen a drop of rain ! On our journey we had convincing proofs of what the drought had been. We passed dried-up water-holes with circles of skeletons all around. Cattle and sheep had gone to drink, had stuck in the mud, and, without strength to extricate themselves, had there- died. At the time of which I write, after rain liad fallen, Ave had ridden for half a day at a time, looking forward to a drink of water at some cus ternary watering-place, but on arriving at it found nothing more liqviid than thick mud. We carried in our saddle-bags as many peaches as we could eat, and after eating one we kept sucking the stone to keep moisture in our mouths, the one peach and ])each-stone keeping us going vmtil we arrived at the stage Avlicre it was safe to indulge in another ; calculating very nicely, however, the distance which so many hours' sucking each fresh peach-stone would carry us along on our journey until we reached our campir.g-ground of secured Avater supply. It Avas sometimes a shepherd's station-hut, or the canopy of lieaven, the latter the preferable of the two ; some- 44 1 Forswear the Great Convict hand. times a settler's comfortable homestead. From the Lachlan E-iver I made another long tour, and in all sj)ent three months travelling through the country, "which gave me a perfect idea of that part of Australia, and of the description of life that had to be led and the social intercourse that existed. And the conclusion that my sapient youthdom arrived at was that the whole thing would not do for me. I concluded that if I turned squatter and kept sheep with my nearest civilised neighbour fifty miles off, and with only my fellow-men of the released chain- gang kind to look at, the chances would be that I should soon lose the half-memory with which I had been born, and become little better than the sheep I had intended to own. And there was a still more cogent reason, and of a pecuniary kind — that most peremptory of all reasons — for my determining not to turn squatter — the price of stock was at such an exorbitant rate, some eight to nine pounds a head for cattle, and forty shillings for " maiden ewes," that my small capital was nowhere. Add to this, moreover, that at this epoch of Australia's history the assignment system was done away with, so that the hitherto cheap free convict labour, which had been no inconsiderable element in the profits of wool-growing, had now to be replaced by free very dear labour. My young mind, verdant as it most undoubtedly / Forswear the Great Convict Land. 45 was, could not see through these disadvantages which it conjured up, wisely as the future history of the colony proved. But the fact was that all this time there was an undercurrent at work. I had been harbouring one very strong predilection, one prevailing idea that the thing to do was to go to a new place and a new settlement, and rise with it. My five hundred pounds would do notliing in sheep and cattle and farming in the existing state of matters in Austraha. It might do a very great deal elsewhere in some other way in some other place. I think if the real truth were known I had never got over or shaken off that first night's dream of shuffling convicts' feet and chained gangs, and unrecognised there still vibrated in my ears the dis- cordant sounds of that vilely-scraped fiddle. And as I now knew of fresh fields and pastures new, where I could go and be a first settler, the slow but sure fever was at work which was to carry the day. I determined to try my fortunes in the new land now proclaimed as pertaining to the Crown of England — a land where the taint of convictism was unknown, a land which the Imperial Government guaranteed should remain and be held intact from it, and to that land I detennined to go. And that fair land was Poenamo. BOOK SECOND. CHAPTER I. THE KING OF WAIOTJ. |E are sailing into Waiou Harbour. It was cnown in the long-ago days of "wliich I now write as Waiou, because Maori prevailed so much more than English that native names carried the day. Besides, there were but few places which had been christened in English, those only which had been named by the great circumnavigator. This will prove to you that I am writing of a time when Poenamo was just born to Great Britain, and was her youngest child ! What a fair and beautiful child she was, and how the youthful promise of her early years ripened into an adolescence which has brought worshippers to her shore from many and far-distant lands ! Where could be a brighter sky or more gorgeous <',olouring in land and sea, where could Nature more The King of Waiou. 47 prodigally surround you with the beautiful in scenery, or give a more noble seaboard, or more lovely snow- crowned mountains clothed with richest verdure to their base? Where are gi-ander fiords with glaciers from eternal snows sheer into the ocean, or lakes more picturesque and beautiful, or geysers — hot springs — warm lakes, solfataras like hers ? And the fairy work, as if reared by an enchanter's hand, of her white and pink terraces, with ever-boiling waters streaming o'er — wonders that no tongue can 2> able perseverance and great energy of character in his own quiet, determined way, and once engaging in any imdertaking he would go through fire and water rather than he beaten. If he ever espoused the cause of a party, or the quarrel of a friend, he would stand by them through good report and through evil — desert them never. The boat is nearly ready, and we have all got our odds and ends on board save Cook. This morning our w^orthy friend is not the Eegent-street swell of yesterday. He looks as if he were just starting for the moors on a 12 th of August, but he is still the same precise, stiff-looking person. He is standing on the beach close beside the boat, and at his feet are arranged a row of ever so many small boxes and little bundles, and not until he has ticked them all off upon his list does he allow them to be put on board by the crew. Cook liked to " rough it" just with as many little comforts as it was pos- sible under the circumstances to take with him. I had brought a nice little lined tent with me to the colony, and as we were taking this with us. Cook anticipated quite a jjleasure excursion, for Ave should not be compelled to sleep in native huts, always disagreeably over-populated, making the Pakehaji?ee from them when he had the chance. If we got beyond the sheltering roof of native huts. 64 We Start on the Exploring Expedition. no doubt we might have fallen back iipon the resource — one not to be despised either — of a sail stretched over an oar for a ridge-pole, and so impro- vised a tent after a fashion, but with a nice com- fortable lined tent Cook did not see why he should not take along with him comforts to match, so he had made his preparations accordingly. We were all having a quiet joke at his expense and poking fun at him as we stood on the beach ready to start, declaring that so much baggage could only be accounted for by the hypothesis that he had a hidden supply of female attire, and that some hitherto imknown Mrs. Cook must be going to take us by surprise and make one of the party. Cook entered into the fun and carried on the joke against himself, but he kept a wary eye to see that all his little treasures were duly and carefully stowed away in the boat. We were quite a large party as we settled down into our places in the boat. There was the king, tiller in hand, and one of his Pakeha traders whom we were to leave at a station in passing, we had four Scotch " cannies," a young native boy (Cook's page !) and a crew of eight — no less than fifteen in a rather small boat. In fact, we were little more than a streak clear ! fVe Start o?i the Exploring Expedition. 6^ We push off from the shore and are in deep water. Look on sI:ore. Do you see that funny-looking bundle of blankets on the beach with a black top- knot ? Scrutinise it more closely and you will dis- cover it to be a head of black hair, a forehead, and u pair of eyes ! That is Madame Waipeha seeing her lord and master pro tem. away. You can see a good many bundles of blankets and black topknots scat- tered over the beach, all immovable. That is the native fashion of bidding good-bye, and as we pull away from the shore many voices are heard to say, ^' Haere, haere," and from the boat is wafted back the response, ^^ Enoho, enoho ne?" "Go, go," is the word of farewell. " Stay — stay there, won't you ?" is the reply. Such is the native manner and custom. They do not shed tears when parting from each other ; they do so when they meet after a long- absence. You see, my children, this is because we are in the antipodes and everytliing is upside down. I may have an opportunity hereafter of explaining how this comes about according to Maori ]:)hilo- soph}', and I can assure you their conduct is based on perfectly sound philosophical principles. But meanwhile we must '^ haere" along or we shall never iiet clear of Ilcrokino. CHAPTER III. T/E SING AND EOW OURSELVES o'eR THE IIAURAKI. i,E have rounded a headland and shut out of sight the great Waipeha town. The crew settle down fairly to their oars, and we are pulling through the harbour entrance, and have opened up the Hauraki Gulf. We are making straight for the opposite shore, and heading for the northern point of Waiheki, high land which we can see distinctly some fourteen miles distant. The day is magnificent, not a cloud to be seen, the sun shines down with a genial warmth, it is a dead calm, and the sea as smooth as a mirror, and as flat as one too, for no swell comes in from the open sea : we might have been in a millpond. And very lucky it was we had such weather, for had it come on to blow even a moderate breeze we should have been compelled to lighten the boat, and poor Cook's impe- dimenta would have found a watery burial, and some of ourselves a grave. The Maories pulled well and lustily, keeping time We Sing and Row o'er the Haiiraki. 6y with tlieir oars to a song which sometimes had one word, sometimes two, as a chorus, which the crew took up and repeated as they pulled the oar out of tlie water. These boat-songs were very often im- provised, all save the refrain, and when the Pakehu was a passenger, generally referred to him. All the native village gossip of the day, whether social or poli- tical, came to light in these extemporised boat or canoe songs ; and if any new scandal was on the tapis, it was jubilantly given forth in terse and unmis- takable lano;ua2;e. The INIaori being an intense gossip, has an insatiable curiosity to know every- thing that is going on, and generally does manage to know. The " best authority" in native circles, and from \,hom the best supply of gossip was drawn, was generallv one of their own young chieftainesses, wedded for the time being to a Waipeha or other Pakeha. I ought to tell you that in those old lawless bygone days the chiefs generally made it a condition that the Pakeha who took up his quarters with them should be respectably wived — that is, according to Maori custom — and the Pakeha had to accept matri- mony as one of the conditions on which he was allowed to locate himself. The Maori reasoning was simple as conclusive — the Pakeha once wived, he had then no excuse for " paying attentions" beyond 68 We Sing and Row o'er the Hauraki. his own legitimate lohare ! Oli ! sound Maori know- ledge of human nature ! This was my first experience of a native crew and of their songs, but many were the songs I had heard both in boat and in canoe ere the half-Maori, half- Pakeha settling of the " early days" had passed away^ and became exchanged for purely Saxon manners- and customs. And now the crew are improvising as fast as. they are pulling, each rower, one after the other in rotation, giving a line, and all repeating the refrain at the end of it. I got Waipeha to translate their song to me as it was sung, and I find it amongst my old manuscripts thus converted into doggrel the same night before " turning in :" — " The white man wanders in search of a home. Far from his country and friends does he roam. Te-naku-me-a. " He came o'er the water to visit our isle. And when he beheld it his heart did smile. Te-uuku-nie-a. " Our country is good where kumeras grow. And clear sparkling waters constantly flow. Te-naku-me-a. " He came to our chiefs to purchase some land, And blankets and guns he brought in his liand. Te-naku-me-a. " For a price we gave him a planting ground, Close by Wailicki in Hauraki Sound. Te-naku-me-a. We Sing and Row o'er the Hauraki. 69 " And now lie wishes to build a large pali, And goes to buy laud from great Ngapora. Tc-naku-uic-a. " Yet for our village tlie Pakelia siglis, xVnd swears that for Kora he lives and dies. Te-naku-nie-t " Ah, Kora, thou hast caught the white chief's heart. And chained him to us with thy cunning art. Te-naku-mc-a." In this manner, wlien at the oar, the natives take free licence in commenting on any of the Pakeha idiosyncrasies and liaving a sly hit at them, and the more especially it the Pakeha proclivities have taken the direction of admiring any of the village native beauties would it be exultingly proclaimed. The allusion to Kora, I discovered from "VVaipeha, was aimed at Cook, who, at the conclusion of the •song, when the last long prolonged ku-me-a had died -away, thus delivered himself : — " These savages must always concoct some ribaldry or other of that kind. AVhat a noise the creatures make ! Europeans would do twice the work with half the row." One of Cook's peculiarities was to rur. down the Maories. He had come to the country expecting 'to find them a very easy race to deal with, whereas in his land speculations, and, indeed, in every- thing else, he had discovered they were as acute -as they were intelligent, very ready and willing to We Si?2S: and Rozu o'er the Hauraki. o sell bad land at a good price, but always displaying a sturdy obstinacy in not selling good land at any price at all. Cook's remarks, therefore, on the simple aborigines might be held to savour more of the sour grape order than anything else. Waipeha, on the other hand, always stood up manfully for Tongata Maori. " Come now, Mr. Cook," he said, " don't be running down the natives because that young lady's- name was brought on the carpet. Yoit can't deny these young fellows make capital boatmen, and will work well for a whole day at the oar, happily and cheerfully, and never grumbling one bit. For my part, I would never think of exchanging them for white men." " Ah ! but then you forget you have yourself turned half-native. I almost expect to see you take to a flax mat, bare legs, tattoo your face down to the very tip of your nose, and forget how to speak your own language. I am morally convinced you are fast coming to that, and when you do arrive at that delectable condition I promise you to foi'cgo all my prejudices against the Maories in so far as to hire you as one of my boat's crew, granting you free- liberty to improvise at your oar and deal in per- sonalities to your heart's content." "Ah well! There is no saying what I may be We Sing and Row o'er the Hauraki. 71 reduced to yet. I shall take a note of your offer. But come now, between ourselves, confess, does not your aversion extend more to the male gender than the female ?" But before Cook could make any reply to this insinuation, the crew, who had been taking a spell of quiet rowing, again broke out into song : — " All, Kora, who gave her that beautiful gown ? Te-na. " Ehoa ma,* Cookie, why do you frown ? Ku-mc-a. " A Pakclia came to our pah one night, Te-na. " And next day appears Kora in clothes so bright. Ku-me-a. " All, Kora, she wants a Panama hat. Te-na. " Te Cookie will surely give his love that. Ku-me-a. " How pretty she'll look in her new potai,t Te-na. " With love in her heart, and thanks in her eye." All end in a prolonged shout — " W-hu-u-a." " There now !" exclaimed Cook, " that is just a sample of the kind of stuff your favourites indulge in." " All very fine to call it stuff," I said, " but I rather imagine some of these little boxes of yours * could a tale unfold' in tlie shape of feminine * Ehoa ma, uiy friend. t Potai, cap or hat. 72 PVe Sing and Row o'er the Hauraki. apparel if examined. I have heard, I think, tliat Waiheki is famed for the beauty of its native ladies." "And evidently you think they are all pur- chasable for a few yards of printed calico," retorted Cook. " Or a Panama hat ; and ten to one I'll find one in this little box of yours," said I, appropriating the one nearest me, and commencing to open it. Cook indulged in a quiet kind of snigger to him- self while I was opening the box, but it did not escape me that when all were watching what I was about to disclose, he adroitly got hold of the only other box at hand and put it safely under the boat's thwart behind his own feet, so tWit no one could get hold of it. " Well," said he as I was in the act of opening the lid, " turn it out and let us all admire the new liat, or perhaps it is a gown done up in a small compass." "A key-bugle, I declare!" I exclaimed, not a little surprised, and taken rather aback, as were all the others, for we had never heard its notes blown on Herekino beach. "Ah well!" I said, "we shall let you off the opening of any more boxes if you will only cheer us up with some music. Come now, something appro- We Sing and Row o'er the Hauraki. 73 priate : ' The King of the Cannibal Islands,' or, perhaps still more appropriate, what would you say to ' Love lies bleeding?' " Cook took the instrument, put it to his lips, breathed through the bugle, touched all the keys, giving his hand a jerk upwards as he put it to his lips, and just as we expected to hear the first note ring out and float along the smooth waters, he suddenly stretched out the other hand, and seized the case, and before we knew what he was about, the bugle was safely replaced, the box closed, and it was put under the thwart to keep the other box •company. When Cook said "No" in this pronounced and practical manner it was a decision a la Cook, final •and irrevocable, so not another word was said, Waipeha merely remarking — *' Well, you must sound our ap])r()ach when we near the Delhi, for I am going to leave you all on •board whilst I go on shore to see how my Maoi'i workmen are getting on in dragging down the cargo ; tlie last log was to have been in the water to-day." The Delhi was a barque of some 500 tons which he was loading for tlie Australian market, for in those days Waiheki had many a stately kouri* grow- ing on it. As not a breath of wind had spi'ung up there was * Pi ae- tree. 74 ^^''^ S'^^S ^^^^ Row o'er the Hauraki. no respite to the rowers, and well and lustily they gave way to their oars. Occasionally they w'ould rest for a minute or two and refresh themselves with a drink of water from a calabash, and then pull away as vigorously as ever, and as Ave had two spare hands the crew had a spell by turns. Waipeha chatted away with them during any intermission of their songs, as he wanted to post himself up about the chiefs of the tribe with wdiom we should come in contact, with reference to the object of our expedition. The boat at last neared the opposite shore, and as we were passing round the point of a small islet Cook took out his bugle, and the notes of a rather startling blast were echoed from the steep shore ahead of us, and all at once we opened up a passage between the islet and Waiheki, and we saw the Delhi at anchor in the fairway channel with a large raft of timber at her stern. On coming alongside. Cook's warning notes liaving heralded our approach, we were welcomed, after a sailor's fashion, by the captain, who was only too glad to encounter any one who Avould relieve the monotony of his situation, and giAC him news of the outer world. After dinner it was discovered that it would be too late, on Waipeha's return from visiting his We Sing and Row o'er the Hauraki. 75 timber-draggers, to proceed farther on our journey that day, so we determined to accompany him on shore, and return again and spend the night on board, and make an earl}' start of it the next mornins. CHAPTER IV. THE TIMBER-DEAGGERS A PULL FOR DEAR LIFE. HE western shore of the Hauraki Gulf is studded with numerous large islands and chains of smaller ones. Between some of these there are fine deep-water chainiels which form sheltered roadsteads for large vessels, one alone being lar